#have like a fear of swallowing bones.. long story. if u were here u were here for it. if u dont know .. its a Story. but yea so i was like.

[zhuhongs]

i am so painfully american in so many ways that I never even realized,,, like the Pain. Today I went out with my friends mom who doesn’t speak any english and oh my god was I a deer in the headlights all day. I feel soooo bad, also like she refused to let me pay for anything and gave me sooo much food and drove me around all day. I really don’t know how to thank her enough. I tried to give her a gift and she returned it to me without me even noticing... oh my god. ms. huang.. rlly.... TT thank u also I’m so sorry i’m so painfully timid and awkward

[yeoldontknow]

The Edge of Summer

Author’s Note: happy birthday @kyungseokie​ !! this has been sitting in my wips since january when i attempted to write this for his birthday. and that...came and went like a lightning bolt so here we are. im finally tossing this into the wild! wanted this up an entire hour ago but my internet died so T~T HAPPY BIRTHDAY I LUV U! Pairing: Kyungsoo x Reader (oc; female) Universe: this is an installment to the Did You See universe however Kyungsoo does not have a full story. this will be the only story centering on him | you do not need to read the other stories to understand, enjoy, or appreciate this one Genre: friends to lovers; fluff; romance; angst; au Summary: As summer comes to a close, your friends make the annual trek to the lake house for one last hurrah. You’ve done this before - countless times, but this year Baekhyun brings his new girlfriend along with him and this, of course, means some plans have to change. You just have no idea how much will change by the end of the trip.  Rating: PG-13 Warnings: some strong language; a lot of lust; baekhyun being the worst wingman to exist; it gets pretty spicy by the end but like..only if you squint? just playing it safe yall Word Count: 13.1K

It is only when Kyungsoo’s hand falls delicately into his lap, fingers grazing your thigh with the aimless of touch of nonchalance that you decide:

If you make it out alive, you are going to kill Baekhyun.

Three hours into the road trip, and you think the conviction of this decision carries with it the bitterness of gunpowder and the relief of satisfaction, two distinct feelings entirely befitting the situation you have found yourself in. A five hour journey is long enough on its own, time blurring seamlessly around you in the close confines of a car - but, when pressed against Kyungsoo like this, against the strong muscles of his arms and thighs, feeling the heat of his warm skin radiating into yours, five hours is centuries of pining. These hours are too long for anyone to survive, the weight of yearning compressing your lungs into phantoms of their former glory, breath too quiet, and too slow, afraid of disrupting the fragile pretense of peace.

Being this close to him, this close to the embodiment of your pining, carries the same impact in your bones as a cataclysm, and so you grimace in dismay, silently aware that you might not even live to make good on your silent promise. Baekhyun will live another day and you will wither amongst the remainder of your desire, buried with yet another promise you failed to keep.

Somewhere in an alternate universe, you are happy, and this happiness comes easily. In a different life, you are comfortable, riding in Chanyeol’s car with him, his girlfriend, and Yixing, listening to the playlist Chanyeol had enthusiastically curated for the journey. You would be laughing, talking, teasing - or, perhaps, none of those things, instead luxuriating the jovial warmth that always seems to bloom in their company, the kind that overtakes you without warning, mind unfocused and hazy with thoughts of freedom.

Instead, your back presses into the middle seat of Junmyeon’s old car, knees and thighs aching with the effort of making yourself small between Kyungsoo and Yixing. Glancing to your right, you eye Yixing’s placidly neutral expression, his unfazed smile as he teases Sehun, reaching forward to ruffle his hair from behind the seat. Briefly, you envy him, his loud laugh and the way things are always uncomplicated for him - the way he always gives over out of love, even if he has the briefest moments of internal protest.

At 8AM, Baekhyun insisted he bring his new fling on this vacation. It was important, he said, his eyes pleading with you and Yixing, the puppy dog expression you'd grown used to fixed securely in his cheeks and pout. Chanyeol’s car would be the couples car, and so it was important he be there to set the mood. Yixing had eyed him amicably, biting the inside of his cheek with an endeared sense of amusement, complaining only because the plush seats of Chanyeol’s car were far more comfortable and because it would insight a brief riot in Baekhyun that served only to amuse him further. 

And he conceded almost immediately, an ever supportive wingman, winking at Baekhyun before excusing himself to gather his things. 

You, however, protested valiantly, arms crossed over your chest and heart unmoved. Baekhyun pleaded, promised french fry dates and to do your dishes for a week - even though he does not live with you, even though you actually enjoy doing your dishes, and, still, you protested, lips pursed and eyebrow cocked in disdain. 

But, standing gracefully in the doorway, the sunlight gliding over his shoulders, craving an angle against his jaw you found almost holy, far too magnificent to be human, Kyungsoo laughed. The deep honey chocolate of his tone brought gooseflesh to your skin, teeth biting down on your tongue to keep your spine from trembling; your favourite laugh, and one he so rarely gives only to you. Behind him, Chanyeol’s tall frame lingered by his car, calling for anyone to get in so he could make his departure, and you think Kyungsoo’s bemused, affectionate smile is really what you agreed to. 

Hours of his smile, even if it was put out, even if it was a barely there glimmer of fond annoyance, even if it faded almost as quickly as it came - this is what you agreed to. 

Even if it meant letting your own heart break, and mend, and shatter once more, chest tight with the burden of proximity.

‘I can feel you looking at me,’ he mumbles, just softly enough that only you can hear the dulcet nature of his voice, teasing and sharp.

Shifting beneath your gaze, his arm nudges gently into yours, soft and supple and smooth, the cotton of his white shirt reduced to little more than rough muslin in comparison. He keeps his head turned as he looks out the window, one hand in his lap while the other holds his chin in its palm, trees and grass streaking past beneath an endless expanse of blue sky. Sunlight pours through the window onto him, casting shadows along his jaw and cheeks that somehow make the curvature of his lips ever more pronounced in profile. 

Around you both, conversations live and die, the rippling cadence of Yixing’s laugh losing its edges as you continue to stare, unblinking, at the hard edge of Kyungsoo’s jaw. 

‘Is there something you want?’ At this, he directs his attention to you, your dry mouth and unwavering gaze, hand still cradling his chin as he regards you expectantly. 

His eyes move over you slowly, taking their time getting acquainted with your features in this light. You feel him where you never feel anyone - all over you, yet ephemeral and nowhere at all, this kind of touching a mystery that runs deep. In a single moment, he is both above and beneath you, walking over the map of your skin and treading just below the surface, the blood in your veins rushing to your heart in celebration. The air in the small car becomes thin, lungs tight and breath constricted. Your hands curl into fists, pressing nails into the muscle of your mount of Venus, but it is not in frustration or fear, rather, instead, the only way you know how to suppress this insurmountable adoration.

By stopping the surrender before it starts, you do not even have the choice to give in.

Perhaps, in the same life in which you are riding in Chanyeol’s car you are also bold, brave enough to give him the best words, the most beautiful words, the ones you keep perpetually beneath your tongue, waiting. How would he look in the aftermath of honesty? What smile would you be given? Would you even survive? You’re unsure, the aspects of such a reality hidden from you now, and so you swallow thickly, giving moisture to your voice to ensure you can speak, even if it is not entirely brave.

‘You’re blocking the window,’ you lie, surprised that you sound so confident, so calm, when the border between your bodies has been so ruefully challenged.

Eyes squeezing closed, they press into crescent moons as his cheeks rise up along the bones, and Kyungsoo laughs, genuinely amused by the absurdity of your statement. So unlike the booming force of Chanyeol’s laugh or the high pitched delight of Yixing’s, Kyungsoo’s low and deep giggle is a thunderclap in the center of your chest, an endless roll of electric pleasure along your nerves. The force of it has him jostling into your side, shoulders vibrating through the humor, and you feel yourself bristle, wholly unprepared. This moment of contact brings with it the absence of thought, the absence of protest, running far deeper than you imagined it could. In a single moment, your longing threatens to unmake you, wanting more of his pleasure, more of his joy, certain nothing is as sacred or magical as this.

Offering you a sardonic, yet amicable smile, he leans back into the seat, making himself as small as possible to take up the least amount of space. Tucking his arms into his sides, he moves away from the window entirely, and releases a hiss of breath through his nose. One eyebrow cocked in question, he pouts, the fullness of his bottom lip sticking out childishly.

‘Is this better?’ he asks through grit teeth, though his smile is tucked in the corner of his lips as a secret; dawn just about to break over the warm glow of his skin.

In this position, his shirt becomes constricted and stretched over his chest, shoulders, and abdomen, revealing the deep contours of his torso. The mid-morning sun casts him in gold, making a home of the pores of his skin and revealing amber flecks in the chocolate of his eyes. Immediately, your tongue becomes heavy, the taste of light filling your mouth, the taste of him and the heat of your unbridled wanting. Even with the smallness of space he has created, gaps between your bodies revealed where he has since retreated, the warmth between you both is a fire that refuses to die, and, in the aftermath of his simple question, you feel yourself flush.

‘Yes, much,’ you nod, hoping your expression is cordial and unmoved. Because it is true. You find you enjoy this view far more than the one before. ‘Now, if only you can stay like that for two more hours.’

Once more he laughs, enjoying your teasing banter as he relaxes into his previous position. All over again he relaxes into you, comfortable and content, strong muscles of his thighs vibrating into your legs as the car bounces over a bump on the highway. It frustrates you how swiftly the butterflies in your stomach wander into your heart as you watch him, stuttering in its rhythm as a stubborn reminder there is no escape, no fail safe to liberate you from this craving. If anything, the closeness you must endure over the length of this trip is only furthering your desire to shorten the ever present distance between your hearts.

‘Why did you give Baekhyun such a hard time this morning?’

His question interrupts your thoughts, words soft yet his tone carries with it a deceptive bite.

Narrowing your brow, you almost snort in surprise. ‘Because it’s ridiculous. Changing everything around at the last minute,’ you explain incredulously. ‘It’s ridiculous.’ Settling back against the hardness of the middle seat, you stare straight ahead, casting your unfocused gaze out beyond the windshield. ‘I can’t believe you’re even asking, as if you wouldn’t do the same.’

In the years you have known him, there has never been a moment where he allowed Baekhyun to get away with anything - not least without an argument or some form of protest. Moving Kyungsoo from one opinion to the next requires a fair amount of convincing and explaining, and, usually, results in his profound frustration until he gives over just to end the conversation. This morning, Kyungsoo said nothing, and his laugh, his smile, and his acquiescence is more out of place than your childish protesting.

Chuckling, he turns back to the window beside him, nodding slightly. ‘You’re not wrong,’ he muses in agreement.

Silence befalls you both, one that does not contain walls or barriers but is gratified. Kyungsoo comfortably nestles into his position, ready to maintain this pose for several more hours, and you turn to look at him, bewildered.

‘That’s it?’ He seems both completely satisfied with your answer and disinterested in continuing the conversation, and your mind races with a confusion so thick you think your hands could break it. ‘That’s all you wanted out of that?’

Tossing you a placid smile, he nods once more. ‘That’s it.’

Searching his face for answers, you translate his words over and over, breaking them down into their smallest pieces to grasp at what lies beneath. ‘Did you ask just to get a rise out of me?’

He keeps his eyes on the world outside, basking in the gold of daylight. It refuses to let him go, the sun, like always, pretending it is you. 

‘Maybe so.’

It’s after you’ve dropped your bags in your large room, the one with the bay window overlooking the lake, that Kyungsoo asks you to help him make lunch. 

You’re not entirely sure where the others have gone, and you find yourself in the open kitchen hugging yourself, looking around the mess for some way to busy your hands. Too many insulated bags and groceries line the counters, the chaos of them inciting a productive sort of stress, the kind that makes you ready to sort and fix, in your veins. Kyungsoo moves around the room with a confident ease, and for a moment you envy him; the answers already seem to live in his actions, not a single moment of question as he clears space and makes room. 

Outside, you hear the deep baritone of Chanyeol’s gleeful howl as it heads towards the lake. Baekhyun’s voice follows, higher in pitch but just as eager, and in the silence of the room you hear Kyungsoo chuckling to himself. The smallness of his smile is betrayed by the light in his eyes, his own happiness a private paradise he shares only with those who choose to look. 

And even before you had any control over it, before your mind could remind you that you value yourself and your solitude most, you had chosen him. You will always choose him. 

‘Do you want to help me cut the vegetables?’

He doesn’t look at you as he asks the question, unloading the set of knives he brought for the week with careful motions. The silver blades seem to gleam in the midday sun, and you recognize them as the ones you bought for his birthday the year previous. He hadn’t asked for them, hadn’t even suggested you buy him anything, but as you passed the culinary shop window, mesmerized by their sharpness, their danger, their promise, you wondered - would they be a present or a plea? An offering of his happiness or yours, a moment of union between you both in which he would feel joy and you would be the cause of such magnificence. 

They’re well worn now. Even from where you stand, you can see the streaks along the blades from multiple sharpening sessions, and as he holds them you can see the hidden strength that lives in his hands. His hands, rough and powerful, yet still more fine than sand and warm as maple. You have never told anyone about your admiration for the elegant length of his fingers, the peaks and valleys of his knuckles, and the way they seem to hold you, transfix you, satisfy you simply because they are proof beauty is not a face or a voice, but an art inherent to all things living. You suppose you will never tell anyone, his hands a poem for you alone.

Peering up at you curiously through the length of his lashes, he patiently waits for your answer and, for the second time today, you feel him. He is becoming an invasion, your defenses drawn down over the many hours beside him, the length of your thighs still tingling from his touch, and you are so aware of him the ripeness of this attention causes you to shiver.

‘Why are you asking me?’ you ask softly, taking a few tentative steps towards the island where he stands. Everything about your motions, your words, is careful, tender, mindful that this kind of question is fragile. ‘You never let people help in the kitchen.’

He stills as he lifts his head to appraise you, unabashedly taking you in and holding you under the ferocity of his gaze. Any other man and you would call this entrapment, but you are used to giving him everything, used to his penetrative stare and the way he always, without fail, seems to witness every flawed and contradictory piece you try to keep buried. 

‘Because I want you to,’ he says, as if wanting anything is simple.

Aimlessly, you nod at his response, scanning the island counter as you approach with your arms hanging limply at your sides. You’ve surrendered to him without your own permission, but you are not terribly dismayed by this. He asks for help and speaks of wanting as though it’s an easy request, yet the tension at the back of his throat, minimal and almost imperceptible, implies this is something big and bold and frightening for him to say. For as long as you’ve known him, you both have been difficult, anxious, battling yourselves more than you battle the world around you, and so you do not comment on this ask - do not comment on the emotion of it - because you could still be wrong, and he could still take it back.

‘Aren’t you the one with the chef’s license?’ you tease, coming to stand beside him, unloading the food and organizing them into piles to be moved to their respective cupboards or shelves. ‘Wouldn’t my peasant hands ruin your julienne?’

‘Har har.’ The sound of his sarcastic laugh makes you blush, looking over your shoulder as you tuck unneeded cold things into the refrigerator. ‘And no,’ he continues once you’re beside him again, ‘I don’t need things to look pretty today, I just need them to taste good.’

Handing you a knife that fits perfectly in the palm of your outstretched hand, your eyes meet for a moment that is long enough to generate a spark. It blossoms within your blood, the mark of friendship and the mark of love blurring together the same way grief so often follows joy, weaving together to create something tender and something reverent. You look at him, and this moment feels eternal.

‘Besides,’ he mumbles, moving to guide a bunch of scallions, some tomatoes, and freshly peeled garlic on to the cutting board he has laid out for you. ‘Sometimes the most beautiful things in the room are the ones with flaws.’

Entirely unsure what to say to this, you simply bob your head with a noise of interest, a feigned motion of understanding. He does not seem to notice the way his words pierce you, cutting at wounds you have long since done your best to hide from him, and you are glad his smile endures. From the corner of your eye, you watch him carry on, cutting into an onion with little pomp and circumstance, the ghost of his words a phantom that chooses to haunt only you. Your hand trembles only slightly as you move the garlic into position, and you grip the handle tightly to keep your motions steady and even, gathering all your strength to root into the base of your joints.

Moments slip past you freely, moments where you are silent save for the deep inhalation of breath that fills your lungs as you watch him cut. Your friendship with Kyungsoo is still relatively new, in your eyes - two years on and still there are details of his life, his history, his character that elude you. Still, you know him well enough, likely somehow have always known, that he is complicated and oftentimes impossible, unfathomable, thinking too hard about every nuance and detail that colours his choices.

But when he cooks, when he is in the act of creation, making a whole reality to be touched and tasted with his bare hands, you find he has never been so certain of anything. As he turns the onion, halving it swiftly before quartering it, there is no doubt in his actions, no hesitation, and he seems to relax into this confidence, mind wandering freely because there is no room for its criticism.

‘To The Lighthouse or A Room of One’s Own?’ he asks, unprompted.

Tugging your bottom lip between your teeth, you begin slicing the garlic into small pieces as you consider his question. ‘To the Lighthouse.’

You're unsure who started this game, the habit of asking one another questions on your preferences, something that feels so fundamental to your relationship you imagine it is genetic to the very fabric of its existence. It no longer matters who started it, you think, only that it has persisted without ever fading, something you look forward to whenever you're together. Baekhyun finds this game rather comical, often wondering why you even bother when you both know so much about one another at this point old topics must be rehashed. But each time, every time, he says this Kyungsoo simply looks at you with an expression that could stitch together the stars and you know, together, that he is wrong.

Even if a topic is revisited, the answer is always different. In this way, you ensure that you know one another and you still never stop knowing.

Kyungsoo hums at your response. ‘Why?’

This is yet another unwritten rule of the game: for whatever you choose, you must offer a quote or a reason, the one thing you cling to that makes the choice feel superior over the other.

Three months ago, he loaned you both these books, and you had finished them rather quickly. The day you returned them, your fingers grazed as he took them from you, the resulting tremor of this touch leaving your hands caught in a fire that would not cease for days. He didn't ask what you thought beyond if you'd enjoyed them. You suppose he'd been saving it for this moment.

Pressing your palm into the flat of the knife, you compress a clove of garlic and dig deep. You'd given your answer automatically, on impulse, and hadn't truly considered the fact that you must quote the line that made your breath catch and your very bones quake. It hits you now that he's read these words, felt this kind of swooning even if there is distance between your twin heartbreaks; eyes kissing the same page long after one another has departed.

‘It was not knowledge, but unity she desired,' you begin, focusing intently on chopping so as not to lose your will, 'not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself - which is knowledge.’

His knife falters in cutting the onion, the blade slipping against the wood of the cutting board as you finish speaking. Glancing out of the corner of your eye, you watch the juice spread beneath his perfect slices, his lips parting slightly as he takes in a slow hiss of breath. Steadying himself, he gathers his composure and begins chopping once more, nodding in agreement.

It is your turn to ask a question, but you take this moment of silence to watch the light from the wide kitchen window nestle between his cupid's bow, understanding with your whole chest why the moon fought so hard to claim the sun.

‘Are you okay?’ you murmur, keeping your tone quiet and gentle, concerned yet distanced, not wanting to embarrass him.

‘Mhmm,’ he hums, flippantly avoiding the question.

‘Dexter or Supernatural,' you inquire, moving your pile of minced garlic to the corner of the board as you gather the bunch of scallions.

‘Dexter,' is his confident reply.

'Have these already been washed?' you divert, and he glances to your hands, nodding. Lining them up, you continue.‘Why?’

Sighing, he unwraps a large cut of fish from its paper packaging, considering his choice. ‘We all make rules for ourselves,' he quotes. 'It’s these rules that help define who we are. So when we break those rules, we risk losing ourselves and becoming something unknown.’

Amidst your meticulous slicing, you feel yourself bristle. In the choice between the two, you agree - Dexter would be your first choice. Yet, you had not expected him to pick this quote, this particular choice carrying with it the weight of your identity. Your understanding of yourself and your needs has always been wrapped up in these few lines, your desire for rules and control the very thing that allows you to relate to the world. Everyone you know finds things both disruptingly and disturbingly true about themselves through their relations with other people, through their relationship to their surroundings.

You relate to yourself and to them through the rules you have cultivated, based on your experiences of others rather than their integration into your life. You want to break free from this, aware that this is only yet another way you stand to complicate your understanding of everything, but you rely on it.

And, it seems, so does he.

He is soft and sensitive, and yet conversely so rigid, operating within his own rules. To step outside would be a great unmaking, and, for one blissful moment, you find there is no space between where you end and he begins. In this understanding, you are both slinking toward a new reality.

Glancing down at your cutting board, you pout. The scallions will be uneven.

Kyungsoo swallows with a low cough, clearing his throat. ‘Neruda or Siken.’

A wide smile blooms across your features, this question perhaps one of the easiest he has ever asked. ‘Siken.’

Using your knife, you push the chopped scallions to the top of your cutting board and slowly roll a few of the tomatoes down to the center. Your smile falters, already picturing the mess of squashed pulp that will come from this. Years of cooking for yourself, but still your hands are too heavy for delicate things. With a small sigh, you angle your knife over the ripe curve, the skin so smooth you think your knife might slide right off without any incision at all. 

As you start to press your knife down, Kyungsoo stops you.

‘Try like this.’

Coming to stand behind you, he takes your hands in his, joining you in holding the knife and holding the vegetable, the touch from his fingers feather light and, conversely, heavy as steel. Your breath halts its journey in your lungs, blood too warm and stagnant in your veins, your heart faltering amidst this disruption. The heat from his chest radiates into your back, meandering down your spine and into your legs, all over your nerves until you wonder if there is anything left of you, any part of you he has not touched. 

He makes being near him feel like a season, full years and days lived in the wake of a breath; your every breath heavy with him, and the things your heart yearns to offer him. Every second full of an exhale transmutes into the precipice of a life well lived, because he is there and smiling and sharing the world with you even if he is not sharing the ardor in your lungs. Kyungsoo is the fifth season, a season unto you, an oncoming wind between the border of summer and autumn, between the heat and the chill, neither a warming nor a cooling but a possibility of both all at once.

You know this. You have always known this. But, recently, in the days you find yourself absent from him, your heart unmakes the memory of these small euphorias, unpossessed and eternally lonely, unwilling to cling to that which it cannot keep. And so you are whelmed and unmade by the totality of him, forced, now, to stitch yourself into someone entirely new, someone who knows how it feels to be close.

He guides your right hand forward, easing the knife slowly along the tomato until the base is what presses into the skin, not the middle.

‘Why Siken?’ he whispers, and he is close enough his breath tickles at your ear, cascading down your neck and into your shoulder. He spills over you, and you tremble, knowing he feels you but he says nothing, polite enough to maintain your pride.

He asked you a question. You know he did, and it takes work finding words when he is doing his best to consume you like this, your eyes watching as he, and you, together, slice a tomato into thin circles. The rhythm he creates with your twin hands is steady, even, almost musical in the way you can anticipate the sound of it, and it grounds you just enough to remember you are about to give absolutely everything away.

If he does not know yet, if he has not known, you suppose he will know now. But he asked. And so you will tell him.

‘Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us,’ you whisper, matching the volume of his voice. You know he will hear you. You wonder if he will feel you. ‘These, our bodies, possessed by light. Tell me we will never get used to it.’

Kyungsoo eases the knife down one last time, and keeps it there, pressed against the cutting board as the slice drops mutely against the other pieces, the juice from the vegetable seeping deep into the wood. His thumb moves slowly over yours in small circles - you’d like to call them reassuring, but as he steps closer behind you, as his other hand moves his fingers over your knuckles, you wonder if there is any reassurance to be found here. 

In love, in lust, the solidarity you have found in your hobbies and your, almost selfish, avoidance have dissolved, leaving you exposed to the full extent of his soul. No, there is no reassurance in this liminal space, the moment in which you will either become unbreakable or tragically unrecognizable threatening your very sense of self. Had you known when you met him that it would feel this way? Had you known that loving him would be not unlike a benediction? 

The problem, you think, is that even if you had known, nothing would have stopped you. In every life, in every choice, you love him like a beginning and an ending, your heart incapable of knowing much other than craving him.

His hands drift away, peeling off your skin, slowly, as though he is reluctant to leave. Turning until his nose is tucked into the hair just above your ear, he inhales deeply, hands coming to over just above your hips. The energy between you is a live wire, your mouth running dry and your tongue coming to wet your lips, feeling yourself grow parched. Kyungsoo takes a long breath, filling his lungs with nothing but you, before he exhales and whispers into the shell of your ear. 

‘Can you handle it?’

You’re not sure if he means the quote or the rest of the tomato, not sure if he means if you can handle this, with him, or the rest of your existence without him. You aren’t entirely sure of much other than the force of your attraction, the sheer power of it, and the way you think it will fuel your every thought until your bones become ash, this love a windmill in your chest.

‘I think so,’ you mumble in affirmation, glancing over your shoulder to offer him a small expression of encouragement, hoping you look convincing.

His eyes have grown dark, the chocolate of his irises tempered with an impenetrable black, and a flush spreads across his cheeks so warm and pink you would think he’s been sugared. Immediately, you regret seeing him, the lust in you becoming a sea, the swell of it so deep and so strong, you fear you might drown in it, in him.

‘Actually, I’m feeling a bit warm.’ Side stepping along the island, away from him and out of his orbit, your words are rushed and hurried. Running a hand through your hair, you look at him, pleading. ‘Are you okay to take it from here?’

‘Yeah, are you okay?’ he asks furrowing his brow, concern evident in his voice.

‘I’m fine,’ you nod, looking everywhere but his face. ‘It’s fine. I just need to dip my toes in the water to cool off. Text me if you need me to come back?’

He laughs, watching you affectionately as you turn away from him, heading to the sliding door that leads to the brilliant green grass of the back yard. ‘Okay,’ he calls, his voice following you out.

You know that he will not. 

You know that there is a barrier that stands between grief and loving, a door to walk through in which there is a boundary between the knowledge of love and the acceptance of it. He opened the door. You stepped through, momentarily basking in the reverence of it, only to leave, shutting it behind you, likely forever, to wallow in the ever comforting loneliness of wanting.

‘Are you joining me?’

Chanyeol’s girlfriend sits on the dock, leisurely swinging her feet in the water as she cranes her face into the sun to watch your approach. Covering her eyes with her hand to block the sun, she offers you a curious smile as you slide off your sandals and sit heavily beside her. Leaning back on your hands, you let the sun warm your neck and chest in contrast to the cold lake water that laps lazily over your feet and midway up your calf, pressing your fingers into the rough oak. The water’s chill walks up your skin, soothing the tension in your nerves that lingers from Kyungsoo’s breath, smile, lips, and voice.

In the distance, Chanyeol’s laughter mixes with Yixing’s and Baekhyun’s. Just beyond their small circle, Sehun and Jun canoe in amusement, the paddling of their oars a relaxing rhythm amidst the chaos that surrounds them. Baekhyun’s new girlfriend swims close by, her laughter jubilant yet reticent, still testing the limits of her comfort. Eyes still closed, you tilt your head to the side, remembering how you felt the day you were integrated into this group - shy and uncertain, the closeness of the bonds surrounding you both frightening and awe inspiring.

Chanyeol made it easy, as he always does, but, strangely enough, Kyungsoo made it easier. Even without loving him, without the intense desire to be near him, you would have chosen his company over all the rest. He said your name like it was something special, like he was careful with it inside his mouth - like it mattered. He wanted your opinion on everything, wanted your thoughts, wanted your voice first. You’ve lost count of the parties, the gatherings, the movie nights, the drinking games, and as a result all the times you’ve wound up next to him, tucked into a corner just talking and just learning. 

Kyungsoo made it easier than all the rest, simply because he demanded you at his side.

Opening your eyes, the light seems to sparkle in the places where it kisses the water, putting a glimmer against your skin. 

‘How did you do it?’The words taste bitter and heavy against your tongue, and you find yourself grimacing as you speak.

Chanyeol’s girlfriend, the Countess as he likes to call her, turns to face you. You feel her eyes move over your profile, patient despite her confusion. ‘Do what?’

‘Tell him you loved him.’ Chanyeol dives under the water only to break through the surface behind Baekhyun, dunking him with a gleeful howl. Would it have been easier to manage your feelings with someone so vocal? Someone with such little restraint? Sitting up, you press the base of your palms into your eyes and release a mournful sigh. ‘How did you own up to it?’

‘Well, I didn’t have to do much,’ she laughs. Looking at her, the expression your features decide to wear feels plagued by uncertainty but she does not see you. Her gaze has drifted to where Chanyeol swims, to his broad form and his musical laugh, her own expression softened beyond measure. She smiles as she speaks, unbridled in her admiration. ‘You know Chanyeol. He’s the least discrete person and also not terribly patient.’ Tossing you a knowing grin, she giggles affectionately and you cannot help but laugh, her happiness naturally contagious. ‘The beauty of those things is he figures out what he wants immediately and then acts on it only after he’s decided it’s to his benefit. He’s very discerning that way.’

Humming, you glance down at your legs and lean back on your hands once more, pouting. ‘Did you know, though? All that time, did you know?’

‘No,’ she shakes her head. ‘I suppose, looking back, there were always signs,’ she concedes quickly, ‘but we’re so similar, I would go between thinking it was just our way of communicating and connecting to thinking it was flirting, but only when I was alone. When I was with him, I just wanted to enjoy being with him.’

‘How?’ You don’t mean to sound so incisive or desperate, but the feel of Kyungsoo’s hands still nestles deep within your skin, and you can sense him there even after he has departed. You are certain that you will spend the rest of your life with him pressing against parts of you long dormant and long ignored. ‘How do you do that? How did you not lose your mind being so close to him?’

‘That’s giving me far too much credit,’ she laughs, body jostling against yours in her amusement.

On instinct, as though the very sound itself is a siren call, Chanyeol ceases his movements and turns to see her, the teasing smile he’d been sporting with Yixing fading into one of contented devotion. In a single instant, the mere sight of her smooths away all his edges. There is something unspoken, yet eternal, lurking in the depths of his eyes, his yearning a boundless loyalty that declares her as his treasure. 

‘I always wanted to be close to him, and I was always on the edge of my sanity. But..’ her speech dies slowly, voice tight with emotion. Considering her words, she holds his stare and refuses to look away, seemingly adrift with him. Instinctively drawn to him, she leans forward slightly, the bones and the core of her pulling her to him as best they can. ‘He makes me happy. In the purest, most simple sense of the word he makes me happier than I’ve ever been able to really...attain, if that makes sense.’

She looks away from him then, turning to regard you rather seriously. ‘Happiness has always been a choice I have to make, but it’s also something that is elusive.’ All too easily she adopts the austere tone she so often uses when giving you advice - words stern and slightly cold, though still doing her best to remain supportive and encouraging. ‘When I’m with him, he sustains it. I’m not stressed and I’m not anxious, I just get to be. You have no idea how unbelievably peaceful that is. If I spend my time with him overthinking, it rushes me to a feeling, to a place we don’t need to be in. I don’t want to overthink, I just want to be with him.’ 

She takes him in once more, all the tension seeming to leave her muscles as her eyes touch what her hands cannot, visibly comforted. ‘More than anything, I just want to be with him’

Fundamentally you understand her statements, your heart responding and reacting to the sentiment with little input from your mind. A language has started to develop within you, the kind that seems to be spoken by Chanyeol and the countess, a language that exists where words fail entirely. There are no words to describe the way you yearn for Kyungsoo, not a single syntax that could contain his grace, his imperfections, the breadth of his very soul. There are no words, yet you comprehend all of it - you feel all of it, the very act of this understanding a transgression against your sense of self.

Shaking your head, you groan, doing your very best to stay the same, to stay guarded. ‘That’s too much to think about.’

Chuckling, she pokes you in the shoulder. ‘I know this is about Kyungsoo.’

Waving her hand away, you hurriedly hush her with a loud hiss, looking to the group and back again. Running your fingers over your arm, you massage the slight pain with a small frown. ‘They might hear you,’ you whisper, aghast.

She snorts. ‘They’re too absorbed in whatever competition Chanyeol has created. And it’s not like this is a big secret. But okay. I’ll be quiet..er.’

The blood in your veins seems to chill, matching the temperature of the water at your feet. Eyes wide, you whisper, ‘People know?’

‘Yes,’ she nods, like nothing has changed, like this single fact is the most inconsequential thing in the world. ‘I’m pretty sure everyone knows, except for Kyungsoo which is shocking.’

With a groan, you fall back onto the dock. Heated by the direct sunlight, the wood sends heat through your shoulders and spine, an otherworldly compassion that does its best to ease your tension. Draping your arm over your eyes, you sigh. ‘Must you always tease me?’

‘Yes. It’s my duty.’ Patting your leg gently she offers little condolence, her voice a sarcastic lament. 

In the ensuing quiet colours move amidst the darkness behind your eyes, sunlight infiltrating the small gap between your arm and the bridge of your nose, and providing a kaleidoscope of purple and green. Lilacs and lilies are carried in the rustling breeze, the opposite side of the lake decorated with a field of flowers, its tall grass and array of blossoms just as dense as the hunger in your blood. If you were alone perhaps you would weep over this, the inward nature of this secret desire fueled by the feel of his fingertips and his laugh and his breath on your neck - it is enough to consume the very heart of you, leaving nothing in its wake.

To give in to this would be to render yourself unrecognizable.

‘Have you ever wondered who you would be if you weren’t trying to think your way through feelings?’

A groan of discontent bubbles in your chest, her question simultaneously full of good intentions while still demanding you confront the change occurring within you. Like always, she insists that you take control of it, that you become a participant in your very unmaking - that you surrender to it, as though the only thing you must endure is yourself. How much of this can one survive, you wonder. How much of a person can survive the devastation of wanting?

‘That’s not entirely helpful.’ You know that you are whining - you can hear the cadence of your unease seep through the last of your syllables. But this cannot be helped, you think. Your great resolve has been terribly weakened.

She inhales, preparing to reply, only to be interrupted by the sounds of splashing water making its approach. Removing your hand from your eyes, you lean up slightly and squint through the changing light to see Chanyeol, his arms breaking through the water as he swims to the dock. Pressing his hands onto the wood, he lifts himself up to linger between his girlfriends legs, getting both you and she wet. You roll slightly to the side in surprise, doing your best to avoid more water getting on your clothes, but she just leans forward, the stars and the moon shifting through her eyes she takes him in.

‘My love,’ she giggles, kissing his nose. As she pulls away, he follows after her, leaning forward for more, but she is already looking behind him, brow furrowed. ‘Aren’t you in the middle of some kind of challenge?’

‘Yeah,’ he laughs, folding his arms on the dock and resting his head as he gazes up at her. ‘We’re trying to see who can knock Jun out of his canoe first.’

Cocking an eyebrow at him, you smirk. ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

‘He’s got a life jacket,’ he shrugs, entirely nonchalant. ‘Anyway, I need a good luck kiss.’

Running her hands through his hair, she lets her fingers toy with the tips of his ears as she speaks. ‘You know you’ll win even if you don’t get one.’ 

