#he had to flee so many places where he should have been able to belong

[springcrafter]

This is going to be a personal post, the sort is that's completely about me and my thoughts and life story (slightly obfuscated because I'm not going to doxx myself over here). Don't think for a second this means that I'm ignorant or dismissive of anything that's going on around me; it doesn't lessen my personal trauma and if anything, it makes it even worse.

tl;dr - I'm in pain beyond words. I'm so furious and distraught that I can't even begin to be afraid.

I once spent six blissful months in a particularly safe European city. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like not to experience existential anxiety. Existential anxiety was always present in my life to the point I thought it was the normal way to be. It was there as I grew up in an unsafe city (for everyone, but for Jews in particular), and then after fleeing to Israel when it was clear I would not be able to make any sort of life worth living for myself in a country that never saw me as one of their own.

It also dawned on me that loyalty to a place is the norm. Everyone around me had a home in their towns and cities, or simply their countries, that they had absolutely no interest in leaving behind. Most people are not uprooted once a generation (if lucky) to start over anew - and most nations don't go through this for 2000 years straight.

For at least three generations back, everyone in my family has migrated twice in their lives. A few times by choice (and I use that word loosely) but mostly because of generalized persecution and personal threats. Come and tell me with a straight face, then, that you know what it's like to walk in my shoes. Tell me with a straight face, that I should "just leave" as if there was no Antisemitism whatsoever in the ideas of the Wandering Jew and dual loyalty, or the belief that we're sitting on the sort of piles of cash and resources needed for sustainable immigration.

As for me - I was born rootless. My dad let it escape that I was conceived while my family was transferring their life elsewhere, after he received a personal threat that put the entire family in danger. We got lucky that one time - there was somewhere we could go. But it was not by choice.

The second time, twenty years later, saw the openly Antisemitic government actively destroying hour livelihood. With everyone but me being either aging or severely disabled - we only had one option. Only one place where we could go. I got here before, desperately wishing to belong somewhere, anywhere, as a Jewish immigrant. Except that when I understood there was nothing to go back to, I realized there are no roots under my feet. Not here. Not anywhere.

I often thought of myself as uprooted but I keep wondering if I ever set any roots at all.

I was fortunate in countless ways - I consider myself a lucky person and I count my blessings at every opportunity. Right now, though, I'm not okay. I would be insane if I were. I'm not okay, and no one around me is okay, and I don't know if I'll ever be.

Because there are people who think being pro-Palestine or pro-Israel is like your run-of-the-mill shipping war or sports rivalry, when what's at stake is human lives, including mine. As if one side had to be 100% right and the other 100% wrong. This obsession with "picking a side" is disturbing to me.

(The way I have always seen it, there are two sides - those who benefit from this conflict and treat it as a chessboard, and everyone else. Because when I hear the testimonies of the Palestinian people who were violently uprooted, who have been purposefully kept disenfranchised for nearly a century not only by their enemies but their own allies - I feel that in my bones, far deeper than anything anyone in my leadership has to say. Because we're more similar to one another than to our respective leaders, and they keep us busy hating one another because they don't want us to see that.)

Yes, I'm furious, because so many of you are willing to ignore that high politics are at play, and that this stage of the conflict (October 7 onward) was never about Palestinian freedom. The Israel-Palestine conflict has become a proxy war for bigger fish. It's no longer about us. We're their pawns. But that's not as appealing to emotion as the Palestinian cause, and not the sort of black-and-white narrative people love to latch on to.

Because there are people saying with a straight face that October 7 was perpetrated by Israel against our own. That's a baby step removed from Holocaust revisionism. I've always poked fun at my friend for letting themselves be bullied by the youth; this is the first time I'm genuinely scared of them.

Because Free Palestine, which is about the right of the Palestinian people to live a free life in this land, has genuinely Antisemitic people within their ranks and they are not being held accountable by the broader movement. They are platformed and followed and being allowed to dictate what is and isn't Antisemitism (surprisingly moving goalposts after October 7) - as if anyone who isn't Jewish had the right to define what is or isn't Antisemitic.

Because genuine Antisemitic sentiment is rampant among the general Palestinian population as well, but that is never taken into account when discussing the possibility of peace in the region. "From the river to the sea" is a phrase used by both sides in an ethno-nationalistic manner, and whoever pretends it isn't is outright, knowingly lying to you. There are people on both sides who won't accept peace unless the other side is dead. That is just a fact.

I'm furious, because some of you find this selective blindness acceptable. Because some of you genuinely think that displacing half the world's Jews is any form of solution. Because I have been told "if you don't want to be killed, just leave".

Just leave. Sure. We have been doing that for 2000 years.

There are no roots under my feet, but no wings on my back either.

Because we apparently "control the media" (Antisemitic trope as old as time) but it's extremely clear how little control we have of the narrative - not that I think this is the sort of narrative that should be controlled by anyone.

(A good rule of thumb is that if a turn of phrase or a general idea sounds icky when you replace "Israel" with "half the world's Jews" - it's most likely Antisemitic. Things like blocking Israeli netizens for no reason other than them being Israeli, calling us conquerors when generally we came here as refugees - that is all rooted in Antisemitism, and if you refuse to even consider that idea, you should be taking a good look in the mirror and ask why.)

Because everyone accepts that Hamas runs the Gaza Strip in a brutally repressive manner not unlike North Korea (talk about an open-air prison) where freedom of expression is quelled, but everyone believes their officials blindly.

(Another good rule of thumb: If you believe blindly what one side says and label everyone else as liars - you are a victim to propaganda.)

I'm seething, because the concept of nation-states is inherently European, and it was forcibly imposed upon much of the world in an act of Neocolonialism that areas like the Middle East and Africa will never recover from. Because the Middle East was broken into arbitrary pieces precisely as an European tactic to divide and conquer post-World War 1, and Britain controlled this land and fueled the local conflict until their departure post-World War 2 (whether that was ineptitude or malice, I don't care).

But it's easier to blame 'those savages' in the Middle East rather than force your own to take accountability for all the pain and misery they brought into the world - pain and misery created precisely so you, yes you, living in the Imperial core, could benefit from it.

Furious, because the "solution" to Antisemitism in Europe was to ship the Jews off elsewhere (after taking everything we owned and making it nearly impossible for us to go back) - and now they don't want us here, either. Yes, horrible things are being committed by our own, and we are unequivocally holding our leadership accountable - but you would rather think we are a monolith; that makes us easier to hate.

(I fear that the inevitable accountability will make our leadership prolong the war for as long as they can - there's nothing more that Netanyahu fears than the day after.)

Because I have been labeled as "one of the good ones" before, several times, as if that train of thinking alone wasn't inherently discriminatory. As if the "good Jew" as one who accepts their fate passively wasn't yet another Antisemitic idea.

Because people seem to care about Palestinian lives but say little about the allies using them as proxies. Because people only care when they can justify their hatred for (cannot stress this enough) half the world's Jewish population.

I'm holding the anger of two-thousand years of rootless ancestry and you don't get to tell me how a mile on my threadbare shoes should be walked. Not now, not ever.

[heliads]

Crows

Everyone has a symbol on their palm that somehow relates to your soulmate. You have a crow, which led to you joining the Dregs in Ketterdam. Every Dreg has a soulmate symbol that in no way relates to you- except Kaz Brekker, as no one has seen his palm at all.

masterlist

You stare at the crow inked into your palm. It stares back at you.

You hesitate for a second longer, then snap your hand shut, letting the unblinking eyes of the black bird disappear back behind your fingers. This is the price of a soulmate, of wandering too far from your home and never finding the one person you were meant to belong to. This is the price of being a canal rat, a Grisha, of being anybody still foolish enough to believe in a soulmate in the midst of all this darkness.

Soulmates may technically be real, but people only believe in them as much as they do Inej’s Saints, or anybody else’s long-held dreams. Between the wars and Shadow Folds springing up across the world, it’s getting pretty hard for anyone to find their soulmate at all. It’s supposed to be simple- one mark on each person’s palm to designate their soulmate, a mark that will disappear at the first touch of their hand on yours. Sometimes, you wonder what mark would be on your soulmate’s skin: a flame or sparking coal, maybe, for your branch of the Small Science, or a skull, for all the death that seems to shadow your path.

The crow has been on your palm for as long as you can remember, as long as anyone has ever had a soulmate. It was there when you were born, but judging by your trend in luck, it’ll probably be there until the day you die. Soulmates aren’t for girls like you, girls who flee their homes to trade a life amongst the Grisha for a death in the gray-streaked streets of Ketterdam.

You were born an Inferni, that much is true. You witnessed the Ravkan civil war, and you were there to flee it for safer tides. You weren’t sure what cruel twist of fate landed you in Ketterdam, one of the worst places for a Grisha, but you were at least able to keep your identity a secret. You’d seen what happened to the luckless Grisha trapped inside neverending indentures, and you know what tortures would await you if word of your firestarting habit got out. So, you never spoke a word, and pretended you were just another otkazat’sya traveler in need of safe harbors.

You hadn’t been wandering the canals long before your path turned into the Barrel. It wasn’t an intentional choice, just an eventual fate that you would end up in the worst part of the twisting sidestreets. There was no escaping the Barrel, not unless you were a wealthy mercher or some other lucky sap who the Saints blessed with the ability to avoid getting dragged down into the muck like everyone else. You learned the names and locations of all the gangs like everyone else: Black Tips, Dime Lions, and most notably, the Dregs.

Your breath had caught in your chest when you heard of them. They frequented the Crow Club, some were called the crows themselves, their leader had a crow on his cane. Everything seemed to point in a glaringly obvious arrow towards your soulmate mark: a crow for a crow. Where else could you have ended up?

You knew better now. You had met Kaz Brekker, the boy with the crow cane, and you knew that any chance of finding a soulmate among his crew was near impossible. You had been walking home after dark one night when you found yourself set upon by a duo of thugs. Not Dregs, possibly Dime Lions with a bone to pick, angry that the Dregs had such control over the pigeons of Fifth Harbor. They had been expecting an easy mark, somebody they could thunk over the head with a pair of brass knuckles and walk away without a scratch. They weren’t expecting you to beat them into the dust in a matter of seconds.

No matter your status or location, you were still a Grisha, and you’d been trained by Botkin long enough to be able to defend yourself. When the goons were finally laid at your feet, unconscious, you had allowed yourself a moment to smile. It was easy to feel low, a gutter rat in the canals of Ketterdam, but being able to use your fists again almost reminded you of the training halls at the Little Palace.

Enjoying this one brief memory, though, was a slip that you shouldn’t have made. When you looked up, you weren’t alone- a boy stood before you, gloved hands clasped over a crow’s head cane. You didn’t particularly know who he was, or make the connection between him and the Dregs, and moved to get out of the alleyway before he decided to make the same mistake as the thugs. He had slid his cane in front of you, fast as lightning, stopping you in your place. “I think we should speak about your future in Ketterdam.”

You were annoyed at this sudden interruption. “I think you should leave me alone.” You had retorted, using your hand to move his cane back in front of him. You had also been irritated, both by the fight and this boy’s brashness, and slipped your hand into his pocket for just a second to retrieve a newly shined pocketwatch. No one could have possibly seen it, this tiny movement, and the boy certainly didn’t, as he let you pass without another word.

You were still grumbling when you got back to the ramshackle building you called an apartment complex, and your landlady had raised an eyebrow when she saw you. “What, have you finally realized that it was a fool’s errand to come here?” She asked, and you shook your head. “No, just bothered by some guy with a crow’s head cane. Weird prop to carry around.” The woman had blanched, face suddenly seeming to age a decade in a second.

She had bustled over to you, voice low as if terrified that the boy might be able to hear her. “That’s Kaz Brekker, you fool. He runs the Dregs. Saints, he might even run this city.” She had hurried away from you then, forcing herself back to her work. Even then, you had known she was wrong. There was nothing the Saints could know about Kaz Brekker, nothing they could even hope to involve themselves in.

You had shaken the experience away, climbing up the stairs to your apartment. When you pushed open the door, however, you saw that you were not alone. The boy from earlier was back, this time leaning against the far wall. He gestured for you to close the door, which you did, albeit hesitantly. You had no idea how he got in- you had changed the locks when you first arrived at the apartment all those weeks ago, barred the windows, made it impossible for anyone except you to make their way inside. Yet here he stood, with knowledge of both where you lived and how to get there before you. It was impossible. Well, impossible for anyone except Kaz. The Barrel was his home, after all, and you doubt Dirtyhands had ever bothered to knock.

His fingers tapped the crow’s head of his cane. “I don’t think we quite finished our conversation. You could do more than just wash dishes, you know. The Dregs could always use a new member. That, and I’d like you to return what you stole from me. I’m impressed, actually. No one is that good at pickpocketing except me, and no one would try something that daring except for, well, me. I think you’d fit in nicely with my gang.”

You had folded your arms across your chest. “And I’m meant to believe that my pickpocketing was impressive enough to warrant a visit from Dirtyhands himself?” Kaz had shrugged, the movement stiff in the darkness. “You can believe whatever you want. I just want to see if you’ll take a good offer when you see one.” After a while, you had accepted, and Kaz had left, but not before whispering something in your ear. “If you steal from me again, I will cut off both of your hands. I don’t tolerate theft, not from me.”

You had heard enough threats to know that he meant good on this one. As it turned out, however, Kaz would not have to fear theft from you again. You found a home amongst the Dregs, a home you weren’t likely to give up due to the thrill of pickpocketing Kaz Brekker. You had a room at the Slat, a place at the table, a voice in the masses. It was something you weren’t willing to trade away.

Even amongst the many crows of Kaz Brekker’s gang, however, you still couldn’t let the issue of your soulmate go. You can remember one night, late into the night’s bells when you, Inej, Jesper, Matthias, and Nina had all made the journey up to Kaz’s office, slumped against chairs and floorboards and chatting the night away. Kaz was sitting at his desk, apparently doing paperwork, but you did notice that he kept coincidentally chiming into conversations even when he said he wasn’t paying attention.