His eyes flutter closed under her thoughtful touching, swooning into her orbit as he hums. They stay like this for a moment, awash and enraptured with one another. Their world is foreign to you, a place of belonging where they live only with each other, and more vulnerable and brave than you could ever comprehend. 

When he looks at her again, there is a silent communion that passes between them, words and conversations living and dying on their breaths without any speech at all.

‘Still,’ he pouts, and she understands, instantly pulling him up as he raises.

The prelude to this kiss is just as intimate as the act itself, and you look away, gazing over your shoulder back to the house, back to where Kyungsoo cooks, alone and possibly lonely, abandoned because you have not yet learned how to truly hold the sun in your hands. In truth, you are too fond, too enamored, too lost in him to remember yourself when you are with him; and you are too comfortable, too in control of your emotions to forget yourself, remembering all your flaws and the way they will inevitably be highlighted, all the light in the universe culminating in him and illuminating everything, including you.

Chanyeol swims away once he is satisfied, and you swallow the words that have threatened to rise in the back of your throat. In considering Kyungsoo, you have once again considered the reality of love - they have made you consider love, and there is something easy about the conversation you had before he arrived, so you do your best to return knowing, depressingly, she will not let you escape.

‘You both are assholes you know?’ you tease, nudging her gently. 

She watches him hungrily, lips red and swollen, before she looks at you once more, distracted. ‘I meant what I said.’

‘You’re not helping,’ you groan, exasperated.

‘Only because you want to apply logic to your feelings.’ Having collected herself once more, her spine straightens, words full of authority. ‘Sometimes, feelings don’t make sense and sometimes they just are. Who are you when you aren’t thinking about how you feel?’

‘I don’t know,’ you shrug, defeated. ‘I can’t know because I don’t even understand what you’re saying. What do you mean by don’t think about how I feel?’

‘Yes, exactly!’ she says, far too enthusiastic for such a non-committal answer.

‘You know I understand even less now, you know this right?’ you murmur flatly, looking back to the water.

Gaze unfocused, your friends are a blur of action far away from you. Their colours merge and mix while you try to surrender your conscious mind in favor of feeling. Every breath you take is full of him, every inhale and exhale an ode to the way you both see and feel him without ever looking at all. The first summer you met him, everything was pure happiness. July was oppressive in the way it kept you perpetually warm, but you thought you would forget him, that the feeling would fade - this kind of craving dies with summer, the twilight of the season bringing forth a reality too harsh for summer’s fruit. 

But he has not left you. Not once. Not even a little.

‘How does he make you feel?’ she tries, taking a different approach to her questioning. ‘Don’t think about why you feel it, just think about what it is.’

To you, the question is inherently frightening, the tendrils of it dripping down into the cage of your ribs and tightening, finding all the places the ache in you is the most special and the most tender. The question is frightening, but it bears an even more frightening answer - a frontier and the unexplored desert of truth.

‘Safe,’ you admit, acknowledging, horribly, that while you are safe with yourself, you are, perhaps, even more safe beside him; his aura, a temple. ‘He makes me feel safe.’

When you look at her once more, you’re certain you are something pathetic, but she simply takes hold of your hand and squeezes it, the reassurance of her touch a threat to the dam of solitude locked inside your chest.

‘Then,’ she begins, almost too soothing and too sweet for you to stand, ‘the next time you’re with him, let yourself be safe and nothing else. I think everyone wants to know who they are when they’re safe, without question.’

The problem, you think, is that you have always known who you would be if you let yourself go. The problem, you think, is that you have known and done your best to spirit it away, aware that to feel as much as you do, about everything, would render someone monstrous.

To be free and open and safe with him is to be hungry - not the absence of yearning, but the sheer, irrevocable abundance of it.

'Listen, the Baroness needs your room.'

Baekhyun corners you in the hallway long after the sun has set. Cheeks flushed and eyes glassy, the wine from dinner and the beer from the fire pit still linger in his bloodstream, giving him the sort of dazed, sleepy appearance that usually makes you soften towards him. Leaning against the wall for support, his closeness allows you to smell the smoke and ash from the bonfire on his clothes, and if he had posed any other question, said, quite possibly, anything else, you would have ruffled his hair and given him a hug, wanting to be close to him.

Instead, you rear back slightly, so bewildered you are certain you have mental whiplash.

'What?' The word comes out quickly, more an exclamation of sound than an actual word. ‘The who?’

Baekhyun shrugs, sheepish. ‘You know how Chanyeol calls his girl the Countess, Jongin calls his Duchess.’ He sways as he speaks, a sign of his drunkenness or a sign of his shyness at the question, you cannot be sure. ‘I’m trying this one out for mine.’

Humming, you nod. ‘That’s very nice. And no.’ 

'Come on,’ he pleads, already starting to whine. ‘You can share with someone else, but she really needs your room.'

Crossing your arms, you mirror his pose and lean against the wall. The dim light of the hallway puts shadows under his eyes, making his expression look far more forlorn than it likely is.

'Absolutely not,’ you say, sternly. Twelve hours later and you are in the same position as this morning, protesting against the unfairness of his requests. ‘I paid for that room out of my own pocket. She can't just come on this trip and freeload. Besides, didn't you bring her on this trip to get laid? What are you going to do, astral project through walls?'

'No, not really, I mean maybe but not exactly,’ he stammers, doing his best to piece his argument together. Too tipsy to mask his meaning with the smoothness of words, all he can do is suffer the truth of his emotions. ‘It’s not exactly like that but I can't make it that obvious.’

Rolling your eyes, you sigh, exasperated. 'Baekhyun, it's already obvious.'

'Don't you know there has to be finesse to this?' The barely restrained emotion in his voice dismantles the playful tone he has done his best to adopt, the intensity of his desire not something to be trifled with.

But so too are you unafraid of a challenge, your mind already made up, your heart already enclosed in your room with the lakeside view.

'What are you, seven?’ you laugh, incredulously. ‘I think she knows exactly what you're looking for out of this, it's why she's here at all.'

'It's not that obvious,’ he pouts.

'Literally, why would anyone agree to go on a vacation with a bunch of strangers and one guy they only kind of know?’ you challenge, unable to fathom any other conclusion. Even in the beginning, when Chanyeol would invite you out, your proclivity for quiet nights at home always had you leaning toward spending the evening with a book until he would mention Kyungsoo’s name. The sound of the word alone would draw you out, his name dissolving the essence of your loneliness if only for one night. ‘She's here for the same thing as you, just get it over with.'

'I don't just want to fuck her!' he exclaims in a loud whisper, both your eyes widening at his admission.

In the aftermath of his outburst, there is a looming silence in which you are uncertain what else there is to be said. It weighs down on you, on your shoulders and on your heart, the uprising in him so unlike his usually soft and sweet demeanor. He has never been one for committing, never been one for avoiding what he wants either, and so this limbo between wanting her to be his while also keeping her at arm’s length puts a throb in the center of your temple.

Squeezing your eyes closed, you dig your nails into your arms. 'I'm so confused about what's happening here.'

'I really like this girl.’ It’s the most careful Baekhyun has ever spoken, as if he is just as perplexed as you by the sheer tenacity of his emotions. Hearing himself say the words seems to put a colour in his cheeks, deepening the shade of his blush beyond alcohol, beyond the kiss of the afternoon sun. Baekhyun grows almost weary in his relief, glad that he has said it out loud, to someone. ‘I don't want to just make it about that one thing.' 

Resting a hand on his shoulder, you offer him a sympathetic smile. Over the years of your friendship, you have watched him fall in love several times a day, with so many different things, his heart an atrium that endlessly nurtures romance and affection. It’s rare for him to settle on one single person, and even more rare for him to act on it.

'I respect you,’ you say slowly, pressing your thumb into the strong flesh of his arm in solidarity, ‘but I still paid money for that room, so it's not happening.'

'I'll pay you back for it,’ he tries, starting to sober beneath your perpetual refusal.

'Baekhyun -'

'Kyungsoo's room has two twin beds,’ he blurts out in a rush, all his words condensed on a single breath. Feeling yourself pale, the axis of the world seems to shift beneath your feet, your vision suddenly blurred and unfocused, dizzy,  and he takes your surprised silence as volition to speak. ‘It's like a pleasant surprise! You can share with him.'

Even in the dark, you can see the mischievous glimmer in his eyes, the sparkle of an ulterior motive lurking in the depths. It would not be the first time he attempted to be your wingman, would also not be the first time he would fail at such an endeavor, and your hand slides away from his arm, falling limply at your side. You watch him, slack jawed at the horror of it all, stomach dropping all the way down to your toes.

'Baek, no.’ It is your turn to plead, amazed your voice even makes a sound with how dry your throat has become.

'Oh, come on!' Baekhyun has the audacity to laugh, slapping your arm congenitally as if his encouragement is enough to placate you. 'I'm trying to help you!'

Sarcastically, you snort. 'You're helping yourself and clinging to the hope that it would ever be about me.'

Somehow immune to your admonishment, he simply wiggles his brow salaciously. 'You know you like the idea.'

'Fucks sake, I should never have told you about this,’ you hiss, crossing your arms over your chest once more. ‘I got drunk one time and now you think you can play matchmaker.' 

Baekhyun sighs, shrugging his shoulders. 'Listen, I already told her she can have your room -'

Rearing back, you blink rapidly, appalled and bewildered. 'What the fuck?'

'And Kyungsoo already agreed to letting you stay in his,’ he continues, ignoring your seething disdain as though this is simply a negotiation about where to go for breakfast.

Blood rushing away from your cheeks, running to service your overactive heart, you simply stare off into the distance, beyond Baekhyun, beyond the house altogether, to a time in history when you would not have to spend the evening sharing his air. 'I hate this.'

'I know.’ It’s his turn to rest a hand on your shoulder, his expression somehow far less sympathetic than yours had been. ‘But if this is the only way for both of us to get what we want, then someone has to put some fire under your ass.'

Shaking your head, you do not allow him to come into focus, mumbling with scathing contempt. 'Wow, I actually hate you.'

'You move at a glacial pace.’ Assuming the conversation is over, he removes his hand from your shoulder and turns away, no longer giving you any opportunity to complain. ‘At least now we all can say we tried.'

Hurriedly, you follow after him, pushing off the wall and gathering the strength to move your things from your lakeside room to Kyungsoo’s, the phantom memory of his skin on yours awakening once more. 

'Why are you still talking?’ you call after him.

But he just tosses you a sly wink over his shoulder, laughing to himself as he heads down the stairs.

‘I can hear you overthinking from across the room.’ 

The light from the moon creeps in through the sheer curtains covering the window, Kyungoo’s voice filling the space, dancing on the rays, with a tired rasp. He’s worn himself out - laughing, yelling, drinking. Somehow, the sound is thick and heavy, sinking down and deep into places long left untouched, your body wired by the sound of him alone. 

'Just go to sleep,’ he chastises, turning over in his bed. 

It is only the two of you contained in this small space, twin beds side by side, close enough you can hear his breath. Pressing your head against the pillow, your mind has become divided in two, living in two places at once - this moment, and your time spent with him in the kitchen, doing its best to rationalize the difference. Cooking with him, he was all over you, hands on yours and chest against your back as if he was learning how to make a home of you. It was different then, almost too tactile to comprehend but the sun through the kitchen and living room windows somehow made the world seem wide. 

His touch had a distance, a space - even if you could not see it, you could sense it, the light finding its way through, reminding you there is a line between your body and his, a line between simply touching and truly feeling.

Now, in the dark, everything, even the gap between your mattresses feels close - too intense, too raw, to real. The darkness is oppressive, like that, a brief moment in time in which you are aware of the edge of things. Resting in the center of your bed, you are aware of the edge of your limbs, the absolute limit of your body. In the room, you are aware of the edge of your bed and the way there is just enough distance between yours and his for a single person to stand. In his bed, you are aware of the edge of his lips, and the way his breath cascades over them, facing the window to kiss the moon. 

And you are aware of the edge of your resolve, threatened and thinned to breaking by the way the light casts him in silver, illuminating all the parts of him you find sacred.

‘You’re wide awake too,’ you say to the ceiling, not allowing yourself to see him. ‘I guess that makes us even.’ Biting your lip, you close your eyes and sigh. ‘I’m not the only one who can’t fall asleep,’ you finish quietly.

Kyungsoo laughs, warm and rich, utterly intoxicating, no trace of irritation in his words as he speaks. ‘Okay,’ he muses. 'How about this.’ 

You hardly have time to knit your brow together in thought before he begins singing, the rich honey of his tone turning the room into amber. He doesn’t often do this, a talent he likes to keep to himself. Sometimes, when he is drunk, he can be convinced to be the start of a song, not the result, but even this takes an equal amount of convincing as it does bottles of beer. But you have found, over time, that the talent itself is not so secret - hidden, but not entirely forbidden. 

When he is with you, somehow you always hear his music, your ear always finding and listening to his voice first. You have found there is not a single moment he is without music, the way he speaks a melody unto itself, but when the sun goes down and the others go to bed, and it is just you and just him, and the dying embers of a fire that blazed too high, he sings with you. 

He sings, often, just to make you smile.

'Oh, dear god, is that supposed to be better?' you laugh, skin tingling with adrenaline and a down turned corner of your cheeks as though you are saying goodbye to a time in your life when things were safe.

Kyungsoo interrupts himself, and even though you do not see him, even though you cannot yet bring yourself to look, you know he is beaming. 'I'm not going to stop until you sing along.'

He continues singing and the joy in you sets itself free, liberated like a terror. You would be frightened if this moment were perfect, would feel the world dissolve around you, his voice a nightingale leading you to perish. You would retreat from all of this, except -

'I hate this song,’ you sigh, flopping your arms atop the mattress to signal your unrest.

'I know,’ he persists, turning in the bed to face you. The darkness does little to hide the intensity of his focus. If anything, it feels heightened, the angles of your profile burning beneath his scrutiny. ‘But you know it.'

In spite of yourself, you close your eyes and let the bliss send shivers through your veins. When you are not looking, held in the darkness of your own making, your body becomes otherworldly, something entirely outside of yourself, someone you don’t recognize. How far have you crossed? What line have you transgressed and ignored, blithely meandering into the irresistible territory of passion? It’s all over you now, your smile full of teeth and your mind empty, save for his melody and the advice of Chanyeol’s girlfriend:

Who are you when you are not trying to think through emotion?

It happens in the limbo between who you are and who you want to be, the room suddenly a cathedral devoted to your wanting. With your eyes open, your love takes a verbal form, this voice yours yet better, enhanced and empowered, and you sing because you no longer can help it. Nowhere near as confident or stable in your notes, your voice does its best to hold onto the words, finding the center of the notes almost too late before it’s time to move to another, but, strangely, you don’t find yourself blushing. It is not, you think, that the darkness has made you less inhibited, rather that with a song you hate and a smile at your lips, you simply don’t have it in you to mind.

'There it is!' he celebrates, raising his arms off the mattress and clapping.

Pressing a hand to your forehead, your shyness in the dark somehow even more amusing, you cackle. 'God, this is terrible.'

Adjusting his pillow, he hums. 'Exactly.'

The aftermath of your twin voices seems to reverberate around the room, long after you both have fallen quiet, the echo bouncing off your skin. This kind of euphoria could only be brought by him - his intelligence, his stubbornness, his perceptive intuitiveness. With only the echo and the memory sustained, your breath becomes unsteady, reminded that this place, this room, will no longer just be a place but a sanctuary and you will no longer just be you, but you will, forever more, be his.

'Sometimes,' you begin, words a whisper that you know he will still hear, 'you're funny.'

'It's just something I'm trying.' Such a simple statement, one full of humor and sarcasm but one with a texture that makes you press your tongue to the back of your teeth as he says it. He sounds tired of running - from himself, from all the great complexities he finds in the world, but not from you. 'Just something I want to try for a little while.’'

'All the time.’ Your own words are abrupt, clipped at the end of their syllables as you rush them out, needing him to hear the correction - to not miss it, not for a second. 'You're always funny, all the time.'

For a long while he considers your statement, and, in the absence of sound and conversation, the air in the room becomes thick, sluggish in your lungs. Your fingers curl into the sheets, eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling because now, if ever, it would be terribly dangerous to turn to face him. At least, you presume, he finally knows. He must know, the layers of this confession wholly befitting the hallowed energy that lingers between you. 

Swallowing thickly, you let him take his time, forcing yourself to be patient. The darkness has brought everything together, the gap between your beds somehow closed, as though he is right next to you, even unreachable as he is.

'You're the only one who sees me that way,’ he says finally, and you hear the care laced in his voice, doing his best to articulate his appreciation.

You want more of him, more of this sound, more of everything he keeps tucked away where prying eyes cannot follow. You want all of him, his very existence an addiction. 

'It's because I see you.' This time, you are more brave, more confident, and there is a pleasing dissonance to your voice, the old you starting to become devoured by the new.

Tonight tastes different on your tongue. Something about the moon and something about the sun, about the way you have spent too long in the light with your private luxuries shrinking ever further away, has allowed you to gather blossoms of starlight, their twinkling mysteries putting a hope in your joints that has never dared to trespass until this moment. All your life, the darkness has been a shroud and a veil, a cloister keeping you contained only with your yearning thoughts and your inadequacies, an invasion that has wormed its way within you for too long. It leaves you now, spilling outward and shimmering in the moonlight, leaving you free and empty, with room to nurture a burning flame.

Kyungsoo remains completely still, and you have the passing thought he does not move for fear of causing your retreat. 'And what do you see?' he asks softly.

Fingers pressing deep into the feather comforter, you hum. 'It depends.'

A low chuckle rumbles through his chest, the very sound a ripple of thunder in the night. 'That doesn't sound reassuring.'

Taking in a deep breath, you hold it in until your lungs hurt, smothering the doubt, the fear, and the inexplicable notion that this will fail until you can convince yourself you are indestructible. 

'It depends on how long I let myself look, and depends on what you feel that day.’ Furrowing your brow, you tuck the inside of your cheek between your teeth. This should be sufficient, but he is so much more than a summation of looking, a summation time. He is something that is held without time, something you wish to behold eternally, even long after you are dust. 'It's not that you're mercurial,’ you continue, doing your best not to cringe at the clarity in your voice, ‘it's not that you're not consistent. I think I just see other things because I take my time looking.'

How would he look if you said these things to him in the daylight? What would the midday yellows and oranges reflect if he looked at you, and let himself be seen? Would you tell him your looking extends beyond admiration, beyond mere affection, and into the shuddering truth of love? To say all this in the sunlight, what would become of you?

You think it’s for the best that you will never have the answers to these questions, the night the only thing clinging tenderly to your pride, protective and secure.

'And do you like what you see?' 

His voice is full of bashful apprehension, the rustling of his own sheets a symphony to accompany his tentative questioning. He shifts restlessly, hopefully, and you feel the sound with your whole body.

Licking your lips, you press onward, getting used to breaking the darkness - getting used to feeling raw and open. 'That also depends.'

'On what you see?'

Unable to help yourself, you finally turn to your side and look at him, eyes adjusting almost instantly to trace the nuanced details of his face, the moonlight painting silver shadows along his features. You’ve been lured to him, driven to see him now that he is asking to be seen, wanting your eyes on him; the very question begged you to look, and to take your time looking. Incrementally your longing grows, a swell in your chest that challenges the very depth of the lake, rushing through you until it cannot be contained.

'On whether you want me to like it,’ you clarify.

Leaning up to support his head on his hand, he looks at you and the hunger painted over his expression is enough to have your fists curling into the mattress. It stirs in you the need to be consumed, to be loved by his mouth and the palms of his hands, the greed in you not unlike an uprising. The flush in your neck spreads over your chest, your shirt constrictive and tight, suddenly no more room for you and all this impossible craving. Even still, Kyungsoo still remains calm, a king in the world of pleasure, looking at you as though you are a gift for feasting.

'I think people always want to be liked in some way, don't you think?’ 

A low growl lurks in the back of his voice, tone dropped down an octave to find gravel you have never heard before. All month, the nights have been uncharacteristically cool, heralding the slow death of summer as it bleeds into autumn, but you are heated. His gaze lives beneath your skin, now, a fire that refuses to burn out. 

‘And,’ he carries on, as though you remain unlit, ‘I also don't think your opinion of me should depend on me. That's for you to make.'

Lips parted, mouth wanting to take him in, you mirror his pose and lean up on your arm. Slowly, you shake your head. 'That's not what I meant.' 

The rasp in your voice surprises you both, and he smiles at the tension he has created, excited at the prospect of snapping it.

'Then what did you mean?' he presses, and you would rejoice at the sensuality of it, at the way the fullness of his lips shapes the words, but the appetite within him is like a hand at the center of your throat.

'I meant whether you want me to like it...' The admission drifts away, the choir of blood in your heart on fire with the weight of honesty. But you are glad for this burning, the fire that eats at you every bit his as it is yours. 'Whether my opinion matters.'

'Your opinion matters.' Kyungsoo doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t allow room for ambiguity or dishonesty. His eyes narrow, penetrative and demanding, keeping you still. 'You matter.'

Unfurling your hands, your fingers press into the sheets as though they are his shirt, his hands, his skin. The angular brutality of him has unmade the careful concealing you have spent years constructing. Hours ago, you had admitted that Kyungsoo makes you feel safe but now you are realizing the peril of letting him in - realizing you are the torment and the danger, little more than the ghosts of your desires. Now, you are starved for him, your tongue a desert aching to be drenched.

Tossing the sheets to the side, Kyungsoo moves his legs over the bed and rises to a stand, taller than you’ve ever seen him stand. Steel keeps his spine straight, shoulders rolled back in pause as though his mind is catching up with his limbs, before he crosses the small space and comes to sit on your bed. You don’t trust yourself with him this close, not anymore. Not after you have learned to love, not only him, but the very act of loving him. 

Shifts closer to you, close enough he could touch all of you, not just your legs, your hips, your waist, your chest, but so too your face and your lips - close enough you can taste him on the air. With your lips parted, every breath you take is full of him, tongue wet and heavy with his flavor.

‘What are you doing?’

‘We aren’t like the others,’ he says plainly, fingers toying with the sheets beside your hands.

Your eyes drop to his hands, avoiding the power of the intimacy you find in his expression. It feeds into the room, your tongue coming to lick your lips and he takes in a shuddering breath, the very sound sending a jolt of desire between your thighs. Taking your silence as permission, he continues to speak, the very anguish of his words exhausted at the prospect of not having you. 

‘We don’t…’ Taking a deep breath, he glances around the room, searching. ‘Flirt,’ he settles, though even this word does not seem to satisfy him. His gaze on you is hard, urging you to look up and see him, to meet his eyes and witness him. When you do, you’re certain you could smell his very heart, your blood suddenly full of his seductive magic. ‘At least, not like they do. I don’t make speeches and you don’t surrender, not unless you’ve been given explicit proof that it’s safe. That you’re right.’

It’s as though he looks down into you, deep enough that his gaze means to caress your ribs, your bones, wrapping himself around your spine until all your senses belong to him.

‘You see me.’ His teeth glide roughly over his bottom lip, nipping it quickly before releasing it, the blood beneath the skin rushing to make it more plump than it was before. ‘And I see you. I have never stopped seeing you. I’ve not wanted to stop seeing you, finding you, learning you since the day I met you.’

If you are the devil lurking in the dark, the hungry one with eyes of greed then he is the lust, the one who has torn through you and pulled out the language you have only just started to understand. The moment that follows is enormous, a moment in which you realize love is not only the act of feeling but the act of seeing, of being seen. He describes you as though he knows you, as though he knows the clawed and ugly parts of you that threaten to tear the fabric of your existence apart, and as though he loves even what he sees in those. 

You don’t think you’ve ever been so aware of gravity, of the way language is not only a syntax but a physics, and of the way he has slowly inched closer and closer, your vision full of only him. With your eyes adjusted to the dark, you come to see yourself as a hawk, able to find yourself in his eyes, able to see yourself as he sees you - pupils dilated and not allowing you the privilege to remain invisible. In feeding on him, you feed on yourself, and so, too, you suppose does he feed on you, on himself, on the carnal savoring of your longing, united.

‘What are you saying,’ you whisper, certain he hears you, certain he hears your plea to be explicit.

‘I’m saying,’ he begins, lifting his hand to cup your chin. He holds it in his hand and pulls you close, his breath on your lips a fever, the feel of his bones pressing into yours sparking a voracious desire to be devoured, ‘if you are thinking of taking a risk, you are safe.’

His truth is a dawn breaking over your skin, spirit sanctified by the permission he grants you. Before you can even comprehend your actions you press your hands into the mattress and give yourself the momentum necessary to close the distance between your lips. The sheer force of the kiss gnaws at you, his free hand coming to wrap around your waist to pull you close. Flush against him, you think you are powerful enough to eat the moon, to eat the sun, to have him and keep him buried beneath your tongue. 

He moans against your mouth, the sound of it shuddering against your chest and vibrating through you. Your own arms wind around his neck, fingers toying with the soft hair at the nape of his neck, unable to mind that this new position is awkward and difficult to sustain. You have managed much worse, have contained whole stars in the center of your chest for years and still have survived - you think you can manage the slant of your waist as he holds you against him, unforgiving. 

Running his tongue along your lips, he asks for permission you are eager to grant, slipping his tongue against yours in a tentative stroke of possession. In your mouth, he is the blunt edge of a knife, cutting you deep enough that you think no other hands, no other lips will have their fill of you - no one else will have their fill and still find themselves engorged with an unconquered thirst. Sucking his bottom lip between your teeth, you nip the flesh to a swell that feels warm and plump. 

He smiles against you, pulling his lip away and you smile too, his voluptuous mouth a blessing. 

‘You’re wrong,’ you murmur, grazing his lips as you speak.

Insatiable, he kisses you again, stealing what he can of you until you are breathless. ‘How so?’

Moving one hand from his neck, you cup his cheek and laugh, a sound he eats with his own chuckle. ‘We are exactly like the others.’

Author’s Note v2.0: i do not own the quotes from Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse; Dexter, the TV show; or Richard Siken - Scheherazade

tag list: @yehet-me-up​ @wonderlustlucas​ @junkfoodwriting​ @taestfully​ @heatofmyexoheart​ @majci​ @ahgishaman​ @softly-savage-mint-yoongi​ @lamichellee​

[philicheesecake]

(U. L.) An Impossible Defeat

Synopsis: After he survived witnessing the giant’s Banding, Warren seems to be the target of a vengeful giant. It seems just quitting the Unseen Legion was not enough to protect him.

Warnings: PARTIAL HARD VORE, GRAPHIC SEVERE INJURIES, PARTIAL DIGESTION, NEAR DEATH, F/M halfsize unwilling nonfatal vore, fatal mention,

((Phili’s note: 

Me: takes 4 months to write one U.L. story  Also me: Writes this story the next day in under 24 hours OHhhh yeah babyee we movin’ along! And yeah I got pretty violent for this one, so if you’re squeamish, I would be cautioned. Also if ye like this story, go ahead and reblog! It helps spread my work and it means a lot! ^w^ ))

“Well I came a long way to be here today

And I left you so long on this avenue

And here I stand In the strangest land

Not knowing what to say or do”

The windows of the old silver Civic were rolled down and the speakers blared the upbeat tunes of Electric Light Orchestra. Warren had his elbow propped out the window, some aviator sunglasses, and his hair blowing back in the mountain breeze that gushed through the windows. He was belting out the lyrics of the tune, stumbling over some of the lyrics, but he didn’t care. His voice was high and steady despite his stumbling over the words. 

“As I gaze around at these strangers in town

I guess the only stranger is me”

Unknown to the ex-hunter, something with glistening eyes followed from within the treeline. Its speed rivaling a racehorse, though quieter than a cat. Its figure was too fast to be seen beyond a subtle blur past the treeline as a hulking silhouetted shape masked by the glare of the setting sun.

“And I wonder, Oh I wonder

Is this the way life’s meant to be?”

He was having a great time with the free air. No more U. L. missions. No more giants or near-death experiences. Just him and his friends about to meet up at a concert out of town to have a fun evening. The sun was beginning to descend over the road, casting its golden glare over the windshield. In his mind, he might’ve been a Lone Ranger riding into the sunset. He had seen some things no one else would believe. That alone could power a Western film. 

Though he was beginning to associate dusk with death, he was safe in his car. Nothing could get him here. He’d be with his friends when he got into town. Safety in numbers, right?

“Although it's only a day since I was taken away

And left standing here looking in wonder”

The figure in the tree line burst out. Warren didn’t notice it immediately with the sound of blaring music, but one glimpse at the rearview mirror showed what was going on. “OH SHIT--!”

A giant. Seriously? What sort of gods decided to toy with Warren’s luck at this point? This was just ridiculous at this point. He thought he could recognize the figure. Long white dreadlocks, dark skin, flashing silver eyes. She was even taller than Eli by a good two feet. She had a weird name, but Warren couldn’t remember exactly what Eli had called her back then. Not that he cared. His first thought was getting the hell out of here.

“Oh, the ground at my feet, maybe it's just the old street

But everything that I know lies under”

The melodic voice continued on, despite the alarm in the situation. The sheer contrast only seemed to add to the stress of the situation. 

He stepped on the gas, speeding faster. The giant was in hot pursuit, soon practically on the car’s bumper. Her claws dug into the asphalt, powering her unbelievable speed. 60 mph. She was still not lagging behind. 

Her claws lashed out and she lunged forward, digging her claws into the back of the car and pulled herself half-onto it while her feet dug into the ground to gain traction. The car screeched, lurching to a halt. Warren was thrown over the steering wheel and the impact jammed into his ribs causing a painful crack. 

He wheezed, blinking through the adrenaline to realize the car was at a complete halt, and the silver-haired giant was approaching the driver’s door. 

“And when I see what they’ve done to this place that was home,

Shame is all that I feel”

He gasped, almost immediately coughing from the pain of the shifting of his lungs disturbing a freshly cracked rib. He hastily unbuckled, trying to scoot away from the driver’s seat as the large figure stooped over the window. Her slit silver eyes peered in. An expression of complete indifference played on her face. No response to the intense fear he was feeling. It almost scared him more than any taunts. There was no connection of emotion. Just complete apathy.

“And I wonder, yes I wonder,

Is this the way life’s meant to be?”

The door was ripped from its hinges. Her clawed hand reached for him, trying to grab through the narrow space to get ahold of him. He scooted backwards. His breaths rattled in his chest. His heart pounded in his ears. Tears pricked the corners of his wide eyes as the claws barely skimmed him as they fought to gain purchase. He ducked beneath the console of the passenger’s seat, digging out his phone and his shaky fingers struggled to operate the device to send a hasty message. 

A crushing grip closed around his leg. He screamed.

“Too late, too late to cry, the people say

Too late for you, too late for me”

He was dragged out of the car, clawing for purchase. Trying to grab onto one of the seats or the steering wheel. His cracked ribs bumped painfully against the seats. She pulled him out of the car, hoisting him onto the air by his ankle.

“You've come so far, now you know everything, my friend

Look and see the wonders--”

Her ears twitched and she stomped her foot over the front of the car, smashing the radio. She didn’t seem to enjoy it. Without another word, she rose to her full height again, leaving the ground far below Warren as she began to walk back into the treeline. The ex-hunter whimpered, struggling to try to reach the hand that held his ankle. It was scary and disorienting to be held this high above the ground upside-down. A fall like this could break his neck, but not escaping would lead to certain death. He had encountered giants plenty enough times to get a pretty good idea about where this was going.

“P-please-- R-- Riki-- uh-- Riri--?” Warren struggled to remember her name, but honestly he couldn’t think at this point. 

To his surprise, she let out a cold laugh. “If that Arawn knew you called me that, he would have finished what he started last time.”

Warren shuddered, recalling how they had parted last time. She was climbing up a cliff and Eli had eaten him to protect him from the other giants. He had been certain he was going to die. 

“I--” “I should have known he had gone soft like his sister. I suppose I will soon deliver him the same fate as she has received. This human, however,” She lifted him higher so that they were practically face-to-face, just inches apart. He took in a shuddering gasp which stung his lungs. 

“It’s lived too long to see too much… Things that no human should have seen. Not that it makes any distinction from the rest of the humans.” She sighed and opened her mouth beneath him. His eyes widened and he flailed, trying to jerk away from her open mouth. He quickly reached up to dig into his pocket. His fingers nearly slipped to drop the object, but he caught it, unfolding a pocket knife. She gave him an unimpressed look, and her other hand reached up to grab it just as he managed to slash it across her face. “GAHH-!”

A growl sounded through her throat. Her hand crushed around his leg, snapping his bones like twigs and he screamed in pain. Her other arm reached up and gripped him roughly around the torso. Her teeth snapped over the knife-wielding hand and spat out the weapon onto the forest floor. Blood poured down from a slash across her face, dripping down from her chin. 

“I think that you’ll learn that fighting will only worsen things for you, human.” Her voice drawled. Warren cried, barely able to focus on her in the blinding pain. She shifted her grip to let go of his leg and reinforce her grip around his waist, beginning to lower him into her mouth backwards. Warren sucked in a terrified breath as his feet met the back of her tongue and she began to gulp them into her tight throat. Things were happening so fast. His shattered ankle screamed in protest as it was engulfed into the passage of rippling muscle. 

“No! Nono— wait—“ 

The giant swallowed again and he suppressed a shout of pain. Her legs were now fully encased in the throat and his lower torso was entering her maw. Fangs jabbed painfully around him. She clearly didn’t bother being careful about how rough she was in the process. The giant’s tongue slathered his torso in gross saliva as she gulped more of him down. The ex-hunter whimpered and grabbed for the edge of her jaws in a poor attempt to stop his descent. This only made things worse when she met the blockage. 

Her jaws widened for a second before crushing down over his chest, not enough to snap him in half, but enough to draw blood and hurt like hell. There was a distant scream of pain. He was getting lightheaded. He was losing blood, and was faintly aware of the feeling of blood dripping from his limp fingertips, and pooling our from her jaws. There was a hungry growl that sounded around the throat from the taste of his blood. The tongue cupped under him and she began to tilt her head back. He had lost the strength to struggle, in a state of shock and agony that made it too hard for him to think. 

Another swallow sounded around him, bringing his head into the mouth. His chest was squeezed into the too-tight throat which crushed his already cracked ribs. He was barely able to choke another breath through the pain. It was a frightening sight to see the jaws wide around him, the saliva dripping over his line of sight. The marks of his own blood trailing down from the fangs. He didn’t have the strength to struggle in his state of stupor and pain. 

One last gulp dragged him completely into the darkness, and his arms soon followed. He distantly felt pain shoot up his ankle as his feet began to press through the esophageal sphincter and the rest of him began to follow into the tight organ, forced to curl up in the claustrophobic space. As soon as his head and arms finally joined him, he coughed and gagged for air, finding it difficult to breathe with how much each breath hurt. The air was scalding and humid and burned his already aching lungs. The jagged movements of his rapid breaths only hurt his cracked rib further. He hugged his knees and cried. 

“R— Rikki— R— Rhyka— please— please don’t do this.” He barely managed to recall the giant’s name.

Rhyka ignored him. She couldn’t care less. The giant was so tall and broad that her stature nearly perfectly concealed the small imprint he made, and the only mark of his existence was subtle. It made it all too easy for him to be ignored. 

“L-listen, I’m…” he hissed in an anxious breath through his teeth, trying not to fully break down now. The heat was exhausting, and the main thing keeping him conscious was the intense pain. He just wanted it all to end, but at the same time, he didn’t want to die. Not like this. His sisters needed him, and he tried his best to not abandon them, only for his luck to turn for the worst once again. He could recall Olivia’s lessons on giants and hoped to god something might work here to give him a slim chance of survival. “R-Rhyka… I’m sorry humans drove giants into hiding. I— I wish things were— were different between our kinds… but— but killing people won’t fix that.”

To his surprise, the giant let out a laugh. “You truly believe that having a, ah, ‘heart-to-heart’ will spare your life here? Your kind is an inferior race. Weak. Pathetic. Even if your kind had not done what they did, it does not change the fact that we are the predators, and you are the prey.” 

Warren shuddered, biting back a sob of fear. “B— wait—“

“You could save your meager breaths now. I have heard all the same arguments. None sway me. Do yourself a favor and accept your fate.” 

Warren could feel the movement from her walking seem to settle. There was a dropping sensation and his environment seemed to tilt sideways. She must have laid down or something. He squirmed in place, biting back a hiss of pain as he had to reorient himself with his vulnerable broken shin and ribs. The puddle of fluids he was sitting in splashed over his face, making him sputter and cough weakly. He noticed a faint stinging and his heart rate picked up in alarm. Acids—? Giants only digest when they’re asleep… which meant Rhyka must be heading there now. 

“Wait— no—no— please— I— you can’t—“

He froze as he could hear the giant’s breaths slow to a more relaxed rate. She didn’t respond. His eyes widened in the darkness and he took in shaky breaths. An ominous growl sounded nearby from the organ. The puddle of fluids was half-filling the space now, and still having trouble to reorient himself, he had to sputter and squirm to avoid breathing in the stinging fluids. 

“Nononono— G-God— p-please…” he cried. He didn’t want to believe this. He didn’t want to die like this. He had dodged death before, he had to do it again. But Eli has told him time and time again he was weak, and he was right. 

The stomach groaned and clenched tightly around him, causing the level of fluids to rise briefly before the walls relaxed. He took in a sharp gasp of pain, bracing his shattered leg that just felt like pulp now. He could swear he felt something crack from the way his leg bent just then, feeling the limb was beyond repair. It was probably just held together by shredded muscle and tissue at this point. 

He was too tired and in too much pain to really fight back the oppressive stomach folds that began to clench around him more rhythmically. 

“I guess you’ll die then” Olivia’s voice echoed in his mind, recalling her lecture from before. 

Warren took in shaky breaths in the heat. Olivia had a point. She gave him lessons, and if he gave up, he would be dead. Not every giant would be generous enough to let him live. Rhyka wasn’t one of them. He had to think.

Olivia had mentioned a pressure point against the spine that could do… something? His brain felt foggy, but some part of him could recall that it might save his life. He hadn’t succeeded last time he tried. 

He grimaced as the stomach gurgled loudly again and its walls crushed in closer. The acids were beginning to sting worse. Burning at the bare skin of his hands and face. He held out his elbows on either side to hold the slimy walls off of his face, letting out a rasping breath through his teeth. He felt around in the darkness, trying to orient himself to figure out what was where. Doing some calculations based on how he had been swallowed, and the new position of the sleeping giant, he made a blind guess of an idea. He was facing the wrong way. Being swallowed feet-first and backwards, he was likely facing the outer wall of the stomach, instead of the vertebrae where his target lay. 

He grunted, twisting around in position and using his one good leg to try to reorient himself to face the spine. He had no idea if he was right about this, and every inch of the tight organ was identical. It was especially difficult to figure out if he had turned a 180 or just a few inches because of how disorienting the rippling muscles were, making his laborious movements either too small or too big to calculate. He settled at where he ended up, however, taking a moment to gather his breath. The heat was really making him feel like he was about to pass out, and he just wanted a break from the pain of his mangled leg and ribs. He couldn’t rest though. He had to at least try.

He leaned back as far as he could, using his hands to press himself backwards in the stomach as his one good leg kicked at the spine. There was no response, and he tried kicking everywhere along the opposing wall. Everything felt the same, so it was impossible to know how close he even was from it. The walls around him crushed in more tightly. He could barely breathe now. The fluids were rising higher. He was on the verge of passing out. The heat. His mind was numb and far away. His only thought was his sisters. He had to focus on them. He could barely even recall their faces. So tired...

Kick.

The tightening walls suddenly went limp, freeing the small pocket of air. Warren gasped for air, feeling lightheaded from all the effort. He didn’t know what happened. He didn’t even know if he had succeeded. Everything was too foggy to focus on. His mind slowly drifted from consciousness.

***

“Rrrg. Wha... what did you do… to me…?”

Warren was slowly brought to his senses by a rough jab that met his injured rib which prompted a scream of pain. He gasped, foggily beginning to regain his senses. Everything hurt. The first thing he noted was the voice… so loud and rumbling around him. There was a numbness around him. He could barely feel his limbs, but at the same time, he was faintly aware of a burning sensation covering everywhere. He was soaked to the bone by a deep pool of slimy fluids. It was hard to know how much of him was left, and if most of him already been melted away. The walls weren’t as active or crushing as they had been before. The place felt oddly dormant aside from an occasional groan or squelch from the environment, the sound of the giant’s breaths, and the thumping of her heart nearby. How long had he been in here?

“Wh…” Warren’s tongue felt like it wouldn’t cooperate enough to speak. “Whd’yamean…” He slurred. He couldn’t think. He was too tired. He just wanted this hell to end, whatever this hell was. 

“Don’t play stupid with me, human... You… you shouldn’t still be alive! What have you done to me?” Her voice almost sounded pained in a way, though his brain was too tired to pick up the tone. The jab once again met his side, though thankfully hit his shoulder this time. He weakly tried to raise his arm to push back. 

“D’nno… wha you… mean. Wh...what time’sssit…?”

The pressure increased by his side and he could hear a gurgle nearby. “I am finished with your games… Hunter. You will be dead soon enough… what… whatever tricks you are using will… wear off.”

“I.. I dunno wha-- what…” he took in deep breaths, on the verge of passing out again. He was faintly aware of a shifting from outside and the pressure lightened to be circular rubs. Any other moment he’d be indignant to the action, but right now, he was too tired to really think about it. There was definitely something off about her voice. She sounded… fatigued. He didn’t think into it.

“Please… j-just… just make it s-stop…” the ex-hunter groaned weakly. He was regaining awareness of the burning sensation around his skin. The pain from his broken leg and ribs. 

The giant didn’t respond aside from an annoyed growl that rumbled to her core as she rubbed the form in her stomach as if to help him digest faster. Her breaths began to calm again. He could hear another gurgle from the stomach and the dormant walls began to pick up their act again, rubbing against his skin and distributing the numb, stinging fluids over his skin. He didn’t bother squirming. He was too weak to think. Rebeka. Liss.

What were those names anymore? He could barely recall their faces. Just concepts at this point. But more than anything, he wanted to see them again. 

Had the kick done something before? 

A clench tightened around him, bringing up the acid level higher, briefly submerging his head under the caustic fluids. He choked and struggled weakly for breath just as the walls loosened up again just enough to give him a chance to take shallow gasps for air. He tried to focus, lifting up his good leg briefly to jab into the opposite wall again. It took every fiber of strength for the action. He kicked a few times. The walls tightened again and he was submerged. His heart pounded. He could hear the giant’s heart thump more slowly. The distant gurgling sounds of the stomach around him. His lungs burned for air. He kicked out his leg again, trying anywhere for that pressure point. His foot slipped, then dug into the opposite wall. It just barely managed to hit the right place. The walls loosened up again and Warren coughed weakly, gasping for air. The whole stomach seemed to grow limp again. His body followed suit. He didn’t have the strength to keep this up. Even if he was alive for now, he was prolonging the inevitable. He wasn’t going to make it out of here alive.

He was too tired to cry, but there was a pang of emotion in his chest nonetheless. His body grey limp again. His ears began to sink beneath the stinging fluids. His mind fell to dormancy again. 

***

Olivia had been sound asleep through the whole night, unknowing of her phone buzz with Warren’s text. Her face was planted on the alchemy table and her glasses were falling off of her nose. In the late morning, she rose again to get some coffee and sat down with her entire carafe of coffee with her alchemy equipment, ready to put this frustratingly difficult concoction in the past. She worked for a while at her project before she saw her phone buzz. It was another hunter wanting some more potions for lycanthropy. She had been getting too many requests from that same hunter, it was beginning to get rather tiring. Wait a moment… There was another message from Warren. 

Her tired eyes scanned it with her bulbous spectacles before sighing tiredly and picked up her pastel pink bag of alchemy equipment and got in her car to drive away.

***

The white dump truck hummed down the winding road into the forest. Olivia was dead tired and really didn’t want to be doing this. She would much rather finish that lycanthrope-enthusiast’s order, or sleep instead. The road was not a popular route, one of the back roads. It didn’t look like anyone was within miles of the stretch of asphalt. Though something laid ahead in the road. A smashed silver car was sprawled out over the asphalt in shredded bits of smashed metal. Her brow raised slightly and she parked her truck on the shoulder of the road, giving the wreckage a good once-over before she sighed and pressed through the treeline. 

She took out a small vial of blue liquid from her alchemy bag and opened up the bottle, placing a small drop on her finger and dabbed it beneath her nose. She sniffed in the odd scent of the concoction and the effect was instant. A faint blue mist seemed to appear in the forest. A scent trail that led further ahead. Wordlessly, she followed it. 

There was a dip in the forest path that led into a steep ravine which was difficult to travel into, though she managed. At the bottom of the ravine in a dip in the rock, the scent trail led to an end. 

A white-haired giant laid asleep on her side. There was a slight bulge in her middle. Her clawed hand rested over it. It didn’t take much imagination to deduct what had happened. The alchemist sighed, taking a small yellow orb of ice out of her bag and put her teeth together, making a high-pitched whistle barely audible to human ears. The response was instant. The giant’s eyes opened, though she remained on the ground. She tiredly turned to her side, scowling as she spotted the alchemist. 

“I take it you’ve eaten William, then,” Olivia’s tired voice drawled.

Rhyka’s eyes narrowed and she sat up, glaring at the ice that the alchemist wielded, knowing exactly what it was meant for. 

“He is dead. Your point?” Her voice was groggy, almost coming out in a slur. 

Olivia sighed. “Well I guess I have no restraint from using this, then.” She raised the ice and approached the giant with an unphased expression.

The giant held up a hand hastily. “Stop… It… I will release the human if you throw that into the woods. I lied. He might be alive. I can’t know for certain at this point, though it’s the only chance you have.”

Olivia shrugged and tossed the ice aside indifferently. “Alright. Let him go.”

Rhyka looked like she hadn’t expected this, but groaned. Her eyes were exhausted. She looked like she had been through hell with some sort of terrible indigestion. She pressed a hand to her stomach. Heaving sounds came, then the bulge in her middle reformed in her throat, slowly traveling upwards. She lowered her head and gagged. The form of the bedraggled, slimy hunter spilled out onto the ground in a pool of reeking fluids. 

Olivia barely seemed phased at all by Warren’s appearance. He looked like he had been thrown in a meat grinder. His left leg was crushed to pulp beneath the knee. He was covered in acids and his own blood. Past the dripping slime, patchy red burns littered his skin. 

The alchemist didn’t waste a moment before reaching into her bag again and threw another yellow orb of ice at the giant, hitting her clean in the face. Rhyka let out an infuriated shout as the enchanted ice seemed to melt into her skin. There were cracking and shifting sounds and she began to decrease in height. The giant roared, lunging forward to slash her claws at Olivia, only to shrink further and bat harmlessly with declawed otherwise human fingertips. She collapsed onto the ground, hissing in pain. She eventually shrank down to a complete human size, though she was still a good foot taller than the short alchemist. 

Olivia pursed her lips, ignoring the giant as she stepped toward Warren. He wasn’t moving. Neither was the giant. Whatever vigor she had before was short-lived. She seemed too wiped out to fight. 

“Wilhelm, listen to me,” She sat down on the earthy floor, taking his slimy hand. His hand remained limp in hers. She shot a look at the now shrunken giant. “You killed him.” She spoke levelly. She sighed and withdrew a black orb from her bag and pressed it into his hand. “Wake up,” She muttered.

The black orb melted into his hand, seeming to grow warm before disappearing. For a moment, there was no response, before she glanced over at him to see Warren’s chest slowly rose and fall. He was breathing. Weakly, but steadily.

***

Two were dragged into the truck by the tired alchemist. Rhyka’s hands were tied together, and Warren was seated next to her, unconscious, and wetting the seating with the gross slime that dripped from him. 

They drove back to the alchemist shop in silence. Rhyka still seemed ill from whatever had happened, not in much of a talking mood. 

Once they arrived back at the shop, Olivia put out a blanket on the floor for Warren and tied up the camouflaged Rhyka in a chair. Olivia did her best to clean Warren’s wounds and treat the burns, but for his broken leg, not much could be done.

***

Warren groggily returned to consciousness. A day had passed. He was lying on his back, staring up at the blank ceiling of Olivia’s basement. The light was dull, which was a good thing, to not be overwhelmed by too much light with his senses returning. He was in pain, though the worst thing of all was his leg. He could feel a crushing, burning sensation coming from it, though part of it was foggy and dampened. He must have been given medications while he was asleep to numb the pain.

What just happened. 

The last thing he remembered was… He grunted as he rolled to his side and his blood froze. Rhyka was sitting tied up in a chair before him. His heart picked up rapidly. 

“Look who awakened,” she smiled coldly. 

“You… How... what..?” Warren mumbled. How was he here? How was he even alive?

footsteps sounded from the floor above. Olivia appeared on the staircase, looking over Warren tiredly. “Ah, Winston. Good to see you are alive.” She spoke in an expressionless drawl. “I suppose the pressure point techniques work after all.”

Warren hugged his arms, leaning back on the hard blanket. He just tried to level his breaths instead of thinking too much into it. He might have been in a state of shock. 

“And my apologies about your leg. It seems not all of you was intact enough to be saved.”

Warren blinked, then glanced down at his legs. His breath caught in his throat and he felt like he had been punched in the gut. “Ho-holy shit.”

His left leg was gone. Amputated beneath the knee. He stared for a moment in shock. Olivia sat down next to him on the floor, taking a swig of her coffee from the glass carafe. “Yeah, you’ll get used to it. Just take it easy for now.”

He shuddered, biting his lip. “I… No… no… this can’t… I quit the U. L.. I-- I was supposed to be safe. W-why… Isn’t fair.”

Olivia sighed, glancing toward Rhyka. “The giant who ate you seemed to have a grudge from when you witnessed their Banding ritual. Apparently it’s no thing that any human should live to see. She had been hunting you down ever since.”

“B--but it’s not my fault! The giants brought me there! I-- I didn’t want anything to do with that!” 

Rhyka rolled her eyes, staring at Warren in a deadpanned sort of way. “Ah, excuses. None of that will change anything, you are aware?”

Warren covered his face, shaking. “You… you cruel person… you wanted to kill me. I didn’t want to get involved with the giants ever again and-- and y-you went and…”

The alchemist’s hand tapped his shoulder and she let out a tired groan. “Rachel is right. None of the things that happened will change. However,” She rose to her feet, walking over to her alchemist desk and withdrew a shimmering grey knife. She turned to look at Warren. “I do not kill monsters unless I have to. If you wish to kill Roxanne, then that is up to you.”

Warren tried to stand, leaning against the wall and lifted the stump of his leg above the ground. He stumbled over toward Rhyka, using the wall as support. “Give me the knife.”

Rhyka’s eyes narrowed. Olivia sighed and went over to Warren, placing the knife in his hands. He gripped the blade, trying to keep a straight face through the pain in his leg and glared at Rhyka, holding it to her neck. 

“How does it feel having the tables turned, huh Rhyka?” Warren grit his teeth. “You… You don’t care about humans. What did you say we were? W-weak? Inferior? ‘Lesser beings?’”

Her cold glare remained unwavering, locking eyes with Warren’s. She remained silent.

“Look at me now. You tried to kill me but failed.” The knife pressed more firmly against her throat, threatening to draw blood. “You-- you have no idea w-what you put me through. No one. No one should ever have to go through that. Killing you will avenge god-knows-how-many people you’ve murdered like that. I don’t wish death on many people but… You…”

His jaw tensed and his eyes narrowed. His grip tightened over the knife until his knuckles were white. He didn’t act for a solid few seconds. Rhyka held her breath. 

The knife dropped to his side and clattered to the floor. 

Rhyka let out a cold chuckle. “Coward,”

“I’m not like you, Rhyka.” Warren backed to the wall again, sliding down to be seated. He put a hand on his injured leg, hissing through his teeth and looked to the side, trying not to focus on the pain. He was defeated, even if he had survived. He had just lost his leg, though it felt like he had lost so much more.

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

Rest of the series can be found here.

[ellemcu]

I don’t want to hurt you (bucky x reader)

Part 1 \\ Part 2 \\ Part 3

Part 4  A different HYDRA

Word count: 2382

Warnings: sexual assault,cursing, gruseom deaths:),semi naked,

ATTENTION: THIS COULD TRIGGER SOMEONE and for personal reasons I am not going to be writing it in full detail the delicate subject, if you wanna keep on reading though just not that bit imma put asterisks when it begins and ends, there is no problem, I understand completely.

You felt a hand being placed on your cheek, smudging away something liquidy that had dripped down your cheek. Before you could open your eyes, the warmth of the hand quickly vanished and a hard punch hit your cheekbone followed quickly by another punch only this time on your temple. Now you realized what that liquid was and you shot your eyes open.

At first everything was blurry, a strong light shining over you but after few seconds your eyesight got used to it and your eyes darted around for wherever the fuck you were. That’s when you noticed a tall man standing in front of you, wearing a military camouflage suit with a very irritating smirk on his face. He lowered his head, slowly reaching your level of hight since you were strapped on a chair ”Добро пожаловать, милая, или, лучше сказать, хладнокровный убийца, Гидре.(welcome sweetheart or should i say cold blooded murderer, to HYDRA)” he whispered in your ear. You shook your head and rattled your chains just to see if they were really firm and they just rattled. You shook your body until you stopped dead in your tracks. You swallowed, hard, and lifted your head slowly to look around the room you were in. 

You were not in a room. You were in the middle of a gigantic open space, surrounded by footbridges and staircases that led to thousands of cells, more like cages, but they were all empty. All of their prisoners, or soldiers were standing right infront of you. They were staring at your bloody and bruised body as if they were enjoying it, as if you were on display for them. You looked down and saw your pants had been ripped ( idk like now they’ve become shorts) and you were only in a sports bra, leaving your skinny but muscular body showing. 

You were not ashamed of your body(bc you are perfect and yes i'm talking to you, not Y/N in my story, YOU and you are just perfect just the way u are, please never change, please<3) but the thing that worried you the most was that you were completely covered in blood, some wasn’t even yours but most of it was yours and it was gushing out from deep cuts that were everywhere. Your whole body ached and breathing was becoming very hard. You looked back at the whole crowd that was standing in front of you, searching for someone you recognized. I mean you were at hydra. You scanned the crowd and then made eye contact with the all-in-black dude you had tried to kill, holding a cloth on his neck.”So I did hit him after all” you mumbled under your breath. 

You were tired of being at the center of attention and were starting to want some answers. The man wearing the camouflage suit was standing behind you, this was your chance so you turn your chair facing him and you kick his shin. He groans in pain and leans over his leg and you knock him out cold using your head against his. You stand up on the chair and sat back down with force causing the chair to break.

You did that so quickly that by the time you were standing up, ready to fight the whole crowd was still looking at you with wide eyes. You smirk and crack your neck, ready to bring down other guards(damn, your cool as fuck) You squint your eyes trying to see any guards coming your way and lock eyes with the soldier you had tried to kill. His eyes were full of worry but at the same time his expression was cold, you were lost in those steel blue eyes but before you knew it s man grabbed your arms. You immediately reacted and jumped backwards on top of his shoulders. You punched his face a few times until you cracked his neck and he fell to the floor. you jumped off him before he hit the ground and searched for any guns or knives you could use since they had taken everything away from you but unfortunately you found nothing.

In the meantime the crowd of people started running in all directions, seizing the opportunity to escape this damn place. You were still under their control so that thought didn’t come to your mind. From all the chaos you started running towards the man you had killed. You ran up to him and you both started throwing punches and kicks (idk imagine your fight scene however you want :)) until you jumped on his back and swung yourself backwards making you both fall down. He hit his head and you took this chance to get on top of him with both of your knees on his sides, holding his metal arm with one of your hands and the other one was gripping his throat, your grip tightening by the second. He was trying in every way to move but your position was holding him unbelievably still. He was knocked out cold for sure but that wasn’t enough for you. You wanted him dead. Just a little bit more and he would’ve died but someone elbowed harshly your neck, pain once again flooding everywhere.

It distracted you so your grasp loosened as the man took a long and loud breath. You were about to choke whoever dared stopping you but someone pulled your hair, dragging you away from the man laying on the floor. You quickly turned your body around making the person holding your hair release his grip. You punched him in the chin, knocking him out dead. You were surrounded but that wasn’t going to stop you ,hell no. You took down 6 soldiers quickly but then a dozen charged towards you, making you stumble on the ground. They were all punching and kicking you senseless until one of them stuck a syringe in your arm and injected something in you, making you dizzy. “Great, here we go again.” you sated, locking eye contact with the man you wanna kill so bad. His eyes were filled with fear and something else you couldn’t quite understand: Then it all went black, again.

**

You woke up with someone slapping you. Your eyes shot open as your reflexes kicked in and you shot your arm up only to be stopped by some leather straps. You groaned in annoyance and started looking around. You were in an oddly familiar room but it wasn’t quite the same. Then it hit you, you were surrounded by the same machines from your HYDRA. You breathing quickened until a man stepped in the room. ”Well soldier, it was about time you woke up.” he started. “You injured many of my most trained men, how did you do that?”he went on, your heart beating faster by the second. He started walking towards you and you spoke up,”(How long)сколько”. He snickered, “два месяца (two months)”. Fuck. He gotta be lying, you can’t have been out for 2 months, that's impossible but the way he looked at you told you otherwise. He was getting a bit too close though. ”запусти машины, я буду наслаждаться этим (start the machines, i'm gonna enjoy this).” he said with a calm expression which was not reassuring. A scientist pressed a big red button and electricity started running in your body again, only this time it was way stronger and blood was actually escaping your stained skin. You were shaking violently, screaming at the top of your lungs even though nobody could hear you. Your chest rising and lowering at an unimaginable pace. Just to add a bit of spice, some needles were injected in your muscles and shot something in your body making you numb but at the same time the pain became even more unbearable. The pain increased painfully slowly until it all came to a halt. The machines detached from your sensitive skin and you opened your eyes slowly, caching your breath. You were shacking uncontrollably and feared what the man was going to do to you next and just to your fucking luck the man was staing right infront of you with a grin on his face.

TW

*******************************************************************************************

As he stepped closer to you, you tried moving your arms but they were firmly strapped to your sides, he leaned over you and mumbled in your ear “Such a beautiful lady, with amazing skills, who wouldn’t fall for that?”he said tucking your hair back. “убирайся от меня (get the fuck away from me)” you warned him with an intimidating cold voice “ or I swear to god your gonna regret this, im gonna break every single bone in your body, watching you suffer and slowly rip your organs out of your body, painfully slow, starting from your eyes and ending with your heart all while you’re still alive.” you spoke up not liking one bit the position you found yourself in.

He grinned to the feistiness you had in you. He then started touching your body, in places you never wanted anyone to touch, though many already had. Tears were starting to develop in the brim of your eyes but you wouldn’t let them fall. Hell no, you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of that. You had to stay strong, I mean it was soon all gonna end.

*******************************************************************************************

It all came to an end as he stopped and nodded towards the scientist. He got up and stared at you, mesmerized by your beauty. The maschines started whirring and the electricity ran through your veins once again. but this time after the stress your body had gone through you weren’t sure if you could take the pain much longer. You were trembling when after, god knows how many hours later some guards untied you and carried you to a small cell. Your body was exhausted and needed a break but you knew that you didn’t have much time before they came back for you in the morning. You crawled in a ball against the wall and concentrated on your breathing, it was very shaky and you could only take short breaths because of your neck and rib bruises, which were probably internal too. You obviously couldn’t sleep, not after all that you had done, it would all come back so you concentrated on the sounds that could be heard outside your cell.

After a few minutes you heard gunshots and screaming, someone’s here. You stood up as quickly as possible looking around yourself to find anything you could use to protect yourself with and to your luck you found an old and rusty crowbar, but that'll do just fine. You picked it up and placed both hands on it, ready to harm anyone that came too close to you. You heard footsteps coming closer to you and a man with an oddly familiar voice screaming stuff like “mercy”, “please”, “she’s in here” and someone started firing bullets to your door with a gun, after a bunch of shots someone kicked the door off its hinges. You squinted your eyes slightly, not used to the light that was coming in the cell. A tall blonde man entered your room, he had a shield in his right hand and a helmet on his head. You tightened your grip on the crowbar showing the man that you were not afraid to use it. He took a step forward which was confusing for you because he surely knew who you were but he still wasn’t showing any sign of being scared. ”Listen, Y/n I’m Steve, we’re gonna get out of here alright?” he asked with an oddly calm voice, offering his hand out: You didn’t know if to trust him or not, for all you knew people kept trying to torture you. Your brain didn’t trust this guy at all, but you had a feeling that he was surely gonna bring you somewhere better than this. You nodded slightly as you walked towards him, as soon as your hands touched you weren’t really sure if you made the right choice, never trusting anyone was the best way to go wasn’t it?

You feared your choice was the biggest mistake you've ever made. The man grabbed you and twisted you around, your body so weak you winced in pain, and he injected something in your neck.Your body started to feel numb, starting from your toes, up your legs, to the muscle of your neck, till your eyes. You fought to keep your eyes open, this was not happening again. You crouched on the ground and spun yourself in a circle with your leg straight, making the man,who called himself Steve, fall to the ground, you picked yourself up and punched him in the face, hard, making his face bleed.

All of a sudden you collapsed on the ground, an indescribable pain flooded in your chest and neck, it must have been the liquid he injected in you earlier. You were trembling and you couldn’t breathe. 

**********************************************

You sat on the floor with your fists on your chest, you weren’t gonna leave this place without a fight and you were not going to leave with some stranger. He stood up quickly and your eyelids started to feel heavy, he walked towards you as you lied down on the ground, shaking violently again. “What the fuck did you put in me?” you murmured with a menacing tone. You closed your eyes, not having enough energy to keep them open anymore and you slipped  in unconsciousness.

Part 5

I know, they inject lots of stuff lol. But i couldn’t think of a better way to do it. This is a long one to make up for the last one which was pretty short. I hope you like it ! If you wanna be tagged, just ask :) 

Elle

@vicmc624

[zenithlux]

Tendrils of Regret - Part 7

Read the story on AO3 here!

The last part! Thank you for the support I’m glad ya’ll have enjoyed this as much as I did writing it. I’ll be working on spin-offs very shortly (but Cadence 36 is my main priority for next week. 

Enjoy!

Everything changed after that.

First, you noticed Vergil was taking greater care with you. He left more demons behind for you to kill, making you much more comfortable with siphoning their energy. He even began to talk to you more, and you slowly opened up to each other. You learned about his favorite food (strawberries), favorite poet (William Blake, same as V) and more of the superficial stuff. But you didn’t mind. You and V had been close, but neither of you had had the time for generalized conversation. With Vergil, it felt natural. 

You were slowly becoming friends. 

The only problem now was his demonic form. He’d used it a couple more times since the spider incident, and every time, it had activated some primal fear within you. You had yet to figure out if it was the vine’s problem or you. But either way, you hadn’t been able to function alongside it, much less fight. Vergil had tried to help, but he’d had to drop the transformation to stay near you for longer than a few seconds. And the worst part? Your nightmares were back. This time, it wasn’t the demon you’d been trapped in, but the one who had done it to you.

Now, however, you no longer blamed Vergil, as you truly believed that he was trying to help you, just as V did. Twice now, you’d woken up with him sitting nearby, something you’d given him permission to do after you started drawing plants up through Devil May Cry itself. Now, he woke you up if the nightmares got that bad to make sure you didn’t destroy the place. 

Finally, Dante held an intervention. “We have to do something about this,” Dante said in the most serious tone you’d heard from him in a long time. “As much as I love the plant life,” He poked a flower that had wrapped around the legs of his desk. “The holes in the floor are getting a bit obnoxious.”

You stared at the floor, exhausted and miserable. “I’m trying my best,” You murmured. 

“I know, Sunshine,” Dante said. “But there has to be a way to stop them.”

You didn’t respond. Vergil sighed as he leaned against the wall in front of you. “She has to get over her fear,” 

Dante leaned forward. “And how exactly do we go about helping her do that?”

“She has to approach my demon form,” Vergil said. 

“Maybe it would help if I was there with her?” Dante said. 

“Or if you showed her your own,” Vergil said. “Then we would know if it's human fear or the vine.”

“Maybe it's not afraid,” You whispered.  

Vergil’s eyebrow shot up. “Clearly you are.”

You closed your eyes. “In a way, yes, but I think my fear is grounded in what the vine wants.”

“And what do you think it wants?”

“To please you.”

The brothers exchanged glances. “It’s possible,” Dante said. “We don’t know much about the thing, so maybe it's expecting you to do something with it.”

“But the thought of being sealed away again terrifies the human side,” Vergil said thoughtfully. 

“But how do we give the vine what it wants without…” You trailed off, but you knew they understood. 

Dante hopped out of his seat and paced behind the desks. “There has to be some way to make it happy. Any ideas?”

“Build a connection,” Vergil said. 

You looked up. “What do you mean?”

Vergil pushed off the wall and approached you. “In the demon realm, if someone pledges themselves to a master, they are bound to them, even if something like this were to happen. However, there is a way to… promote them.”

“Promote them?” You said. “You think that will make the vine happy?”

“If it feels like an equal, it might leave you alone.”

Dante snorted. “How do you promote a sentient vine?”

“Let it feed off of me,” Vergil said. 

Your mouth dropped. “How is that supposed to help?”

You were even more surprised when Vergil actually knelt in front of you, putting his gaze even with your own. “When a demon allows another demon to consume their blood, then they are marking them as their equal.”

“Equal?” You said. “But I’m not… I’ll never be your equal.” 

“But it's the thought that counts,” Dante said. “The vine might accept it.”

“But I’m not nearly as strong as you.” You said. “Surely the vine has to know that.”

Your eyes widened a little more when he took your hand. “You’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

You stared at him. He’d never said something like that to you before. But V had. V had made sure you heard it almost every day of your short time together. You’re strong, my little vine. Stronger than you know. But hearing it from Vergil gave it so much more meaning. You knew from experience that he never gave compliments unless he truly meant him. In fact, you’d never heard him give one. Not even to his brother. Especially not to his brother. “If you think it will work,” You said. 

“It’s worth a shot,” Dante said. “But you’ll still have to get close to him. Do you think you can manage it, Sunshine? I’ll be right there with you.”

Slowly, you nodded. “I can do it.”

Vergil gently squeezed your hand. “Let’s find a better spot.”

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

Vergil’s better spot was about a mile away from the greenhouses, but out of sight from any humans that were living in the area.  His logic was sound. We don’t know how much energy you’ll need to expel once this is over. But it didn’t make you any less nervous. You were scared. More than you wanted to admit. You didn’t know if you could overcome the fear that was deep inside you. You didn’t know how the vine would react to drinking his own blood. And, even worse, you didn’t know how your own body would handle it. The vine absorbed the demon blood, but what about the human blood? It would be a miracle if you were the same blood type, and you didn’t know if the vine would be able to handle the human blood the same way. But you didn’t express any of this as you tried to exude as much confidence as possible. You didn’t want them to think any less of you. 

Once you reached the spot, Vergil teleported away, leaving you alone with Dante. “I’ll be right here,” Dante said as he put a hand on your shoulder. 

“I’ll be okay,” You said, though you couldn’t quite keep the waiver from your voice. You tugged on your fingers, but quickly dropped them back to your side. Vergil looked like a statue in the distance, waiting for you. You knew you could still back out, but you didn’t want to. You wanted to fix this. You didn’t want to be a burden to your friends. 

“Ready?” Dante said. You nodded and he put his thumb up. “Go ahead, Verge!”

You felt the demonic energy wash over you as he transformed. Fear struck your heart, but you swallowed it down. This time, however, you could feel a sense of interest from deep within you. Did the vine understand what you were about to do? Or was it something else pushing you forward? 

Come to me. 

Your feet moved before you were ready, but you accepted it as you walked across the field. The closer you got, the harder your fear set in. Soon, you were shaking, clenching your hands to try and hide it. It was a strange dance you felt within you, the half that wanted to obey and the other that wanted to run away. But you pushed yourself forward, forcing down your fear. Then, at some point in your walk, your fear slipped away. When you finally stopped in front of him, everything was replaced by awe. He was already tall, but his demonic form towered over you. His wings were pulled in, but they still extended by a good foot and a half, and a long, scaly tail wrapped at his feet, swaying from side to side. You stepped over it and stopped less than an arm's length away. “How do I do this?” you said. “You’re covered in scales.”

“Trust me,” He said. “ Summon your vine.” 

You nodded, unzipping your coat just as the vine emerged. You reached your hand toward his chest as it snaked out around your arm and toward him. As your fingers brushed his scales, the vine reached out and tapped them. You sucked in a breath, wincing as you felt it tighten around your heart, just as it always did when preparing to siphon someone’s energy. You still didn’t know how it would do it. He was completely covered in scales; a perfect suit of armor. But then he reached his hand out and ran his claws along the vine. It responded instantly, snaking around his arm in tight circles. When it stopped, you felt it squeeze around him. Then, you watched in shock as red blood began flowing through the vine. But when it reached your body, everything flared to life. You gasped, but his other hand pressed lightly against your back, holding you in place. Suddenly, everything felt different.  Your sight was sharper. Numerous scents overwhelmed you from all directions. You could feel the blood pumping through your veins. Your heart beating in your chest. The plants pulsing in the ground. The vine wrapped around it, engorging itself on the blood of a powerful demon. 

“It’s never going to accept anything else,” You said, looking up at him. 

“ I assumed as much,” he growled. 

“You expected this?”

“I’m prepared for it.” 

Your heart swelled at the thought. You reached up slowly, brushing your fingers against his jaw. You swore you heard him purr as his tail thumped against the ground. You giggled, running your hand along the edges of his eyes. “How does it feel?” You said. 

“ The vine?” 

“This form.” 