At some point, Nina steered the conversation to soulmates. She held up her now blank palm, proclaiming that at some point it had held a wolf’s head. She had been terrified, she said, terrified that she would have a drüskelle or some other weirdo for a soulmate. Matthias had acted affronted at that, but if he was feeling particularly charitable he might relent and tell the gathered Crows about how he’d had a heart on his hand, and how frustrated he’d been when it had disappeared the second he’d locked Nina away on that slaver’s ship.

Nina had turned to Kaz then, intent on poking the bear and having some sort of fun that night. “So, Brekker, what’s your soulmate mark? Or do you not do that sort of zealot human thing we call soulmates?” Kaz had raised his eyebrows, looking distinctly bored. Of everyone in the room, you’re pretty sure that only you and Inej would be able to tell that he was holding back a smile.

“I’m not entirely a monster, Zenik. I do have a soulmate.” Nina had leaned forward, intent on clarification. “Then what’s the mark? We can’t just take a gander at your palm, remember? They’re hidden by your gloves.” Kaz had let his papers fall back to the desk with a thunk, turning to her with an expression laced with both exasperation and studied disinterest. “It’s a fire. A small flame. Happy?”

Nina had looked fascinated. “Beatific. I wonder what that means. An Inferni, maybe?” She wiggled her eyebrows at Kaz. “Maybe it’s supposed to show that they’re devilishly attractive. Really hot, get it?” Kaz had made a sound that was either a dry cough or his best attempt at a laugh. “Hilarious, Nina. I see why you’re a Heartrender- you could make a person want to die based on your jokes alone.”

Nina had acted affronted, making sure everybody knew that her jokes were hilarious, thank you very much, but you couldn’t help but think about the repercussions of this. What if Nina’s first guess was right, and Kaz’s soulmate was an Inferni, like you? If your tattoo was of a crow, and Kaz’s was of flames, then surely it was too much to just be a coincidence. You’d never know, anyway, because soulmate marks only disappeared on flesh to flesh contact. Kaz always wore gloves, so you’d never find out the truth. Besides, you remind yourself, the chances of this were superbly unlikely. A crow could mean anything, so could a flame. You need to stop getting your hopes up.

Despite the possibilities and impossibilities, you’ve still been running with the canal rats long enough to know that you can’t dwell forever on what might have been. You’re a Dreg now and you need to focus on that instead. When Kaz announces an upcoming settlement with the Razorgulls, yet another one of the gangs that roam the streets of Ketterdam, you’re eager for a chance at something entertaining after a long while of nothing. Kaz will meet with the leader to negotiate their way through a claim on the various pigeons coming and going from the harbors, and that will be that.

However, this is the Barrel. Negotiations are rarely easy. This is why, when Jesper arrives as Kaz’s second, he’s shunted aside to a separate room to stay out the duration of the meeting. Kaz and the leader of the Razorgulls are on the opposite side of the street in an empty courtyard, far away from any help should they need it. Kaz was prepared for this, as always, and set up a plan. Inej will shadow Jesper, making sure that he’ll have a way out if he needs it, and you’ll be shadowing Kaz himself. You’re not sure why Kaz chose you instead of his faithful Wraith, only that he rarely makes decisions based on nothing and you would do best to follow his judgement. The times he’s let you down are few and far between.

You and Inej split up, staying amongst the rooftops to avoid detection. She follows Jesper and the Razorgulls’ second into a crowded tavern, and you head towards the abandoned courtyard. Ahead of you, Kaz’s cane taps against the crooked cobblestones as he wends through desiccated hedges and marble statues severely lashed by time. The Razorgulls’ leader is waiting for him there, but you can’t follow now. Instead, you stick to the edges, climbing stairs and making your way into the empty buildings that watch over the courtyard like silent sentries.

You’re not sure what trouble you’ll be walking into, only that it will exist in some crooked form. There’s no logical reason the Razorgulls would want the seconds in another building unless they were planning something, and no reason Kaz would agree to this at all if he wasn’t sure you could have his back when he needed it. As you creep along the buildings, keeping a careful eye on the proceedings through the few broken windows, you notice that the two gang leaders have begun to speak. You can’t quite hear what they’re saying, only a few whispers here and there.

You’re just rounding a corner, ready to make your way into a neighbouring building, when the lights flash off, landing you in darkness. Instantly, you panic. Lighting is scarce here, only the moonbeams and a couple of oil lamps, but there’s no reason they should have shut down this quickly. You hear footsteps on the stairs, along with two pairs of voices: Razorgulls, discussing how important it is to stick to the shadows so Brekker can’t see them.

Your heartbeat thuds in the dark as you realize they haven’t spotted you yet. In fact, they have no idea you’re there at all. When Kaz was giving directions for the negotiations, he specifically told you to make sure that you weren’t seen, even if rival gang members showed up. If you want to go along with his plan and make sure he lives to see the end of this shoddy deal, you’ll have to stay in hiding.

This, however, is easier said than done. If the lights were on, you would be able to see the wooden beams of the floor and tell which ones would creak and which wouldn’t, which large shapes of furniture to avoid and which holes in the floorboards you should step over. A chill washes over you as you realize what you’ll have to do. You move your fingers together, quick as scraping flint against steel, and a small flame materializes at the pad of your index finger. It’s small, barely visible to anyone except you, but it’s enough to help you get out of the room before the Razorgulls notice you.

Even as the thrill of using your Grisha power after so long sends a charge of energy through your veins, you can’t help but feel uneasy. The only reason you’ve been able to survive in the Barrel and avoid unwholesome indentures is because you never used your power, not once. Even if it was necessary, this still feels bad.

You’ve found a new hiding place in the corner of the room and move to extinguish your flame now that it’s no longer useful. However, it’s been too long since you last used your powers as an Inferni, and your concentration wavers. The flame grows brighter and you start to panic, eventually clamping down your mind and forcing the fire to disappear.

The disappearance comes too late. The Razorgulls have seen some light in the shadow that wasn’t supposed to be there and are now edging your way, careful not to let you out of their sight. You have no choice but to take them down, standing over their unconscious bodies and feeling a wave of nerves crest over you. Kaz specifically said not to mess with the gangs, but you had no choice. You can only hope that this won’t ruin his plan too much.

Quietly, you step through the room and unlock a window, letting the panes move open in the wind. Now, you can hear the voices echoing up from the courtyard, and your heart sinks as you realize that things aren’t going well. The leader of the Razorgulls has revealed his ace in the hole, that he’s got guns trained on Kaz right now. Kaz just laughs, the sound as cold as rocks scraping against a ship’s hull, ready to damn a hundred men to the depths of the ocean.

“Do you, though? Who are the men you sent up- Dirk Struik and Niels ter Avest? Your coffers may be deep, but mine are more extensive. Gentlemen, take down this man, if you please.” Your stomach twists as you realize Kaz was counting on the men you just knocked out. Without them, he’s alone with a man pointing a gun at his skull. There’s no way around this- you’re going to have to break your most cherished rule again.

You thrust your palms out in front of you, letting tendrils of flame arc out of your hands and cascade onto the leader of the Razorgulls. He twists in agony, burns appearing on his skin. He only suffers for a moment or two, however, until he becomes unconscious due to the pain. Kaz’s head jerks up, staring at you. You don’t think you’ve ever seen Kaz Brekker truly surprised, but he most certainly was not expecting this.

You don’t think there’s anything you can do except try to explain yourself. You jump down from the open window, letting your heels land lightly on the stones of the courtyard. Kaz seems frozen in place for a second, then moves forward until you’re standing only a few feet apart. Your breath comes wild in your chest. Kaz speaks after the longest of moments. “Where were the guards?”

You hold up your hands uselessly. “They saw me. I had to take them out.” Kaz’s eyes dart to your palms, faster than a sharpshooter pulling the trigger. He takes in the smoke still curling around your fingers, then the crow mark in the middle of your hand. When he speaks again, his voice has lost its icy edge. He just sounds like a boy again, young and confused.

“You never told me you were an Inferni.” You sigh. “It was a secret I needed to keep. You know what happens in the Barrel, the indentures and the tortures. If I used my powers, I would have died a long time ago.” Kaz jerks his head in a harsh nod. “I don’t blame you for surviving. We have all committed worse crimes to live” Your voice gains a confidence it didn’t have before. “Then what do you blame me for? You’re upset, anyone could tell that. If it’s not with me keeping my Grisha abilities a secret, then what is it?”

Kaz hesitates, as if pulling himself back from a yawning chasm. “Me.” You stare at him, at the indecision wracking his brow, then at the way he’s pulling at the glove at his palm. His hands almost seem to shake, like he’s still not sure that he’s doing the right thing. He pulls the glove off, inch by inch, seeming to dread every second that his hands aren’t covered by the black leather. At last, you see it- the mark on his palm, the flame sparking into being right there on his hand.

He reaches out tentatively. “I need to know.” He manages, and at last you understand. You move your own hand slowly, stopping when it’s only a few inches away from his. Kaz squares his shoulders, as if preparing to jump from another broken building, then closes the distance and lets his hand rest lightly on yours. As you watch, your soulmate tattoos shimmer for a second and then vanish, erasing from your skin as if they’d never been there at all.

Kaz lets his gaze linger on the empty skin of your palm, and then he seems to come back into himself, snatching his hand away like he’s flinching from a blow. You can see it in his eyes that he regrets this, that he can’t keep his hand there, but you understand. You can understand quite a lot from him.

Kaz’s voice is like the grating of metal. “I’m not somebody you want as a soulmate. It won’t be easy. It won’t be good.” You laugh quietly in the night. “If I wanted something easy, I would have never come to Ketterdam.” Kaz nods at this, something almost like relief in his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.” You manage. Something almost like a smile flits across Kaz’s face. “Good. We have much to discuss.”

[lantsovsupremacist]

nikolai lantsov request of exes to enemies to lovers with angst and fluff (happy ending pls)

blondie writes for nikolai lantsov and him alone. i simply translate! 😉

part 1/2 🧍‍♀️you get happiness later!

nikolai lantsov: sad beautiful tragic

time is taking it’s sweet time erasing you, and you got your demons and darling they all look like me.

cause we had a beautiful magic love there; what a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair.

with footsteps pounding down the stone staircase, you locked your eyes beneath you to avoid falling victim to one of the chipped steps. the tears collecting at the forefront of your irises did little to mitigate the matter. the castle still confused you but as long as you could flee from wherever he was, you would manage. for every passageway you put between yourself and the place you left him you breathed a little deeper.

he did not call after you.

he did not care to fight for you.

he did not want you to come back.

perhaps, you would not have acted any differently, but his actions—or lack there of—still stung immensely. it took no longer than a blink of an eye for him to break your heart. the strong hands that had once held you tore it into two without leaving behind a shred of remorse.

you felt overwhelmed and dizzy. you started to hold your breath in an attempt to delay the sobs smoldering in your throat. any more oxygen and they would surely be set ablaze.

when the door finally closed behind you and things quieted, you allowed yourself to tolerate the tears. how unfortunate it was that you fell apart behind four unfamiliar walls. the room was more of a formality than anything else, given you had not spent a night apart from nikolai. that would all change now, of course.

it had been easy to fool around with sturmhond. you did not have to care if every word he spoke was a lie. you were not responsible for either his feelings or your own. you entertained each other for a time.

a knock came at the door. with your fingertips gripped across the back of a chair, you looked up into the mirror ahead of you. puffy eyes hanging above red and splotchy cheeks reflected back.

“go away.”

ignoring your command, the door swung open.

genya shuffled inside, hands behind her back. you started to cry again. it was not nikolai. your breathing grew despairingly shallow. your mind wanted to forget nikolai, but your heart was crumbling without his other half to support it.

“oh,” she whispered, immediately beginning to wring her hands at her sides, “oh, honey.”

your chest battled gravity as it rose up and down repeatedly, “he doesn’t want me anymore.”

genya sunk down on her knees alongside you, bringing a quick arm around your shoulder. she brought your hair behind you shoulders and wiped the tears that had already fell. with furrowed eyebrows, she brought a hand to your wrist. stroking her finger over your pulse point, you began to find yourself relaxing your breathing. she kissed the top of your head, a spot where a crown might have one day rested.

“nikolai is foolish and confused,” genya comforted you, “i think he wants you more than anything else, so much so that he doesn’t know what to do.” a sad smile lined her features, exposing a dimple just beneath one of her scars.

“so many people want him,” you began, rising from the ground with a sniffle, “the entirety of ravka depends on him, and i’m just me.”

“i happen to believe he’ll disagree,” she offered, “i know i certainly do.”

genya sighed, tugging on your elbow with a nod to the door. you tried to dig your heels into the floor, but she guided you elsewhere. you allowed her to carry you forward.

“don’t take me to him,” you hiccuped, “please, genya.”

“no,” she refuted, “you’re not leaving it like this.”

“he did,” you whimpered, finally tugging your hand out of her grasp, “why shouldn’t i?”

“because you either have to let him keep your heart or make him give the other half back.” her words were even and carefully considered.

—

genya disregarded the royal guards. you followed behind her, sparing them a single glance. they settled back into place. you almost laughed. you had become such a permanent fixture of nikolai’s life that his guards relented to genya barging in because of your presence.

nikolai was slouched in a chair, appearing rather exhausted. his hair hung a mess over his eyes. you bit your lip at the sight of his leg bouncing restlessly.

genya sent him a look more threatening than you would have ever been able to accomplish in your current state. he caught himself before he could roll his eyes or argue, unwilling to sacrifice a member of the triumvirate. you supposed he could simply justify your loss as collateral damage.

your eyes trailed genya’s form until she departed entirely from your view. only then, did you dare take nikolai in fully. he looked about as awful as he had made you feel.