“Powerful,” He said. 

“I can imagine,” You said. And you could feel it deep within your bones. His power, merging into your body. But your fear quickly returned. Fear that it would kill you. But you also felt a strange sense of calm. It was a weird mixture of feelings that you couldn’t explain, but you felt even more soothed as his tail rested at the back of your ankles. 

“You’re alright,” He said.

“You can feel what I am, can’t you.”

“Yes.” 

“That must be annoying.”

You swore you saw something akin to a smile, but it was so hard to tell with his shark-like teeth. “That’s enough.” The vine detached in an instant. Unfurling itself before retreating back into you. You reached for your chest, waiting for the pain. But it never came. In fact, you felt better than ever. How? You wished you knew. But the vine was satiated. Your fear was gone, and you were confident it would stay that way. 

But…

You glanced at the grass, curious. As you flexed your fingers, the blades moved in waves, following every twitch. You waved your arm out before pulling it back in. The grass grew out to one side, then shrunk back. Every small movement you could trace. Every twitch a blade moved. Every wave was followed by a ripple. You raised your hand toward you and the grass grew. Mesmerized, you gently spun your hand in a circle. The grass morphed, each blade expanding and braiding like it usually did. Except this time, the blades had a blue tint to them, as if the center was glowing. You arched your hand over your head and the thick braid shot over like an archway, planting itself on the opposite side. The second time you drew your hand, more grass grew in spirals around the archway and blue flowers blossomed. 

“Such power…” You whispered, your mind racing. What else could you do with this? What demons could you fight? What plants could you find? The possibilities felt as endless as the well of strength now residing within you.

The strength he’d willingly given you. 

Energy rushed past you as Vergil resumed his human form. “Better.” He said. It wasn’t a question.

“Very,” You agreed. “Thank you.”

He watched you for a long moment. Your breath hitched as you met his steely gaze. You’d already thought him handsome - not that you’d actually admitted it - but now he looked downright beautiful. Every detail was accentuated. The curve of his lips. The shape of his chin. The way a single piece of hair had fallen out of its perfect shape. His eyes, shimmering as they stared back at you with a look you couldn’t quite describe. 

“You’re welcome.”

You weren’t sure why that made you smile, but you knew it was one of the widest smiles you’d ever given him.

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

You were both right; now that the vine had tasted the best, it refused everything else. But you had one thing going for you: it took a long time for it to fully process everything Vergil gave to you. It was weeks before it required another dose, and you had no problems maintaining your flowers or using your powers as long as you were careful not to overdo it. And your nightmares had almost disappeared completely, saving Devil May Cry from a swift, plant-based end. 

Key word: almost. You no longer dreamed about that demon, but you dreamed about other things. Some were good - dreams you would never share with anyone in a million years - but others were terrifying. Images of V falling apart. Of Vergil getting hurt in a way he couldn’t heal. Dante and Vergil fighting over something you couldn’t remember. Plants piercing your body just as they had in that demon. But you were coming to manage them better. The plants no longer responded to your distress, and even your mood wasn’t enough to disrupt them any longer. It helped that you had Shadow, as the cat reminded you heavily of the panther you had grown to love and was just as willing to cuddle with you while you slept. 

And you had Vergil. Frequently close by. Always attentive. 

How things had changed. Now, the bracelets you had carried for so long were heavy on your wrists, begging you to return one to its rightful owner. But you couldn’t. You didn’t even know how to approach that topic with him. And what would he even do with it? Vergil didn’t strike you as a bracelet type of guy, no matter what his human form had done. Would he throw it away when you weren’t looking? That would probably be the tactful thing to do. Maybe then you’d forget about it. 

But then, he surprised you with one, complicated question.

“If I could bring V back, would you want to see him?”

You nearly choked on your breakfast, as he sipped at his drink “Is that even possible?” You said.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“The same way I did it the first time,” He said. 

Your heart nearly stopped. “But then you’d be splitting yourself… again. What about your demon half?”

He took another sip of coffee. “I’ve done it."

You stared at him. “You… you split yourself? Again?”

“Yes.”

“How could you do something so reckless?” You said. 

“I knew what would happen.”

“How could you possibly know something like that?” 

“Would you want to see him?” Vergil pressed.

A part of you hated yourself when you hesitated. “Not if it risks your life.”

“It’s not a risk,” He said. “It would be temporary.”

“But it doesn’t change anything,” You said. “You… are V, right? So what’s the point of bringing him back when you’re sitting right in front of me?”

A raised eyebrow was all you got, but you had learned by now that meant you’d caught him off guard. “You still dream of him.”

“How would you know that?”

“You say his name in your sleep.”

You looked away. “Surely that’s not all I say,” You muttered. 

“No,” Vergil admitted. “But it's enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“You haven’t moved on.”

You flinched, still not looking at him. Again, the bracelets felt heavy on your wrist. But Vergil continued. “Did you love him?”

This time, you did meet his gaze. “I don’t know,” You said. “We didn’t really have… the time.”

“Yet you let him sleep beside you,” Vergil said. “Let him hold your hand. Guide you. Teach you.”

“We were friends,” You said. 

“But if you had more time,”

“Stop,” You said, jerking upright. “He’s gone, Vergil. “I’ve accepted that.”

“I can bring him back.”

“I don’t care,” You said. “I…”  

Vergil stopped you, standing up himself as he clicked out Yamato. “Rose.”

“Don’t you dare,” You said. “Don’t you dare do that to yourself.”

“Why?” He said, crossing the room in a couple of strides. 

“Because I care about you!”

That gave him pause, even though his expression didn’t change. What was he thinking? You wish you knew. Unfortunately, the sentient vine hadn’t managed to give you that power quite yet. But he did resheate Yamato as he stared at you. Maybe you had rattled him, if only a little bit. Had he truly not expected you to say that? Maybe even you hadn’t expected it. “Vergil…” He stepped toward you, driving you back against the wall. Your breath caught as he leaned in, resting his arm above you. Still, he said nothing. Just watched you like a vigilant hawk, waiting for his prey to move. And move you did, reaching for your wrist as you pulled off one of the bracelets and held it out to him. His eyes shifted to it, and his lips turned to a frown. Your heart fell into your stomach, but you didn’t move. “I still have it,” You said. “Just like you asked me to.” 

“You held on to it for him,” He said. 

You shook your head. “I held on to it for you.”

After a long moment, he took it from you still staring at it. You held your breath, waiting. Then, his eyes flickered back to you. “I’m not V,” He said. 

“You’re Vergil,” You said quietly. “The V that came back.”

He was silent for an unbearable amount of time. And he was so close now. You could feel his breath on your lips. His hands kept twitching near your hips, as if he wanted to reach out but was refusing to. A few pieces of hair were out of place. The outside of his irises seemed to be glowing, and you wondered if that’s how he always looked and you’d just never noticed. “That’s your choice, then,” He said. 

“If you’re giving it,” You whispered. How dangerous that felt, especially when his eyes narrowed and the hand over your head clenched into a fist. You didn’t think he was angry. Maybe pensive, but not angry. The vine wasn’t twisting, but your heart was in your throat. You wished he would just do…

He kissed your forehead so tenderly that you nearly melted on the spot. And when he walked away without another word, you couldn’t help but smile. You didn’t need words. Actions were better anyway.

And hours later, when you were working on the paperwork and Vergil was reading in his usual spot, you caught a flash of blue on his wrist; a rose hiding just behind the sleeve of his jacket.

That was more than enough.

[the-darklings]

Kat im begging u 🅱️lease feed us that good vap! Hector food 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 i will give u anything ( sorry if this sent like 10 times the ask button wasnt working)

𝙑𝘼𝙈𝙋𝙄𝙍𝙀!𝘼𝙐:【01】| 【02】| 【2.5】|【03】|

.

The girl giggles. 

Stupid, reckless female. 

She’ll be dead within an hour.

She no doubt believes that a night of passionate sex and pleasure is worth the price of her blood. It might be. If the one with his arm around her wasn’t the one they call the Devil. 

You’ve heard stories about him only—the brutality, the debauchery, the recalcitrant loyalty towards Camorra, towards the vampire king. 

The man known to you only as Hector is a legend in his own right but for all the wrong reasons. 

Running into him, here in this city, had been an accident. You’ve been tracking another target. A violent necromancer who was getting a bit too pompous for his own good and reckless when practising the Unholy Arts. The order from the High Priest had been clear: removal. 

You were on track before the heat in your blood had flares at the shabby bar where humans mixed with the supernatural—often with deadly, bloody results. Still, humans who wandered into these gatherings knew full well what they were doing, and you felt little pity for those idiotic enough to accept food and drinks from fae and goblins. For those who thought that bargains could be struck to their advantage. Who sold their blood to vampires for a pretty jewel or pleasure. Some humans had gotten lucky, of course. 

There’s been plenty of stories about higher vampyr taking brides and grooms, bestowing immortality upon them. Sharing with them the sin of bloodshed.

The golden vampire prince and his silky voice offering you the world tickles the shell of your ear and your glower, shaking the silky, seductive memory away. 

The Devil of Camorra with his large frame sticks out even in the shadows. He has the presence of a hulking monster but it’s not fat his bones carry. There is deadly sort of grace about his muscular build and those broad shoulders.

The girl laughs again at whatever the vampire says and you wonder what Camorra’s most loyal vampire—the vampire they say answers to Giovanni only—is really doing here in this shithole of an alleyway. Aside from seducing young virgins desperate for affection and a promise of immortality. 

Hector pushes the female against the wall and she laughs again, her fingers snaking up his chest and the vampire whispered something in her ear that makes her stifle a moan. Your fingertips brush against the serrated edge of your holy blade as you stalk through the shadows, silent. 

“You can come out, you know,” a rough, cold voice slices through the dark alleyway but you linger in the shadows. “While I don’t mind an audience usually, in this case, the more the merrier.”

There is a smugness attached to that harsh voice as Hector’s head slants and his mercury eyes glow in the dark as they look towards you. The colour is so piercing that for a moment they remind you of the silver your blades have been forged from. 

You step into the dim light and his nostrils flare, his body swinging towards you. Such destructive, terrifying intensity in his gaze. He’s handsome in a brutal way. In an awful way that you imagine scares away most. He’s acid to D’Antonio’s honey—

“Well, well,” he voices with a taunting twist of his full lips. The female moves but Hector’s arm snaps out, his long inked fingers wrapping around her throat and the girl yelps in fear. Your grip on the blades constricts before loosening. Hector’s lips twitch again, knowing, curious. “With that overbearing fucking scent, you must be the one they call the Vipress. The Holy Hunter. Aren’t I lucky boy? Princeling’s newest obsession in the flesh, huh?”

You’re not sure what to make of the fact that he knows you because—

Because what? D’Antonio told him about you? 

The Devil’s eyes drag over your figure purposely and his lips quirk. “I think I can see the appeal.”

“Let the girl go.” 

He chuckles; a rumbling, deep sound. The type that chills one’s blood. He’s the type of creature you would pray to the gods above you won’t meet without a crucifix or holy water on hand.

“Or I tear her pretty throat out and we bathe in her blood,” he suggests lightly and his grip on the girl tightens. She’s not giggling anymore. You can barely see her against the shadows of the wall but the wet, spluttering sounds of her fear fills the humid night air. “Virgin blood. Impeccable. You, however,” he pauses, his nostrils flaring again and he hums, his eyes narrowing. “Smell fucking divine.”

“You do that and I kill you,” you inform him calmly, raising one of your blades and rotating the glinting, familiar metal between your fingers in a warning. “Maybe I’ll send your head back to Giovanni D’Antonio as a calling card.”

He exposes his teeth and you watch those fangs intently. The motion is purely predatory but your expression remains impassive. “Do you really think—”

Your blade slices through the air with blinding speed, silencing him.

The Devil of Camorra catches it before it manages to sink into his chest but the runes scorch through his skin and he drops it with a hiss, his grip on the girl faltering as he snarls in your direction. 

He manages to catch your other arm, his grip bruising and surprise reflects in those quicksilver eyes. No doubt at the speed with which you cut the distance between you. You jerk backwards on your heels, another blade slipping free and feel something cold and unmoving wrap around your throat as your arm snaps out.

Your dark shadow, your Jardani, is stronger.

But you are faster. 

The girl scrambles away with a sob as you stand at a standstill with the vampire before you. His fingers tight around your throat and your holy blade burning against the ink of his powerful neck. He reeks of potent sort of strength and although no pure blood runs through his veins, his power is unquestionable. The Holy Text on your back seems to blister anew. These damn fucking vampires. First the handsome prince and now this asshole. 

The tall vampire in front of you seems amused at your predicament—at the stalemate. “I’m going to eat you up,” he tells you, almost cordial, and you push the blade deeper against his skin. The skin sizzles but the vampire only grins wider, his fangs gleaming. His thumb scrapes against your pulse, his cold Camorra rings caressing your skin.

The audacity of him. 

“You haven’t lived long enough to stomach me,” you hiss under your breath, and swiftly bend your fingers till the blade in your other hand touches his skin. “Lux sancta.”

The Holy Text carved into your back flares with pain as does the light through your blades, burning away everything in your path as it explodes outwards. 

The vampire growls loudly, tearing himself away from you. The flash of light is brief but the Camorra’s Devil doesn’t manage to mask his pain completely as he stares at his charred hand. It will heal due to his power but it will be slow. Holy Light does not leave injuries lightly. 

The look on his face is as murderous as it is ravenous. “If it weren’t for my orders—”

He swallows and flexes his burned fingers, working his jaw at the agony he no doubt must be feeling. His eyes are no longer that pale, icy blue. They burn with that familiar rusted red and he grins; cold and harsh. 

“I’ll see you very soon, sweetheart.”

A damning, pitiless promise. 

Shadows engulf him. You stagger ahead and promptly collapse face-first onto the ground, your knees caving in.

Sweat drips down your brow, your back in agony and you recall the High Priest’s warning that you are not ready. That you need another Remaking before you are ever allowed to consider evoking the Holy Text. 

Too weak. 

But not in that dream, you recall through your feverish delirium. Not with the green-eyed prince.

Darkness swallows you whole, and then there is nothing.  

[overthefjords]

upon the winter winds, I hear you say you love me.

Co-written with Ana, this takes place in 1946 after Mathias ( @danmarks-styrke ) succumbs to the plague and passes away. Also featuring Bastian ( @stillewijsheid ). 

The room was cold-- the windows wide open to keep Mathias’ body cold for the time being, until he came back to them alive and well. Bastian shivered, pressing close to Aleks and sniffling quietly. “Fuck it’s cold,” The younger man breathed, taking small steps forward with Aleks’ help.

Aleks didn’t notice the cold or the frost slinging to the open window panes, slowly helping Bastian over to one of the armchairs sitting at the side of the bed. After a moment, Aleks stepped over to his suitcase and pulled a button-up sweater from inside, draping it around the Belgian’s shoulders. The Norwegian might not care about the chill, but Bastian did not need to catch a cold and not be able to get out from under it.

Bastian sank down slowly, murmuring a soft thank you in Norwegian to the Norseman as the sweater was wrapped around his thin shoulders, practically engulfing the boy in its warmth. He snuggled into it before reaching out and carefully took Mathias’ hand, noticing that someone had set an IV up with antibiotics and fluids, trying to keep his body in peak condition for when he would return. The presence of such lines, to know that Mathias was being so well taken care of, touched the Norseman.

Mathias lay prone on the bed with hands folded over his stomach, his ice-blue eyes closed. It was as if he was in a deep sleep, sans the absolutely pale look to his face, the lack of breaths, and the sheer absence of sound coming from him. “Think he knows we are here? In spirit?” Bastian raised the question quietly, glancing at the Norseman lingering at the back of his chair.

Aleks was doing his best not to look too closely at his husband; to ignore the leeching of colour from his lips and his cheeks as he took a seat beside the Belgian. “Probably,” he murmured, casting a glance out the window and seeing a flurry of black feathers streak by. “He’s likely listening to old stories from the Aesir themselves.”

“The Aesir?” Bastian asked, tilting his head to look at Aleks curiously. “Who are the Aesir?”

“Mm. So,” Aleks cleared his throat, folding his hands in his lap and looking down at his wedding band as he collected his thoughts. The Norwegian was always happy to share the stories of old, but this time they were far more bittersweet than comfort to him. “They are the oldest of the Norse gods. The ones who came first. There're roughly twenty or so, but the ones most people know of are Odin, the All-Father, Thor, the god of thunder and battle, Frigg, Queen of the Aesir and goddess of the skies, Loki, the trickster god, Tyr, the god of law and justice, and Heimdallr, the watchman and the guardian of the Bifrost.” Aleks let his gaze drift over to his husband, throat tightening and tears welling in the Norwegian's eyes. “Mathias never forgot them, no matter his conversion. Thor’s always been his favourite.”

Bastian scooted his chair closer to Aleks and rested his head on the Norseman’s shoulder, fingers intertwined with the Dane’s even though there was no reaction from him. He did not expect one, either. Mathias needed the time to heal, to recover, and rest; allow his body the time it needed to recoup fully now that the war was done.

“Then surely he is with them now, and they’re watching over him.” Bastian murmured thoughtfully, hearing the way that Aleks’ voice choked up. His heart hurt for the man. “What sorts of stories do you think they are telling up there?”

Aleks choked back a quiet sob when Bastian tucked his head onto the Norwegian’s shoulder, slinging an arm around the boy and resting their heads together. He would endlessly be grateful for the company because while this was not the first death he’d gone through with Mathias, this was the one that shook him to the bone with fear. “That’s all I can hope for because I couldn’t do anything to protect him down here.”

Aleks sniffled wetly, rubbing his face with the sleeve of his thin sweater. “Honestly, Matti is probably bombarding them with questions,” He laughed wetly, resting his hand atop Bastian’s as he held onto Mathias’. “There’s no guessing what he’s being told.”

Bastian felt his heart shatter into tinier pieces, and he wasn’t even sure that was possible anymore with how much he empathized with the horrors and pains Aleks was going through. So he snuggled closer, nodding against the man’s shoulder. “So if they’re taking care of him, then he’s watching over us until he can come home to you.” Bastian’s own voice cracked at the end and he swallowed thickly. “He would never leave you, not even in temporary death.”

A shuddering breath slipped past Bastian’s teeth and he swallowed hard again, turning his hand over so Aleks had a grasp on Mathias’ while Bastian's rested on top, smaller than both men’s hands. “Chaotic things, surely.”

Aleks had been doing so well until the chilled hand of his husband was laid into Aleks' palm, a broken sob escaping involuntarily from between his teeth. His hands were always warmer than Mathias’ up until now, holding it gingerly as if grabbing it too tightly would shatter it like fine porcelain. The Viking might be fierce and strong and could shoulder the pain of others without blinking, but this heartbreak crushed him like nothing else.

“I’m sorry, Bas,” Aleks warbled weakly, bowing his head as pained sobs tore through him, the dam of his denial and refusal to lean on someone else crumbling under the weight of his genuine, raw pain of losing the love of his life, no matter for how long.

Immediately, Bastian felt himself feeling impossibly small in the presence of such deep-seated heartbreak. No doubt only Christiane knew some of the pain that Aleks was feeling, to the degree he was feeling it. “Don’t apologize.” Bastian managed, voice shaky. “Don’t ever apologize for loving as deeply as you love Mathias. You’re hurting— and mourning— and you’re allowed to feel those things.” He squeezed both hands wrapped in his small one gently.

There were no words the Belgian could offer, and he lifted his head at the sound of thunder cracking, seeing the bright flash of lightning streaking across the sky. “Thundersnow?” He asked cautiously, looking to Aleks. The phenomenon was incredibly rare, to say the least.

The Norseman could feel the roll of thunder in his bones, lifting his head in time to see a bolt of bright light streak across those black storm clouds. The strangest thing was that Aleks felt more at home in storms than he did on sunny days, and it could be said even more right now. “Yeah,” he croaked in between hiccuped breaths, glancing at Mathias before looking back out the open windows at the oncoming storm. There was no rationale for what he was feeling, that need to chase the storm until it enveloped him in its wrath. “I… I think I should go outside.”

Another crack of thunder and a beautifully bright and expressive streak of lightning coated the sky and Bastian almost felt...safe. At ease. Like a certain Dane was soothing their worries, their sorrows, their heartache. “Go. Say hi to him for me.” Bastian let go of Aleks’ hand before taking Mathias’ in his own again, pressing the cool skin to his forehead briefly.

He looked at Bastian, rubbing his cheek in a tender motion before planting a kiss on his forehead. “Do you want to stay here, or do you want me to help you back to bed?” “I’ll stay here if you don’t mind.” He murmured, purring contently at the gentle kiss to his forehead. “Wanna keep him company.”

It warmed his soul that the young man understood on some level that what was happening had something to do with Matti and himself and all of this. Aleks hopped up from his spot, going to his luggage and throwing on a heavy coat and boots. Digging into the pocket of his coat, he pulled out a set of mittens and a hat that seemed to have been lovingly handmade, ruffling the Belgian’s hair as he passed by. “I don’t think he’d mind his son sitting with him.”

He may not have understood the nuances of Norse mythology, but Mathias’ soothing voice cooing to him stories of Thor and Loki, the All-Father, legends of old, remained with the Belgian. He may have barely been holding it together, barely conscious, his mind addled with fever, but Mathias worked him through some of the worst of it. He could be with him now when Aleks needed him to be the pillar of support that Mathias normally would be for the Norseman.

He took the steps two at a time, ignoring anyone who tried to talk to him as Aleks made a beeline for the garden door, pulling his hat and mittens on when the chilled air hit his face. “Mathias,” he murmured, ice blue gaze lifted to those dark clouds. “Having fun?”

“Aleks?” Antonio called, squinting as the wind whipped the door closed, slamming hard behind the Norwegian. The snow was driving now from the clouds, blustering around as more thunder rumbled and more lightning danced across the sky as Aleks spoke; as if saying its greetings to him.

Under the flashes of lightning, as they struck aimlessly through those looming storm clouds, Aleks’ eyes seemed to glow. A breathless laugh escaped him as the thunder rumbled around him, deafening and terrifying. Aleks was forged in bloodshed and found his most obstinate peace in chaos and violence, so the fact that his husband found a patron in Thor was probably no coincidence. Lowering himself to the snow, he laid back in the powder, arms outstretched as if to welcome the embrace of the storm itself. “I miss you,” he breathed, watching his huff of breath be whipped away into the snowfall.

Matthew looked up when he heard the door slam against the howling winds and the thunder shake the house, rising from his seat and going to Toni. “Wait, did Aleksander go outside?”

“Let him,” Bastian called from the stairs, half leaning down them, mostly for support, and partly so he could easily scramble back up to Mathias and take the man’s hand again. “He’s talking to Matti. He needs this.”

No one pretended to understand the logic of Aleksander running out into a raging blizzard complete with thundersnow, but no one was going to argue with the Belgian, either. He seemed to have a better grip as to what was going on.

More thunder rumbled, almost morosely, as if asking Aleks why he was mourning so deeply, that Mathias was in Valhalla— and that Matti would see him soon. Lightning made new homes in the clouds and the thunder rolled, echoing off the buildings and against the canals not too far from them, offering a blanket of comfort.

It was a relief to hear that he was actually within those gilded halls, that he was in the company of the ones that he’d followed for centuries, that it wasn’t all in vain. Not that Aleksander ever believed that it was, but with the conversions and the vilification of the ones he found so much comfort in, it was difficult at times. He never stopped doing his best on this gods-forsaken planet for them, and it seemed that they were taking care of the most precious thing to him. The gods were kind in their own ways. “He tried to kill you, permanently,” The words were lost to his ears in the screaming winds, the atmospheric pressure of the storm bearing down on him like the weight of that damned husband of his, and Aleks cracked a smile.

“Thor better let you come home to me, Mathias.” Aleks shut his eyes, just letting the cold wind bite at his face, the roll of thunder washing over him like a soothing spring breeze. He could hear the scream of ravens carried on the wind, and he had no reason to fear that Mathias was gone from him and this world.

Aleks was being soothed by the winds, driven snow, and rolling thunder of the blizzard. The lightning eased now that it seemed the Norseman’s fears had been almost assuaged, the wind now whipping itself around the man, as if it enveloped him in a bitter cold hug that was full of love and care.

Mathias was there for him in spirit, even if he wasn’t in body, and he had found a way to show his husband that the Dane was watching over them. Through the storm clouds, the rolling of the thunder, and the dancing of lightning, Mathias was comfortable in the Great Hall until the Dane's body was well enough for him to come home. Matti was watching over them.

Aleks just watched the storm rage on as he sat in the very middle of it, letting it bluster and batter at his coat. He didn’t want to miss a moment of this. People often describe love as searing, scorching, and bright like the sun. But, the Norseman found his love in the depths of a late winter storm, thunder loud enough to rattle the bones of the dead while the winds howled like the hounds of Hel. He found the thing he cherished most in what people fear, and Aleksander would trade every sunrise for this love.

The storm seemed to stall over the home, taking hours to blow through without a loss of intensity until it was nearly passed, the lightning fading into tiny flashes between the clouds and the thunder hushed until it just sounded like the crash of distant waves, and the Norseman was content.

The storm lets up with whispers of thunder and gentle, faint tendrils of lightning was as soft as Mathias sleepily whispering a tender “goodnight”, and an “I love you”, to his husband before sleepily stumbling off to bed. It soon faded to just the wind and driving snow, the powdery white crystals piled up all around Aleks, cocooning him safely.

The Gods wanted Aleks to know they were watching and caring for his love, and that in turn, Aleks himself was being watched over by Mathias, guarding them and protecting them from above until the time came for Mathias to return home.

It was only when the storm went out like a lamb did Aleks really start to feel the cold, tears long dried and his heart long stopped feeling like an open wound, stuck gaping with emotional shrapnel. He didn’t want to leave the mound of snow that had been seemingly hand-crafted around him, but it was late and he was tired.

[byler-n-harringrove]

Broken fingers || Byler Au

I felt so compelled to this amazing prompt - please feel free to send in your own requests because personally I don’t have many ideas atm haha, I need a little help!! I am also a little rusty with my byler writing, so plz bare with me!! Thank you guys so much xx I love you all!!

Prompt: Do you do requests?? Cause I was thinking of a story where Lonnie comes over to the Byers residence in a drunk rage and slams the door on Will’s fingers breaking one of them. So he either goes to Mike’s or Mike comes over and they just cuddle and cry 😭😭😭

Warnings: violence, swearing (bigotry)

______

It had all been a blur in the beginning.

Pain did that, blurred your other 4 senses as your mind became foggy with the shooting of pain through your blood - like some type of rabid disease with no intention of stopping. The pain grasped to Will’s fragile frame, claws digging in with no surrender in sight.

He was sure they were broken, the way the bones sat pointed and tilted outwards in odd directions didn't look normal. But there hadn't been much the teen could do at the time then run away, blinded by haste and poker-hot pain. How Lonnie, his oh so lovely father, had gotten into his family's beloved house was beyond him, and the youngest Byers was lucky enough to walk in - alone - to a rather red faced and staggering man who had a bone to pick.

Will had been trying to close his bedroom door ( it was his natural reaction when anything threatened him - to go into his room and shut the door), but Lonnie had followed him, hitting multiple walls along the way. There was a squabble, and Will really wasn't the strongest of children.

The crunching of his fingers as the door sandwiched the violently made Will want to throw up.

Pain destoryed the next moments - he had cried out, Lonnie has backed off and left him finally, muttering about how his son was a faggot and so - and all Will knew in that moment he needed to run. Run away, get to somewhere safe. But where was that? It was second nature, though, to answer that thought with one name.

Mike’s house.

The frail and pale boy’s heart shook at the idea. He had always felt safe in that cosy basement, curled up diligently beside his one and only crush - Mike Wheeler. It was close to hero worship at this point, he would blindly follow Mike to the end of time if it meant that Mike would give him a smile and let him hold his hand.

-

The bike ride over was what Will felt hell would feel like - he didn't trust himself to use one hand to ride - and he found himself hoping that Mike even had the smallest amount of knowledge on first aid. The sun had finally made the hill its grave, the crappy pee yellow street lights on the main roads the only guide he had.

He had to push through - to get to Mike, to feel safe, to feel loved.

The milenia it took to get to Mike’s house finally reached its end as he flung his bike to the ground unforgivingly in his pained haste. The noise of the bike meeting the grass made him cringe, but the reminder of his broken fingers only brought more pain.

He didn't know where his face began and his tears started as he knocked erratically on the Wheeler’s front door. Will didn't have to wait long, luckily, before the eccentric wooden door was heaved open by a familiar mop of dark brunette hair - those beautiful caramel eyes instantly made Will want to crumple in his arms and sob.

And that's what he did.

“Hey Will- Ahh! What's wrong!?” the spangly teenager squeaked awkwardly as Will flung himself into his arms with blatant disregard.

“Who's at the door Mike!?” “It's just Will! We’re going downstairs, don't bother us!” Mike didn't know what was wrong, but seeing Will cry so freely made his stomach drop and his heart stutter with fear.

What the fuck had happened?

Will sniffled and whimpered as they descended the stairs into their lair, the basement. Wills second home - besides castle Byers, but that was different - was already starting to have an effect on his nerves. Lonnie wasn't here, he wasn't going to get to him and sure as hell wasn't going to be breaking anymore of his ‘girly’ fingers.

“Are you going to tell my whats wrong?’ Mike asked, doing his best to sound sympathetic - of course he was, but the anxiety of not knowing things often made him sound snappy and impatient.

The smaller teen was unable to meet Mike’s eyes now, and wordlessly extended his hand that had been cradled to his chest. The fingers were distorted awkwardly - Will didn't want to look at them again or he felt like he was actually going to throw up or pass out. They were his fingers - his father had done this to him. His. Father.

“S-Shit!” Mike cursed loudly, eyes wide.

Without another word, he quickly darted off to the small toilet off the basement. He ripped the rickedy medicine cabinet open and quickly grabbed the first aid kit they used for emergencies. Fuck - this was more then a emergency. This was Will, his Will.

When he returned, Mike quickly guided the other teen towards their sofa. Will’s cheeks were red and blotchy, eyes slightly swollen as he sniffled and whined at the pain of his fingers. The taller teen broke out the bandages and something to make some splints from (his parents had forced him to take a first aid course - not that he would tell anyone that) and hesitantly inspected the 3 fingers.

“Who did this?” Mikes voice almost struck fear in Will.

“U-umm… L-lonnie..” He was too tired to be berraded by Mike until he finally told him - it was easier to give up now.

The next 10 minutes were in silent besides the quiet cries of Mike moving his bones to try and set them ( yes, he wasn't a doctor - but Will repeatedly told him they couldn't go. There were already too many issues surrounding his family as it was) and Mike muttering soft praises and encouragements to keep him conscious and as calm as possible.

“Here - this'll help the pain” Mike had fetched some water from upstairs - no mum, we don't need any food. yes mum, he's fine - and offered Will (who had finally stopped crying) some panadol to help.

Will sniffled again, taking the water and panadol before muttering a soft thank-you as Mike sat down beside him. The couch was warm - their bodies sat close together as Will was finally starting to calm down from the rush of emotions and adrenaline that ran through is small body. It was too much, and it had honestly tired him out.

“Your staying tonight, by the way. Before you say anything, my mum says its fine and she’ll call your mum. We can watch movies - your choice of course” Mike all but ordered his friend, standing again without a moment's notice to get some of the spare blankets and pillows from the corner of the room.

The smallest teen could only muster a nod - muttering something about the 2nd Star Wars movie - and found himself curling his knees into his chest. Will just wanted, no he need, some hugs. He needed to be held - loved, smothered until he was no longer the touch starved teen he was now.

Mike - who Will was sure was his guardian angel - finally settle back down on the couch and layered the cozy blankets around them along with some comfy pillows. It was like a mother making a nest for its young - and Will seemed all but oblivious to Mike’s reddening cheeks as he slipped into the warmth besides him, their sides touching with soft zaps of passionate electricity.

“C-can…” Wil stuttered, capturing Mike's undivided attention “Can we hug?” If Will could get and redder they would never know, but the question honestly made him want the floor to open up and swallow him whole.

It was silent for a moment before Mike stuttered out a small “Y-yea,” before wrapping his spindily limbs arounder Wills slightly shaking frame and holding him close.

Will was in euphoria.

As the movie started, Will felt the panadol slowly starting to kick in - seeping into his bloodstream and numbing the throbbing pain within his fingers. The small teen slowly found himself leaning his head on Mike’s shoulder, eyes drooping as he focused on Mike’s radiating warmth and the small circles he rubbed on Will’s upper arm.

“I won't let anyone ever hurt you again, Will. Never” Mike promised Will with sheer determination in his voice as the youngest finally slipped off into sleep - finally feeling safe and secure wrapped in blankets, in the arms of the person he loved most.

[setoandjewel]

See You Again

Warnings: NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES

Mentions of someone wanting to die. 

Mentions of abandonment.

Giant treating a tiny roughly (fearplay).

Angst.

Story: Non-canon. A what if scenario, where Seto has the chance to see his father, Fujio Yamazaki, again. Fujio was the one who, when he was young, allowed his mother to hand him over to Anhemite scientists for Kresia testing, the disease that made him giant.

I hope I got the trigger warnings correct, this is definitely a darker one. 

Fujio froze as he stared up to the building. The building that had just stepped into his path and now blocked him from moving anywhere further.  

A giant. There weren’t supposed to be any more giants here, not after they relocated from the Anhemites who had killed those poor people. And yet, he could see that what sat straight before him, planted firmly on the ground, were black lace-up boots 20 times the size of his own loafers.

Was he shivering?

Yes. He was trembling as much as he could ever remember, glasses slipping down his nose as he slowly got to his knees before the towering man, bowing low in hopes that he could come off as just a...respectful human. One who knew who was in control here. In hindsight, the Japanese man knew that was a bad idea, but he doubted the giant wouldn’t have picked him up anyway.

As soon as Fujio felt the giant’s fingers loop over his back some primal instinct awoke and he tried to run, only for the grip to tighten and leave him vertical, his entire body pressed inside what he saw was a fist. A tight one at that, one that threatened to crush him inside or snap his old bones, not as strong as they once were. But he wasn’t just staying still and safe with the ground only a foot below, because how could a giant see him from all the way up there.  

Please….p-p-p-/please/.

The hand that lifted him so high the air actually felt colder suddenly stopped before a face the size of a billboard and shrouded in darkness. The wind buffeted them both in a sudden freezing gust, and while Fujio hunched over with teeth gritted against it. The giant barely even flinched, strands of hair separating from the shadow.  

The human knew he was being studied, could feel a burning gaze staring him down and making him feel like some kind of insect in the hands of a child, being studied to see whether he was of use or would just be dropped. The Japanese man trembled still, eyes finding a mouth set into a hard line just below him; the tip of a pointed nose and the rest in shadow.  

The half-moon disappears behind a cloud, and the small amount he could see returns to ink. But Fujio’s eyes don’t leave as he imagines it all in his head, everything that would undertake if the giant was an Anhemite and saw him fit to be eaten. Fear overtakes him just noticing the sounds of breathing, and he screams out.

“P-p-p-p-p-PLEASE! /Please, sir/! I-I am j-j-just an old-d m-m-man! Y-Y-You wouldn’t k-kill an old-d- man, you can’t be-”

“You don’t recognise me.”

His pitiful cries drowned out by four words that seem to shake the air around him, rumbling as the burning stare comes back again. He ignores the fact the voice is somewhat sorrowful, the grip on his chest loosens.

Fujio Yamazaki? Know a giant? He’s been given mercy but he knows one wrong word and he’s gone forever. And yet, he answers truthfully.

“N-N-N-N-No, /s-s-sir/. U-U-Um t-t-the-.”

“Of course,”

The human screams as it feels like he’s just dropped, before what looks like a thumb presses over his mouth and nose to silence him. The concrete finds his feet soon after, and he’s almost carefully let go from the iron grip. 

“Leave.”

The giant turns his back and looks down to his hands, fiddling with something and leaving the captive Fujio unwatched, told to /leave/, able to escape to his bed and pretend all of this was a nightmare. But the tears in a voice are unmistakable.

“S-S-S-Sir? The shad-d-dow b-blocked your face.”

A quiet ‘huh’ emits from somewhere above the human, the sound of metal sliding over itself stopping before he bounces with the thuds of feet planted down. A knee. And then the very hand he was trapped in appearing before him as if to steady the monolith. The sound of swallowing sets goosebumps on Seto’s arms, looking up from where he lies prone to see a face looming overhead.

The burning stare comes from monolid eyes set in a human’s skull, irises dark brown and reflecting the light of the moon, looking sharp and defined as if sketched from charcoal. The darkness itself sets lightly through the middle of his face in a lightly combed fringe, the rest of his hair flowing from the top of his head to nearly touch the ground. He’d seen too much below the pointed but still flatter nose, and held the gaze instead. The one seeming to search him, the rich brown fading before him and changing colour. The shadows below his eyes lengthened, the glint became steely as dark eyebrows lowered into a frown.

WAIT-

Those were the eyes that stared up at him from below the covers, a child holding up his favourite story to be read. That was the expression that was pulled whenever he was told that it was bedtime and there would be no more TV.  

That was the expression that haunted him his entire life. Dared him to visit the laboratory, chided him for never having the courage. Called him a coward.

“SETO!”

He felt the silence snap, the name echoing out in the street.  

Suddenly the fist was back. Seto’s fist.  

Seto was alive. And Seto was a giant.  

And Seto held him with no mercy.  

“How could you?! How could you leave me there to suffer! I thought you were meant to protect me. I thought you loved me. I thought you were my father,

“You told me to let the giants do their work and you left me alone to starve and hurt. Do you know what you caused me? Do you know what I am now?

“You...you b-bastard.”

Fujio felt the fear rise in him as he's so easily manhandled by his son, the face that was his joy now sitting before him holding pure anger. Teeth the size of boulders bared beneath crimson eyes as he looms overhead, waiting for an answer that will justify what must now be...how long was Seto in there? How many years he didn’t even know? What father-

His thoughts were interrupted by a finger pushing up his chin, forcing him to meet his son’s expectations. Like his height...it was too much. He couldn’t answer that question in any way he’d like to...he had to say the truth.

“/Speak/!

"I-I WAS NO FATHER TO YOU!" He yelled out, grabbing pitifully at the fingers beneath his neck, the size of his head that's easily crushed by such digits. The giant looked taken aback almost, eyes fading to a broiling wine red as he stares at the hands holding onto his thumb with fury. The first time he’d been held by his father in 20 years.

“I thought...I thought your mother knew what was best. I was too scared to go against her when she could take away Akane, take away my home and my life. I let you go and that was something I never should’ve done, something that I’ve never forgotten.

“Letting you go was the worst decision of my life, more so than being such a coward that I could never go to the lab because of the thought of facing you or your mother. Seeing what I had done.”

Tears spilled down the cheeks of the Japanese man, and somehow, he managed to hold the finger instead of it holding him, staring up to the expression that was terrifyingly unreadable. If anyone was going to kill him...let it be the son he wronged. Let the tortured father have one moment of peace before ending it all.

"I’m sorry, Sen-I mean, Seto.” The nickname caught in his throat like a wasp, knowing that the affectionate term meant nothing now and was just stalling his own end. He puts the thumb back beneath his chin, knowing with one flick his neck would snap.  

“Do with me as you will."

—

If you enjoyed please like and reblog as it gets my work out there, and if you’re interested in more with my characters, you can follow!

Thanks xx

[princess-of-the-worlds]

our love was never meant to last

For Day One of Klaroline AU Week 2019: Mythological Creatures.

Happy KC AU Week! It was always my favorite part of the Klaroline fandom, and I’m so glad that Luiza (@klaroline-events and @itsnotacrimetoloveyou) brought it back! Lu, ily!

Prompt was partially suggested by @dottie-wan-kenobi who told me to write mermaids and partially by a short story I wrote in high school that I never completed.

Also, can I mention, I hate the new tumblr text formatting.

***

ao3 link: here

word count: 6281

summary: When Hope Mikaelson begs her grandfather Klaus for a story, he tells her off a love long-lost. Seventy years ago, Klaus Mikaelson, then a RAF pilot, tumbled into the sea when his plane was shot down and was rescued by a beautiful girl with sunshine hair, a wolfish smile, and a silver tail. Their story was tragic and never meant to last.

***

One of Hope’s earliest memories begins like this:

It is a late summer afternoon in Albany, New York. The house is empty; Hope’s parents and grandmother are away running errands. The air is muggy and thick enough to choke on; Hope’s grandfather sits in his rickety old rocking chair on the porch to take refuge from the scorching rays of the sun. Hope perches at the edge of the porch, only a small distance away, kicking her slender feet out in no discernable rhythm. She stares out into the empty street in boredom, finding no fellow children to run out and play with.

It's too hot; everyone is avoiding the heat, choosing to remain indoors with the artificial chill of their air conditioners and fans.

Her grandfather leans back in the chair, and it creaks as he shifts his weight. He too cannot stave his impatience with the spy thriller he had been reading, so he sets it aside, down on the floor.

“Would you like to hear a story, Hope?”

His voice, a low baritone tinged with an eclectic mix between a Southern and British accent, is a startling relief from the sleepy silence of the neighborhood, and Hope perks up, turning to face him.

“Yes! That would be awesome! I am so bored.” She stretches out the syllables of her words in child-like exaggeration, pouting up at her grandfather.

“There are several that I can think of…” he begins, but Hope interrupts.

“No, grandad!” she cries. “You’ve already told me all of your stories.” Hope blinks eyes heavy with exhaustion up at him. “Tell me a new one.”

“A new story?” her grandfather mutters, stormy eyes going distant as he thinks back. Having decided on one, he turns his attention back to his granddaughter and smiles gently. “I think there is one story from your old grandad that you have never heard.”

***

I know that you have learned somewhat about the Second World War at school. It was a terrible war; there were so many innocent deaths, so much violence. But, I was never involved directly in the fighting.

No, I was a pilot. I flew airplanes for the British Royal Air Force. We often went on dangerous missions; it wasn’t always a guarantee that we would come back home. And, what we were doing, dropping bombs to destroy German U-boats, it wasn’t a terribly-good thing to do. But we were saving lives.

On one such mission in…September of 1945, I think, I was flying over the ocean. The Atlantic Ocean, it is the ocean between the United States and Great Britain.

Around me, the sky was surrounded in inky darkness; it was nighttime. And it was raining, such stormy weather that hadn’t been seen all summer. Still, I was safe inside my airplane.

Suddenly…I saw a flash of fiery light streaking toward me; it hit my plane with such a loud boom that my ears still rang for moments after.

My plane had been hit by fire from an enemy pilot.

They had ruined my plane’s engine, and I no longer had control. The plane began to plummet down so swiftly that my head smacked against the ceiling, and I was knocked unconscious.

I woke up once, only briefly. I had somehow fallen out of the plane, and I was dropping towards the ocean like a stone. My side was aching; I could not feel it, but I was paralyzed with fear and shock. I thought I was going to die, and I passed out again.

Once more I woke up. I had just plunged underwater; it was freezing, my entire body ached, and the water kept dragging me further down.

I opened my mouth to breath, a stupid mistake. The water rushed into my mouth, filling up my lungs, stinging the way skinning a knee does but everywhere. I tried to swim, I reached out a hand to claw my way out of the water, but it was too heavy, my body was too heavy. I only sank faster.

The water burned like hot lava in my stomach after I was forced to swallow some.

Everything began to become fuzzy at the edges, and I couldn’t tell upside from down. Still, I fought to keep my eyes open, but it was a losing battle.

And, then, imagine this.

Just as all I could see became darkness, there was a flash of silver, almost like light. It was shimmery, metallic. And I tried to reach for it.

But my body was still not under my control.

I thought I saw a face, a human face, but that was not possible. No one could be underwater with me.

I could not ponder this, because unconsciousness came quickly.

***

When I came to, I saw the brightest sky I had ever seen. Brilliant and clear, not a cloud to be seen. And below me? The softest, purest sand ever felt against the exposed skin of my arms.

I shifted against the sand, pain licking like flames down my sides. I was in the most agony that I had ever felt. Something hot was boiling up in my throat, and I gagged, unsuccessful in keeping it down. I turned my head and vomited the remains of my last meal onto the sand; I kept my eyes away from the mess. My stomach roiled again as I dry-heaved.

Something hovered into my view.

A face. The face I had caught a brief glimpse of underwater.

It was a woman-no, it was a girl.

She was beautiful, yes, but did not surpass my childhood sweetheart Camille in beauty. Her skin was unblemished and fair like the sand I lay against, and her hair, hanging loose further than I could see, was a sunshine yellow, though it gleamed even more golden when it caught the light. But, more remarkable, was the keen intelligence that shone in the depths of her cerulean eyes, muddled against the stare of a predator.

I craned my head to allow my gaze to travel further than her delicate collarbones and a slash of nearly sheer fabric that covered her entire upper body; I glanced down and then immediately jerked my head back in bewilderment. I snuck another painful look to make sure that my tired eyes and brain were not playing tricks on my mind.

This girl had a tail.

At her waist, where Camille would wear her skirt, was a majestic tail, silver in color. It was a beauty, iridescent, wide at the waist but narrow where the flipper protruded. It flexed, shimmering with lustrous color under the rays of the luminous sun.

My brain could not compensate for both the agony and the impossibility of a girl with the tail of a fish.

I screamed, the sound ripping itself from my throat. It was the sound of a wild man, a man losing his soul; it was a sound that I believed myself incapable of making until that moment. I screamed myself hoarse, until my throat rubbed raw against itself as I attempted to make noise, but the girl with a tail made no indication to move.

Finally, when all the noise and all the fight was drained out of me, sucked away and replaced by an exhaustion so heavy I felt it in my bones, the girl lunged into my view. I could not flinch away; my limbs dragged against each other as I attempted to move.

She opened her lips, a slash of bright color against the white sand, and I braced my body, stiffening away the best I could.

But she spoke not.

No, she sang.

And her song, oh her song, light, airy, melodious, unlike anything I had ever heard. It was distant at first, the hushed background noise of a radio while the channel is being adjusted. It was still one of the most beautiful sounds in the world.

Then I began to listen.

It was harmonious, it was precise, her song was in tune with the rhythmic beating of my heart.

A magical spell was woven in her music, in her song, in her voice. Her voice wove threads in my mind, dulled it until I could no longer refuse to obey, fogged the rest of my brain until the slapping of ocean waves no longer registered. The color of my vision faded, her face disappearing, only her voice left as my guiding focus.

Her voice paralyzed my body. I could not flinch, I could not tremble, I could not resist.

So, I obeyed her song.

And my mind slept.

***

For a second time, my mind stirred, and my eyes fluttered open. The aching in my bones was now a lingering memory, my pain receptors somehow dulled so my body was temporarily relaxed from the pain. There was faint light filtering from above, though my eyes were staring straight ahead at the slate cavernous ceiling of a cave. My body rested on a surface more solid than the sand had been, but my fingers twitched unconsciously and stroked against the slippery silk of cloth.

I shifted my body; there was heat flaring over my body suddenly, so thick it weighed heavy in my chest and lungs. I coughed, a million bees buzzed in my mouth and throat.

Immediately, there was relief in the form of a cool, soaked rag draped against the delicate skin of my forehead. The difference in temperature was as distinct as the difference between black and white. Water trickled down the sides of my temples, and I sighed audibly.

The rag was a heavenly gift to me in my poor state.

I turned my face towards my savior as a blind man would to the sun, but, immediately, I recoiled and tried to shove myself further away.

The girl had placed the rag on my forehead and was now lifting it. I traced the paths of her slender hands with my eyes and watched as she dipped the rag into a small pot likely filled with water, allowing the cloth to become weighty. Then, in rapid, harsh movements, she retrieved the rag, squeezed the liquid from it thoroughly, and returned it to its position on my forehead.

Her hand brushed against the prickling skin on my forehead; her skin was smooth and soft against the dampness of my temple.

I stiffened, heart roaring to life, but there was no escape. Despite the lack of pain in my body, I was pinned between her and the cavern wall.

“Get away from me,” I demanded weakly, bursting into a fit of violent coughing that left me doubled over. Even speaking strained my voice after my bout of screaming…days ago? Hours ago? Time seemed to have passed so sluggishly since I fell from my plane that I could no longer tell.

She ignored me.

“Humans.” She clicked her tongue with strange indifference. Her voice was cool, evenly-pitched, almost throaty. It struck me as odd; after hearing her song, I had expected her speaking voice to also be honeyed and lilting. “So clumsy and fragile.”

Singing…

“What did you do to me?” I blurted in outrage and immediately regretted it when my throat ached.

“Hmm?” The girl swept the rag from my forehead, and, though the heat was swiftly returning, I shivered. “What did I do?”

“You forced me to sleep!” I protested.

“Oh, yes. That,” she replied tonelessly, as though it had suddenly occurred to her. “I sung to you.”

“You sung to me?” I managed to prop my head up at a slight angle; my eyes unconsciously travelled back to her waist.

I would have blushed at the shamelessness of my gaze, several years in the air force had not trained away the innocence and decency ingrained in me by my family and culture, but my eyes were then popping out of my head at her current lack of tail.

“You have legs!” I gasped audibly. “Where did your legs go?”

She rolled her cerulean eyes, a gesture usually found uncouth on most ladies but that strangely suited her. Once again, she ignored my question. “You have several broken ribs and deep surface wounds. None are critical, but some may scar and mar your pretty face.”

I was unsure if she meant that as a compliment.

The girl continued, “I have treated your wounds with a paste made of lavender and wintergreen; both are natural anesthetics. Your ribs I have numbed with a gel of clove oils. They must heal internally, and you must keep them tightly wrapped.”

“Why are you doing this?” I must have mumbled, and the girl smiled, a wolf smile not fit for her fair features.

“I don’t like my victims untainted.”

The air was snuffed from my lungs, and the blood must have drained from my face, leaving my countenance considerably paler, because the wolf girl’s wolf smile grew wider.

“Relax,” she purred, voice silky and deceptive. “I won’t harm you. I don’t like getting my hands dirty. I only sing humans to death; that’s where the fun is, the deception and the chase and the hunt. I’m a predator.”

Chills ran down my spine, warning bells echoing in my ears. “Dangerous girl, what kind of creature are you?” I managed to gasp through my strangled throat.

“Silly human boy.” Wolf girls’ laughs were not meant to sound like tinkling silver bells. “I am a monster. I lure boys like you in and watch you crash to your own death into rocks. I am a siren like in those myths humans are so proud of. I change form at will.” The tense silence that stretched between her next words brought tentative hope to my heart. “I will heal you, and then you will leave.”

I had no time to flinch when she yanked the threadbare fabric of my shirt up and ripped wraps of fabric away from the skin that covered my ribs. If the pain had not been dampened, I would have howled.

She would have likely sneered in satisfaction.

“Hold your shirt away from your skin,” the siren ordered, and I obeyed out of fear. “I must replace your bandages. I will return in a moment.”

I must have drifted off from the exertion of my body, because, when I focused my dazed eyes, there was a subtle gleaming between new cloth on my ribs, likely more numbing gel.

My stomach growled noisily.

Strange. My brain had not registered hunger.

The siren materialized at my side, clutching what appeared to be a hollow coconut shell. Something sloshed inside it as she shoved it none-to-gently toward me.

“What is that?” I mumbled. When she raised an eyebrow, I repeated my words with more volume.

“Food,” she replied crisply. “Careful when you raise yourself up.”

She lent no helping hand as I tenderly propped myself up, leaning my back against the hard rock behind me. I retrieved the shell from her hands, avoiding skin contact.

The liquid inside the coconut was thick and slightly murky, though the color was most likely due to the small herbs dotting its surface. I raised the lip of the shell to my mouth and tilted; the brew had a sharp, sour flavor that I did not shy away from. It reminded me of my mother Esther’s chicken stew, something I had not had in several years, or at least not since rationing began in England.

My hunger took over me, and I drained the shell. Some liquid dribbled over my lips as I swallowed; I wiped the excess away with the back of my hand as I set the shell on the cot besides me.

The siren watched me with clever eyes, smile finally gone.

Hunger momentarily quelled, my body not in any immediate trouble, I surveyed the cave in which we rested.

The space was small and tidy, furnished with a mishmash of objects like the cot I was laying on, a burgundy rug embroidered with ornate patterns, or the curtains of translucent cloth that fluttered as a light breeze brushed through the entrance of the cavern.

“Where am I?” I dared question.

“An island,” came her brief response.

“An island where?”

The siren’s eyes glimmered as jewels would. “That is not a concern of yours when you remain in this condition. You are to remain on this island, my island, under my care until you recover to near-perfect condition.”

“Do I have a say in this?”

“No.” Her refusal was perfunctory but decisive, and I realized that I did, in fact, not have a say in my condition.

“Sleep,” she instructed, and, though this time her words were more of a mere suggestion, I still heeded them.

For several days, we existed like that. I slept on the cot, feeling as if my legs were deteriorating from their lack of movement. The siren would drift into the cavern occasionally to change my bandages or apply more ointment or forcibly hand me a shell of the same brew. She would always disappear to the water at nightfall, always wearing dresses of the same nearly-sheer fabric. My pain remained numbed for most of the passing time, leaving me to assume that the siren slipped her painkilling substance in my meals.

We shared vague, undisturbed conversation. She never proved intimidating after the day I first awoke, though she behaved as if I remained uninteresting.

One of our exchanges went like this:

“Have you no name I may call you?” I asked her as she scraped a paste of herbs for my next ointment. It had been less than a week after I nearly drowned, and I lounged the best I could against the solid surface of the cot.

“What may I call you?” she shot back rapidly, clever hands at swift work.

I detected no venom in her taunts, a usual occurrence of late; it seems that she was beginning to warm up to me. “Klaus,” I told her.

“Klaus.” She tested my name several times, weighing it on her tongue with curiosity. “What is the significance of your name?” Her voice had taken a near childlike quality.

“It is a diminutive of Niklaus, which means victory of the people in a certain language.”

“Victory?” The siren’s full lips curled into a soft expression, lacking the sharpness of her wolf smile. “What war are you fighting?”

Her question struck a chord with me, and I laughed hollowly. “No war that I can win.”

She eyed me intuitively before nodding silently, her hair bobbing along with the movement of her head. “You may call me whatever you please. I have no name and have grown accustomed to the titles others award me.”

It took mere seconds until inspiration struck me. “May I call you Caroline?” I briefly knew a Caroline once, a daughter of distant family acquaintances, and something about the sharp stare of the curious siren reminds me of her.

The siren nodded her assent, and Caroline she became.

***

“Why do your fellow humans war in the sky and in the sea?” she questioned only a few days later.

I gaped at her in astonishment. This was one inquiry I had never expected. “We’re fighting a war,” I finally managed to reply. “The last war like this that my country fought in was called the war to end all wars. It seems that this might be the war to end all wars.”

“What is the conflict?”

“Conflict?” I echoed with bewilderment.

“Why does your country fight?”

“We must crush the forces that threaten the will of the world as I know it,” I stated, a sentiment I had heard from many of my fellow pilots.

She glances at me and then away, as if one view into my eyes has exposed my meager secrets. “And why do you fight?”

“I fight, because my country chose me to,” I reply swiftly, but she had heard what I had left unsaid

“But you do not choose to,” Caroline guessed.

My silence served as confirmation.

Her eyes softened to the closest that I had seen as kindness in her expressions. “It was never my intent to force you to sleep against your will,” she confessed, “but it was a necessity for your body to heal.”

“I have never had my mind turned against my will until that instance,” I commented quietly. “I never intend for it to happen again.”

“Take this as my word. Or, rather as my vow.” Caroline had been kneeling on the rug besides my cot, but, now, she rose to look down upon me. “I will never sing to you again,” she promised sincerely.

After that day, the last vestiges of our stony animosity were washed away, and we treated each other as equals, dare I say friends.

***

Several days later, Caroline determined that my wounds had healed well-enough for her to allow me to venture outside.

First, however, she urged me to practice walking around the cave.

It was easier said than done.

Despite Caroline’s assistance in slipping off the cot, the moment I attempted to stand I wobbled so critically that I would have fallen had Caroline not been there to catch me.

“Steady,” she murmured, eyes shifting down to my trembling legs. “Take this step by step, and, soon, you will be able to stand.”

How odd had our acquaintanceship become that it never once occurred to me to doubt her words.

Steady step by steady step, I spent hours that day relearning how to walk, and not once did Caroline ever leave my side.

At the end, I was trembling and sweating, my legs aching hollowly as if I had run miles and exerted my body more tremendously than I had done, but I had managed to walk the length of the cavern several times.

“What did I say?” Caroline crowed as I moved to perch on the edge of the cot in exhaustion.

“Even a blind miner strikes gold once,” I replied stubbornly.

The next day, Caroline dragged me from my cot early in the morning.

“What?” I groaned, rubbing my eyes blearily. My last meal had been last night, and her pain-numbing concoction’s effects were wearing off; I could feel the aching beginning, deep in my bones. If I still sustained true pain from my injuries, even after two weeks, it would hit sooner or later. “I think I’ll need more of your painkilling substance soon.”

“I will give it to you soon,” she promised sincerely, “but hurry!” Caroline bundled me towards the entrance of the cave while I tottered for balance. Her push was gentle but steady, and, slowly, I limped towards the lip of the cave, further than I had ever been.

I broke through the shadow of the cave, bare feet brushing against the velvety but grainy sand, my boats having left unworn in the cave for weeks, and gasped, heart nearly thudding out of my chest as I surveyed the landscape that unfolded below me.

The sun had just risen, casting yellow light that washed over the dark sea and formed a trail of white where the light hit the water. Around me, the dusky purple of the night sky was lightening for day, revealing a verdant forest of green to my right. The snow-like beach lay spread to my left, speckled with grey and brown boulders.

“Of all the sights in the world,” I breathed quietly, “this is one I am glad that never went unseen.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Caroline admitted. “Come.” She motioned with a single hand as she began to herd me down a gentle slope that led to the beach.

“You wouldn’t know?” I questioned curiously.

She shook my question off and took off running towards the long stretch of beach. “Chase me,” she demanded in a joyful cry.

I laughed loudly for the first time in weeks, and the sound echoed in the silence around me. I followed Caroline, trailing behind in a quick walk, not trusting my legs enough to run.

In front of me, Caroline reached the water and came to an abrupt halt. She waited a few moments for me to catch up, glancing back at me with invitation in the endless oceans that were her eyes. As I grew closer, she began to chuckle, a melody almost as stunning as her song.

She took a running start, water flying up behind her as she dashed forward, before diving forward into the water.

As her head became submerged in the water, the air surrounding her legs began to blur slightly, as if becoming covered with a smoke screen.

I will never be able to describe exactly how it happened, but it was almost magical, the way her legs metamorphized into her shimmering tail.

I had reached the edge of the water and hesitated slightly.

The memory began to loop itself in my head: how the water had reached into every crevice of my lungs, how it had filled my nostrils until I could no longer breath, how I had begun to choke, how the water weighed me down, dragging me further into its depths.

A cool spray of water slapped me in the face, and I gasped, breaking free from that nightmare’s hold, head turning to gaze at Caroline.

She had splashed me with the fin of her tail, and she did it again, sending a torrent of water splashing into my face.

I only blinked slowly as my hair became plastered to my head.

“Well,” she called eagerly, “are you coming in or not?” When I failed to respond after a brief pause, her face took on an expression of concern. “Oh. It did not occur to me that you may have retained a fear of the water after your near death.”

“No,” I said frantically, attempting to soothe her worries. “That is not what it is.”

She shook her head in refusal. “I am centuries old, Klaus. I am not oblivious. It should have occurred to me, I apologize.”

“No…really…” I sighed. “It is not right for me to be afraid.”

Caroline stared at me critically. “Why is it not right?” she asked calculatingly.

“Men in my society,” I began softly. “We are not supposed to have such ordinary weaknesses.”

Snorting in disbelief, she swam up to where the shallowness of the water began, and, when she edged out of the water, she walked on her feet, skin still covered by the cloth of her dress, now soaked and floating above the water.

I gaped briefly, amazed by her transformation.

She strode up to me, nearing closer until we were nose to nose. “That is complete and utter bullshit,” she snapped. “I have swum the waters of this world for far longer than you could imagine, and, of every man and women who have sailed these seas, for there have been many women, and who I have lured with my song, all were susceptible to ordinary weaknesses or fears. It is only natural. Every person has fears; one must simply be courageous enough to brave them.” Caroline seated herself on the sand and reached up a hand. “Come.”

I gently eased myself into the sand beside her. “You have lived long, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“Yet you have never seen the world,” I stated in confusion.

“I cannot,” Caroline explained. “It is not in my nature. I am not meant to walk among the humans; I am meant to be their death and destruction. I was created from sea foam to be such.”

“You walk alongside me; you have cared for me.”

She laughed in melancholy. “That is different. I will never be able to live amongst the humans; there is no point in pretending otherwise.”

“If I could,” I breathed. “I would take you anywhere in the world. You deserve to see it as such.”

“That is the kindest offer anyone has ever made me.” Her smile could have launched a thousand ships; she would have been Helen of Troy, her beauty amplified by her happiness.

I do not know how we shifted until our sides were pressed together; I could feel the heat of her skin brushing against mine through the thin fabric of her dress and my trousers.

She turned her face towards mine, and I must have done the same for our lips were touching.

Her lips were soft as they brushed against mine, a whisper of butterfly wings.

Our kiss was sweet and soulful, but there was a dissonant cacophony of danger bells clanging themselves in my head.

I reached a tender hand to cup her face, stroking my thumb over her cheekbone, before slowly drawing my head back.

“I cannot,” I apologized in a hushed voice. “In other circumstances, I would be able to love you, but I cannot now. My heart already belongs to another.”

Her eyes were understanding. “Who?”

“I can only show you.”

So, my heart writhing in emotional pain, I led her back to the cave and to the heap where my bomber jacket and boots lay. From that inner pocket, I withdrew my compass. Amazingly, it remained intact, despite all the trauma it had gone through; the lid was only the slightest bit dented. I flipped it open to reveal the photograph that lay embedded within.

“This is Camille,” I stated softly. “We met as children.”

The photograph was from that last occasion we saw each other before my training, before she had gone off to work as a nurse in the war hospitals; we had gone dancing. Though the print was black and white, my mind filled in the brassy yellow of her hair - not too dissimilar to Caroline’s, the flecks of green and grey in her eyes, the rosy red of her cheeks. She remained burned in my memory: her sparkling eyes, her angular chin, the narrows of her delicate hands, the melody of her laugh.

“Do you love her?” Caroline’s eyes were glossy with unshed tears, but there was a ghost of a smile on her lips.

“Very much.” A lovestruck expression overtook my face. “She is kind but witty; her words can be barbs on her tongue, but she never wields them to hurt, only to sooth.”

“She sounds lovely.”

“She is.” I nodded eagerly.

Caroline laughed without venom. “Love is the one human emotion I never understood,” she said straightforwardly. “I believe I never will.”

I could not respond to that.

***

For days after, conversation between us remained stilted and awkward until, one day, Caroline sat me down and forced me to talk about Camille.

“I’m a sucker for love stories,” she demanded.

I could only oblige.

From then, we laughed and talked the way we had before.

A day almost four weeks later, Caroline declared that my injuries had healed almost fully.

“Now what?” I inquired as I perched on the edge of my cot.

“I do not know.” She shrugged, hands fiddling with the cloth of her dress. “Let us eat while we ponder your next opportunities”

After another meal of broth, we traveled out the beach. My fear of the water had dulled slightly, enough that I did not panic when we waded out into the water as we were currently doing.

“It never seemed that you wished to fight in your human war,” Caroline told me.

“That is true,” I remarked. “I was drafted; I had no choice.”

“Do you not need to return?” she asked.

“I do not know,” I replied truthfully.

The war had not occurred to me in all my weeks with Caroline; it was a thing of the outside world, distant and nearly forgotten.

“I do not need to,” I mused. “I could stay here with you.”

Her eyes flashed. “No, you would not survive here. Humans have short lives, and yours would end soon enough. I would be lonely again. Besides, you have family and someone who loves you.”

“You can come with me!” I cried passionately.

She barked a bitter laugh. “I have already told you, Klaus. I cannot be a human; I cannot live amongst them.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

Her wolf smile had returned. “You are so naïve,” Caroline hissed. “I bring death with my song. I would destroy humanity. It is not a choice; it is a compulsion. I stayed away from humans for a reason, watching from a distance. You showed me the best of humanity, but even my song was too much for you. My song will ruin you; we will never be able to live together in harmony anywhere.”

There was a flood of agony to my heart and head. “I have never met a soul like you,” I said, trying to appeal to her. “We could figure it out together.”

Her angry demeanor cracked as her eyes flooded with tears. “It will not work,” she stated simply, turning her face away.

“How do you know?” I protested.

“You will never understand.” She rose elegantly, like a queen. “Come with me.”

I did not follow. “Why?” I asked stubbornly, holding my ground, bare toes digging into the sand.

“Please.” Her airy voice cracked with emotion I could not understand.

At the pleading in her voice, I loosened my body and took a step towards her. “Fine.”

Briefly, there was brightness in her pained smile. She began to walk towards the cave, and I trailed behind her, my bewilderment growing as we entered the cave. Caroline grabbed my bomber jacket and stuffed it into my arms. “Put those on,” she ordered, gesturing to my boots. “You’ll need them where we’re going.”

I obeyed, asking as I balanced to pull my boots on, “Where are we going?”

Caroline held out a hand to me. “Wait.” The moment I had tied the laces of my boots and slid my jacket on, she led me out of the cave.

We traveled along the cave until the path became steeper and steeper, until I was gasping for breath, though Caroline remained unaffected, until the cave became a mound of rock surrounded by dirt. We were crossing to a side of the island I had never seen before, following the line of trees from the forest but never venturing inside. Finally, roughly ten minutes later, we arrived at a small cove with a direct view to the sea. I stopped at the entrance while Caroline ventured to a large rocky overhang.

From its shadow, she heaved out, with incredible strength, a vast wooden platform, made of logs tied tightly together, with a narrow paddle attached.

It was a raft.

“Sirens have always had an innate sense of the sea. For example, I know that, if you paddle out for a few hours and drift in the same direction for some more, you will find yourself in the path of a ship,” she told me nonchalantly. “It could be a U-boat, but it is more likely to be one of your country’s boats.”

“I do not understand,” I stuttered.

On the contrary, however, a small seed of comprehension began to sprout in my mind.

“You do not need to.”

Then, she opened her mouth again, lips stretched wide, and I understood.

Caroline began to sing.

It was a terrible song, music of hopelessness and frustration and sorrow and loss. Her voice, as airy and beautiful as it was, was also rough and full of turmoil, a voice of grated rocks and sharp edges. One listen would open up your heart, one listen would cut a wound, one listen would cause bleeding.

I tried to steel myself against her voice; I stilled my heart and mind, left them as hardened as possible.

It was futile.

Her song drove itself into my mind, wrapped itself around my heart. Her warbling ordered my feet to move against my will, to stride toward the raft and toward her in clumsy steps.

My body couldn’t resist as it stumbled toward her.

I came to stand in front of her.

“Why, why are you doing this?” I cried emotionally. “Let me stay here with you.”

At that moment, all thought of the war, of my home, of my Camille were driven from my mind; my only focus was Caroline.

She turned her head to face me, still singing. Her eyes were wide, the endless water in the endless oceans of her eyes finally spilling over and down her quivering cheeks as she took miniscule gasping breaths between notes. Her lips met and parted as she articulated her music.

My body moved itself to the raft and tugged it further to the ocean tide that teased the shore.

Of my own accord, I called out to her, but my helpless pleading fell on deaf ears.

I was seated on the raft, able to sprawl my full body across it and still reach the oar.

Caroline continued to sing.

“Please…” was all I could manage.

She gave me a bitter, sea salt smile as one of my hands lifted the oar.

No amount of resistance could tear my palms from the oar as my arms began to paddle, pulling the raft into the hungry tide. The song never lifted from my mind, though my heart remained free to beat in relentless agony.

As the raft began to drift into the ocean, my head was forced to turn to face the water, until I could no longer see Caroline.

Only her voice continued, tainting itself into my ears.

Her song changed suddenly, no longer heavy or dark but now light and freeing. There was loss, yes, but it was overcome by the coolness of sacrifice, by the sweetness of innate selflessness.