“you didn’t come after me,” you phrased your words as a question, begging him to answer.

he shifted, leaning back in his chair to look up at you, “i didn’t want to.” it left you looking down at him.

you breathed out in disbelief, shaking your head at his tone. he knew exactly what he was doing to you. you wanted to rip your heart away from him. maybe if you cut away the remaining strings, he would not be able to control you like he did now.

“what if i wanted you to?” your voice increased an octave, clattering against the walls as an echo.

a scoff left his mouth as he resigned to engage in the breakdown of another fight, “it wouldn’t have mattered. you wouldn’t have listened to me.” before you could respond, he spoke up again, “i don’t have to follow after you.”

you shifted your gaze to the glass of water on his desk. no matter the desperation building in your chest, you wanted to feel angry, instead. it was easier to manage. so, you lashed out at him. building the water pressure in the lone glass, you watched it shatter on his desk and saturate the paperwork.

“missed me,” he mumbled wearily.

feeling like a child, you stomped your foot and sent the water to splash against his face. it dripped past his lips—a sight you chose to ignore, lest it elicit a response rather inappropriate for the current circumstances. they caught in a smile as he laughed bitterly, bringing his hands across his mouth.

“i told you i would marry you,” nikolai pressed onward carelessly, running a hand through his hair as if to dismiss your actions, “certainly not my fault you said no, now is it?”

“because it sounded like something you’d resigned to accept! something that had to be done!” the words tore through your throat painfully, “it should be a privilege. it should be love.”

you detected the exact moment he comprehended the final line. he straightened and swallowed harshly. nikolai lantsov looked inexplicably afraid.

“it should be love?” he questioned quietly. now, he was angry and afraid. you knew it to be a fragile but dangerous combination.

“you assume marriage is enough for me,” your voice grew louder, daring him to fight, “marriage won’t make you love me again, nikolai lantsov.”

“you’re putting words in my mouth!” the fervor in his voice did not go unnoticed.

“someone has to,” a moment of silence passed, “you haven’t talked to me in weeks,” you clung to a whisper, “not really.”

you watched his eyes carry themselves across the room. you cursed your heart for hoping they would find land in you. they kept searching elsewhere, drifting further out to sea.

“again?” his voice was broken.

“what?” you questioned, clearing your throat as the sudden shame washed over you for barging in on the king.

“you said marriage wouldn’t make you love me again,” he dared a step closer, “have you stopped loving me?”

you took a trembling step back from him with your heart beating erratically inside your chest. you could not find the control to move your fingers, not even to curl them into reluctant fists. suddenly, everything felt heavy, and you did not want to carry the weight alone.

“i don’t know, nikolai,” you answered somewhat truthfully, unable to gather an honest answer.

“i suppose that’s fair,” he relented.

“i suppose it is,” you whispered with a frown.

you turned to leave after a moment, taking his soundless stance as an indication of retreat.

“you broke my heart,” nikolai realized aloud, hands deep in his pockets as he stared at you.

“yeah well,” he titled his head at you, “you broke mine first,” you spoke coldly, hardening yourself to ice against his warm body.

taking a step away from him, you gasped as his hand found your jaw. although his grip was firm, you refused to melt at his feet. you did not belong to the whim’s of nikolai lantsov’s heart any longer.

“i’m leaving you, nikolai,” you stuttered out as you backed away, gasping at the shiver in your chest enacted by his touch.

his jaw tightened, “you can’t.” his voice was a ghost of a severe whisper, and you knew it would haunt you forever.

“i have to,” you spoke clearly.

“i-,” he fumbled fervently for any semblance of conviction or persuasion, “you can’t leave me.” he had ran out of personas to pull you in with.

“i already have,” you granted him a final look out of pity before you left his room behind and with it, his wavering silhouette.

[imkylotrash]

The Noble Kind

Pairing: Sir Gwaine x reader 

Request: She's the queen, married to uther but is just a year or 2 older than Arthur. She has magic. They had an arranged marriage cause her kingdom which is extremely powerful didn't want to go to war with uther as they were taking in refugees to protect and didn't want to inforce the idea that magic is evil. She has an affair with gawain and they run away when she's pregnant. Anonymous

Tagging: @bitchwhytho​ @music-of-melody​ @shadowhuntyi​ 

“It’s for the greater good,” you mother tells you right before you marry the King of Camelot in an attempt to prevent a war. Uther is a great king for the most part but he is frightened by what he doesn’t understand. Magic is one of the things he knows nothing of - leaving it up to your kingdom to take in the refugees running for their lives. 

“To a strong alliance,” he toasts at the wedding party and you keep a smile plastered on your face through the entire evening even though you hate every second. You’ve always said you’d marry for love but there’s no lost love between you and Uther. He agreed for the alliance and nothing more. You agreed because it was the right thing to do for your people. None of you could afford to go to war with each other. 

“A strong alliance,” you echo lifting the glass of wine placed in front of you. In the crowd, you spot Gwaine looking at you with sorrow in his eyes. He didn’t want to believe it until he saw it with his own eyes. But then something changes, you see the flip switch as he raises his glass to you before downing the whole thing. You should’ve known he wouldn’t take this well. 

“Have I lost your interest already?” Uther asks with a sparkle in his eyes of something you can’t quite figure out. 

“Of course not, dear. I was simply amused by the people dancing.” You’re quick to recover having been taught etiquette and manners your entire life. You know the game well enough and you’ve only gotten better after your mother abdicated and handed the crown over to you. The loss of her king, your father, had been too much. You stepped in knowing you’d had to give up what little life you had acquired. Gwaine was the only thing you refused to let go of. 

“You should join them. Show them they can trust their new queen.” You wonder where Arthur but that question doesn’t go unanswered very long. He comes in by a back entrance quietly sitting down next to Uther.

“As you wish, my king.” You join the common people dancing and they’re quick to welcome you and show you the steps. It’s the most fun you’ve had all night. You don’t see Gwaine in the crowd though which worries you. It won’t do anyone any good if he gets drunk enough to make a scene. 

“He’s in your chamber,” Merlin whispers using his magic to carry the sound to you and only you. He must’ve figured out who you were looking for. 

“Thank you,” you whisper back. Merlin is the only one who knows about you and Gwaine but he’s promised to keep quiet. He doesn’t want to cause problems for neither of you. It’s another hour before you feel it’s appropriate to retreat for the night. Uther doesn’t object when you inform him that you’ll be spending the night in your private chambers and you don’t feel guilty for doing so. The marriage is strategic and you both know it. Besides, there’s something about only being one summer older than Uther’s own son. 

You finally reach your chambers having sent your servants to bed with the promise that you’ll be able to take care of yourself. It’s an excuse to keep them from seeing Gwaine. He’s drunk when you enter, he’s very drunk. 

“Do you ever stay away from trouble?” you ask noticing the split lip and the bruise on his cheekbone. He’s been fighting again. 

“You know, I had the strangest dream,” he starts but you’re too tired to make sense of his metaphors. You want him cleaned up and ready to sleep. 

“Let me,” you whisper carefully wetting a cloth and rinsing the worst of the blood from the cut. 

“You could always do the witchy woo,” he says wiggling his eyebrows and puckering his lips. 

“It’d do you some good to heal naturally. Perhaps you wouldn’t worry me so much,” you reply but the second he mentions the pain you’ve lost all resolve to let him heal on his own. You can’t let him be in pain when you can take it away. 

“Fine,” you whisper placing your hand right about the cut and closing your eyes. In mere seconds, the wound has closed as if he’s been waiting for you here the whole time and not been out looking for trouble. 

“Thank you,” he says this time a little more serious. You feel as though you can finally exhale as you crawl into bed with him. These are your moments of peace, the moments where you can avoid the pressure of your title and the expectations that come with the crown. 

“You know, you did just get married. Normally, there’s something you’d consummate the marriage as well.” He’s drunk and out of his mind, but he’s your crazy drunk and looking into his eyes you feel nothing but love. 

“Sober up and I’ll think about it.” You don’t consummate anything that night but you do the following nights. You get careless and before you know it, you’re late. Gaius confirms your suspicions and congratulates you thinking it belongs to Uther. But Merlin knows the truth though which means he’ll be the only person who can help you. 

“We must leave tonight,” you confide in him. If Uther finds out that you’ve disrespected him in these manners, he’ll have you hung and declare war on your kingdom. If you flee, you’ll be able to have the baby and come up with some sort of plan for your return. It’s the safest option.

“Meet me down here tonight. I’ll get you out of Camelot but then you’re on your own,” Merlin murmurs already concocting a plan for how to distract Gaius as he helps you escape. There’s no time for excitement when you tell Gwaine what has happened but you can tell he’s over the moon. 

“And it’s mine?” he whispers eyes full of affection. He never thought he’d want to become a father but learning the news of your pregnancy has proven him wrong. 

“Of course it’s yours,” you say with as much dignity as you can muster. How could he ever think it wasn’t his? You stop dead in your tracks when Arthur appears around the corner. 

“Sir Gwaine. My Lady.” He kisses your hand from obligation rather than willingness. 

“Could I have a moment with her Highness?” Gwaine knows he can’t say no but the hesitation is enough to raise suspicion. He continues down the hallway as you remain with Arthur. 

“He’s good with a sword but that brainless head of his is going to get him killed one day.” You chuckle having said the exact same thing to Gwaine many times. 

“Perhaps his sword skills will be the thing to save him from the troubles his brainless head creates?” you suggest hoping the talk of Gwaine will distract you from the real question; why are you down here? But it doesn’t and you mention the only thing that will make him run the other way. 

“I have terrible cramps. Gaius promised he had a potion that could help.” The mentions of menstrual cramps is enough to send him running and you hurry on laughing at how easy men can be distracted. Sound travels through these tunnels and you’re close enough to hear both Gwaine and Merlin. 

“I used to think you hated nobles,” Merlin laughs enjoying the company of his best friend one last time. 

“Yeah, well... maybe that one’s worth dying for, eh?” You don’t mention their conversation as you enter but your heart is beating a little faster after hearing his declaration. That night you and Gwaine escape Camelot with help from Merlin. You seek refuge in your own kingdom using magic to distort your features and remain hidden. By the time, Uther realises what has happened, you’ve taken in too many sorcerers for him to launch an attack that will ultimately lead to a war he will lose. Not too long after the birth of your child, you return to the throne with Gwaine by your side and a little heir running around the throne room. 

“Is it wrong for me to miss being on the run?” Gwaine asks you as you walk in the garden surrounding the castle. 

“I miss it too sometimes. But I couldn’t abandon my people.” 

“You just might be the first noble to care for their people,” he smiles. He takes your hand in his and the topic is never brought up again. Gwaine settles into his role with grace leaving behind the tavern fighting instead focusing on little Merlin and you. 

“I’m pretty proud of our little family.” 

“Me too.” 

[yandere-sins]

Could I request some yandere Sukuna from jjk crushing on one of Yutadoris sorcerer teachers and before she realises it, sukuna has taken over yutadoris body and I’ll let you decide the ending

Thank you for requesting! :3 I hope you enjoy it! Sukuna is second best boy for me from the series so I am always excited for him ^-^

»»———————— ♡ ————————««     

Up till now, you hadn’t had the chance to build an opinion on the creature that Itadori was. Perhaps, it wasn’t your place to judge him at all, but having been assigned as one of the people teaching him the ways of the Sorcerers, you almost felt obligated to have some kind of opinion.

The truth was, he was a good kid. Anyone with a few social skills could see that. Though he was young, he took what he was doing at the Jujutsu High seriously, and despite being immensely chipper, for someone who would be executed at some point, he wasn’t a bother to have around. Even if this wasn’t the way of life he wanted, he pretty much committed to it now.

And yet, of course, you feared him.

You feared that someday, he wouldn’t be able to keep the threat residing inside of him at bay. You feared he was a ticking bomb on two legs, no matter how well he appeared to have it under control. No one could assume what was going on beneath that carefree expression and cheerful smile. What Sukuna was doing underneath the farce that was this sweet boy.

At first, you thought it would get better the more you knew him. The first meeting had made all hairs on your body stand up straight, but even then, you didn’t run from it. You might have looked pretty disgusted the first time Sukuna spoke up through a mouth on Itadori’s cheek, but otherwise, you had kept your composure.

No matter if you were a graduate from this school, or if they trusted into your abilities enough to teach the kids, or if you believed in yourself and your skills, it all meant nothing when you thought that you’d have to restrain the monster hiding inside of Itadori. How long would you be able to withstand it? A second? Two? You could be relieved if Sukuna made a quick process of you, but you feared he wouldn’t.

Glancing over your shoulder, you watched Itadori jotting down the things you were writing for him on the board. A yawn escaped him casually before he went back to taking his notes. He looked just like any other student. As if he was taking a typical class on an everyday topic, but you couldn’t shake the feeling. You knew you were being watched.

The thought that it wasn’t Itadori who watched you was actually worse than if it was him.

Sighing, you brought your eyes back forth to the blackboard, simply hoping that it was just your imagination running wild. You really, really did not want it to be true. However, sorcerers were specialists when it came to cursed spirits. You should have known better than to push away your intuition like that.

On the other side of the room, Yuji couldn’t help but wipe some sweat off his brow, relieved that you didn’t see it. Sukuna - as always - was a pain in the ass to deal with. If he wasn’t running his mouth, he at least seemed to think he deserved to see what was going on, eyes crawling over Yuji’s skin no matter how hard he tried to stop them.

Turning his head, shielding the eyes with his hand - nothing ended his attempts. Yuji was so glad that you were focused on your task of teaching him, refusing to spoil him with your gaze all the time. Why Sukuna decided to take an interest in you, not even Yuji had been able to get that question out of the cursed spirit. However, every lesson it got worse. Usually, Sukuna would stay put if it wasn’t Fushiguro that Yuji was talking to, but you seemed to make him restless.

Catching a glimpse of the clock over the door, he sighed in relief. Only ten more minutes left before this would be over once more. Even though Yuji had no problem talking, you and he had yet to really get to know each other. You were careful, and with Sukuna acting up, so was Yuji. He almost expected you to not like him very much for apparent reason, so how in the world could he have explained to you what was going on without it freaking you out?

“Hey, I think you shouldn’t teach me anymore because Sukuna is stirring up my body!” sounded weird AND suspicious. It would have probably earned him a re-evaluation or execution right away. Yuji knew that if he wasn’t able to control Sukuna anymore, that would be his end, and he had yet to reach his goal. He should have told you then and there, but something held him back.

Something that decided it was time for more action than sitting out this precious time with you.

Yuji’s hand tensed before it drove forward hard, letting go of the pen between his fingers. With a tender click, it fell to the ground, rolling towards you and catching your attention. Surprised, you glanced at Itadori, who smiled nervously at you, clutching his own hand, and you raised a brow, wondering if he was having a cramp or something.

Picking up the pen, you walked over to your student to return it, putting it in front of him on his desk, as Itadori managed an awkward, “Thank you!” while trying to take it. His movements seemed unnatural, sort of revolting as you could see his muscles tense and release beneath his skin. This was weird, right? You weren’t imagining things this time, or were you?

The answer was taken from you as his hand suddenly flinched, body jolting over the table to grab for your wrist, and you barely had the time to react. You knew what you had to do, jujutsu was like second nature for you, but the surprise hit harder now that your body was actually trying to have an opinion on Itadori.

Still, you were going in for the kill. If it had to be you or the boy, then you were your priority, no matter how much your heart already seemed to regret having to do this. What you didn’t expect was... he was faster. “Ita--?” you managed to press out before you were hit roughly in your face.

Your eyes shut close as his second hand reached for your head, fingers clawing into your hair and skin, sinking into the hollows of your skull and digging in. Despite it all, you managed to open your eyes again, one covered by the palm and clouded in darkness, the other one staring right into what you hoped - and at the same time feared - where two red irises staring back; Two that belonged to the same face, but different pairs of eyes.

“Unfortunately, I think this lesson ends prematurely. A shame, I do like watching you even if it’s just from the back.”

Even though you could not assign the voice to anyone you met before, your body froze up almost instantly as you watched the face back away from you, showing you half of a lopsided grin. The expression spreading out on his face was none you would have thought Itadori was capable of. “You can’t blame the boy, he was trying so hard to keep me away from you,” the person before you spoke, and the unappreciated realization of who was standing in front of you took over your mind.

Sukuna.

Almost instantly, as you thought his name, black marks began to spread over Itadori’s skin, crawling deep down to his chest and appearing back on this arms. “I finally found a fine woman, and yet it took me months to get to you. We have to commend him for that, don’t we?”

The more he talked, the less you felt incapable of moving. Despite the fear feeling like a blizzard freezing you up, you warmed your body with thoughts of who you were. You were a graduate of this very same school. You had survived so many spirits, but seen so many good men fall. If this was your turn to die, you wouldn’t go down like prey in the eyes of your hunter.

Gripping his wrist with both your hands, his grip tightened unbearably so, but you pressed the words out of your mouth anyway. “What do you want?” you brought forth through gritted teeth, and Sukuna’s lips curled into an almost pleasant, yet condescending smile. “Just you,” he explained, suddenly letting go of your face, making you stumble forward.

But the next moment, you felt his pointer against your forehead. In a wondrous moment of clarity, you realized what was going on. You’d not let him have his way and give that spirit what he wanted, but it was too late to make use of your abilities and blow off his arm or your own head in an attempt to flee. All you got was darkness and the feeling of everything around you collapsing to the ground as you blacked out.

 “Fuck,” you winced as your mind slowly regained conscience. The ground you were laying on could only be described as fluid, but it wasn’t wet at all. Nevertheless, when you opened your eyes, you jolted up and into a seat, seeing all the red that covered the surroundings. If not for the buzzing energy of this place, you might have thought you were dead. With the memories of the happenings returning to you as you tried to remember, you wished you actually were.

“Finally awake, I see,” a voice called out, amusement and mockery laying in its tone. Your eyes caught the sight of the hundreds of skulls first before it managed to lift high enough to see the special grade cursed spirit splayed out enthroned on them. “Welcome to my world,” he grinned, and it made a shudder run down your spine while you began glancing around carefully.

“What did you do?” you asked, seeing nothing but darkness and bones wherever you looked. “Why am I here?”

“Ah, so many questions,” Sukuna sighed, your head snapping forward as you heard footsteps in front of you. “Isn’t it great that we’ll have a lot of time to clear them up?”

You didn’t react to this, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing you would humor him. Still, you eyed his hand suspiciously as he squatted down, reaching out to caress your face. You almost feared a cut from his sharp nail along your cheek, but nothing happened, and you noticed his eyes almost transfixed on his finger on your skin. “Where’s my body?”

“Safe,” he mumbled, appearing to be in thought. But just as quickly, his eyes snapped up to meet yours again. “Figured it out already, haven’t you?”

“What could someone like you want from my soul, even dragging it here for no apparent reason?”

“Told you, didn’t I? I just want you; the rest is a surprise!”

Standing up again, Sukuna spread his arms open as if he was inviting you in to them. “Don’t be so stiff, Darling. We’ll have fun here!”

“Darling?!” you croaked in disbelieve, spouting the words which were absolutely revolting to you. “Don’t worry,” Sukuna chuckled.

“You’ll come to like me soon enough.”

[renhaswritersblock]