The siren’s song remained in my ears all the way to sea…

[altscige]

『MADELYN CLINE ❙ CIS FEMALE』 ⟿ looks like SAIGE BEAUMONT is here for HER JUNIOR year as a LINGUISTICS student. SHE is 21 years old & known to be BLITHE, ENERGETIC, EVASIVE & IRRATIONAL. They’re living in NOLAND, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ JAMES. 20. EST. SHE/THEY.

hi sorry this took so long i ws on hiatus bt turns out thts exactly how long i need to churn out these new blogs so BJKSADNKFJG also r i p babe bt i miss saige ... she’s an old muse of mine n she’s rly grand i think pls love her ok thank u pls LIKE this if u’d like to plot

TW CHILD ABUSE, DRUG USE, ALCOHOLISM, ADDICTION, DEATH, HIT & RUN CAR ACCIDENTS, GRIEF, GUILT

aesthetics.

stick n’ pokes at 2am – when your drunk and giggling too much in between purposeful stabs, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk because they’re bad luck and they’ll break your mother’s back – even if your mother doesn’t love you, because you love her, the familiar riff in an old song – one that’s got you strumming along silently; there is no guitar, only empty air lit by the christmas lights you haven’t taken down. it’s may. swallowing down shots, and by default, swallowing down problems. laughing quick, easily, constantly. skinned knees from skateboarding, despite being rubbish at it. wishes on eyelashes stuck to your cheekbones, glitter sticking, running into the ocean at sunrise; feeling at home. excuses, and the many forms they come in. telling people you love them through hand squeezes and fresh muffins, sideways glances and soft, eager grins.

basic info.

full name: saige alouette beaumont

nickname(s): n/a :/ give her some

b.o.d. - july 7th, cancer

label(s): the hedonist, the icarcian, the reveler, etc.

height: 5′7″

hometown: thibodaux, louisiana

sexuality: bisexual w/ a very slight preference towards masc-presenting folks

pinterest

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inspired by: serena van der woodsen (gossip girl), aimee gibbs (sex education), alexis rose (schitt’s creek), elle woods (legally blonde), rapunzel (tangled), clementine (eternal sunshine of a spotless mind), angela montenegro (bones), tinkerbell (peter pan), late 2000 / early 2010s kesha... i don’t know because she’s not actually inspired by anybody i made her when i was like 13 HDSJBKFNGHJLDS

biography.

the fallible daughter of two very infallible people: robert beaumont, US lieutenant general (soon to be US general), and manon lévesque, world renowned fashion designer on levels par with gucci and versace. both cold, calculating, and purposeful.

no matter how much she wants to believe otherwise, saige is sure that she was not created out of love. it was an action with a purpose, intentions to create the perfect child. the hybrid of both military genius and fashion extraordinaire. a proper socialite. a 1% citizen. molded to their will.

born in thibodaux, louisiana (surrounded by her father’s family - a long line of old money southern magnates & moguls with a history of beauty pageant winners in each woman) - it took them no more than six months after her birth for her parents to up and move, thus beginning a cycle of packing and unpacking, flying and driving, state-to-state and country-to-country. the longest saige had ever stayed in one place was two years, until radcliffe. even then - conditioned to never become truly attached to a place, she has the urge to up and run away at any given moment, onto the next adventure.

she was kept on a short leash, home-schooled, and learning skills she had no interest in (from cooking to sewing to ballroom dancing - to fencing and firearm safety and self defense) - more like a pet, a project, than a child. the world moved all around her, but she was bound to what her parents allowed her to see. a bird in a cage of thorns.

it was hard to keep and maintain friends - there one day, gone the next. a ghost you could see, clear as day, but never touch - never fully, at least. even if she tried with all her might. 

would run from bodyguards (their version of nannies - robert beaumont is a paranoid man with too many enemies to count) into festival crowds and climb out of windows in the middle of the night to swim in lakes with the locals she’d met only hours earlier - as soon as she realized that there was something wrong with the way she lived.

even if it resulted in punishment, military exercises in the form of her own personal boot camp (she’d been forced to do chin-ups, once, when she ripped an expensive gown at the tender age of seven. not since, however, after she wound up sobbing on the floor - instead they moved on. delicate teacups stacked across her back as she did push-ups, the more she did the more that slipped & broke)

she absorbed as she could, as much as she could get; an intense, undying love for a world she always craved to see.

this was the start of something dangerous - a phase that never seemed to end, rebellion coursing through her veins. a wild child in the making, unknowing of limits. she landed herself in any crowd she could squeeze into - bad crowds, in particular and more often than not - they introduced her, the sheltered girl, into a world she hadn’t quite known existed until then.

ran away briefly at the age of fifteen with a man three years older than her & nearly ended up in a tabloid magazine because of it - if it hadn’t been for her parents’ money. though guilt from her parents’ disappointment weighed on her, the thrill fueled something much worse.

from there on, she’d been labeled as a ‘problem child’ - from public intoxication to vandalism, it was clear their daughter was unraveling and nothing could possibly contain her.

boarding school had been an attempt to stop it, enrolled her freshmen year in hopes that she’d come out a proper woman. but being located in new york with easy access to the upper east side of manhattan - it’d been futile.

there’d only been a few significant events during her time there - the death of a classmate (one of her closest friends’ boyfriends) and a ski trip that nearly resulted in her own death, skiing while drunk on a closed off course, in memory of him and the traditions they’d had. the first time she fell in love, and months of pining - running in circles, fights and hiccups and confessions in the dramatic manner all high school relationships seem to be like. they’d finally gotten together - officially, no more sneaking around or pretending - when her parents paid a surprise visit. a rare occasion, nerve-wracking. dangerous. to keep a story short - she’d accidentally exposed her own drug use in their presence, the simple act of pills falling from a purse - and that’d been it. she was gone the next day, with no word to anybody and hardly a word since.

they told family she needed a change of pace, and rumors in her old school said that she’d been expelled, that she’d been sent to the french countryside to live with her grandmother.

she’d only gone to washington, that was all. france was too good, and she was too undeserving. instead she was enrolled in public school, only a quarter through her junior year. her parents rarely spoke to her - rarely in town, the only eyes kept on her were security cameras and the occasional check-in by family friends (the new word for bodyguards, apparently)

but as always - when left alone, saige scrambled to find somewhere she fit, somewhere to tuck herself away in the comfort of other people. a small group, but a loyal group - harmless minus a few miscellaneous charges that they said every small town kid had, at some point. they were safe, they were family - as close as she could get. at least, she had thought so. had really believed it.

she hadn’t intended to go to university after graduating high school, not yet eighteen - not for another month or two, at least. she wanted to travel, meet new people and learn new languages (she’d learned four, already, but had always been a glutton. craved to know more, as if she unlocked secrets with every phrase she could speak) and just. exist.

maybe she should’ve. should’ve left as quick as possible, and never turn back.

saige mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for an entire year, the entirety of her 18th year on earth, before promptly showing up at radcliffe university, ready to learn.

it’d been a year of legal cases & lawsuits & avoiding prison with expensive lawyers and a lot of money.

the getaway driver for an armed robbery at a bank, an unknowing accomplice until her supposed friend ran out from the building and jumped in her car, screaming for her to drive, drive, drive. it had only supposed to have been a quick stop before a road trip to the coast. nobody was supposed to get hurt. but scared, and high, saige had obeyed - and by doing so, led a police chase and, of course, a hit & run that eventually led to saige crashing the car midst breakdown.

the sole victim survived, thankfully - and the beaumonts have been paying the medical bills since. her friend - the one who started it all - was charged & sentenced. but saige got off relatively scot-free. just a year of community service, a slap on the wrist (and the growing wallets of all involved in handling her case). it would’ve made national news if her parents hadn’t stepped in - favors called, resulting in only local headlines.

they hadn’t spoken to her since then. three years of radio silence. she’d think they were dead if it hadn’t been the steady flow of money in her bank account. their silence only feels like a threat of what’s to come if she fucks up again.

ever since - she’s avoided causing too much trouble, still very much the party girl she’d like to be, but staying out of headlines and tabloids. partially in fear of her parents finally cutting ties, permanently, and partially in fear that she’ll end up costing someone else their life with her own selfishness.

personality.

she is so ... bubbly. so fucking bubbly. she’s has so much energy in her. goes running every morning and every night and swims almost every afternoon and she’s never tired, even if she hasn’t slept the last night and even if she’s been dancing for five hours in a club in high heels and nothing but vodka in her system. the personification of a coke bottle shaken up, if the coke bottle in question could laugh and smile at you and make you feel, somehow, at home even though you’d only met her in the bathroom queue.

tries her hardest to be the happy fun friend, the cool friend, the one who can hook you up with whatever you need because she sleeps with her drug dealer and gets discounts, but like, it’s totally okay because they’re also friends.

generally comes off as very confident of herself, and fearless, and reckless but like - fun reckless. the kind of reckless you wouldn’t mind to be around because she takes your worries and acknowledges them and reassures you that it’s fine, that it’s grand, even when it may definitely not be.

takes a lot. so much. could ramble for days, hand gestures and all. never stops talking. never.

if she wants to do something, she’ll do it and there’s not very much you can do to stop her. stubborn, but at the same time easy going? very go go go. mischievous. even if she’s trying to do something stupid you kind of just like ... have to let her do it, or otherwise she’ll mope for three hours and pout at you and then you’ll feel questionably guilty, which is admittedly a little manipulative on her end and isn’t the best thing, but i never said she’s the best person ever because she’s most certainly ... not.

a vegetarian because meat makes her physically sick, like, she’s got a weird intolerance to it and it’s not quite an allergy because it’s really just red meats but she’ll get a tummy ache.

her vocabulary consists of a lot of ‘likes’ and ‘ums’ and ‘yknows’, y’know? her statements always sound like questions. 

99% sure she has adhd but she’s never been diagnosed because her parents simply would not allow her to go to therapy so if she does have any neurological disorders, mental illness, and the likes of those - she doesn’t know and doesn’t know where to even begin to find out. her parents? fucking suck.

like i said, she’s currently not on speaking terms with them. more of their decision than hers. she still loves them, a lot - and there’s a part of her that believes that they still love her, that they have to, because she’s not disowned yet. even though they haven’t said more than ten words to her since she was eighteen - as long as they keep sending her money, they still care - right?

owns four cars ... bad idea considering her past, but alas. spending her money is a coping mechanism and she likes to drive because it’s a form of freedom. anyways. all her cars are on campus and she’s probably not allowed to have them all on campus but she does. one’s a sleek sports car, the other is a jacked up pick-up truck that’s decked out in like ... LED lights and shit, the third one is the same exact fucking mustang from the princess diaries because she’s obsessed with the movie & usually gets what she wants. the fourth is a mini cooper.

she’s a photographer (for funsies) and the walls of her room in noland are covered in photographs and art and taped-down plants. her room in general is really cluttered. like, it’s super homey. super cozy. but it’s a mess. clothes everywhere, she’s got a pile of instruments and other miscellaneous hobbies that she wanted to do and then either never did, or did for a few days and got bored of and haven’t touched since. 

i mentioned earlier that she was taught a bunch of skills when growing up - and like, she doesn’t really utilize any of them? knitting, sewing, cookie, three different forms of ballroom dancing - all gone to waste and she’s pretty rusty on most of it, but it’s there. in her mind. it’s kind of neat and i promise she’s not a mary sue it’s just her upbringing HBSJKDFNLG she’s really nuanced i swear. anyways she can also work a gun and a car engine but hates half of the things she knows how to do because she was forced to learn these things.

she plays bass guitar. loves it, loves her guitar. treasured item. she knows violin & piano too but she fucking hates piano & is mostly indifferent towards violin. she can hold a note in other instruments but it’s like. not great. 

got really into languages at a young age due to her constant traveling and started learning them unprompted. her mother is like. literally french. a french citizen. so she grew up learning english & french but from there on she’s gotten fluent in spanish (similar 2 french) and latin (dead languages are fun) and then she’s working on a few others like mandarin and german and scottish gaelic specifically but she mostly just knows a few phrases here and there. like, enough to get her through a city if needed.

like she’s super smart and very talented but she’s also ditzy as hell. big dumbass energy to the point where maybe you don’t realize that she’s actually really good at a lot of things because it’s not like she really flaunts it either?

she’s just very reckless, and very much a party girl. has quite the collection of drugs & uses socially, but also alone and throughout the day. rarely sober.

high functioning alcoholic and at this point she doesn’t really know what she’s like when she’s completely sober? which is really bad but she’s convinced that if she goes sober she’ll just be miserable and horrible because at her very core she believes she’s like. the worst human being alive. like very deep issues of self loathing covered by baileys in her morning coffee and 23 crystal lite packets in her yeti cup that happens to be filled with vodka. 

this has been a budding problem that was developed since she was a young teenager. the ehem. situation that happened when she was eighteen only amplified it.

is essentially wearing a mask of confidence and giddiness and flirtatiousness because she doesn’t want people to think she’s not doing well, because she isn’t. 

loves so much. loves everything, so much. everything, everybody. falls in love like five times a day but nothing really sticks to her either, for the most part. i hate to say it but she does flock to shitty people / general assholes because that’s just ... how she is, that’s what she’s surrounded herself with her entire life. even her high school boyfriend was an asshole - just like, not to her, which made it Okay in her mind. she finds these kind of people like ... super interesting which is really questionable but y’know what? we’re fine. it’s fine. i’m fine.

she sleeps around often, to be frank. she hates being alone and she rarely sleeps in her own dorm unless someone is in there sleeping with her. otherwise she’s at different houses. could be a friend’s bed, could be a stranger’s. has slept with the entire baseball team, probably. she’s also the type of person who’ll try and maintain a positive, good friendship with whoever she sleeps with because she hates the idea of having a regrettable encounter and just. refuses.

this is kind of a problem because she blurs the lines between friendship and Something More too often, and with too many people. wants to be loved but it’s never enough. probably ends up hurting people without realizing it because they think they have something super special but she does this with a lot of people and it’s super :/

does stick and pokes a whole bunch. she can’t draw for shit so they’re not great but she thinks they’re fun and she’s been doing it for a while so like, who cares, right? let her give you one :)

gets sent dress prototypes and like. drafts of designs & articles of clothing from her fashion lines that aren’t out yet and won’t be for a while by her very own mother. saige absolutely gives them all away, for the most part. or it sits in her closet, and stays there. her go-to gift for birthday presents, or christmas gifts, or whenever she feels like it. like, feel free to raid her closet?

ok that’s all. love her.

wanted connections.

a best friend... someone who sticks by her side even though she is a certified Mess.

a ride or die... is it the same as a best friend? maybe. but it’s got a fancy name and i want both so :)

close friends... she’s really friendly and the kind of girl to have been really popular in high school but didn’t care for it and talks to everybody like she’s known them her entire life, so. she’d have a good amount of these!

grumpy friend... to balance her happy friend. she’ll fuck them up in a friendship way. with her cheerfulness.

party pals... they don’t talk much outside of parties but they’re practically glued to the hip when they’re at them. hold your hair back kind of close.

frenemies... or fake friends, toxic friends, people who use her for money or like ... sex, or whatever? anything? people who barely tolerate her because she gives them stuff sometimes.

bad influences... they just encourage her to do more, be worse, never get better.

good influences... like ... YOINK! stop being an idiot! do your homework! idot!

a tutor... because she’s like...smart...but she’s also stupid...super bad at math & science. help her.

hook ups... friends with benefits, a one night stand that is a little? awkward? since then. past & present tenses. :)

exes... she’s noncommittal so they likely wouldn’t have lasted very long but? yolo? she can be a heartbreaker, as marina said, as a treat? whether they dated or were fucking ... either works. but i do love angst :)

one-sided hatred... someone who just fucking ... despises her. but she doesn’t realize because she’s an idiot and thinks they’re just like. joking around! like they’re best buddies!

annoyance... but she’s the annoyance. she’s the thorn in their side. 

ex-best friend... where something happened between them, like, anything, and it ruined their friendship forever. very sad. angst potential, though.

but like. i’ll take anything.

steals your mail... who knows why?

cat escape... he keeps running away and she keeps letting him inside her room even though she’s allergic...

married old couple... the kind of friendship where they always bicker like they’ve been together for fifty years, but it’s purely platonic (or is it? slowburn BAYBEY. DENIAL babyey.)

off and on again... i think that one that’s not good for them because they enable each other & only get like ... angry at each other, and it’s like, messy. but it’s super hard to stop. probably reminds her of high school so that’s why she tries so hard to stick around, but alas. it’s not good. it’s toxic. stop it. 

the drug dealer... the one she sleeps with... even though she can just pay for it because she’s rich but like. it’s funner this way.

blurred status... like, it’s just really confusing of what they are? are they, aren’t they? the relationship status is just ... muddled. she’s a mess and gets involved with too many people without intending to. potential to hurt feelings. :)

please. take her. give me connections.

[yeoldontknow]

Sheltered Hearts: 3

Author’s Note: i am slightly late with this update, but its still his birthday in my time zone so happy birthday yoongs <3 its been a very long time since ive been in this universe, but i admit it was A LOT of fun being back. this chapter is dedicated to @iq-biased​ who has been the most engaged and encouraging reader, and this story’s biggest advocate. i love u <3  Pairing: Yoongi x Reader (oc; female) Genre: enemies to lovers au; vet au; romance; fluff; angst Rating (this chapter): PG-13 Warnings: light swearing; medical talk; depictions of surgery on a dog (these are not graphic); depictions of blood; depictions of exposed bone (again, not graphic); yoongi being a big softie but trying to be tough about it; reader is too proud to admit she has a crush; big science brains Word Count: 7.2K

masterlist

Dr. Kern agrees to meet you at his medical lab two hours north, replying to your initial request email with an expediency that both is both surprising and reassuring. With his confirmation of interest, Dr. Hague approves the journey, handing you a thumb drive containing Casper’s CT, MRI, and X-Ray scans and affirmations of optimism. 

Poised and graceful, Yoongi leans against his desk and watches this exchange with an expression you find uncharacteristically warm. A small smile plays at his cheeks, gaze focused intently on your hand you pocket the drive, neither supportive nor encouraging merely interested, his eyes twinkling with a hidden mischief married with unbridled fascination. 

The arresting combination of these things transforms him, breath halting in your throat as it is caught off guard by his sudden shift into someone boyish, sweet, and young. Blinking, you wait for the vision to dissipate, but his smile remains, his focus is unwavering, and the swell of his cheeks almost too youthful for the terse man you know him to be. 

Something about his gaze feels too interested, too curious, and you find yourself starting to bristle, all at once vulnerable and exposed. You always knew he burned with great intensity, his steadfast attention penetrative, rooting around in you, though not altogether combative. In this brief moment of silence, you realize he is learning you, seeing you, and you think, perhaps, this is the first time you have truly been witnessed. 

‘I’ll go with you to meet him,’ he resolutely declares, arms crossed over his chest in casual nonchalance. 

With this sudden announcement, Yoongi breaks the spell he cast of his own accord, the low rumble of his voice wiping away the embers of passion you saw in him. His lips crease back into the impartial emptiness he usually wears, corners of his mouth always threatening to turn downward into a frown. Bewildered, you wonder which of these dichotomous versions is the real Yoongi, which shell takes work to push and hide away. 

Dr. Hague hums in approval, nodding his encouragement. Gaze shifting between both their placid, understanding stares, witnessing their silent conversation, the first tendrils of exasperation floods your synapses. Hands at your sides, you wait for the frustration you normally feel to follow suit, but it never comes. You wait and wait, expecting a snide remark from Yoongi or expecting your chest to boil with the threat of being challenged, but all you can manage is a tepid pool of annoyance, twisting your usual fervor for independence into a tired exclamation of impatience. 

‘Why?’ you toss with a roll of your eyes, grabbing your things before exiting the office. ‘You don’t think I can handle dropping off some stem cells and scans?’

A bemused chuckle follows behind you, Yoongi pushing himself from the desk to trail behind, hot on your heels. The easiness of his amusement bores through you, sees beyond your pretense of anger, and, even without looking, you know he pleased.

‘I already told you,’ he explains with a click of his tongue. ‘Knowing a biomedical engineer is impressive.’ Pausing briefly, he collects his thoughts for the timing and you cock an eyebrow, not bothering to face him. ‘And I’ll be damned if you’re the only one who gets to be impressive around here.’ 

‘I swear -’ you begin, turning abruptly to cast him a glare you know will be nothing like the withering heat you wish it would be, but you find yourself cut off.

Yoongi winks at you, almost friendly, silencing you with this sudden affable nature as he walks past, a grin tugging at his lips.

The drive up the lab is mostly quiet, though not altogether tense. 

He’d offered to take his car, citing comfortable seats and better mileage, though even in the way he phrased it you could sense there was an ulterior motive. Nonetheless, you agreed, glad to not have to drive the two hours there and back again. 

Now, sitting in the front passenger seat, you realize his sole purpose for this offer was the music. Phone pressed into the console, a playlist of his own creation floods the speakers, songs you’d never heard before across multiple genres that ease him into the seat as he drives. So, too, do CD’s litter the car, pressed into side compartments and holders latched onto both sun visors strain to contain the numbers he has forced into their pockets. Surrounded by music, he appears an entirely different creature, elegant, serene, and utterly peaceful, you find no trace of his usual incisive attitude. 

The sudden inclusion into what would normally be considered a private space makes your palms feel clammy, uncertain how to rationalize the man you know with the details you find. Fast food wrappers are crumbled into a plastic, makeshift garbage back at your feet; a tiny, framed portrait of a kitten dangles from the rearview mirror rather than an air freshener; the seats of his car a deep, tan leather rather than the black you would have assumed he’d select. In his car, you find you know even less about him than you thought you did, all your assumptions and expectations molding together to place a slight throb at your temple. 

Beside you, Yoongi seems unaware of your struggle. If anything, it appears he doesn’t even notice you at all, relaxed into his seat as his hands grip the wheel with a tenderness you’ve only seen reserved for an animal. The morning sun changes the shadows and colours that usually settle on his skin, carving a dignified symmetry into the line of his jaw. If he feels the touch of your eyes against his features, he does not let on, allowing you to scrutinize the proportions of his cheeks, his lips, his ears - his regal profile turning your mouth dry. 

His eyes remain trained on the road with a stoicism you find blissful. Strands of his hair, pale blonde and taking on the myriad of shades contained within the sun, fall into his eyes, which he does not both to move. Messy, and soft, and entirely, woefully, human. In this comfortable silence, you admit that he is beautiful - beautiful, and flawed, and unashamed of the mess he makes, more alive than you have ever seen him.

Tearing your gaze away, you study the passing trees and cloudless morning, doing your best to remember when or why you decided he was someone cruel, someone who surrounds himself in negativity. With you, he has always been stern, detached at best, yet never deliberately mean, and your stomach drops at the realization he has done little more than wound your pride. For months, you’d been running circles around one another, your remarks simply a retaliation for his blithe announcement of assumptions you both knew were true.

 From the start, he saw through the heart of you, and you wonder when you had ever chosen to let him in.

When he pulls up to the lab, adrenaline floods your body. Here, even in the parking lot, you can feel the looming presence of purpose, potential, power. You are unashamed of the excited way you scramble out of the car, stretching briefly before slinging your bag over your shoulder and taking hurried steps towards the door. You don’t make it far, ears catching quickly that it is only your steps, your feet pressing against the uneven gravel, and so you look back, concerned.

Yoongi stares at the building with childlike apprehension, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, suddenly appearing impossibly, endearingly small.

‘What’s wrong?’ The question is sincere, and you don’t bother hiding the concern in your voice.

Unmoved, he continues to regard the dark windows and limestone front, the awning detailing only a number in an effort to remain anonymous. 

‘He agreed to see the scans,’ he announces, voice loud enough to carry but soft enough to give away his uncertainty. ‘There’s still a chance he might not help Casper. He just might not be able to’

As he finishes speaking, his eyes find yours, the care and the doubt you find catching you off guard. Looking at him now, you realize he likely hasn’t slept, bags puffing beneath his eyes, and his pout sheepish.  Nothing in his gentle wording exists to pull apart your ideas, to put blocks, to make things difficult. In him, you sense the fear, the worry. Shifting your weight from foot to foot, you watch the way he clenches his jaw, lips thin as he chews the inside of his cheek. Suddenly overwhelmed by his unspoken affection, you allow yourself to soften for him, if only because you know he cares just as much as you.

‘But,’ you counter, ‘there’s a very real possibility he can. And that’s what we have to hold onto.’ 

 Yoongi’s gaze hardens, resolute as he nods, lips forming into a small smile of gratitude.

It’s the most you’ve ever seen him give over into kindness, and the first time he has ever relied on you for anything beyond a chart or a schedule reference. Briskly, he walks past you, pulling open the door and holding it for you, expectant. Swallowing thickly, you hurry towards the entrance, mind fuzzy with too many incoherent and inconsistent emotions. 

Dr. Kern comes to greet you only a few minutes after the receptionist notifies of him of your arrival, his handshake strong and welcoming. He leads you towards his office, a small space littered with papers, charts, models of bone structures, two oversized prints of the periodic table framed on his wall between his degree credentials. 

‘Thank you so much for meeting with us at such short notice,’ you offer, taking a seat in front of his desk. 

‘No problem,’ he says, congenially. ‘For me, this case is highly intriguing.’

Yoongi clears his throat, taking the seat beside you with careful movements. ‘I’m hoping I don’t sound...ungrateful, but may I ask why you agreed to help?’ he questions gently, hands running over the arms of the seat, over and over. ‘Do you work in veterinary science? I’m sorry if that comes across badly, I just have never met a biomedical engineer.’

Dr. Kern nods in understanding. ‘It’s alright. I imagine it’s surprising that I’d want to investigate an animal case.’ Reaching into his desk, he pulls out two files, sliding one to you and one to Yoongi. ‘When 3D printing first became reasonably affordable and partially available to the public, I saw limitless potential. I’ve spent a significant amount of time working in labs across the country throughout my career, and I can think of hundreds of cases where printing like this could have potentially saved lives.’ 

He pauses, giving you the opportunity to read through the file. Everything pertaining to his lab, the printing, the technology, the materials they use is included. Most importantly, right at the start, is a mission statement focused on ingenuity in the effort of maintaining quality of human life.

‘I started and funded this lab with my own money,’ he continues, leaning back in his tall leather chair and folding his hands. ‘It’s important, I think, to welcome a new era for medicine. Doing so means you welcome a new era for hope.’

Eyes still scanning the pages, you’re aware you’ve taken on a wistful, altogether too hopeful expression. In medicine, hope is necessary, but it cannot be your crutch, the elation of such a feeling allowing carelessness and ego sink in, creating delusions of grandeur. But here, now, you let it wash over you, unwilling to let it stop. 

‘There’s something cosmically magical about that power, isn’t it?’ you muse, hoping to share in this enthusiasm with him. ‘To choose the paradigm you want to shift.’ 

From the corner of your eye, you see Yoongi look up from the file, eyes taking their time as they pierce you. Keeping still, you train your focus on Dr. Kern, fingers pressing deeply into the file in your lap, hopeful he does not notice. Even as your vision blurs, eyes losing hold of the world around you, you feel him. You are starting to think you will always feel him.

Dr. Kern laughs, the sound jovial and forcing you back to reality. ‘That’s exactly the kind of thing I like to hear. That kind of drive, it was all over your email.’ Sitting up, he moves his mouse to wake his computer, glancing at you over his thickly rimmed glasses. ‘Now, show me these scans.’

He uploads the files from the thumb drive with a furrowed brow, lips pursed as you sit back in your seat, doing your best not to jitter your legs. In your peripheral, Yoogi appears just as tense and still, gnawing at the inside of his cheek once again. The silence consumes you, the kind that presses roughly at your spine and makes you wish for sound, the tick of a clock, the drip of a fountain. Eager, you break the silence with information you imagine will be pertinent.

‘As you saw in my email,’ you announce, leaning forward in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the screen, ‘there have been several studies where prosthetics like this have been made, the most recent being in the UK. There is precedent...’ your words drift, fading away and mildly disheartened by the lack of change in his expression. ‘Sorry, I’m just excited.’

At this, Dr. Kern breaks, an humming in consideration though he does not take his eyes off the 3D scans, moving his mouse slightly as he rotates them. ‘It’s alright. I’d be concerned if you weren’t.’

‘I’ve taken stem cell samples, as well,’ you add, ‘so new bone could possibly fuse together around the implant.’

His eyes move to yours, brows raised in pleasant surprise. ‘That’s very forward thinking of you.’ 

Beside you, Yoongi coughs gently, interjecting as politely as he can. ‘I admit,’ he begins, evenly, using a voice you’ve never heard him use. It’s soft, demure, and almost hopeful. ‘I feel a little out of my depth. After we took these scans, our conversation swiftly went from orthopedics into neuroscience and regenerative medicine. Having this technology…’ He falls quiet, slightly mystified. ‘The ability to reinvent and redefine the borders between disciplines is both overwhelming and inspiring.’

You study him, chest suddenly tight at his heartfelt compliment. He offers it with ease, as though he’s used to handling sweet words in his mouth, a slight blush creeping up his neck and ears, aware that he has humbled himself and unashamed of doing so. How easily he strips himself of pride, admits there is more for him to learn. How easily he makes himself small in front of you. This was not something you were prepared for, his presence looming against yours as it seeks connection, a bond, heated enough for him to feel him all over you. Like this, he towers over you, lacing his emotions with yours, and you, unhinged, allow him all the way in if only for this shared moment. 

‘I like you kids,’ Dr. Kern states plainly, his gaze moving between your awed expression and Yoongi’s soft flush of humility. ‘I knew I made the right choice offering to help.’ Leaning back in his chair, he lifts his hand from the mouse and waves you both forward. ‘Come take a look at this.’ 

Without hesitation, you and Yoongi leave your seats with care, your fists clenching and unclenching in an effort to suppress the trembling in your fingers. This, you think, is how it feels to stand on the precipice of innovation, teetering over the edge into the unknown, and while you don’t feel quite ready for the totality of it, you feel as though you are glimpsing images of a future you have claimed as rightfully yours. Yoongi steadies you slightly as he joins you in rounding the desk, his hand resting lightly against your shoulder, both of you unstable on your feet.

And when you see him, see the way his eyes are wild and alight, you suddenly feel as though you are looking into a mirror, confronted by the missing pieces of yourself that bring you balance. But, in an instant, the moment he latches his eyes to the computer screen and you, turning to see what he sees, feel the sentiment dissipate, both of you falling back into your usual routine, hungry for understanding.

‘The goal here is the marriage of biomechanics and biology.’ Dr. Kern moves the scans with careful precision. ‘The plans you sent to me for the surgery include cutting from here to here,’ he says, gesturing to the length from the cubital bone to the carpus. ‘What you’re leaving behind is this section.’ Dragging his mouse over the length of the radius, he hums in consideration. ‘Effectively, what you’re asking me to do is create a bridge where dead bone would be, hoping that there’d be enough space left for you to drill the piece in without bridging across the wrist. In a sense, we need a piece of scaffolding that leaves space, so the stem cells can recognize the rest of the bone as their own.’

It’s something you had talked about in your initial discussion, you and Yoogni and Dr. Hague glancing worriedly at one another, doing your best not to sound excited. Hearing it now, laid out by the engineer who must build it, you suddenly think something like this would be terribly difficult, to tall of an order in such a short amount of time.

‘Can you do it?’

Yoongi asks the question on your mind with an urgency you find endearing. His insistent tone brings you comfort, no longer feeling quite so alone in your worry.

Dr. Kern nods, unblinking as he regards the screen. ‘I believe I can. The scans you provided are detailed and thorough, and I should be able to design something that will get within a fraction of a hair’s length to fit in the leg.’ Still, though, he sighs, looking over his shoulder momentarily to offer you both a clouded expression. ‘The concerns I have, however, are severe. There is a risk of failure to incorporate, mechanical failure, infection, or implant breakage. The size of the gap you want to create is large, and this area of the leg is subject to high stress due to motion.’ 

‘But you’ll try?’ Yoongi presses, insisting he provide you both receive a real, concrete answer.

‘Like I said, I believe I can try.’ Dr. Kern turns in his chair to face you, a smile playing at his lips. ‘And I do want to try.’

Yoongi glances at you, exchanging a moment of relief and unbridled joy. All at once, you fear he becomes the sun, blinding and incandescent. Biting your lip, you look away, heat overtaking your chest as your heart begins to race.

‘Will you be using carbon?’ Your words are rushed, an abrupt distraction to change the subject and redirect the rush of blood you feel beneath your cheeks.

‘No, in living material it’s always safest to use titanium,’ he explains. ‘We can easily print with that here, though it will take some time to get the measurements and prototypes correct. You mentioned this dog is a cancer patient.’ At this, a darkened cloud seems to overtake the room, the word itself an omen as you all share a frown, the kind of thin lipped grimace you give to someone when you are preparing to share bad news. ‘I am not an oncologist, and so I don’t know how severe this cancer is.’

Nodding, Yoongi swallows thickly, building himself into the austere, authoritative presence you are familiar with. ‘The scans we took show the cancer hasn’t spread to the chest or lungs, though it is aggressive. The cells were taken from the hip, which was clean. I’m confident cells should be able to produce the normal matrix that would realign with the bone.’ 

Blinking, your lips part slightly, the confidence in his tone a thunder roll that moves over your skin. You’ve never heard him speak this way, not to you, not as a scientist. Eyes narrowed, he stands taller, a rod of iron in his spine that makes him appear not unlike a god. 

‘Though,’ he continues, ‘we cannot be sure of the current spread along the lung. At best,’ he adds, gravely, ‘we have about seven weeks before we’d need to urgently consider alternatives.’

Dr. Kern nods, turning back to his computer and opening a rendering program. ‘I can get this done in about five or six, though I’d need to start today.’ Turning back to face you both, he offers you a kind, supportive smile. ‘But you’ve got me on board.’

Overwhelmed, you release a sigh of relief, one that makes you press the back of your hand to your mouth in embarrassment. Yoongi chuckles, extending his hand to Dr. Kern in thanks, and you watch as they share a moment that makes them appear more as colleagues than you have ever felt around either of them. 

Rising to a stand, Dr. Kern places his hands on your shoulders, offering a reassuring squeeze. ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ he states. ‘We do these kinds of surgeries on people all the time. It’s only fair animals are given the same shot at quality of life.’ 

‘Thank you,’ you murmur, blood rushing with a sense of vindication and validation, the first real success you’ve had in months.

Yoongi drums his fingers on the steering wheel on the way back, far more talkative and making more noise than he had in the morning. Like you, he rides the high of this exhilaration with poorly contained energy, the full brilliance of his smile eclipsing the sun. Every now and then, he turns to look at you, to ensure you’re just as wired as he feels, irises wild and body hyperaware. For you, this new version of him is simply another layer, another shadow you must contend with, having witnessed so much of him in one day. 

Looking at him now, you cannot help but return his enthusiasm, seemingly welcomed wholeheartedly into the radiance that exudes from beneath his skin. His smile, his true smile, you learn, is gummy, eyes squinting with delight as he softens the light from the afternoon sun. The commonality of this experience, of the way you processed and handled the weight of worry, and the power of victory, binds you both, something that is nurtured and born to exist within the boundaries of his car alone. This morning, it was a quiet heaven; now, he brings the noise, the tidal waves of change that come from work, understanding, and commitment - things that apply to Casper as much as they would apply to a lover.

Looking at him now, you cannot help but feel awed.

Running your palms over the fabric of your pants, you glance back towards the road, back to the trees and the distant lake that shimmers as you pass. Even as you watch the light drench the world around you, a thing you witness regularly, the sun so willing to kiss the land, you recognize this day is special, a moment that will eclipse all others until your next big first, wondering if it’s him or if it’s everything.

Licking your lips, you speak, unwilling to live inside your mind, alone, any longer.

‘You seemed a little lost in there,’ you chuckle, casting a brief glance in his direction, attempting to witness a change. ‘That’s not a challenge, by the way, just an observation.’

Yoongi shakes his head, a non committal motion he marries with a hum of acknowledgement, a bundle of movement and sound that feels excitable, like a puppy.

‘I don’t think you realize what that was - what this is for me,’ he says, emphatically. Considering his words for a moment, he pauses, looking between you and the road with an amazement you find euphoric.‘At grad school, my focus is soft tissue surgery, you know? Airways, oncology. Not bones, and certainly not reinventing parts. I meant what I said when I mentioned I’m out of my depth.’