Kinktober Day 1: Facesitting||Anonymous Sex - Johnson

Word Count: 2174

Warnings: Oral, overstimulation, faded sex, slight angst

A/N: Hello! So, I kinda got a bit carried away with this one *looks at the word count* hehe. But I hope you enjoy reading this fic. Was a bit hesitant at first while writing this smut, but with a few readings from a couple of friends, I continued writing! It's sort of unfinished, a work in progress. The rest of the kinktober day's will probably be short, not sure yet. I have a few exams this week and work is being a cunt, so the writing will be delayed for a short while, sorry. Also, I refer to Johnson in this fic as "The Man" cause of the anonymous sex part. Anyways, again, hope you enjoy reading! Let me know what you think. I do accept feedback/criticism, just don't abuse that power. And I hope ya'll are having a wonderful day. -Ren

~~~

“So, do you mind telling me where the hell we’re going, Frankie?” the strawberry-blonde glanced over at her friend sitting beside her, gripping anxiously at the steering wheel.

Frankie had her head leaned halfway against the open window of the moving car. Feeling the cool summer-night breeze hit her face while her hand traces circles on her wooden thigh. A small yet noticeable grin leisurely forms on the brunette’s face, thinking about tonight’s plans. She had been looking forward to this night for some time, finally be able to get away from the Bang-a-Rang - a place she once called home but is now a prison - and go wherever the river takes her.

“Hello? Earth to Frankie.” Frankie opened her eyes, turning her head swiftly towards the calling of her name. “Are you going to answer my question? Or do I have to turn the damn car around and drive back?”

Frankie pressed her lips together, letting out an exasperate sigh. “You worry too much, V,” she finally replied in a soft, choleric voice.

“No shit,” V retorted, “I rather not have Aunt Rosemary or Dennis be on my fucking ass if you’re doing something that could get us in trouble. Or worse, killed.” She glanced once more at Frankie with a furrowed brow. The brunette rolled her eyes with a snarl, glaring back out the window, head resting in hand. The pale broad’s narrowed eyes dropped into a pitiful look, sighing as she turned her attention back on the road. “Look, hon. I’m trying to be there for you more and back you up, but you can’t just leave me in the dark. You know what happened last time, fuck, it scared the living shit out of me.” Frankie’s eyes darted down at her wrist, seeing the visible dark-faded bruises wrapped around her like a cuff. Her face scrunched mournfully at the memory, remembering how painfully tight those bastards tied the chains. “I don’t want you to die, Frankie,” V finished, becoming teary-eyed.

The strawberry-blonde jumped at the gentle touch of something weighing on her shoulder. Looking over, she saw the olive-skin hand belonging to Frankie, giving a light squeeze for reassurance. “Didn’t know you cared this much about me, V. Thanks,” Frankie gave a half sympathetic smile, V returning a similar smile. “But you should save that melancholic shit-talking for your butch when it gets close to war,” She quipped, making V scowl and slap Frankie’s hand off her shoulder.

“Fuck you, bitch.” Frankie couldn’t help but tilt her head back and release a cackle as V continued staring angrily at the road.

“I’m just fucking with you, puta. You know I love you.” The brunette adjusted herself in her seat, now sitting up straight. “Anyways, a little birdie sent me a note to meet them at this motel in town,” Frankie pulled out a wrinkled note from the pocket of her shorts, handing it to V, “Mira. Thought I could -you know- check it out.” V quickly snatched the piece of paper, silently reading it while keeping an eye on the road.

In town only for tonight. Meet me at the Woodland Motel at 8 pm sharp, don’t be late. See you there.

Ps. bring the thing XO

“The thing?” V quirked up a brow, turning to Frankie with a puzzled expression. All the brunette could do was shrug at her response, fixing her spaghetti strap. V scoffed as she shook her head in disbelief, “Do you even know who you’re meeting? It could be some crazy lunatic who’ll bash your brains out or make you end up in a tub full of ice with a missing organ!” Frankie reached to grab the note out of her friend’s hand as she was waving it around in the air. “Honestly, Frankie. Do you not see the red flags here?”

“Nope.” The brunette answered with a popping sound on the p, “Plus, I know him. Known him for a pretty long time. And besides-” she bends down, tracing her fingers on the smooth wood of her prosthesis. Finding the split crack, she gently pulled at it to reveal a hollowed compartment and a revolver nestled inside. “-if I ever am in danger. I always have this.” She took the gun out of its chamber, swaying it in the air.

---

Lighting another cigarette, the man watched from his car as the brunette struts out of the front office towards the parked convertible, bending down to lean against the car’s open window of the driver’s side.

The last time he saw her, her shaggy hair was long and vibrant, reaching down to her backside, her bangs acting as curtains to shield away her flaws, as she called it. Now her hair was short - below the ears and sleek, it reminded him of Betty Boop.

It was unclear what she was saying to her friend, but not even a minute passed when the convertible came to life and started to drive off, leaving the girl wiggly waving goodbye. Once the car was out of sight, she twirled in the direction of her room.

He couldn’t help but stare longingly at her ass. How her shorts hugged tightly around the brunette, revealing more of her curves and backside. Even her tight-fitted tank top that displayed her womanly busty’s made the man’s cock twitch as they bounced merrily.

When she entered the motel room, the man waited a couple more minutes, taking one good draw of his cigarette puffing out a cloud of smoke before exiting the vehicle. Throwing the cig on the ground, he swaggers across the street, taking out a spare room key from the pocket of his blazer, and approached quietly to the door to room 6.

---

Frankie let out a faint moan, feeling a wave of pleasure overtake her as she played frantically with her clit. Her face growing red hot, firmly cupping one of her breasts, whimpering lowly when she twisted the nipple to feel the burning friction and pressed down on a particular spot of her clit that made her see stars.

After she stepped inside the room, the brunette did not waste time quickly disposing of all her clothes and hopped daintily on top of the bed, not even bothering to turn on the light. She wanted to start slowly, gradually roaming her hands around her body and steadily rubbing her slit on the outer layer of her boxers, but the brunette was impatient. Hungry for the pleasure that would push her over the edge. Intimacy she hadn’t felt for a long time.

Now, sprawled out on the bed, Frankie writhed in frustration, her free hand clenching the pillow below her head as she concentrated on the small squelching sounds of her pussy from teasing her bud. Eyes shut tight, biting back her cries of bliss. She could feel it rising, the knot in her stomach tightening, aching to be released. Yet Frankie refused to, not wanting to climax so soon. Not without him.

She wondered where he was. Wishing -fuck- begging for him to show up and claim her, ruin her, make her a mess. Turning her head toward the nightstand, she saw the red numbers illuminate from the digital clock reading 8:22 pm. Maybe he was running late. The river always kept him busy and distracted, slowly drifting him away from her, leaving her to sink further into the watery depths of the current to drown. Maybe she was set up, that this was another one of the pin-up’s sick jokes to get back at her. Frankie’s chest ached tightly at the many dejecting thoughts consuming her, stopping and removing her hand out of her boxers. He’s not showing up, Frankie thought, tears beginning to cloud her vision.

Suddenly, a pair of hands swiftly grabbed her by the leg and thigh, pulling the brunette down at the edge of the bed. Frankie released a startled squeal, opening her eyes widely to see the dark outline of a man hovering above, two dimly lit orbs longingly staring at her. She gazed back up at the man with a slack-jaw, blushing. Wondering how long had he been here, watching her touch herself soundlessly. Her breath hitched, jolting when she felt the cold but comforting touch of the man, delicately tracing her slender frame. Sending her body trembling every time the tip of his fingers draw near a sensitive bit. He moves down to her breasts, burying his face between them, giving small pecks and soft bites of reassurance that left the brunette flush, turning her head to the side biting her fist to hold back the moans. Noticing this, the man then latched his mouth onto one of her nipples. Frankie hissed and jerked at the pleasurable shock as he sank his teeth into her, granting a loud moan to escape from her lips. She could sense the man looking up, smirking smugly. He repeated his action one more time, greedily wanting to hear her whines and soundless beggings.

Hooking a finger on the waistband of her boyshorts, he steadily tugged the fabric down, opening her legs to fully exposing her wetness. The brunette’s breathed heavily as the man left a trail of tender kisses, going down between her legs. Before he could press his lips against her heat, his hand brushed her thigh accidentally, making the girl flinch and back away out of instinct. He looked up at her with a furrowed brow, questioning what he did to make her panic and flee so slightly. Then it hit him. His eyes darted back at her leg and at the wooden prosthesis still strapped onto her mid-thigh, realizing the mistake he made. He looked back up to her, kissing her other leg apologetically, signaling that he wasn’t going to do anything she was thinking of again. Frankie mumbled an ok before moving hesitantly closer, carefully leaning back and opening her legs once more.

Immediately, he sinks his face into her cunt, dragging his tongue up and down her slit to savor her juice. Frankie whined and stirred, arching her back at the feeling of him vigorously eating her out. As his mouth focused on engorging her clit, he worked two fingers into her hole, perfectly sliding inside her.

The brunette choked out a moan at the intrusion, grabbing ahold of the bedsheets as he slowly dragged his fingers out and quickly shoved them back in, setting a rough pace that hit her g-spot with every thrust. Her hips began to move to meet his fingers and tongue as he proceeded to fuck her, picking up his pace and going knuckles deep. She felt pressure build in the pit of her stomach, increasing by the second. With a brisk roll of his tongue over her clit, Frankie arched her back and spasmed into a powerful orgasm.

“Oh, f-fuck!” Frankie’s eyes rolled back as her body shook violently, huffing out of breath at the sensation.

When the brunette came down from her high, she thought that was the end of it. Only for the man to grab both her hips and pulled Frankie closer to his face, continuing to burrow his tongue into her, repeatedly hitting her sweet spot. Frankie tensed up at the feeling of being stimulated again, bracing for another climax that was closing in. She reached down to try and pull his head away from her. To no avail, the man moving it away by extending his hand out to hers, fingers intertwined. No matter how many times she squirmed away from the man’s face, he would always go forward and proceed to work on her cunt, digging his nails into her skin. Then the brunette made an attempt to roll over to detach his lips from her folds, but it only flipped him over to his back, pulling her to sit on his face.

“S-stop. I-It’s too -fuck- It’s too much,” The brunette arose, gripping at the man’s hands as support, as well as to pry them open, “Fu-Fuck, I’m gonna- AH!” She cried out, snapping her head back as another orgasm came crashing shockwaves of ecstasy into her. The man emitted a mm, parting his lips away from her snatch to breathe. Frankie took it as an opportunity to free herself from him, wearily getting off and slumping next to the man on her back, also catching her breath.

Not even a minute had passed when she heard the metal clang of a belt and looked down to see the silhouette of the man seated upwards. He began to remove his pants, tugging them down to his knees, and turned to face the brunette.

“Just give me a minute.” She responded with a raspy voice, lifting herself gradually. Frankie perched at the side of the bed, unclasping the leather strap of her prosthesis. Removing her leg, she leaned it against the wall and crawled back to the middle, spreading out to present herself to the man. With a slight close-lipped smile, she purred, “Ready when you are, cariño.”

[remsmoonlight]

— title : brownies n’ breaks

— word count : 2.2 k words

— pairing : daryl dixon x reader

— summary : cooking is your love language and it’s time that you are able to finally make something for Daryl, protected from the high walls that alexandria boasts of are you finally able to bring that vision to life

— warnings : absolutely nothing, except sickly sweet fluff

oooo another daryl request if you’re willing!!! maybe once they get to alexandria reader makes daryl some homemade brownies or some shit because she knows he’s never had much homemade food if any just some domestic cute shit??🥺🥺♥️

          ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　requested     　/    requests are open   *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Sweetness flows throughout the air of your new home, sliding into every corner it can find to fill and warm. The smell of domesticy is something you thought perished long ago when the world died, but here you stand.. with a fresh batch of brownies in the oven baking as if life rebooted and got set back to factory settings. You move from the oven, small steps to the door to be able to survey the kitchen area once more, blinking as if to erase it from your vision, to be greeted with the punishing sun and the dirt filled roads lined with ghosts.

A cozy yellow glow is snug in the pit of your stomach as you think about who the sweet bake belongs to, Daryl has been nothing less than golden. From Atlanta, all the way to Alexandria.. he has always been one to step up without even thinking. You’d shared many secluded moments together, talking about your pasts and while he has never explicitly said anything, you have created a picture in your head about what he has gone through. The love not shared healthily to someone who will always put his family first. Even prior to the downfall of society, you loved to cook for everyone you knew.

You settle yourself with a book on the window ledge close to the kitchen, awaiting the arrival of Daryl, a giddiness that could be likened to a snowfall of glitter falling gracefully within you.

“ you know, when we finally find a new home. I will make you the best brownies you’ve ever had! “

“ if y’don’t burn ‘em first. “ he replied, the corner of his eyes crinkle so delicately as he chuckles lowly.

“ don’t be so fucking mean! here I am trying to do something nice.. it won’t kill you! “ you argue humorously, your fist balling up to punch his arm with little force.

Laughter and carelessness had been a rarity after surviving Terminus, your focus on trying to find safety.. no matter how much of a dream it may be. The journey to coming to terms with the fading faces and memories of the prison has been a painful one, comfort was not something that could easily be found, yet you found it in the least conventionally affectionate person you knew.

“ if anythin’s gonna kill me, it ain’t gonna be your cooking. “

“ actually, I cook very well. it will be a good day when I finally get to show you. “

An airy smile brightens your features, the burdenless weight unable to keep your lips stuck together. Many memories you have with him are of the fond kind, of course, the course of your bond with him runs deep but never has it been a calm sea. There have been moments where you wonder if it’s one sided, if you are inventing a picture that you wish to bleed through to reality, then you are proven wrong and he does things that you know in your heart are true. It has taken losing friends, a home, finding new hope to strengthen that bond and while you would prefer to take the easy road, you know that nothing will ever split the two of you into shards of glass that will never be able to be repaired. You’re both strong people, but stronger together.

A figure clad in black and covered in grime makes their way up the flawless road to where you rest, your vision could be awful but you can make out his being anywhere. The book you hold is laid to rest, your feet already carrying yourself to the door to meet him. Days had past since you last saw him and you can now feel the chords of longing pulling as you had missed him.

Your hand encloses the door handle, swinging it open to finally land your gaze on his form, feeling as if it had been years you’d not done so, as opposed to a few days.

“ took you long enough. “

“ yeah, yeah. quit your complainin’.  “

You move aside, Daryl taking the cue from you and entering the house that bares no soul at that present moment. Everyone is out with their own agenda or job, leaving you to potter about to your own devices.

Some peace and privacy for even a few hours is something you are thankful for, two things that had been incredibly rare from your journey from Atlanta. Though, the noise that comes with your family reminds you of the moments you couldn’t wait to be rid from as you grew up are ones that you no longer fail to appreciate.

“ did you find anybody out there? “

Daryl shakes his head, you see the trouble that he wears often become even more apparent as it overwhelms his features intensely. Knowing Daryl as well as you do, you know that while he won’t admit it out loud, every time he goes out there with Aaron to find people and finds no one wounds his spirit more and more. While his desire to save everyone is admirable, it’s often a concern to you that it might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and he’s often met with your comforting energy of it being simply an unsustainable trait.

“ you know you won’t always find people, right? “ you ask him softly, tucking your legs underneath you as you seat yourself on the sofa.

Daryl refuses to sit, it’s a thought that regularly finds itself bouncing around your mind as to why he can’t relax even behind the walls of Alexandria.

“ yea’, still sucks though. “ he wipes his thumb across his nose, an unconscious habit on his part, discussing his thoughts and feelings has never been easy, raised in a home full of toxicity stunted him emotionally, something he still wrestles with when the occasion arises.

“ there’s going to be a day where you’ve gone and saved everyone! there won’t be anyone left for you to bring back! cut yourself some slack. “