It makes sense, you realize, how he so easily discussed stem cells and cancer with Dr. Kern; why he was so quizzical, so focused when you first observed the scans, willing to meet you and fight with you, because this is his field and, now, it is yours too. Yoongi looks at each animal he sees with a reverence that often leaves you breathless, always leaves you bewildered, shaken that this kind of love lives within his core. But, now, you understand - he loves because he witnesses loss, witnesses pain and grief, the intensity of which is braved only by those who have survived it.

‘I didn’t know your focus was oncology.’ You hope the words don’t sound surprised, as though you would have underestimated his dedication or his character. So, instead, you clear your throat and try again. ‘It’s a difficult field. There, you fail more often than you succeed, and that's hard.’

‘You thought I just wanted to be a vet tech,’ he says, changing the subject while sounding smug.

Rolling your eyes, you scoff. ‘I’m trying to level with you.’ Still, though, you can’t help but grin. ‘It’s true though,’ you admit. ‘I did.’

He laughs, a sound of real amusement, and your chest tightens, endeared. ‘Everyone always thinks that,’ he concedes. ‘Even my parents. I wasn’t the most attentive kid in school. I don’t really think people see me amounting to much.’

Enigmatic as he is, he surprises you once more with his blunt honesty, the way he lowers some of the walls he has built around himself, easing into the comfort that seems to have blossomed within the car. You're unsure why he would share such personal information, why he would bother to converse so freely at all, but you don't question it. Surprisingly, you welcome it, feeling yourself become endeared to him on instinct.

'Even when I first started at the clinic,' he continues, 'Dr. Hague seemed surprised. My credentials are solid - still waiting on my dissertation defense date - but I know I don't fit the profile. I don't look like someone who would choose this.'

Softening, you cock your head to the side. 'What's a veterinary surgeon supposed to look like, then?'

Turning to face you, startled by your question, his lips part slightly, a small puff of air moving between his pout. His focus moves between you and the road, his shoulders dropping in comfort and confidence, relaxed and eased by your words, though he chooses to remain silent.

And now, it is your turn to wink, the action making him laugh in surprise, the sound of full of honey.

‘So why oncology?’ you try again, hoping to steer him away from personal, somber waters. Mostly, a distraction to keep him talking, so the sound of his laugh does not seep into the pores of your skin, not unlike a waterfall. ‘It takes a lot of guts.’

He nods. ‘It does,’ he agrees. ‘Maybe that’s why I decided on it. It’s hard in every living thing. I figure why not give a voice to those who can’t speak for themselves? You know, Casper is here with cancer in his leg, but he’s still playing and eating and wagging his tail. He’s a good boy, a great dog. Someone has to fight for him.’

Nodding in agreement, you shift your attention to the road, memories stirring. Tongue eager, it feels important to share the thoughts his words have stirred, important to let him in. Truthfully, you've been letting him in all day, allowing the intensity of his stares, the warmth of his smiles, the kindness in his laugh to unmake parts of you, and, perhaps, you have been doing the same to him. The thought is motivating, the notion that his hand on your shoulder, his warm eyes and unwavering attention were born because you had worked your way inside him, too.

It feels motivation, and so you let yourself speak before you lose the will at all.

‘When I was eight,’ you begin, ‘my cat got run over by a car. She’d darted out from the garden when she saw a rabbit. I tried to stop her - she wasn’t even meant to be outside but I wanted to take her up to the treehouse.’

Even without seeing, you feel his expression morph, brow furrowing in concern as he listens. You have his attention, and he offers a small sound of encouragement, urging you to continue.

‘The car rounded the corner so quickly, I didn’t even hear it,' you sigh, falling back into the memory with a sadness that feels too palpable to be a distant wound. 'Her leg was badly wounded, but otherwise she was fine. Our vet, though, they fixed her up as best they could but there wasn’t a surgical practice around us, nowhere for them to refer us to that wasn’t miles out. My family couldn’t afford that trip and they kept convincing me it would be fine, but it wasn’t.’

'Shit,' he mutters, offering you a hurt, apologetic expression. 'I think I know where this is going.'

‘The nerves in her left foot died. She lost feeling quite quickly, and it wasn’t long until it became infected. We had to put her down because of that.’

When you finish, you find you are regarding your hands as they rest, uselessly, in your lap. Every time you think on this, this is where your eyes go - to your hands. The hands that held her, the hands that loved her, the hands that caressed her soft fur without giving shape to the life she deserved. You were useless then, altogether too young and unprepared, and the memory of these unfulfilled actions and touches live within your hands, where they speak and echo for no one but you to hear.

Yoongi remains silent, still comfortable in the trust though no longer free of pain. The atmosphere in the car has shifted, even as you look at the etched curves of your palms you can feel the change, one of companionship in this loneliness and this grief. As though a cloud of mourning has gathered within the small space, feeling him ache with you, feeling him hurt with you, is as though he has pushed through your memories, touched you, ensuring you are no longer solitary in this melancholy.

‘She was an otherwise healthy cat and,' you continue, voice thick and tongue heavy, 'at eight, it’s really traumatizing to lose a friend like that. She was my best friend. I decided then I wanted to be a vet, the kind that fixes broken limbs and makes new parts if I have to, so no one has to go through what I did.’

‘I’m sorry,' he finally says, his own throat tight with sincerity.

Lifting your head to watch him, you study the grimace that has pulled his lips downward. Instinctively, your hands ache to wipe it away, but you press them into your thighs, willing them to remain still.

‘That kind of loss,’ he explains, sympathetic and tender, ‘it stays with you.’

As he watches the road, a long and lost expression floods his irises, making him appear distant. Even as he quiets, you can sense there's so much more he intends to say, so much more he'd like to say, but the words elude him, seem to get caught somewhere between his heart, his tongue, unable to penetrate the heaviness of longing that has overtaken you both. So you don't pressure him, finding you are comfortable in this sort of unity, together and remembering, even if you are not touching.

Really, you think words no longer belong in spaces like this, would only tarnish the security you have only just found in one another, so new and so fragile. And so you remain silent, bonded with him, and comforted by him, knowing that things will change - the song will change or the subject will change, or, when you leave the car, the air outside will grant approval for things to return as you know them to be.

But, for now, this newness you have found with Yoongi feels natural and it is more beautiful than you could have ever intended.

It's five and a half weeks later when the part arrives at the clinic, the brown box, that would otherwise be so unobtrusive, lingering on the side of your desk as it generates a foreboding sense of apprehension in your belly. Dr. Hague agrees it's only right you open it with Yoongi, later in the afternoon when the start of his long shift commences, but the wait places a twitch in your fingers, skin itching with the desire to open it.

Such a small box, containing such a small item, the marriage of anatomy and biology, physiology and machinery. Weeks of work and weeks of conversation, running through your options and over and over, with Dr. Hague, with Yoongi, with Talia. So much is reliant on this small piece of titanium, you wonder if metal such as this, born of the cosmos and often in meteorites, could hold your expectations and not just the stars.

In these long weeks, Talia has worked overtime, pulling in extra money to pay the difference in cost her pet insurance will not cover. Casper, all good and warm and full of love, has been on medications to manage the pain, coming in weekly for scans to check the spread of his tumor. So far, not much has changed. So far, the spread remains contained to just the leg, but still you worry, deep down, what you will find when you finally see his bones with your own eyes and not just the empty, black and white images you're so used to examining.

This, all of this, is your risk, your drive to do what is morally correct and in the best interest for Casper. Weeks ago, you were confident you could save a leg, and a life. Now, with the box on your desk and the closeness of this imagined reality manifesting in the present, the weight of your choice is heavy in your lungs and chest. In this moment of being, it has never been so important to be right.

'What if we fuse the wrist?' you ask later, alone with Yoongi in Dr. Hague's office on the day of the surgery, his hands cradling the implant and your hands pressing against the desk in apprehension. 'What if there's no space to drill?'

Yoongi regards you quietly, brown eyes dark with compassion and understanding. You feel his gaze move over your face, feel the touch as though it were his own hands, and you lean into it, focus on it, aching for the comfort that comes from being held.

'Plenty of dogs have fused wrists,' he reassures evenly. There’s less than an hour, no time to turn back but time enough to think and rethink, to be consumed, and Yoongi, full of understanding, refuses to let you draw inward.  'You'd never know, even if you saw them up close.'

Meeting his eyes, then, you realize you have surrendered yourself into his care. In this moment, he holds you, his looking a sort of touching, his touching a deep, resonate sense of feeling, bound together in the moment of fear and unease, but, in him, there is no doubt. The same way you have surrendered yourself to his care, he has surrendered himself to you, trusting you implicitly, and knowing, in the end, you both would not move forward if it was not what was best.

You would not move forward if you were not united, together.

Dr. Hague invites both you and Yoongi into the OR, a first, he says, for a volunteer to be welcomed into surgery. But he smiles, rests his hand on your shoulder and reminds you you’re doing what’s right - there’s a lot of firsts happening today, and that counts for something. Talia squeezes your hands three times before you leave reception, Casper already placed under anesthetic and wheeled through the doors. Once again, the trust you find swimming in her eyes buoyes you.

‘There’s only so much you can do,’ she murmurs, as much for you as it is for her own nerves. ‘And I know you’ll do everything you can.’

The tremors in your hands, an uncharacteristic trembling that had taken root in your joints, dissipates upon entry. As if your body and your soul recognize this place is clean - free of distraction and free of second guessing. It’s sterile. It’s home. It’s safe. Shoulders pushed back, the rhythmic beeping of Casper’s heart monitor is your soundtrack; the bright, overhead light your moon. This is your universe, the precipice of a destiny you manifested on your own, created and dictated entirely by you. 

And so, this room belongs to you. 

After the first incision, as if by magic, your mind clears. You know the journey, the beginning and the end, you do not know what you will find, but you know the only option is to fix, to mend, to heal. The fog of other voices, other decisions is dispelled, every action and choice so much more simple than you would have imagined it could be. After the first incision, your focus narrows, the viciousness of your inner monologue dissolving into little more than numbers, measurements, and the sound of a drill.

‘Eight millimeters,’ you hear yourself say, even if it’s moot, even if Dr. Hague already knows, you still say it because it’s important. Few things, you think, have ever been as important as the length of this drill. 

Yoongi watches, studies every movement with a furrowed brow, body still in a silence that makes you view him as an apparition. Under the white light, he glows, becomes something radiant, and you imagine him not unlike an angel. For so long he has watched over this process, watched over Casper, watched over you - learning and seeing and protecting. Yoongi watches and does not assist, not in any physical sense of the word, but he assists you, even if you are too proud to admit it. 

Hours in, Dr. Hague hands you suction, tells you to manage a bleeder while he preserves blood vessels along the exposed marrow. Yoongi holds the frame of the wrist in place while you apply suction, the steadiness in his hand making it easier for you to quickly remove the overflow. He’s calm, the most composed you feel you might have ever seen him, there for you before you even ask him to be. Together, you anticipate one another’s movements, thoughts - you move around one another in a synchronization that feels natural, as though it was meant to be this simple.

With the bleeding stopped, you move the suction to the nurse behind you and catch his eye, see the way he watches you in admiration. There’s no time to really pause, to share a moment like this together, but you see it. See the way respect floods him, the way he moves his gaze back to Casper, a blush creeping beyond the perimeter of his surgical mask. It’s the most you’ve been involved in surgery since you finished your first residency. It’s the most you’ve felt like Yoongi’s equal since you met him. And both these things, the feeling of success and the feeling of wanting, you know, will never leave you again.

Dr. Hague educates both of you on the placement of the implant, the hardest part of the surgery. Something about this feels too easy - it feels like it goes too well. Casper’s vitals are stable, Yoongi’s eyes are wide, and your hands do not shake, but still you wait for the fall. You wait for the moment things change and go badly - even if it’s falling out of Hague’s favor, even if it means Yoongi never sees you this way again, you know it must be coming.

But it doesn’t.

At hour five, Casper is closed up, the implant successfully drilled. The stem cell samples you mixed with fribrin glue are sprayed into the mesh to rebuild new bone. Yoongi looks at you as though he is eclipsing the sun, and suddenly, your feet recognize the earth that holds you. Sound, thought, vision - they all come back, an onslaught that raises the hairs on your arms, overstimulated. The overhead light is turned off and Casper is wheeled to his recovery kennel, but you remain in the OR, standing still as your eyes adjust back to the fluorescent lighting. 

It’s quiet now, almost too quiet, a calm falling over the room - a special kind of quiet that echoes with triumph, smells of sweat and anesthetic, and the fear of loss. This has never been done before. There is no guarantee it will work, no guarantee it could be done again. But it happened. It was real.

It was yours. 

‘Are you okay?’

Yoongi’s voice breaks your thoughts. He’s close, closer than you normally let him be, but your gaze fixates on the way his mask dangles from his ear, playful, free, liberated. You’ve seen masks ripped away from faces in defeat, frustration, but he lets it linger, pressed against his skin as though he’s afraid of realizing it’s over or that it never happened. At such close proximity, you can smell him, his cologne mixing with the scent of iodine and blood, but you swoon, feel a little faint, and he steps closer, as though anticipating your drop.

‘I’m okay,’ you nod. ‘I just…’

‘You can’t believe it was real?’

A breath you did not know you had been holding, likely held deep within your lungs from the first moment you saw Casper’s scans, escapes your chest. You feel lighter, not necessarily relieved but aware you defied the odds, and so it is important to honor this moment.

‘Yeah,’ you agree, sounding breathless.  It’s been a long time since you’ve been in an OR, even longer since you’ve felt like you were first for something, like you were chosen. ‘Is it always like that? For you?’

‘It’s always exhilarating,’ he says, considering his words carefully. ‘But no,’ he decides. ‘It’s not usually like that.’

‘Where do we go from here?’

At this, Yoongi laughs, reaching for your hand. Slowly, he pulls off your glove, the fingers stained a myriad of colours, and through the thin plastic you feel the tenderness in his touch. There is a greatness to the way he handles you, a familiarity to the way he pulls the plastic down and down further - pulling and shaping as though the hand was his, his hand yours; meeting together in the simplicity of this touch, aware that, from this moment, is it likely neither of you will ever have enough.

‘How about,’ he tries, delicately, gaze fixed on the slow reveal of your skin, ‘to a diner?’

It feels like the first time he smiled - the first time you smiled back and meant it. It feels like a first, is a first - the first time his hand holds yours, with purpose and intent. And so, you think you should get used to this. 

‘That sounds great.’

[marshmallow-phd]

Memories Past

Part of The Untamed - EXO Wolf Universe

Genre: Supernatural, Wolf Au

Pairing: Kris x Reader

Summary: The last thing Kris wanted was to move on. He was perfectly content wallowing in his misery while pretending everything was okay. But when you come walking into his shop with a broken down car, he realizes the thing he’d been avoiding the most just might be the cure he always needed. He just couldn’t believe that it’d been you all along. Kris had been your best friend when you were kids before he’d moved away without a word of goodbye. Now nearly fifteen years later, you run into him again by pure coincidence. The memories come rushing back to you, stirring something inside. A childhood crush shouldn’t upend your picture perfect life, but sometimes, destiny has other things in mind…

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I Final

**

“(Y/n), listen to me, please!” Kris had to hold himself back from breaking down the door completely in his desperate attempt to get you to understand. He realized he’d gone about explaining what he was in the wrong way, the wrong order, but you couldn’t just end it. Not like this.

When you refused to even acknowledge his attempts to talk to you, to get you to let him back in so he could explain all of this properly, he stop hitting his fists against the wooden barrier that kept the two of you apart.

Kris stood there, just staring at your door as if by some miracle it would swing open again on its own accord and you’d run into his arms, begging him not to go. But all that came to him were the soft efforts you took to hold back the tears.

You needed time. And as much as the wolf in his chest pawed and clawed at him to break down the door, he knew the best thing for him to do in the moment was to walk away. Maybe after a little while, with you left to figure things out on your own, you’d let him sit down and explain everything to you.

With one last look at your bedroom door, Kris turned and left your apartment.

Every fiber in every muscle of his inhuman being was screaming, fighting to turn back around to you. But Kris controlled himself, getting into his car that was parked out in the street. He had to keep going. He had to give you to time to process what he’d stupidly dumped on you.

Why didn’t he tell you everything before things went this far? Why didn’t he tell you that night under the stars? Or the morning you woke up in his bed at the farmhouse? Those times would have been better. He could have eased into it. Told you about his true nature before dropping the “mate” bomb. Made it seem more like a natural transition rather than an inevitability that he pulled you into.

Barely able to concentrate, Kris sped down the darkened road, needing to put as much distance between the two of you as possible to help quiet the urge to turn back. It didn’t die, but the farther he got, the more he was able to rationalize not pulling a U-turn. As he reached the back road that would lead him to the farmhouse where he could hole himself up for a few days, a sharp pain like a hundred needles stabbed at his heart.

With a yank of the wheel, Kris pulled off to the side of the road, shoving the gear shift in park with a whine from the engine. Clutching his chest, he bent over to try and breathe easier as the pain continued. He knew exactly what this was and it wasn’t good.

“No,” he huffed, the fingernails of his other hand digging into the leather of the passenger’s seat. “It’s not supposed to come on this fast.”

Was it because he was an alpha? Or was it because you so clearly told him that you never wanted to see him again, making the rejection even more apparent?

Seeing Chanyeol in a similar state last winter had scared the hell of Kris, even though he’d put on a good show. He’d tried to be a rock and a sense of encouragement for his brother who was so clearly not okay. It was a whole different story now that he was suddenly forced into that position now.

The physical pain a wolf’s body goes through when rejected by their mate was at an intensity that couldn’t be described with any known injury or torture device. White hot irons could come close, but Kris wouldn’t give those searing rods that much credit. It’s origin was deep within the wolf, coming from nowhere without any warning and no known cure except for the one person who caused it in the first place.

Tap, tap, tap.

Kris jumped at the sudden and unexpected intrusion. Jimmy was somehow waving at him on the other side of the window on the driver’s side, smiling with a little hint of worry in his eyes. How the hell-

Rolling down the window, Kris growled, “Jimmy, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I was on my way back from the races and saw you parked on the side of the road,” Jimmy explained with a lopsided smile. “You all right? It’s like one in morning.”

Kris grunted as he straightened up. “I’m fine. Just headed home.”

Jimmy rubbed a hand over his bald head. “You sure? Anything I can do?”

“I said I’m fine, Jimmy!” Regret hit Kris instantly when he saw how his friend flinched at the harsh reply. He ran a hand through his hair before dropping it down on the steering wheel. “Thanks, man, but really, I’ll be okay. I just need to get home and get some sleep.”

“Okay.” Jimmy tapped his fingers on the door before waving. “I’ll see you later. Don’t forget to call if you need anything.”

“Sure, man,” Kris nodded, pulling the gear shift into drive. “See you later.”

Careful not hit the person who was just trying to help, Kris sped down the road while going at least twenty over. The stabbing pain had subsided, but not Kris’ panic. If your rejection cause the chain reaction with his wolf to come on that fast, how much longer did he have?

Tears spilled over from one of his eyes. Kris quickly wiped it away while sniffing back more. How could he fuck it up so royally in the span of less than a few hours? He had you and then he lost you faster than his best drag time. It was taking him back to losing Jiyoon. But there was no comparison. Jiyoon was gone from this earth and you were still here, visible and touchable, yet out of sight and out of reach of his fingers.

He’d give anything to rewind time and freeze it to that perfect moment.

You’d fallen asleep before him, wrapped up in the sheets and curled up in his arms right against his chest. Your breath tickled the skin over his collar bone, warm and soothing. Kris had caressed the bumps along your spine with his fingertips, memorizing every curve and beautifully perfect imperfection that made up who you were.

It was the most at peace Kris had ever been in his life. In those few minutes before he drifted off to sleep himself, he didn’t have to worry about any outside forces coming to take you away or any past threats coming back to haunt him. He didn’t even have to worry about whether you’d accept him or not. He’d just taken that as a given and therefore taken you being in his arms for granted. For once, he’d allowed himself to just… exist. What a short lived paradise that turned out to be.

Kris didn’t even bother to pull up near the garage when he arrived at the farmhouse, screeching to a halt right in front of the porch. Junmyeon could yell at him later. He was struggling not to collapse right then and there on the grass as he all but crawled out of the car.

Just need to get into the house, he bargained with himself, just get in the house and then you can let it swallow you.

Shuffling his feet and clutching his chest, he made it up the steps and through the door, letting it slam loudly behind him.

The pain had long subsided, but the phantom feeling lingered, leaving him in fear of it flaring up again. Kris tried to keep his face neutral in case he ran into any of the others. He’d almost made it until he reached the bottom of the stairs. Tao nearly bumped into him coming down.

“Ge-ge?” Tao bent at his waist to try and get a better look at Kris, who was twisting to try and avoid showing off his red eyes and aching expression. “What happened? Where have you been?”

“It’s nothing, Tao,” Kris growled, keeping his head down. There was no way to get up the stairs without shoving the younger wolf out of the way and Tao was too sensitive to not take it personally. “I just need to get some rest.”

Tao was not going to let it go. “You look bad, Kris. Is there-”

“Just drop it!” Kris snapped, nearly snarling at his poor brother that just wanted to help. “I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I’m just tired and need to be alone right now. I’ll explain later.”

He wasn’t sure if he’d actually be up for telling anyone the scene he’d just been forced to play out, but he knew he’d have to tell his pack eventually, in case- Not now. Not in this state.

To Kris’ relief, Tao nodded and stepped out the way, watching his alpha trip up the stairs with concerned eyes.

**

Your tears had dried out after only a few minutes. A headache was forming behind your eyes so, with wobbly legs, you pushed yourself up to your feet and opened your door. The apartment was empty, tauntingly so. You didn’t think Kris would trick you into thinking he’d left, but then again, you didn’t really know him, did you?

Shuffling over to your medicine cabinet in the kitchen, you pulled out the bottle of aspirin and popped two into your mouth, swallowing them dry.  

With the new bout of information you’d just received, you couldn’t be alone with your thoughts. You needed to talk to someone, but the first person that came to your mind was also the person you didn’t want to see right now. Or maybe ever again.

Kris was the entire reason your life had been up ended from the scenic path it’d been on. You were perfectly content before he’d shown up. You’d put the part of your life that had involved him behind you and were happy for the future that you’d been envisioning and planning on. Hell, maybe you and Huan could have even worked through and compromised on your issues if he’d never come along. That’s what normal relationships were about, weren’t they?

And yet, you never had that chance because something decided that you and Kris were a better match. And why? Because you were friends almost two decades ago? That wasn’t fair. Where was your freedom to choose who you belonged with?

An epiphany hit you as you were trying to work your way around your receding headache to make your thoughts line up coherently. There was one person in the world that you were sure knew exactly what you were going through. She’d practically said so herself.

Hesitantly, you made your way to the living room where you’d left your cell phone on the coffee table when Kris had shown up. Sitting down on the sofa, you stared at the phone, debating.

Minseok knew Kris, according to Ji Yeon. You’d even seen them in the same group that night Kris had found you on the boardwalk. Then Ji Yeon confirmed that they knew each other enough for Minseok to know that you were Kris’ engaged friend he’d talked about.

What if they didn’t just know each other? What if Minseok was like Kris? Ji Yeon talked about how she, too, was seeing someone before Minseok came into her life. What if it was because this… mate thing had happened to her too?

The memory of first meeting Ji Yeon played in your mind. She’d shown you pictures on her camera of a particularly friendly wolf, one that seemed too aware of the camera, too intelligent to be an ordinary animal. She’d practically panicked when you pointed out how the wolf seemed to be posing for her.

Unsure if you’d even be able to speak, you simply sent a text to Ji Yeon asking if she was free to come over. With how late it was in the night, you didn’t think you’d get an answer. If not, then you’d call her in the morning. After only a minute or so, however, you received a reply simply containing a yes and an additional question that inquired if you were okay. You answered with only your address and then you waited.

Ten minutes went by before the tell-tale knock came at your door. Sighing, you stood up and opened it up for Ji Yeon.

“Hey, what’s going on?” she asked as she removed her shoes and stifled a yawn. You must have woken her up, but she came anyway.  For that, you were thankful.

You stood there and watched her with an empty feeling inside, mulling over where to start. Your exhausted brain decided to just go the blunt route. “Did you know about Kris?”

Ji Yeon froze in her half-bent position, giving you the exact answer you were expecting. Straightening up, she frowned at you. “What do you mean?”

“Is Minseok like Kris?” you countered instead.

There was a mild standoff as neither of you spoke, staring at each other. But you weren’t going to let it go or back track. Not this time.

“He finally told you,” Ji Yeon stated with a whisper. There was no question in her voice. The two of you knew exactly what the underlining subject was and there was no need to beat around the bush now.

You swallowed thickly. “You knew the whole time, didn’t you? What Kris was?”

She nodded. “Yes. I’ve always known what Kris is. What all of them are. But it wasn’t my place to say anything.”

“I thought you were my friend!” you snapped. Apparently, your tear ducts had refilled as new pools of water were filling your bottom lids once again as your fists curled by your side, your fingernails digging into your skin. “Shouldn’t I have a right to know why I’m suddenly not in love with my fiance anymore?”

“I couldn't tell you!” Ji Yeon shouted back. “I’m not allowed to! Only the wolf can tell his mate! That’s how it is!” Stepping up to you, she took hold of your shoulders, looking you in the eye. “Listen, (y/n). I understand what you are going through. Nearly two years ago, I was you. It’s confusing, at first. You’ll be angry for a little bit, but eventually you’ll understand why he chose to do things the way he did. They have to keep their secret and there’s no easy way to bring that subject up. The mate bond isn’t exactly something the average human goes through.”

You sniffed, hating how right she sounded. “But he still should have told me before sleeping with me.”

Ji Yeon flinched back, letting you go. “Okay. That I can’t help but agree with. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of things going in that order before.” Her eyes searched around the apartment. “Where is Kris? Did he leave to give you some space?”

Chewing on your bottom lip, you scratched at your scalp. “No…. I kind of threw him out.”

“W-what?” Ji Yeon’s mouth dropped in horror. “(y/n), what exactly did you say to him?”

Now you felt a little ashamed at what you had done in anger. You stared down at the floor. “After he told me about being… mates and how that was the reason Huan and I broke up, I told him I didn’t want to ever see him again.”

Ji Yeon practically pounced on you, squeezing your upper arms painfully. “Please, tell me you didn’t actually do that!”

“I was angry!” you yelled. “I wasn’t given a choice in my own life! What else was I supposed to do?”

“You don’t get it, (y/n),” she groaned. “If a wolf is rejected by their mate, they die!”

No.

As angry as you were, as hurt as you were and as much as you didn’t want to see Kris, you didn’t want to live in a world where he didn’t exist.

Your knees buckled under you and Ji Yeon wasn’t strong enough to keep you upright, sending you both to the hardwood floor.

Now you were really crying. To the point where breathing was nearly impossible. This was all too much. Too much to soak in, too much responsibility for you to handle.

“That’s not fair,” you croaked out as Ji Yeon rubbed your back. “I don’t get a choice at all? Why do I have to be forced to be with someone? Why do I have to be the reason they live or die? Who decided that was the right thing to do?”

“(Y/n), look at me,” Ji Yeon urged. Wiping away the tears so your vision was no longer blurry, you obeyed. A small, crooked smile was her lips. How could she be so calm right now? “All the mate bond does is bring you to the person that you would be the happiest with, the person who will protect you and love you like no one else. That’s all. Besides, do you really think that you couldn’t be happy with Kris?”

“That’s not the point,” you whimpered. “The point is that I should have the option to choose Kris. But I didn’t get that.” You sniffed, fearing the answer of your next question. “Is he already dead, then?”

Ji Yeon shook her head. “No. It doesn’t happen that fast. He has time. You have time to change your mind.”

“I feel backed into a corner,” you whispered. “I don’t know what to do. I’m still so angry. I still don’t want to see him. I don’t want that life.”

“I’ll stay with you tonight,” Ji Yeon volunteered. “I don’t think you should be alone right now. If you have anymore questions, I’ll answer them for you.”

You nodded, grateful that she offered before you had a chance to ask. But that would have to wait until morning. Right now, you just wanted to go back to sleep and shut your mind off. You couldn’t make a rational decision right now. You were too exhausted and confused. Your heart was being torn in two. You hated Kris - you hated the lies and the way you felt manipulated - but you also loved him. You just weren’t sure how real that love was.

[crazyzaika]

Love on Detours - Chapter 6

I know, the end of the chapter is a bit rushy, but it's a turn in the story. And no, the story doesn't end there. I hope you like this chapter. Pls let me know what you think.

Greets Z

Chapter 6

Her heart raced and she trembled, feeling the nervousness and fear deep in her bones. Lucy swallowed slightly while Mira and Michelle sat in front of her and looked at her waiting. She had asked them to talk in confidence and so they were in Levy's apartment because here you could be sure that the walls had no ears.

She kneaded her hands, swallowed again. Carefully she lifted the gaze from her hands and looked first at her sister and then at her cousin. She hoped the two would help her. For without the help of both she would not be able to do all this. Sure, she had the support of Natsu's parents, but that wasn't enough. Both Michelle and Mirajane could run to their parents and rat her out. And that would be her downfall.

"So? What do you want to tell us?" Michelle asked and the bright, clear blue eyes of her big sister looked at her waiting. Lucy swallowed and her gaze scurried to Mira, who took only a sip of her tea and didn't say a word. She waited. Her heartbeat accelerated a little and she closed her eyes. She wanted to keep the twins. She wanted to raise them, give them a good life. Free from constraints and pressure from the family. Tears formed in her eyes and ran down her cheeks as she looked up and smiled slightly.

"I know ... you don't like Natsu", she said quietly and a laughing snort escaped Michelle's lips.

"That is still softly said. He is not good for you", replied the older one and crossed her arms under her opulent breasts, she looked unusually hard. She had contracted her eyebrows and a long fold was pulled over her otherwise so smooth forehead. Lucy pressed her lips together and for a moment doubts rolled up in her. Then Mira put the cup down.

"Are you pregnant from him," she asked. Her voice was calm and controlled, free of any feelings. Lucy widened her eyes and Michelle also stared at Mira with big eyes. Silence lay over the room and the blonde student swallowed, then she nodded timidly.

"From where..."

"I noticed it in your behavior. And your words about Natsu were clear," Mira said quietly and smiled gently. A tremor ran through Lucy and her eyes started burning again. Her throat tightened and her lower lip trembled.

"I...I want to keep them," she brought out and swallowed, taking a trembling breath. Mira looked at her waiting while Michelle looked frightened from one to the other.

"Does Natsu know?"

"No, not yet, but his parents do. They have already promised me their support," she whispered quietly and Mira nodded slightly again.

"How long has it been?"

"I'm in the seventh week," she said quietly and then pulled out a photo from the initial examination and pushed it over the glass table. Mirajane leaned forward without a word, grabbed it and looked at the photo. Then she smiled, stroked her fingertips over the life that was beginning and nodded. She put the picture back on the low glass table and nodded again.

"All right ... but you have to tell Natsu that is important," she said. Lucy's eyes widened and then tears ran down her cheeks. Michelle looked stunned between Lucy and her cousin Mira.

"Hold on, wait a minute. You just accept that, Mira? Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"Why? I don't want my sweet little sister giving birth to such an idiot's children. She deserves something far better," Michelle exclaimed, and anger stood in her usually so gentle traits. Lucy flinched slightly and swallowed, driving over her cheeks.

"Mi-nee-chan", Lucy began carefully, but was interrupted.

"No! You shut up now, Lucy! You are 17! How will you raise children? How do you want to finish school? You do not want to tell me that you want to stay alone voluntarily? Natsu is with Lisanna. He has a girlfriend", her sister kept talking herself into rage, raging with anger. She couldn't understand how her sweet sister just threw away her whole life.

"Michelle!"

"No Mira! She throws her life away!"

"I ...", Lucy began and her heart beat loudly and painfully against her ribs. She bit her lower lip and her fingers dug into the soft wool dress she was wearing. She pulled her shoulders slightly up, then tightened them. Her hands lay protectively over her abdomen.

"Michelle ... I understand your concern, but I will bear the twins. Whether you want to help me or not. I am not alone. His parents, my friends and also Mira stand by me," she said, and in the brown soul mirrors there was a determination that made Michelle pause. There was no hesitation in her sister's voice. She swallowed easily, then sighing she lowered her gaze. Again silence lay over the living room. Michelle didn't want to lose her sister and she knew that this pregnancy would be anything but easy. She knew it because one thing was certain. The parents were not allowed to know anything about it. Both her father and mother would set heaven and hell in motion to have these children removed. Even when the three months were over.

She looked up and looked at her sister. Lucy had tears in her eyes and she saw the fear in her features, but she also saw the absolute determination to protect these children and raise them alone if necessary. Her heartbeat speeded up and then she lowered her eyes to the ultrasoundpicture, pulled it towards her and sighed. She would become an aunt. In absolute surrender Michelle raised her hands and smiled.

"All right, you idiot. I hadn't planned to be an aunt now, but ... your happiness is important to me. The main thing is that they have as little of this idiot as possible," she said, assuring her sister of her approval and support. Lucy's eyes widened, then absolute joy spread on her features. And that alone was enough for Michelle. She would protect her sister even if she had to get her parents out of the way.

one week later

She still hadn't managed to tell him. But she didn't know how to do that either. Honestly, how did you tell your best friend that you were pregnant from him? When he thought that you were still a virgin and especially when he was together with your own cousin? Lucy nibbled on her lower lip. She had proudly shown the photo to Igneel and Grandeeney and both were stunned. Igneel was happy to get two progenitors and Grandeeney was just finished. With the words: great, another two monsters in the family she had grabbed a 5 liter bottle of sake and drunk it. Lucy had been shocked and Igneel? He was about to cry for joy. That had been a sight for the gods. The great Oyabun of the Dragneel clan had cried of joy.

And today she had been invited to dinner at the Dragneels. She looked forward to it, even though she didn't know how Natsus' parents wanted to explain her presence. Next to Lisanna. Fortunately Natsu had still not noticed anything. Three weeks had passed since her initial examination and her mood swings and morning vomiting had not improved at all. Only Michelle and Mirajane knew about it in the meantime. They had been shocked, but were happy for her. Even if they weren't thrilled that Lucy didn't say a word and preferred to remain silent. But she didn't know how to tell him. He was always with Lisanna and it hurt her to see him like that.

She ran after them because Natsu had picked up both Lisanna and Lucy on his father's orders and her cousin giggled exaggeratedly in love as she hung on Natsu's arm. Lucy always felt a sharp sting in her heart. But she said nothing. What could she even say?

Then they arrived at the main entrance of the estate and his father's men bowed, dutifully greeting first Natsu and then Lisanna and then her. Lucy knew that the men didn't really like Lisanna. She saw it at them. But that was something that was mutual. Lisanna detested the yakuza and she only endured her presence because she loved Natsu. That was clear to everyone. Lucy smiled politely and nodded as she followed to the front door in a simple knee-length black dress, jacket and knee-high boots and thick socks.