Daryl doesn’t respond, knowing there is truth in your words but he has seen so much death already, the world gripped by dark and dim choke hold, a little dusting of life is something that has been lacking since it died. Avoidance of feelings is something Daryl flees to when the conversation gets tough, he can deal with  words full of anger and rage, but topics so delicate still feel so alien to him.

“ wha’ y’been up to? “ the male questions you, seemingly interested in what you have been up to, watching you from the otherside of the room.

As if a switch had been flipped, your eyes ignite with excitement and joy as you have finally been able to fulfil your unofficial promise to him.

“ remember when we were talking about my cooking? when you insulted it? “ the sides of your lips gently lift with a soft innocence, you feel the elation slowly warming the entirety of your body at the simpleness of it all.

“ y’ain’t gone and poisoned sumn’ have ‘ya? “ asks Daryl, turning to face you from across the floor where he stood. His tone holds a ‘ blink and you will miss it ‘ humour threaded into his words.

“ I should have! “ laughing at him, you fit your fingers between his and lead him into the kitchen with you.

Touch is still something that sends an uncomfortable shiver to travel the distance down his spine, but with everything you have been through and all the time you have spent together, touch is something he’d never turn from when thinking of you. Your relationship has been a strange, never formal one, but it is perfect for the two of you. Unspoken words full of warmth and fondness are a solidity in each one’s souls, and while you both never shared the extent of what the two of you have with the group, they have their suspicions and theories. But if they know one thing, it’s Daryl’s affection for you runs deep.

“ brownies! “

He peaks into the oven that you have opened, the rich smell of cocoa and heat baking the treats hit him like a brick, a pit forms deep in his stomach. This is different from past meals beforehand. You had gone out of your way for him, of all people. Never could he mentally grip why you have been so kind and benevolent with him but it’s something he treasures deeply. In the beginning he was more abrasive with you more than anyone else, but it used to be his go to defense mechanism with everyone in your family. Softness never being something destined for him was beaten into him for a young age, learning only how to loathe and to only say words in anger. It wasn’t until you came along and took your time with him did he let you in, something you have been grateful ever since.. especially since you have been able to discover the colourful soul that resides within him.

“ y’didn’t have to. “ he replies, his mouth watering at the mere smell of the brownies that are close to being fully baked.

“ Daryl… “ a softness in your response that is only reserved for him is heavy, your eyebrows furrowing in dejection. You know enough of his history to be confident in your placed hurt for him being unable to experience kindness in a positive manner. Your hand trails up his clothed arm and rests on his shoulder lightly, allowing for him to decide whether or not to accept the physical affection. He doesn’t shrug it off, if anything he leans more into your touch. “ you know I’m doing this because I want to, you deserve something nice! “

“ thanks. “

“ and they’re nearly done, so you best take a seat. “

Daryl follows your order with little encouragement, a smirk that he conceals from your view and sits at the lengthy dinner table. He’s having trouble connecting the dots of the dead walking and civilisation ended and the pure normalcy of him sitting at a dinner table about to eat home cooked brownies. Even back when the world was bustling with life and people working their nine to fives were home cooked meals a rarity.

“ so this is what y’spent your day on? “ he asks as he watches you with a spark of fondness in his eyes as you work in the kitchen.

“ cooking is therapeutic. “

“ y’ a weird person. “ Daryl quips, staring at you right in your eyes. His expression gives nothing away, though his eyes speak a thousand words and paint a thousand colours that you understand fully.

It’s lucky you know him so well to understand when he’s being serious and when not.

“ but you like it! “

The squares of the baked treats are uneven and jagged, your features contorting into a confused frown at how they could so well until the end. You blame the knife for the imperfection and flaws of the appearance of what lays before you, however your heart knows it’s your inability to present your dishes artistically.

“ now I apologise they don’t look good but they do taste good! “

“ y’never have to say sorry for anythin’ “ he thoughtless says, his mind to preoccupied with the food laid before him.

A picture painted by his mind long ago had you as the perfect person, it’s comforting to know the flaws you have are nothing short of charming in your own little way. With the lack of elegance associated with him, his fingers dig into the irregular shape of the brownie and shoves half of it  into his mouth.

You watch him with your breath holding itself, never have you been a person who has wanted to impress but when it comes to Daryl? You find yourself wanting to do that and more.

“ well? “

He nods with his mouth full, unable to formulate his words. His jokes about your cooking being bad have been nothing more than that, jokes. But even as he’s consuming the small squares he’s surprised at how good they taste, better than he could even imagine.

“ ain’t half bad. “

“ in Daryl speak that means they’re pretty damn great, huh? “ you question him rhetorically, amusement dancing on each word you speak as you gaze steadily on his form.

“ well y’didn’t burn the house down. “

Your mouth opens and eyes widen considerably as your expression twists from being filled to the brim of affection to one of shock, aghast at his jovial words. The laughter tumbles carelessly from your lips as you reach across to swat his arm playfully.

“ you are so rude! “

He joins in with your laughter, a sight so infrequent that you wish you could burn the image into your mind with no chance of being erased by time. It’s moments like these, where you truly feel like the only two people in the world, stolen moments you hold close to your heart. You hope that you will reach a space where you both will be able to freely express your feelings, while the mutual affection is known between the both of you, sometimes you want to use words. So he knows, because it’s something he deserves. To know how much he is loved, without cowering away from the subject.

“ nah I’m just kiddin’. thanks, I mean it. “

[sweetestlamb]

If You Leave Me Now

Summary: Ms. Oh’s letter gives Cha-young courage to say what’s in her heart. 

Author’s Note: Back with another Chayenzo fic and surprisingly no angst this time, today’s episode inspired me to write this. Also fulfilled my Chayenzo fic prompt, this is what you call efficiency ladies and gents LOL I wanted to write sweet emotionally stunted Vinny and brave CY trying to let him know that he deserves love, hope you enjoy! 

She doesn’t know what she had been expecting from the letter, initially she had thought it would simply be a thank you note-though it was unnecessary Ms. Oh was always very grateful and seemed to think that her mere existence was a nuisance to those around her. The woman had been so beaten down by life and she feels a sense of pride that her father spent all these years caring for someone that all others had all but thrown away after destroying her. She would never be as intrinsically good and right as her late father, she had too much blood and bad deeds on her hands to be sanctified but helping the powerless, she had enough heart left to see that this was something she cared about.

She had spent years following her mother’s untimely death hardening herself and convincing herself that others didn’t matter to her. She was an island and she needed no one else. This was her mantra as she worked her way up the social ladder at Wusang and purchased more and more temporary happiness in the form of bags and pretty suits, materialism filled the void that was left by her lack of any true love in her life.

She gently folds back up the letter, letting the tears cascade down her cheeks the words still tugging at her heart.

The woman had come to terms with her fate, knowing that while we are all essentially dying each day her days were numbered and their was an expiration date lingering in the imminent future. But it wasn’t those words that made her cry it was the words she has never seen coming.

It seemed the only people they were lying to were each other.

Ms. Oh knew.

Had known all this time and hadn’t deigned herself worthy of revealing the secret and getting the opportunity to hear that sacred word that only one person could anoint her with.

Eomeoni. 

“It’s enough that I get to see him. He has grown up so well without me.” 

It must have been torture for the poor woman to see the very son she had given away and not be able to hold him or hear his voice as he called her mother, her smile never quite reached her eyes when he called her Ms. Oh. It was as if she was quietly waiting and suffering for the day when he would slip and reveal their true relationship but if her partner was anything he was steadfast and stubborn. He wouldn’t be saying a word, at least without a nudge. 

His words echo in her memory, “People like me don’t deserve love.”  

it was such bullshit and cop out but she recognized it for what it was, a convenient shield from his feelings. If he believed that he didn’t have any right to love then he would avoid the pain that came from loving someone, the expectations and the vulnerability. 

Squeezing the papers between her shivering fingers she grabs her phone before she can second guess herself, his number is the most recent in her call list. She had called him earlier today to see what he wanted to eat for breakfast tomorrow, it was his day to choose she had chosen last time. 

The phone only rings once before he’s answering, his voice is warm honey through the speaker she knows he is laying down in his ridiculously expensive silk pajamas. She absently wonders how it would feel on her skin. 

“Hmm what is it?” He answers groggily, sounding sleepy but patient and she can detect no annoyance at her calling so late, instead he sounds concerned and she can hear the faint sounds of him moving. 

“I’m okay. You don’t need to get dressed.” He sighs in response, the sounds of movement fading and then it’s silent except the faint coos of Inzaghi in the background. “is Inzaghi keeping you up again? Maybe you should get someone to get rid of him?” 

“No! How could I-- I mean no, it’s fine. His coos don’t bother me anymore. I find them soothing.” He replies more passionately than she had expected, he had been many hours cursing the pigeon in the past much to her chagrin but lately it was like he had found a new appreciation for the bird. It was weird. It wasn’t like the bird had saved him or something ludicrous like that so she had no idea why he was behaving like this. 

“Okay.” 

“What’s wrong? Why are you calling so late?” He hums on the other line, sounds of the kitchen reaching her ears now, he’s probably making tea he wasn’t much of a fan before but it had slowly grown on him.  She had obnoxiously bought him a huge box of tea while she had been staying with him after he’d told her how he only enjoyed coffee- real coffee not the garbage she drank, she forced him to drink them with her every morning until he started making them on his own much to her amusement. 

“Drink the chamomile tea, it’ll help you fall asleep.” 

After a small pause he answers, “I don’t have trouble falling asleep.” 

He lies and she doesn’t call him out, both recalling that night he had woken up sweaty and panicked after a dream. She hadn't questioned him seeing the terror on his face, knowing it wasn’t the right time. She had quietly made him tea and stayed up until he fell asleep, tucking the blanket more snuggly around him. 

She listens as the kettle whistles signaling it’s readiness and suddenly she feels ready too, despite the consequences. 

“Are you still planning on leaving Korea after you get the gold?” She asks suddenly, a familiar fear pressing on her chest the longer he goes without answering her and she can almost see his face- his wide eyes and the purposeful stoic look firmly in place. 

“Why do you keep asking me that?” His voice is tired, desperately so and she can hear the hidden message, “why are you making me face my emotions?” and honestly she doesn’t know why herself, she has never been one to face her own emotions not with matters of the heart. She spent years pretending not to need her father’s approval or love whilst secretly pining and desperate for any attention from him even though she had been the one to push him away first. 

It’s your fault she’s dead! 

With those vicious words she had ripped her father’s beating heart from his chest and stomped on it with her stiletto heels. Then she had joined Wusang and fought against him, using money and influence to snuff out the hope of innocent people. Maybe Vincenzo was right and people like them didn’t deserve love. 

But she was greedy and entitled and others might see that as a flaw but she didn’t care, she wanted this and she deserved it. 

“Because I want you to stay.” 

There’s no taking it back, the truth is now out there suspended between them and she can hear his gasp on the other line, she’s caught him off guard. Hell, he’s not the only one but she has already shot herself in the foot so there’s no turning back now. 

She’s all in. 

“I like you.” That’s a lie, the feelings she has for him have mowed past “like” a long time ago and are dangerously close to another L word she’s too chicken shit to admit to him or herself, she has some sense of self preservation and despite those lips devouring her own and stealing any doubts she had about his reciprocation of her feelings, she knows that he is scared of this and he could push her away in some blindsided decision to keep her safe. 

“Wh--what?” He stutters out dumbfounded and far less eloquent than the smooth mafia member she has come to know. 

It makes her smile softly, she feels honored to get to see this side of him. A side that he only shows to her. 

“I’m happy that you came to Korea and that we met. That you met my father and for a little while you were on his side. That you accepted me after everything and that you have never judged me. Meeting you as been the best luck I’ve ever stumbled on, Vincenzo Cassano.” 

The silence is deafening and she vaguely wonders if he has hung up too overwhelmed with her sudden confession and fleeing instead but the screen still says his name, “Corn Salad” when she pulls it back to peer at the screen. 

“I know you don’t think you belong here in Korea, you don’t think it’s your home. But I’m learning that home doesn’t have to be a place, it can be people too and the feeling you get around them. You showed me that.” Her heart is thundering now but she feels relieved to say this out loud too, if anything were to happen to either one of them it would break her if he never knew how she felt, what he meant to her. 

“Me? I showed you that?” He whispers stunned and she can hear the soft rustle of him sitting down, had she made him weak in the knees? She can only hope so. 

“Yes. I have lived here my whole life but I never felt as seen or accepted until I met you. You feel like home.” 

“Cha-young ah.” 

She waits to see if there will be more but that’s all he says, her name like it’s a sermon. It’s the first time he has called her by her first name despite how close they’ve grown in the past months. It sounds like music to her ears, not that opera noise he’s always listening to despite her complaining-loudly- each time she comes over but real music, the kind you would put on during those summer days where you let your hair whip in the breeze. The kind that remains in your heart even after summer has long ended and fall creeps around the corner with a cool entrance. 

“I’m happy you’re here and I want this to be your home now. I don’t want you to run away, we both want you to stay.” 

His breath is erratic over the line, even more so than when she had found him injured in the underpass. She lets him process her words giving him time that nobody else has ever received from her in the past, with him she wants to be someone who can be patient, he is worth the wait. 

“Why are you telling me all this? Why now?” He pleads sounding tortured and when he sniffles she wants nothing more than to reach through the phone and wrap him up in her arms, he sounds so young and confused. 

“I don’t want to have any regrets. Not with you.” She answers honestly, the letter staring at her from the table words catching her eyes. 

“I can’t let him know how much he means to me. I know it is not my place to ask this but please love him dearly and let him know he is important and needed everyday. Letting him go was my biggest regret, I hope you will be stronger than I was.” 

Like she had a choice anyway, she had told herself many times that she shouldn’t have feelings for him but every time she saw him smile or watched him torture someone to get them closer to taking down Babel all of her logic went out the window and she couldn’t help but imagine a life for them after this was all over. Korea, Italy, Malta, it didn't matter where they went as long as they were together. She had no intention of letting him go, not without a fight. 

 If that made her a villian so be it, he had been the one to train her how to be one in the first place. 

“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know how I feel about you. I’m sorry if I kept you up.” 

A long pause follows her apology and with a sigh she goes to end the call, he hadn’t outright rejected her and that was more than she had been expecting. She would regroup and make a thorough presentation of why they belonged together and why exactly he should either stay in Korea or let her go with him after they defeated those corrupt scumbags. 

“It’s okay. I couldn’t sleep anyway.” He admits, forgetting his earlier denial of this very fact. 

“Are you drinking the tea?” 

“Yes, I am. You left so many of them here. I told you I’m not a tea drinker.” He states contrary with the loud slurping she hears over the phone. 

If she were anyone else his seeming dismissal through ignoring her confession would be heart breaking but she knows him too well now, is too aware of the dark inner workings of his mind and much he is overthinking every word she has uttered and cataloguing every reason that they shouldn’t be together, her safety is most likely top of the list. Old habits die hard and regardless of her constantly telling him that they should face everything together, she knows that there is still a lot that he hides from her in a guise of protecting her. His story about a nail pulling his suit plays out in her head. 

“Tea is best for insomnia. Get some rest, I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

She hangs up first, staring at the picture she had sneakily taken of him when he had been distracted in the office. It had been a long day and he had abandoned his jacket and loosened his tie, a sign that the day had taken its toll on him. She didn’t know what came over her but she found herself picking up her phone and snapping a picture of his side profile, he looked so handsome. When he had looked up and seen her on the phone, she pretended to be texting someone and walked away, her heart racing until he shrugged and looked away. 

“I won’t give up on you Vincenzo Cassano.” She promises, putting the letter back into the envelope and making her way to the bathroom to complete her nightly routines. 

Face scrubbed and teeth brushed to minty perfection, she walks across the moonlit room tugging down the sheets and crawling in, being so open and honest had been emotionally exhausting. 

The things she did for him. 

Getting comfortable in her bed she reaches out to plug in her phone to charge, but the tiny envelope icon on her phone catches her attention, she must have received a message while she was in the bathroom. Curious, she swipes her phone open before clicking on the message, she tells herself not to be too hopeful it’s probably not him and she’s going to be disappointed when it’s just a telemarketer trying to get her to switch tv providers. 

“Oh,” She stares at the message, the light from the phone the sole source of illumination in the dark room besides the moon glowing through her curtains. She has no words, no thoughts either all she can do is feel and even that is difficult with too many varying emotions raging war in her body. She had tried her damnest not to expect anything, knew that he wasn’t ready to face his feelings and he might never be able to say how he felt about her, his actions would have to be enough. She would have accepted it as enough, having him was more than enough. 

But as the message stares up at her, she realizes she had been lying to herself when the wave of unfiltered joy that crashes over her washes away her sandcastles of lies. 

You are already my home.  

It’s not the passionate confessions that are glorified in dramas, there’s no rain or dramatic slowing down of time, he hasn’t even said those coveted three oh so special words; on the surface he has barely said anything at all but to her his words are a blanket on a cold wintery day,  she has only ever wanted someone to stay and now she has found that. 

Loving him feels like coming home. 

[el-michoacano]

I Saw the Dead, Small and Great

It’s finally posting day for the @tltbb and I couldn’t possibly be more excited! What a great time this has been! Shout out to the event hosts, and also to @queensabriel and @melli4uhbees, who have been the best artists a girl could ask for! 

Summary: Once upon a time, many, many years ago, Harrowhark's great-great-grandmother, who had herself lived an unnaturally long life, told her that their family was descended from that one wicked snake that haunted the Garden of Eden, that the family Nonigesimus were more serpent than man. At the time, Harrow had thought she was joking, just a senile old woman weaving mindless tales. She knows better now.

Trigger warnings: Suicidal thoughts, lots of talk of death.

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1 Is your soul prepared?

Harrow isn't sure how the sign got onto her property. It's been there for years and years, the nails rusting, the white paint chipping, the wood rotting beneath it. The sign is as tall as she is, and double as wide as she can stretch her arms. It's sinking into the mud, though, like everything else in this damned place, standing crooked enough that it might just topple over in a strong breeze.

Is your soul prepared?

The words were wrought in bright, angry red once, but they're an ugly brown now, the color of old blood. It's oddly fitting.

Hooligans, Harrow thinks, but she can't be sure. The sign is large, and its post is set deep into the soft earth. Would just any rowdy local boys be able to do such a thing? Would they have any inclination to pass on such a message? She'd been the target of their little pranks before, but such an effort from boys who hadn't the cleverness to not wet the front of their trousers when they took a piss? It seems unlikely. They’ve always been more the type to leave dead animals hanging on the gates. The sign is too civil.

It was the church that planted the sign, she's sure. The Ascension Parish Southern Baptist Church had been after her for years, all the way up until it had caught fire and burned to the ground in 1912. Fingers had pointed at her for that, too, and even now, she occasionally wakes to find God is watching or Repent now! or Open your heart to God! painted across the front gates.

Removing the paint gives her something to do, she supposes. Is it really so bad?

Is your soul prepared?

Harrow has considered removing the sign more times than she can count, but it's not as though any other living soul sees it. Why bother? It's not as if her family's sinking home is the only site of such signs. There are others like it scattered all over the bayou, ones of this seemingly standard size, smaller ones tacked to chain link fences, even huge billboards. God sees all, they proclaim. Jesus saves. Hell is real.

Of course Hell is real, Harrow thinks with a roll of her eyes. She lives there, after all.

Hell's End is the name of this area, a name given by her great-great-grandmother when the family had first arrived in the States all the way from New Zealand. It was to be the end of their long and dangerous journey west, the start of their Heaven on Earth. How wrong she had been. How wrong they had all been.

Harrow is one of the very few who dare to come near this part of the swamp now. The brackish waters part around her feet, and the heels of her elegant boots leave no prints in the mud. The gators go scurrying away at her approach, and high in the moss-draped trees, the cicadas fall silent.

The snakes, though, make no move to flee. They watch her with their bright, slitted eyes, and they bow as best as they can. She is one of them. She offered an apple to Gideon, and another to Alecto, apples of forbidden, carnal knowledge. She is the snake in the Garden of Eden given human form, and she is the mistress of this particular bayou.

Once upon a time, her great-great-grandmother, who had herself lived an unnaturally long life, had told Harrow that their family was descended from that one wicked snake, that they were more serpent than man. At the time, Harrow had thought she was joking, just a senile old woman weaving mindless tales.

She knows better now.

This wickedness is in her blood. Her parents had tried to fight it, but Harrow has long since given in. There's no use in trying to deny who she is.

The wickedness is as much a part of who she is as the swamp is.

The Nonagesimus family have always been the masters of this bayou, back since the 1750s when the house and its great iron gate had sprung seemingly overnight from the mud. That was centuries ago. Harrow isn't sure of the year anymore, but she is certain that it's high summer now. The children should be catching fireflies and the old biddies should be sipping sweet tea on the porch while their husbands talk about the weather, but Harrow is the only Nonagesiumus left in all the world, and the sinking mansion sits quietly in its watery grave, waiting to claim her as it has all the others.

Her family is long gone.

Harrow, with her twisted magic and her unnatural tastes, is all that remains of her once-great, once-powerful family.

The irony of it is enough to choke her, to send her hundreds of dead relations a-spinning in their graves. Or spinning in their coffins, at least. There are no graves here.

2

Though the closest towns are lively and New Orleans isn't terribly far away, there is no music in Hell's End.

There was, once upon a time, a lovely harpsichord in the parlor, but Harrow used it as firewood ages ago. Her mother had been an accomplished player, and she had taught Harrow to play, too, but Harrow couldn't bear the sound. Even in dreams, it breaks her heart.

There was an old gramophone once, too, but it met a similar fate. One too many times, it had come alive in the night, likely by Pelleamena's hand, and Harrow had thrown it from the top gallery. She still steps on its splinters from time to time.

The closest thing Harrow can bear to a song now is Ortus's low humming, though she's not sure it's a hum at all. It's a purr, almost, like that of a cat, a soft, comforting sound. It's the sound of his aura, she thinks, gentler than ever in death.

On occasion, she joins in on the hum, letting it rattle its way up her throat and down through her chest. It's a tender, deep sound, and she worries sometimes that it will shake her apart if she lets it.

Sometimes she thinks she wouldn't mind shaking apart. She could sift her way down through the warped floorboards, down into the manor's sunken foundation and even lower, drifting down, down, down.

Maybe she'll sink all the way into Hell. Maybe Alecto will be waiting for her there, her dark, dark eyes full of longing and anger. Gideon won't be there, though, Harrow knows. Hell is the last place Gideon belongs.

Harrow, though, belongs there. A witch, a homosexual, a murderer. Where else would she belong?

3

The wicker chairs set out behind the house are sinking and rotten, but the ghosts don't favor the back, and so Harrow often finds herself sitting there in the low evening light. Her legs are crossed at the ankle, her wide-brimmed hat pulled low, a book resting open in her lap, though it's too dark to read it now.

The mosquitos are a choking cloud this time of year, buzzing thick in the air, carrying diseases on the wind. They have taken too many of Harrow's kind already. She swats at them with her lace-gloved hands, but they're never deterred. Stubborn things, she thinks. They're the only swamp creatures that don't seem to fear her.

It has to do with her blood, she's sure. There was wicked magic in her veins from the day she was born, and they can smell it, even now, long after she's been bled dry. Though they hover around her like a plague, there's nothing left in her for them to drink. She used it all up trying to bring back her parents, her family name, her old life, her dead lovers.

But they're all gone now, and her magic can't bring them back. Not in any way that matters.

Her parents are gone, interred in the grand white marble mausoleum out behind the house. It's sinking into the swamp, like everything else is, a few centimeters every year. The doors can barely be opened now. When Harrow dies, there will be no way for her to join them in the tomb. Maybe that's for the best. Maybe she doesn't deserve to be with them. They certainly wouldn't welcome her, not after all her disastrous attempts to bring them back.

She doesn't deserve to be with Gideon in death, either, though no one to this day seems to know exactly what became of her. For all Harrow knows, Gideon is in some gator's belly. Had been, anyway. No one has seen her in decades. No one is even looking anymore. Not even Aiglamene is looking anymore. Gideon was murdered, Harrow is certain, likely by the church itself. The worst things always happen to the best people.

And then there was Alecto. A predator, yes, but Harrow's predator. There isn't a day Harrow doesn't regret drowning her, but there was nothing else to be done about her. She was mad. She was inhuman. She was everything Gideon wasn't, and Harrow had taken comfort in that for a while. But Alecto had ripped poor, sweet Ortus limb from limb in a fit of rage, and her drowning was a far easier death than she had deserved.

Alecto sits on the fence at the edge of the property most days, her dark, empty eyes staring off into the distance.

On particularly gloomy days, Ortus joins her. Even dead, he can't bear to be alone. He's more a great mass of shadow than a true figure, weak even in death, but Harrow would know him anywhere. Her heart aches when she sees him. The sad, tremulous smile he gives her makes her want to die.

But after all she's been through, is there anything that doesn't make her want to die?

Is there anything in the great, wide world that makes her want to live?

If there is, she hasn't found it.

At this point, she doubts it exists at all.

She doesn't live now, anyway. She just survives.

4

Slowly but surely, the Nonagesimus house is sinking into the mud.

It's been sinking for years, of course. It started the day Harrow's parents died.

Died.

It's too gentle a term. They didn't pass away in their beds, old as the hills, their souls well-prepared, as parents should. They didn't go peacefully. They didn't just die.

Pelleamena and Priamhark hung themselves from the high branches of the cypress tree that had been growing just inside the gates since before the gates had even been erected. Harrow had been the one to find the bodies, the one to cut them down, the one to lay them to rest in the family mausoleum.

Her being the one to read their note was by far the worst of it.

You bring shame on us, it had said. It had been scrawled in her mother's elegant handwriting, and her father hadn't even bothered to sign it. Harrow often finds herself wondering if he even read it, or if he had found Pelleamena's body before Harrow had and followed his wife to the grave of his own volition.

It was Harrow's fault either way, and to this day, after all these decades, she carries the weight of it on her back. It weighs so much that she can barely stand upright, hunched like an old woman in her wanderings. She would be an old woman, were it not for her magic. This eternal life is her punishment, and she deserves every single second alone.

Her parents were ashamed of her, and probably had been for most of her life. Even as a child, there was something wrong about her. They had tried and tried for more children, but alas, she was the only one to make it to birth. Their only daughter, they whispered, the blood witch. Their only daughter, the necrophiliac. Their only daughter, the homosexual. Their shame had driven them into the arms of Death, and their precious child had played witness to it.

She should have seen it coming from a country mile away, but she hadn't. She had been too busy trying to resurrect Gideon and kill Alecto to notice their downcast eyes and trembling mouths. She hadn't noticed how they had wasted away until she was cutting them down from their twin nooses.

Harrow supposes it doesn't matter. Even dead, her parents are with her now.

They stand silent most days, pacing the sinking house's top gallery, staring out over the swamp with their dark, sunken eyes and their sewn-shut mouths. Dead men, after all, tell no tales. She's made certain of that.

Though they can't reply, not in words, she does talk to them sometimes.

Today, though, she's more focused on the foxfire darting through the trees. This is no swamp gas, she's sure. She's intimately familiar with that particular sight. Instead of the usual blue, this light is violet, and it moves slowly, ambling through the trees without a care in the world.

There's someone down there, Harrow realizes.

The question is, is this person living or dead?

5

It isn't alive.

Harrow isn't sure if it's human, but certainly is not alive.

She meets it outside the iron gate, her hand resting against the metal, as if its narrow bars can somehow protect her from this strange half-dead girl.

"Hello," it says. Its smile is sharp and fanged, its voice a rasping whine, like dead tree branches scraping a window during a storm. It takes Harrow's hand in its golden right one, presses its soft, bluing mouth to her knuckles, and Harrow can feel the coolness of it through the lace of her gloves. It's prettier than it has any right to be, despite its wasted appearance and its pallid skin and the deep, dark shadows beneath its eyes. "Have you been waiting long?" it asks, catching her eyes with its own.

Waiting? Harrow doesn't wait. She takes. The only thing she's waiting for is death. Perhaps, she thinks, this is Death. "Who are you?" she asks, slowly, stupidly. Her voice is rough from lack of use, the croak of a frog more than the voice of a witch. It's oddly fitting.

The other woman, tall and pale as a ghost, laughs at her, and the sound is the knell of church bells ringing on a foggy morning. They're funeral bells.

Hear the tolling of the bells -- Iron bells! Harrow thinks. She pulls her hand away, wraps her arms around herself. What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

It asks, its voice low and seductive, "Who do you want me to be, Harrowhark?"

Harrow bristles. No one has called her by her name in years. She doubts anyone even knows her name anymore. Only old Aiglamene would remember, if she even remembers anything. This time, Harrow asks, "What are you?"

The eyes roll. They're a ludicrous shade of purple, striped with blue and brown, deep-set and heavy-lidded. They're inhuman. "I'm no one," it says, then approaches her, reaching a hand toward her face. Harrow doesn't flinch, even when the soft fingertips and sharp claws brush her cheek. "And yet everyone knows me." It moves closer, and Harrow can smell it: Musty, powdery, with something sweet underneath. Something terribly, deathly sweet. "Everyone faces me."

It's the smell of rot, Harrow realizes. "You really are Death."

It leans closer, brushes its mouth against hers. It agrees in a voice like shattering ice, "I really am."

6

"I've been waiting for you for years." Harrow feels strange saying it, but she can't take it back now. She feels stranger still letting this creature into her home, but she can't take that back, either. Why would she want to? Death is the first physical guest she's had for decades. It's been all ghosts and vermin for far too long. "Where have you been?"

"Around," Death says, its eyes roving as it steps into the manor, stepping gingerly through the puddles in the foyer, its feet bare. It's dressed all in white, its long skirt trailing on the floor, the hem damp and muddy. It wears only a camisole on top, the straps thin and hanging off its bony shoulders, short enough that it leaves a few inches of its midriff enticingly bare. Harrow startles at that: She hasn't been enticed in decades. She startles again when she realizes how utterly human it is to feel enticed. Perhaps she's still human after all. "I keep a very busy schedule."

Harrow has the distinct feeling that that isn't true, but she doesn't dare say so.

Death itself has come to her.

It's hard not to feel special in the wake of it, and she swallows down a wave of pride. Pride. She hasn't felt that in ages, either.

"You really live like this?" Death asks as it steps into the parlor, the damp rug squelching obscenely under its bare feet.

This room had once been grand, but now, it's little more than a shadow of its former self. A ghost of itself, like its mistress. The walls are lined in ceiling-high shelves full of moldering books and pretty little treasures, the Persian rug unwinding at its edges, the lovely chaise discolored and misshapen from years of sweat and sitting. All the furniture in the house is in such a state. Harrow can't find it in herself to be embarrassed by it anymore.