Lucy sat down on the wooden floor in the entrance area, took off her boots and was immediately handed slippers by Metalicana. He smiled grimly at her and she thanked him quietly. Then she followed them through the long hallway that led past a courtyard. The sliding doors were closed, but she saw the good care Acnologia had given to this house and small gardens. Everything was polished to a high gloss and the dark wood shimmered slightly. Old lamps shimmered and gave everything a golden shine. Then they stepped into a large room.

The floor was covered with tatami mats. Elegant old lanterns hung on short chains from the roof braces and bathed everything in a golden, romantic light. On the left side stood an old samurai armour and a weapon stand on which an old, noble katana, a wakizashi and a long dagger rested. Lucy's gaze glided over the dark brown lacquered tables, which had been arranged in a U-shape. The individual tables were two metres long and one metre wide.

At the head she saw five tables standing and in the room 12 tables were stretched down. Lucy blinked with big eyes as she saw the masses of men dressed in black. Everyone looked bloody creepy. Many had scars on their faces and all were looking at the new arrivals. She chewed on her lower lip. Was that the whole clan? She swallowed slightly and looked at Natsu. Nervousness surged up in her. The tables were richly set with all sorts of delicacies and the company was already quite cheerful. They hadn't started eating yet, but you could see that the mood was relaxed.

Igneel and his wife sat in the middle at the head of the room, the armour and weapons directly behind them. To the left of Grandeeney sat Juvia, Wendy and a boy with dark hair, who seemed a bit tense and stared strained at the polished wood. Next to him was another square and Lucy frowned. To Igneel's right, Cobra was sitting with an elegantly dressed young woman wearing a wedding kimono. She smiled in love. Next to Cobra there were two places available. Natsu let herself fall into the place next to the unknown one and Lisanna was about to sit next to him, but Igneel interrupted her.

"Lisanna, your seat is next to Romeo, Wendy's friend," silence spread throughout the room and everyone stared at the head, who was carrying a bowl of sake to his lips. Lucy's eyes widened. Had he gone completely mad? Shouldn't she be sitting there? Her heartbeat accelerated and her cousin straightened up. She frowned confused and Acnologia pushed her in the right direction. She distorted her face, but didn't say a word. Metalicana took Lucy by the elbow and just placed her next to Natsu. Burning redness lay on her cheeks and you would have heard a pin fall. Natsu was also confused and looked from Lucy to his father.

"Uh... Too-sama," he said and sounded amazingly polite. But no wonder either. Lucy understood that this was his brother's wedding dinner that she had understood the second she saw the wedding kimono. And swallowed. Had Igneel just ranked her above Lisanna? The girl Natsu was with? Her throat tightened. How was she supposed to explain that?

"Yes?"

"Why are you putting my girlfriend on the other side of the table?" he asked, confused. Everyone else was also confused. Igneel was an absolutely admired man and everyone in the clan loved him, but sometimes some could not quite follow his actions in mind. He drank the sake, put the bowl down, leaned forward relaxed and grinned.

"Lucy stands higher in rank. After all, she's pregnant from you, you foolish son," he said and you could only tell thanks to the sound of his voice, that he had clearly already had more intus than he should. Lucys eyes widend and her breathing stopped. Was he fucking serious? It was as if her heart had stopped for a moment and now it resumed its work twice as fast. She swallowed lightly and cramped. Natsus head flew around to her and he stared at her with widened eyes. Grandeeney growled, but did nothing else to reprimand her husband or refute his words. Here before all eyes she would never do that.

"Luce," he asked confusedly and she stared at him. Everything around her began to spin and she couldn't breathe.

"Tell me ... that this is a joke," Natsu said, laughing uncertainly and swallowing. He became pale and pulled his brows together. All the yakuza members listened to them and they were all perplexed. Lucy felt the burning in her eyes and turned away with burning cheeks as the first tears glided down her cheeks. Inside she cursed herself as she took a rattling breath. Natsu's eyes became even bigger as he understood. When he recognized the lie.

"Lucy," he growled and stood up jerkily, staring down at her. She had lied to him! His body trembled with suppressed anger.

"You lied to me," he hissed angrily and she trembled to raise her eyes. Raging fear surged in her, reaching icy for her heart and when she saw the suppressed anger in his gaze. She pressed her lips tightly together. Then she took a trembling breath and rose staggering. She retreated from him, but was grabbed from behind and raised her gaze, almost twisted. Who stopped her? Atlas looked down at her with a smile.

"You shouldn't run away," he said quietly and she clenched her hands to fists. She gritted her teeth tightly and tore herself away from the redhead. Then her gaze fixed on Natsu. She wouldn't make a scene here. She was too proud for that. Her heartbeat raced, Natsu approached her, raised his hand and slapped her. It clapped loudly and her head flew to the side. Shocked, she opened her eyes and held her burning right cheek.

"You lied to me, Lucy Heartfilia," he growled angrily. She stared at him and anger surged up into her. She pulled her shoulders up, then took a step forward and rammed her knee between his legs. All the men in the room flinched. He gasped and sank to his knees, keeping his pace.

"If you ever hit me again, Natsu Dragneel, Igneel Dragneel's second son, believe me you won't find mercy," she hissed angrily. Then her angry gaze turned to Igneel and growled at him viciously. He pulled up both eyebrows.

"And you!" she hissed, "I thought we had a deal? That I'd tell him when the OCCASION IS FAVOURABLE? BUT NO! YOU DRINK ONE OVER YOUR THIRST AND TALK IT OUT IN FRONT OF YOUR WHOLE CLAN? I' M HAVING ENOUGH! I'M GOING," she roared and yelled at a yakuza boss in front of the assembled crew. She was so angry, had eaten all her worries into her for so long, that now everything burst out. If these men thought she was afraid of Igneel just because he was the head of a yakuza clan, they were wrong. Her father was much worse and far more ruthless. She whirled around staring at Metalicana and Atlas.

"Out of the way," she hissed and the two men were smart enough to immediately avoid a pregnant, angry woman. She rushed out of the room, turned left and stomped away furiously.

"Goddamn men! Brainless monkey asses! If only one of them steps under my fucking eyes again, I'll tear you all to pieces! ALL OF THEM, DO YOU HEAR? THEN YOU LEARN YOU TO KNOW ME FROM ANOTHER SIDE, YOUR SOAPED CAPSPSPATS", she was getting louder and louder shouting herself into rage. She was angry yes, but there was also a good portion of pregnancy hormones in it. But still. What occurred to him to slap her? Sure, she had lied to him, but she had been waiting for the right moment all along. Tears ran down her face. Then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and tried to calm down, sat down in the entrance area and put on her boots. She would go home. Natsu could be stolen from her in the near future.

"Wow... Natsu, are you stupid or something?" Metalicana asked and laughed darkly. He stood there and all the yakuza members had listened to Lucys roar with big eyes. They all knew her since Natsu first brought her along and they all liked her back then. She had always been open and friendly. In the beginning she had been afraid of the creepy men in black, the scars and the weapons, but she had lost this fear quite fast. The salmon haired one straightened up. His crotch hurt like hell and he distorted his face into a grimace. He was shocked and hurt. She had lied to him! She had lied to him for two months and had not deemed it necessary to tell him the truth. The betrayal of this lie burned like fire in his heart and he felt the senseless urge to destroy something. When Metalicana asked him, he angrily raised his gaze.

"Please what?"

"I asked if you were stupid."

"No."

"Then why do you let such a awesome girl slip away?" asked Weisslogia and Natsu fixed his gaze on the man. He was tall, well trained and had shoulder-length white blonde hair. Scars were running over the dark skin. He seemed more relaxed than most of the others here. Natsu crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"She lied to me! She said that we weren't ... you know. And then my father knows before me that she is pregnant? She hasn't said a word for two fucking months," he hissed and you could hear that his pride and ego were clearly scratched. But that didn't really interest anyone here.

"Don't be such a pussy. She was probably afraid. Think about how illegitimate children are treated in our society," Cobra said and snorted. He reached for the hand of Kinana, who smiled radiantly and stroked the slight bulge of her belly. Natsu growled angrily.

"She betrayed me!"

"You could have just drunk less, too."

"My good is the junior dull-minded," said Acnologia and snorted. Igneel laughed quietly. He reached for the sack cup, but Grandeeney growled so deeply and angrily that he swallowed and quickly pulled his hand back.

"Lucy loves you, just by the way," Grandeeney said and sighed annoyed.

" Besides ... your great-aunt Porlyusica has her in treatment and said that she asked her not to tell anyone so that her father wouldn't force her to have an abortion. She asked for it to be kept secret until it was no longer possible. Natsu ... you know what Jude Heartfilia is like. He would kick her out of the house just because it's your brood she volunteers," his mother said dryly, took a cup of green tea and drank it unmoved without cooling it. She was so direct and honest that the others looked at her wordlessly in the room. The faces of all the members reflected anger and horror.

"Ab... abortion?" Natsu asked, and he felt like his heart was pausing for a moment. He swallowed. She wanted his children? His heartbeat speeded up and he bit his lower lip. She had said she had been waiting for the right moment. And when would that have been? Then Lisanna rose and looked at Natsu with big eyes. And Natsu it hit him. He had never really given Lucy the chance, even if he had, because Lisanna had always been near him. And now he understood it. She had asked him for forgiveness in tears. She had cried when she asked him for forgiveness and had said that she couldn't tell him. Fear was building up in him. He would lose her. His heart raced and icy fear grabbed it, he felt the lump in his throat and swallowed hard. And he became aware of something. He loved her. He loved Lucy and didn't want her to leave her. He swallowed and felt shame blush on his cheeks as he jumped up. He had to tell her that. Absolutely!

"Start without me," he exclaimed and sprinted down the hall.

"Finally", Grandeeney growled and took another sip of the hot tea. Then she snapped her fingers.

"Acnologia."

"Anego-sama," he said and bowed. She smiled cool and condescending and pointed towards Lisanna.

"Take the garbage away," she said and took another sip of tea. Lisanna ripped open her eyes in panic, "but keep the garbage alive."

"Yes," he said and a cold smile lay on his lips as he walked towards Lisanna. She swallowed panically and retreated. But Acnologia did not let himself be stopped. He grabbed her by the upper arm and mercilessly dragged the thin girl out of the room, down the hall and to the entrance. Natsu just put on his shoes and cursed about annoying leather shoes. Apparently he liked his jumper boots better.

"You don't have to show up here again, Lisanna Strauss," Acnologia said, and the narrow white-haired one stared stunned at the man who looked back emotionlessly. Natsu didn't even care. He jumped up and ran out. While running, he pulled out his cell phone and called Gajeel, whom he had saved on speed dial. He wouldn't call Lucy now because she wouldn't answer anyway. She was too angry at him. His heart clenched as he accelerated his steps and ran the way to the temple. He wanted to catch her up, intercept her so she wouldn't do anything stupid like talking to her father. After a short tune it clicked on the line.

"Damn fucker what do ya want?", Gajeel growled irritatedly. Natsu grinned broadly. Obviously he had just disturbed him during sex with Levy. Or while sleeping, but he didn't sound tired, so it was sex.

"I'm going to be a father," Natsu exclaimed, and for a moment there was silence at the other end of the line.

"Yeah, we know, you bird", it came untouched by Gajeel and Natsu growled. Gajeel and Levy had known it before him? Who knew it before him too? The whole fucking world? That made him angry, but somehow it showed that Lucy was afraid to tell him and that hurt.

"Did she call ya? She just went off after threatening my father and the whole clan," he explained and Gajeel laughed.

"I am telling ya. Like a rabbit on drugs, the woman. No, she did not call here", Gajeel said and sounded serious.

"She's in her second month, so move yer ass, all right? I'll finally become a godfather," came the answer, "and if something happens to one of them, I'll rip ya ass open up to ya ears, understood?"

And Gajeel hung up with that. Natsu closed the phone and let it slide into his trouser pocket. He put another speed in, came around a street corner and saw her. His Lucy! He made a jump, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her away from the street. She screamed in horror and he crashed against a house wall in his back. His heart pounded against his ribs as she kicked him, or at least tried.

"Wow, keep calm, Luce," Natsu said laughing and held her tight. Not too hard, but so she couldn't escape from him. She paused immediately when she recognized him.

"Natsu? What... what should that?" she asked and he heard how irritated she was. That made him grin and he pulled her a little tighter, stroked with the tip of his nose along her neck and then bit her in the ear.

"I have realized what is more important to me," he then growled darkly, turned her over in his arms so that she could look at him and had to and grinned at her. She growled and glared at him. She was smaller than him and he held her arms. She couldn't beat him that way. Another growl fled her full lips. He smiled down at her. His throat was tightened, his heart beating up to his neck. He felt insecurity and heat rising into his cheeks. But he would do this now. He didn't want to waste another second.

"Luce ... I ... I am sorry. It went through with me. Okay? But ... doesn't want ya to be gone. I want ya to stay with me," he said and his words were honest, she saw it in his eyes and stared at him, swallowed and tears formed in her eyes. At the sight of her tears his stomach contracted.

"Is ... is this a joke? First you hit me and now suddenly it occurs to you that you do want me", she asked and her lower lip trembled. He grinned broadly and bent down a bit.

"I ... Luce I love ya. To be honest, I was just too scared to say that," he confessed and his heart hammered loudly and so fast as if he had run a marathon. Her eyes widened and she stared at him with big eyes. Her heart raced and her thoughts stopped. Only tears ran down her cheeks and he swallowed slightly, could feel her clinging to him. He pulled his eyebrows together.

"Hey, don't cry."

"But ... ", she began and sniffed. He laughed quietly, loosened one arm and then stroked her tears with his right thumb.

"May I take that as yes?"

"What? I ... I ... "

"Do ya love me, Luce?" he asked and was so close to her face with his that her nose tips almost touched. She stared at him and sniffed again. Then she leaned against him, stood on her toes.

"I love you, Natsu" she whispered and he passed the few inches and kissed her. He released the clasp and wrapped his arms around her waist as she wrapped hers around his neck and pressed herself against him. She felt so happy. Her heart was racing and she knew everything was going to be fine. Absolutely everything.

[mercurytail]

Glide

^u^ Happy Halloween everybody! This is a little mini-Mchanzo fic I wrote up for the holiday! With help, excerpts, musing, and support from my friends: @the-hallowed-lady @captainneedsnosleep @drizzerey @Nobodysangel1980

You can also click the link to read it on Ao3 <3 Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

a slight gore warning since this is a Wendigo fic - its nothing intense, so no worries. Also, Its not a super happy fic, but it has a happy ending! (No he does not eat Hanzo)

Glide (down the throat)

How would it feel? To be so hungry...so in need and yet there is nothing to eat? 

Yet, there is 'food' all around you...but, nothing you CAN eat. 

Like putting a feast in front of a starving man and tying his hands.

How would that feel?

Would you break?

It started off so small. A finger here, an ear there, little things that could staunch the hunger inside him. Things easily explained that could be missing from a body. So small, so easy. He almost didn’t notice when he started devouring hands, organs, hearts, and still the hunger grew. It seemed like every time he ate, his stomach demanded more. The curse demanded more. IT demanded more.

He refused to tell Gabe about the hallucinations. The monstrous creature that stalked him on missions, the lanky, skeletal form that would crouch in the corner of his bunk, antlers scraping the ceiling. There were never any marks in the morning. He could see it even now, grinning away at him, wrapping those long, inhumanly long hands around his stomach, pressing inside and Scratching. Tearing. Demanding more, more, more…

He couldn’t tell when deer and boar and bear and whatever else he could shoot down didn’t cut it anymore. When it finally tasted too rotten, too ashy to swallow down without gagging…The day he realised he’s eaten over half the corpse he’d shot down, he almost threw it all back up again. But the monster wouldn’t let him do that. What a waste of food.

At least the cemetery helped…The monster always demanded more, but at least it didn’t care if it was dead or alive.

Sometimes, late at night when the fire in his tiny shack couldn’t quite chase the cold from his bones, when the monster was pacing through his home on silent hooves, growling and dragging its long hands over the ground. Sunken eyes staring him down from across the fire, and jagged teeth stretched wide in its grotesque face as it listened to how Jesse’s stomach growled and groaned for food, he remembered his mother’s old stories –

“The Wendigo are cursed beings, Jesse, but as long as you never consume a person’s soul – have enough restraint that they may have one piece of them left to carry that spirit over, then a wendigo will be trapped to its human. Never let it consume everything, and you can keep it bound.” 

~ the-hallowed-lady

Jesse McCree, a victim to a 'hunger curse', The 'Wendigo's Curse' . He craves human flesh/blood/bone.

When his hunger takes hold of him he transforms into a Wendigo like creature with horns, mangled teeth, sharp claws, and strange swirling eyes.

In Native American mythology, the Wendigo was a creature that came into being when a human consumed the flesh of their own kind. His grandmother had told him the story and many others. She had seen it. 

In Deadlock, they told him to shoot a young man who had been running drugs for them and was skimming off the top. Jesse refused, ‘it wasn’t right’ he said and tried to get the target out of there - He was caught, locked up, beaten and starved...

...until one day they gave him a huge roasted piece of meat. Told him if he ate it all, he'd be forgiven.

He lunged for it. The grease squelched through his fingers as he took it in his hands tearing into it. The first bite so satisfying, so juicy. Like eating chicken off the bone but amplified by the month of starvation. Its flavor so salty sweet on his tongue, he rolled each bite in his mouth wanting to savor it, the fear it was a trick prominent in his mind. Taking a bite, then another and another, the skin of it crisp and breaking just so under his teeth. The bone came into sight too soon, his stomach still growled...almost as if it hadn’t been fed at all.

...it was only afterwards he found out where it had come from.

The curse set in after that...planting its roots deep. Binding him to the creature he was cursed to become if he gave in.

The nightmares came every night, he dreams of a stag-like creature hunting him down, waiting to consume him just as he consumed human flesh, to take over him, to be free in the mortal world - to eat and eat and eat because it is here now and it is here to stay.

He’s still himself. The curse had not taken him yet. But, it was so tempting in Deadlock. He killed everyday...the bodies were so fresh and supple.

Blackwatch came and they took him. “Raw talent” they said. At least it was a home. He’d say it was his first. Gabe treated him like a son. They helped him curb his appetite, fed it and kept it under control. Genji was his only friend. The only true friend he’d ever had.

Moira grew him flesh from human stem cells.

But, after Blackwatch It got worse. On the run, food was harder to get and "burying the dead...well, that's just a waste of food." He’d told himself.

He began to get desperate. He wanted to stay somewhere familiar but, that brought too many bodies. Too many opportunities to eat and consume. “Can’t eat it all” he reminded himself, chanting it to himself as he gnawed on the assassin’s exposed liver. Trying to keep that last bit of himself human. ‘Leave a finger, that’ll be enough’.

Swallowing, he came to, the taste still thick in his mouth. He screamed throwing the piece of…whatever it was away and falling back scraping against the dirt. The moon was high in the sky and full lighting the body at his feet. Blood was thick on his hands, under his nails...claws and his head ached from the split skin on his forehead, the horns having receded. He didn’t remember...he didn’t remember coming out here or chasing after this…’food’. He curls in on himself, shivering in the cold night air...crying. 

But the Hunger became too much and he ran. He ran north.

He moves into a estranged deep forest...lives in a cabin alone. Near a small village, and a cemetery.

He sustains himself off of deer and wild game he kills. Whether with his gun or his claws when the hunger and hallucinations cloud his judgement.

The urge to consume human flesh is always there, and sometimes he gets so ravenous for it he digs up fresh corpses or steals body parts from the morgue.

Hanzo comes into his life after a short while.

He is simply running away as well...someone who murdered their own brother. It's why he likes the church yard so much. He lives there for the peace, and because when you are surrounded by the dead, it's easier not to feel judged for your actions.

They fit too well, every bit of banter, late night talk over coffee at the diner, the hunts. It was all too natural. Hanzo was getting too close and McCree craved him. He craved for his words, his touch, his time...and the beast craved him too.

And Hanzo was too curious for his own good. They strike up a small friendship and the closer they got. The harder McCree tried to push him away.

McCree tried to get Hanzo to leave.

“Hanzo, I just need you to understand it ain’t safe out here for you. They’ll find you too easy. I should know! You got to leave and keep moving.” McCree slumps against the wall, hands in his pockets; hiding. They’d had this talk before.

“I am fully aware of my surroundings and my clan will never find me here. You as a fellow criminal would know. You are hiding here, are you not? Why shouldn’t I? Especially, since we go so well together. We could fight them together...live here together.” the last bit of his sentence is but a mumble not quite making it to McCree’s ear.

McCree finds one night he’s too short on meat - much too short and winter is setting in. He goes out into the light snow for a final hunt, hoping for a bear or moose.

Hanzo finds him out there, cold and unlucky. Hanzo has been around way too much. It puts him on edge.

When a surprise snow storm hits McCree is forced to stay the night in Hanzo's home.

His hunger starts to gnaw at him, scratching, clawing at his insides; out of control. Even though Hanzo had just share his hardy venison stew...three servings of it.

The grotesque beast looms over Hanzo; caging him as he sits in front of the fire, reading. It salivates and begins to whisper in his ear. ‘Just one bite. The taste will be worth it. It will feel so good, so delicious gliding down.’

McCree licks his lips, fighting back the drool building in his mouth. He leans forward in the leather chair rubbing and worrying his hands; one over the other. Staring at the oblivious man across from him.

‘It would be so easy...just a bite. It wouldn’t hurt. It wouldn’t even kill him.’ the skull of the creature caress Hanzo’s shoulder. Its black abyssal eyes like fire on his soul.

McCree cringes, cradling his head and crushing his eyes closed, “SHUT UP!” His heart feels like its leaping from his chest. His breathing is ragged, drool slipping from his mouth as he cries. He tastes the salt.

It's quiet, he feels warm, happy, ‘just chew...it’ll be alright...just eat.’ Freedom is at his fingertips he thinks. Then...

Before he realizes, McCree has changed. His small horns, claws, and teeth have peeled free of his skin and his eyes are a wild black and silver. Hanzo steps back in horror.

Half manic, McCree stalks the room, trying to run or hide. But as time passes He finally pins Hanzo when the hunger clouds his mind.

And Hanzo just gives in. Accepts his fate. ‘It’s what he deserves.’

This Snaps McCree out of his haze. He pulls himself back, eyes becoming clear and he shrinks into the corner of the room just whimpering in an inhuman voice, "food"...”so hungry.”

So, Hanzo goes outside. He takes the remains of an Elk carcass from the snow and brings it in for him. Laying it at his feet. It's a sickening sight, as the horned man leans in drooling and finally shredding into the decaying remains, moaning...

McCree changes back soon, wiping his mouth of the gore and Hanzo faints, the shock too much for his body.

When he wakes, McCree explains everything and after a shared silence Hanzo nods and agrees to help him. To McCree’s great disbelief. However, He accepts the offer...just tired of being alone.

Hanzo knows a thing or two about curses after all, from his family and his past.

They travel in search of a shaman to remove the curse. McCree had never thought of it. Of asking for help of breaking the hold on him.

It takes almost a year but they find the shaman. Hidden away deep in the tropics of mexico. However, they find that it would kill McCree to revoke the curse or change him entirely.

So, with a heavy heart and tears streaming down his cheeks McCree accepts his life. They decide to just live with it and Hanzo says as he holds his lovers face in his hands, he will stay by his side.

The flaming wood cracks as it settles in the fireplace. The orange glow lighting the room. Snow drifts down softly outside the window. Each gust of wind causes the cabin to creak, the room quiet and yet not silent; the sounds of home.

The two men lay together on the sofa, swaddled close in warm wool blankets. Hanzo nuzzles into his neck humming a song neither know the words to.

“Are you hungry my love?” Hanzo asks.

Jesse swallows taking in the flames as they dance. He kisses the top of Hanzo’s head, “No, You keep me full Darlin’.”

[argentconflagration]

Here’s my gift for @pk-nexas! Here’s some green tea for your soul. @boku-no-secret-santa

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

Ochako sat absolutely still. Her eyes were closed, and she sat cross-legged in a patch of dirt a meter across. Around her, three large tree trunks floated serenely in the air. They swayed gently with the breeze, and one dipped slightly as a sparrow alighted on it. Beyond the small circle they formed lay the forest, hushed over with a thin layer of snow.

A wave of nausea washed over her, and she took a deep breath to quell it. Only a few minutes more. Her classmates were surely training their quirks in their free time as well, she knew, so she steeled her resolve and focused only on keeping the logs in the air for the last few minutes as she felt herself pushing up against the limits of her quirk. This was a necessary part of the route to becoming a top hero. So she shuddered softly, swallowing back the bile that threatened to rise in her throat, and did her best to be at ease with the discomfort.

Deku, she knew, wouldn’t have a problem with something like this. He had accustomed himself to pain – too much, really. He seemed able to push past pain even when it was better to respect his body’s limits, so he’d easily be able to bear an amount of discomfort like this for the sake of becoming a hero. She mulled over that thought intently, trying to distract herself from the strain of keeping the logs afloat. It would probably be to their mutual strategic advantage to spend more time training together – they’d be able to temper that aspect of their personalities. They still had a free Saturday before the upcoming practical exam.

The gentle beep from her watch pushed the thought from her head. She released her hold on the logs and fell over into the fetal position, exhausted from the strain. But she was filled with a sense of satisfaction at having reached her goal for the day. She was confident, she was capable. She was on her way to becoming a top rescue hero who would save lots of lives.

As she stood up and shook herself off, she pulled out her phone to send Deku a message. She was confident and capable. She didn’t have to feel awkward every time she asked him to hang out one-on-one, right? She just wanted to study together, that was all.

It wasn’t long after she’d finished showering and changing that there was a knock on the door. Deku was there, and his smile was so wide and bright and genuine when he saw her that her stomach fluttered. But that was probably just from exercising her quirk so much, right?

“You wanted to study together, right?”

“Yeah, I don’t have any questions for you or anything, but I thought it’d be more fun together than alone!”

At her invitation, Deku sat on the bed beside her, and they both buried themselves in their work. They were sitting awfully close together, she couldn’t help but notice. This isn’t going to be awkward, she resolved. Deku is my friend. She yawned and stretched her arms, consciously making an unflattering face, even as she glanced discreetly over at him. His hair was brushed out prettily and his shirt was just a bit tight for him. He muttered to himself as he stared intently at the textbook in front of him.

He looked up from his book and directly into her eyes. “Sorry, was the muttering bothering you?” he asked, all genuineness.

“No.” She was dimly aware that she was still staring at him. “It’s something that makes you unique, you’re my friend, and I’m used to it. I think it’s kinda endearing, actually.”

He turned back to his work with a smile. “Somehow I knew you were going to say something like that. You’re such a nice person, Uraraka.”

“Oh,” she answered stupidly, twirling a lock of hair in embarrassment. She somehow forgot to thank him for the compliment until the moment had passed. “H-hey,” she stumbled over the word, but bravely forged ahead, “are you hungry? Do you want to go downstairs and make some food?”

Deku put his books to the side and stood up. “Sure.”

She floated herself down the hallway to the elevator for the sake of quirk training before realizing that that might be a bad idea. When the elevator doors closed on them, the last thing she wanted to do was go eat. But she’d made her bed and now had to lie in it, so she kept her composure and staggered to the kitchen.

She pulled out a packet of noodles that looked reasonably tasty. She filled a pot with water and put it on the stove.

“Uraraka, you look a little off, is everything alri–”

She turned on the stove, the sparks flickering toward ignition before the flame came to life with a whoosh, and Deku flinched.

It wasn’t incredibly obvious. He covered it with a cough and finished his question. But it had happened. His whole body had gone rigid for a moment, and for a few seconds he had seemed far away, like his body was on autopilot.

“Deku, what’s wrong?” she asked quietly, turning off the stove just in case. This boy, who had broken his own bones so many times, who had been thrown against walls like a doll in fights against his classmates, who had faced down the Hero Killer, had been frightened by the sound of a stove. As gently as she could, she took his hand.

“It’s nothing,” he said, gripping her hand to the point of pain. “It just happens sometimes.” His breathing was uneven and his other hand was clenched in a fist as he tried to calm himself down, but her presence was unbalancing him, making his emotions spill to the surface. “Stuff that happened when I was a kid.” He took a deep breath and glanced around.

What in the world had happened to him? thought Ochako, her thoughts racing. One thing was clear, though, he didn’t want to break down in a common area like this. There were some leftover hard-boiled eggs in the fridge. She put away the pot and grabbed the eggs. Taking his hand again, she said softly, “Let’s go back to my room.”

To her relief, he nodded gratefully. They arrived back in her room, and Ochako made sure the door was locked behind them to keep out any real or imagined terrors.

He stammered and didn’t meet her eyes. “It’s nothing, really. I probably shouldn’t be wasting your time getting upset over something like this …”

She took both of his hands and looked straight into his eyes. “Deku. I care about you. Please tell me what’s going on.”

“But you already understand that sometimes I’m scared when there’s no reason to be.” At her nod, he relaxed into her touch a little. “It’s just that … you know Kacchan mostly hates me …” He trailed off.

She guided him back to the bed and rubbed circles into his back as they sat down.

He took a deep breath. “Some of the stuff he did in middle school really got to me, for some reason … It was just a little bit of making fun of me, calling me useless, saying I should kill myself, hitting me sometimes, you know how he is.”

Ochako’s eyes went wide. “No, I didn’t know about any of that! That’s not little or fine!”

“Sorry, maybe I’m making it sound worse than it was. Like, it was the kind of thing that teachers would tell me was good practice to get used to shrugging off.”

“Then your teachers were garbage!” Ochako was livid. The stuff he was telling her was bad enough, and she could tell from his tone that he was downplaying it. It didn’t really sound like the Bakugou she knew – he was angry, not cruel – but Deku’s pain was real and obvious. How had she missed what had been right in front of her this whole time?

“I don’t want you to think badly of him …” She hadn’t noticed when he’d started to cry, but there were wet tracks making their way silently down his cheeks.

“How I think about Bakugou should be the last thing on your mind right now–”

“… but sometimes it just hurts!” He squeezed her, wrapping his arms around her neck. “I was so alone for so long. You were the first real friend I had besides Kacchan.”

I’m his first real friend, she mentally noted, but didn’t say anything.

He continued to hug her. “Y-you’re such a good friend, Ochako.”

“Shh shh, this is what friends are for,” she replied.

They didn’t go back to their homework. After a long session of quiet hugging, they ended up lying side-by-side on Ochako’s bed, talking about less weighty things.

“And you wouldn’t have thought anyone would have actually done it, but Kaminari took the bet out of pride and stubbornness, so then Ashido did too because she doesn’t know fear, and then Kirishima went with them to be a good sport. So of course they dive into the freezing water and immediately start screaming, and they sound like they’re going to seize up from the cold and drown …”

“Oh no,” said Deku, amused horror in his voice. “Please don’t tell me you jumped in after them.”

“I didn’t,” Ochako continued. “But guess who did.”

“Iida?”

“Iida! He jumps in there, and let me tell you, he handles the cold so much better than any of them. Kirishima was embarrassed to have made Iida come rescue them, though. And it was even worse when Iida told him straightforwardly, ‘You looked like you were the most in need of help.’ And Ashido was laughing so hard at the other two even though she’d been flailing as hard as anyone!.”

Deku laughed lightly and turned to hug her. “The story made me cold just hearing it,” he murmured by way of explanation, but it didn’t stop her from flushing a little.

“Are you feeling better now?” she asked.

“Thanks to you,” he answered. He was looking at her with an embarrassed smile, and it was only then that she noticed his cheeks were also a bit red. He stared at her, and she stared openly back, for a few long moments until he broke eye contact and looked away with a nervous laugh.

Feeling emboldened, she took his hand and squeezed it. She thought she saw a shiver run down his body, and he was trying hard not to look at her.

“U-um, Uraraka-san,” he began nervously. “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met, and … umm … do you think … would you maybe …”

He trailed off for a moment before finishing with, “so I’m sorry I’m so awkward around you all the time.”

He was so shy and earnest and vulnerable – affection shot through Ochako like an electric spark. Everything seemed so clear now, and she wondered how long she’d been in love with him.

“Things have been kind of awkward between us, haven’t they? It’s just as much my fault, though.” She took a breath and squeezed his hand again. “I really like you, Deku. Whether or not you feel the same, I never want it to stand in the way of our friendship.”

She hadn’t even finished speaking before he had her wrapped in a tight hug, his face smushed against her shoulder to hide his still-deepening blush. “I-I really like you too, Uraraka-san – or do you want to be called Ochako-chan – I didn’t know if you would be okay with that – or if I was just being weird because I’m not used to having a lot of friends – and I know you talk about girls sometimes so I didn’t know if you were into boys at all – and I didn’t know if this was just how everyone felt about their close friends – but I also want to kiss you and I don’t think most people want to kiss their friends – but …”

Ochako cut him off with a quick kiss on the cheek, and he stammered out an apology and turned to her. Their noses bumped, and Ochako could feel the heat of Deku’s blush against her cheeks.

“You want to kiss? M-me?” she whispered.

His nod was slight, but definite. She leaned in to close the last inch between them and press her lips to his.

He made a slight gasp, and his mouth opened in happy shock. Without thinking, she followed suit and their tongues met. She shivered, even though she was far from cold. He pulled away quickly, covering his very red face with his hands, and she tried to ignore the empty feeling of her mouth, as if his lips belonged there permanently now.

“You kissed me,” he squeaked, pulling his arms back to rest stiffly by his sides.

“You kissed back!” she exclaimed, eyes wide.

“Are you worried this will ruin our friendship, or interfere with our hero careers?” he murmured, gazing at her. He was looking at her like he’d never seen her before today, and he looked absolutely dazzled and stupefied.

“Kind of,” she admitted. “It would be awkward if we had a bad breakup or if our relationship distracted us from our studies.”

“I don’t know how to avoid having a bad breakup. I’ve definitely heard that ‘avoid breaking up at all costs’ isn’t a good way to go about it.”

“Yeah. I guess we just need to be honest with our feelings.”

“Well, we already admitted we’re worried about our friendship and our hero careers, so that’s a step in the right direction.”

“Yeah!” She kissed him again, and was rewarded by his reaction – surprised, pleased, flustered. “And thank you for telling me about you and Bakugou. I want us to be the kind of friends – the kind of couple – who trust each other with things like that.”

Deku nuzzled his face into her shoulder, which was really an amazing feeling. “You can tell me stuff too.” There was a giddiness in his voice as he continued, “And we can train together, we can go on dates, we can watch movies and cuddle together…” His voice started to waver. “Thank you for supporting me all this time, Ochako!”

She hugged him tight as he sniffled. “You’re pretty supportive yourself, you know.”

He picked up her hand and interlaced his fingers with hers. “Ochako, I love you.”

Her eyes widened and she broke into a broad smile. “Thank you! I love you too!”