Death takes a seat on the chaise, kicking its bare feet up onto the far end, its delicate ankles crossed one over the other. Its skin is so pale that the worn navy velvet makes its veins all but glow.

It's otherworldly, and Harrow comes to sit in front of it on the warped wood of the floor. She arranges her skirts carefully, keeping her tattered slippers hidden under her equally tattered hem. Had she known Death was finally coming for her, she would have dressed better. "Why are you only here now?" she asks, an unfamiliar desperation in her voice. Of course she's desperate, she thinks. She's been waiting since before the turn of the century. She's been waiting longer than most people get to live.

"I told you," Death says, picking at a loose string on the arm of the chaise. A bit of the piping comes off with it. "I've been busy." It glances up with its ludicrous eyes, meets Harrow's gaze, holds it fast. Harrow feels caught in their depths, like a fly in a glass of sweet tea. Sweet it is, though. "And I thought you would have come to me on your own by now."

7

The following morning, Harrow wakes alone, still dressed and still exhausted.

She's disappointed, but she can't bring herself to be surprised. She's poison, after all. Even Death itself can't bear to be around her. She can't say she blames it.

She's still on the floor in the parlor, the chaise empty, but it still has that smell clinging to it: Musty and cloyingly sweet. Like violets, Harrow thinks again. Death has eyes like violets. Who would have guessed? Certainly not her.

She had always imagined Death as a skeleton wrapped in a black robe, a scythe at its side, its eyes empty black pits in its skeleton face. Death didn't look like a girl, but an ancient being, rotting away from the inside. She had had a nightmare, once, that Death had come to her in the guise of her long-dead aunt, Glaurica. In the dream, Harrow had very nearly taken its hand.

She had never feared Death. Even now, having met it in person, she doesn't fear it.

Death was the first real companionship she had felt in ages.

She thinks this even as her mother crosses the room. Pelleamena is dressed in the same long, trailing black dress she wore on the eve of her death, her long black hair pulled into a braid that hangs heavy down her back. It looks eerily like a rope. She's reaching for a book on the ceiling-high shelf, but her hand goes right through the spine, and she pulls back, staring through her transparent fingers as if it hasn't happened a thousand times over.

Harrow watches her, silent as a stone.

Even in death, they barely acknowledge each other.

Priamhark, as much as the ghostly thing that wanders the house is Priamhark, is less dead. When Harrow watches him, he watches her right back.

"Father," Harrow says to him as he paces the gallery.

He doesn't speak, Harrow has made certain of that with her postmortem sewing, but he looks at her, and his dark, dark eyes are gentle.

They stand together, his lighter-than-air hand over hers on the gallery's splintered railing, and this night, the swamp is dark.

8

When her parents killed themselves, Harrow called the police.

Hours passed.

No one came.

Pigs, Harrow had thought.

She's been alone ever since, save Death and the ghosts. Even Aiglamene has stopped visiting.

Harrow doesn't mind being alone most of the time. It's the peaceful nights that get her.

In the quiet, under the singing of crickets and the rumbling of the gators, she can hear Gideon's voice. Gideon, asking, You really gonna wear that? Gideon, calling her baby. Gideon, begging for her touch.

From time to time, it's Alecto's voice in her head, whispering songs and poetry and utter nonsense. Too much of her voice, and Harrow is certain she'll go mad. For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee, Alecto sings in her whispery, water-logged voice, and the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

Now, though, it's Gideon's voice nor Alecto's she hears.

The air is hot around her, humid, and Harrow loses herself in the fantasy, her black eyes slipping closed. Her chewed-down nails rake against her skin, and she imagines a golden hand in their place. She imagines bluing lips at her neck, too-sharp white teeth sinking into her neck. She imagines the cool, meager weight of Death above her. It's Death's voice she hears, and in its creaking hanging-tree voice, it whispers, Come.

Harrow does.

9

You bring shame on us.

Though her mother hasn't spoken in half a century, Harrow can still hear the words in her voice. She had a lovely voice, Harrow's mother. It was elegant and soft, almost musical. Her words always came slowly, carefully selected before they passed her lips. The note was probably exceptionally well selected. Short and sweet.

The note is tucked into the neckline of Harrow's gown, the paper tucked against her heart and tinged yellow from years of sweat and tears.

Harrow can't bear to be without it.

It's her cross to bear, and she must bear it alone.

10

It's a full week before Death shows itself again. Harrow finds it in her room, stretched out on the molding canopy bed. The canopy is less lace now than Spanish moss, the covers mildewed and practically falling apart. Death doesn't seem to mind. It looks perfectly at ease, its hands joined behind its head, its right leg bent, the other tossed over its knee. It was humming to itself, its pale foot bouncing along to the rhythm.

Harrow can hardly believe that it's back.

Death's voice is an undignified whine when it asks, "Did you forget about me, Harrowhark?"

How could I? Harrow doesn't say. She does say, "I tried to." It's not entirely true. "I thought you'd abandoned me again."

"Abandoned you?" Death looks almost offended, its golden hand coming to its chest, clutching invisible pearls, but its laughter is high and sweet, bouncing off the crumbling walls like birdsong. Harrow represses a pleasant shiver at the sound of it. "Harry, my love," Death says, smiling with blue lips and too-sharp animal teeth, "I have been beside you since the day you were born."

My love? Harrow's cheeks go warm, but she ignores it, asking, "Since I was born?" It seems impossible. It also seems impossible that Death exists as a person at all. She's been surrounded by impossibility for as long as she can remember. This shouldn't be so surprising. "How could you possibly have time for that?"

"There are half a million Deaths," says Death with a wave of its hand. It wears lacy, threadbare gloves, and its cuticles are bluish, its nails chewed short. "This is just the area I chose to cover," it's saying, though it doesn't sound at all interested. Harrow wonders if it's even capable of interest. "There are fewer people here, less work. I can just hover most of the time."

The dark cloud of Death follows us, Harrow's grandmother had once told her. It seems she was right. Harrow can't quite believe it, even now. It's a curse, her grandmother had told her, and we deserve it. "Why me?" she asks.

"Why not?" Death shoots back. It holds out its arms, and against her better judgment, Harrow climbs into bed beside it, letting it enfold her. The gold of its skeletal right arm is chilly through the worn lace of her dress. "You Nonagesimus types are my favorite. You always come to me so willingly."

Harrow props herself up on her elbow, meeting Death's eyes with her own. "You know my family?"

"All the dead ones," Death says with a shrug that sends the strap of its camisole slipping off its shoulder. The veins just beneath its icy-pale skin are especially visible there, and Harrow lifts a hand to trace them. They have a green tint to them, and she wonders if there's blood in them at all, or if this iteration of Death has algae and swamp moss in its veins. "I gave the kiss of death to your father, and to your mother, and to Glaurica, and to sweet Ortus." Death ticks off each name off on its spidery fingers. Then it looks down at Harrow, one colorless brow lifting. "And then there was Alecto." Harrow feels the blood drain from her face, the breath fleeing her lungs in a single second. "She wasn't one of you, was she?"

"She could have been," Harrow says, softly, "eventually."

"You sent her to me gift-wrapped, didn't you?" Death doesn't sound at all bothered, and it slips its fingers beneath Harrow's chin, forcing her to look it in the eye. "It had been so long since I received a sacrifice like that. Your people don't offer tribute like they used to."

"Our magic isn't what it used to be," Harrow says.

"I wonder why," Death says. Its smile fades, though, when it asks, "You're how old? I'd say your magic is working just fine."

Harrow's lips threaten to smile, but it never comes. She says, "It's impolite to ask a lady's age."

Death itself laughs at her, songbird-sweet. "All you want is to die," it says, sounding bemused, one brow lifted in a match to the corner of its mouth, "and yet you'll live forever."

"For far too long, anyway," Harrow agrees, shivering when Death's golden hand slides into her hair, carding carefully through choppy black locks.

The silence that falls then isn't silence at all. Outside, the wind is in the trees and in the water. The cicadas are singing. Birds call to one another. Harrow's heart is beating a mile a minute, pounding in her ears. Death's heart isn't beating at all.

Softly, its voice almost a purr, Death says, "Did you know you've been dying your whole life?"

Harrow scoffed. "Isn't everyone?"

11

"Where did you go?" Harrow's voice is soft and plaintive, and she hates it. She's straddling Death's waist on her bed, its pointy hip bones pressing into the backs of her thighs. It feels like too much too soon, and it's far too intimate, but she has no intention of pulling away. She could stay like this forever.

Death presses its fingertips, both the flesh ones and the golden ones, into Harrow's hips. "Someone needed transporting," it said with a shrug of its narrow shoulders.

"You do that?" Harrow asks. Her hands are resting against the flat plane of Death's stomach, her fingertips tucked just beneath the hem of its camisole. "Transport people?"

"I transport souls," Death says. Its eyes are on Harrow's, searching for something in her black gaze. "This one was the last one in the area, save you."

Harrow's unkempt eyebrows draw together, her eyes flittering off to one side. As far as she knows, she's the only person still living in the area. She asks, "Who was it?"

Death, strangely, hesitates. "An old woman called Aiglamene," it says, and there's a strange weight in its voice, as if it knows how much Aiglamene meant to Harrow once upon a time. "Must have been a hundred and twenty years old." Its hands slide down to Harrow's thighs, its thumbs coming to rest in the creases of her knees. "Maybe even older than you."

"By a bit," Harrow agrees, doing her best to keep the sudden numbness out of her voice. "I didn't know she was still here."

"Keeping an eye on you," Death says, "from what I can gather."

And now she's gone, Harrow doesn't say, but the words fill her chest. It hurts.

"You should have seen her automobile," Death is saying, sounding almost mystified. Its hands are joined behind its head now, its eyes distant. "Such an incredible machine!"

More to herself than to Death, Harrow says, faintly, "I've never seen an automobile." Gideon had one that she was immensely fond of, but she hadn't trusted it on the marshy roads of the swamp. Alecto, old-fashioned thing that she was, chose to simply walk. It had made her disappearance so much easier.

"You're so behind the times, Harry," Death chides, though there's amusement clear in its voice. "You should come to town with me." It gives her a sly grin, looking very much like the fox that managed to break into the chicken coop. They're both foxes, Harrow realizes. "The things I could show you..."

"No." Harrow says it far too quickly, and her eyes dart off to the side, embarrassed. "No, I belong here. My magic ends here. I would age fifty years if I ever left the swamp."

"Shame, that." Death doesn't sound particularly bothered. Instead, its hands come to Harrow's thighs again, pushing the fabric of her skirt immodestly high, up past the tops of her stockings. It takes everything Harrow has to keep from pushing her hips into the touch. "But there are so many things I can show you right here."

12

The next time Harrow wakes, she isn't alone.

She's on the great bed in her room, Death's arms wound tight around her and holding her close. Her chest is pressed to Death's side, its skin bare and cool to the touch, devoid of breath or a heartbeat. It's eerily still. It's not Harrow's first time in such close contact with a corpse.

Outside, through the thin curtains over the balcony doors and the windows, the light is thin and greyish, either dusk or dawn, but certainly overcast. There's a storm coming. Harrow wonders if Death will simply sleep through it.

Death, unsurprisingly, sleeps like the dead. All through the night, it didn't move even once.

Was it only all night? It could have been years, for all Harrow knows.

As she lays quiet in Death's arms, she's surprised to find that she doesn't mind that idea. Let her dream her life away in the arms of Death. There are worse fates.

13

Just inside the door of the sinking manor is an antique dark wood table. On top of it is a crystal vase filled with flame-orange roses.

They were a gift of Aiglamene, given shortly after Gideon vanished in a rare gesture of comfort.

They are the single thing in the house that isn't rotting.

Harrow stands before them, staring, willing life through them.

Death stands beside her, watching quietly, its arms crossed over its chest, its head tipped curiously to the side. "I can feel their age," it says, its voice soft and thoughtful. "How long have you had these?"

"Decades," Harrow says. She plucks one from the crystal vase and tucks it behind Death's ear. Immediately, the life leaves the petals, and even when Harrow touches the petals, she can't revive it.

Death says, softly, "Are you afraid, Harrowhark?"

"No," Harrow says, and is surprised to realize that she means it.

"Good." Death steps behind her, wrapping its arms around Harrow's waist, resting its pointed chin on her shoulder. Its skin is soft and chilled. "With old Aiglamene gone, my attention is all yours."

The smell of violets mingles with the scent of roses, and Harrow realizes there's nothing she wants more.

14

"How do you do it?" There's something like awe in Death's voice, its head tipped to the side, a chipped tumbler half-full of decades-old scotch in its golden hand. "I'd lose my mind if I had to stay here all the time."

There's no derision in its tone, and Harrow says, "Maybe I have."

"Suppose you wouldn't know if you had," Death says, taking a long sip. "You could be dead right now, couldn't you? Would you even know the difference?"

She isn't dead. She may be dead inside, but she still feels. Harrow feels the chair she's sitting on, threadbare and creaky as it is, feels the warped wood beneath her bare feet, feels the coolness of Death sitting beside her. She would know, she tells herself.

She doesn't quite believe it.

15

Death goes out sometimes, wandering through the swamp and into the towns.

Harrow watches it leave from the iron gate, Ortus at her right, Alecto at her left. Her parents keep close, too, sewn-lipped and sullen.

Even with the ghosts, Harrow is alone, waiting.

Her life has become a waiting game, and she finds she doesn't mind, because she knows she'll never be alone for long.

Death always returns to her, sometimes with a man to sacrifice or a woman to seduce, sometimes with a butchered gator or a pot of jambalaya it found God-knows-where. It rarely comes to the manor empty-handed.

Death is courting her, Harrow realizes, and for the first time in decades, she smiles.

16

The courting is gentle. Death often is, isn't it?

It comes softly, like sleep, darkening the edges of the world and drawing it all in close.

Death steals the very breath from Harrow's lungs, pinning her flat against the wall. Its blue lips are pressed to her nape, its golden hand resting lightly around her throat, its spidery flesh hand at her hip.

Its voice is soft when it says, "You were made for this."

Made to be used by Death itself? Made to cater to Death itself? Made to be a lover to Death itself? The answer is obvious. "I was," Harrow agrees, her voice nearly lost in her heavy breathing. "I am."

17

Harrow spends her time in the arms of Death itself, now. But is that any different from how she lived before?

At the end of a long day, she waits beside the rusting gate, waiting for her deathly love to return to her.

The branches of the too-familiar cypress shake above her, Spanish moss swaying in the breeze. She presses a hand to its rough bark and wills it to live. Like the roses, it must live. It's a monument now. This tree is her old friend, known all her life.

As is Death, approaching through evening fog, violet eyes shining in the dark.

Being in the company of Death is better than being alone, Harrow supposes as Death's arms wind around her, pulling her close. Death's lips are blue and chilled against hers, but she melts into the feeling of it, as she always does.

As they walk back toward the sinking manor, they pass the old sign. Is your soul prepared?

Death trails its golden, skeletal fingertips along the top of the sign as they pass, and the wood is immediately overtaken by mold and mushrooms, the paint flaking off in great chunks.

"Is my soul prepared?" Harrow asks as they walk in the dark.

"Oh, Harry," Death laughs. Its glowing eyes turn to her, hypnotic and bright as lightning bugs. "Your soul has been ready for me since you were born."

[giant-sketches]

A Place to Belong

Finally have a nice Short Sides story done for you all to enjoy! This one has been on the back burner for a long time. I believe the prompt for this one came from @iggyalfi2319 like forever ago. XD Disclaimer: Crying/Fighting/Panic

This story includes 2 sketches

Word Count: 2392

Patton was never born to be a warrior. He was big yes, but more of a big sweetheart on the inside. Instead of fighting like the other giants he enjoyed his time outside with the flowers and animals. Violence simply wasn’t part of his inner nature, therefore, he was exiled from his homeland and sent to wonder. Patton didn’t mind though as every new place he explored was an adventure, however it was a lonely one.

A month passed without encountering a single soul, which might be for the best as Pat stood at a towering 200 feet tall. If anyone did see him they would most likely flee in fear. That would be so heartbreaking to witness! Yet, destiny seemed to have other plans when Patton did in fact run into a village that was almost completely secluded inside the forest he had currently been traversing. He hid himself in the shrubbery to watch the tiny people going about their day.

“Oh wow. Look at all of them!” Patton had never seen humans before. His eyes were filled with wonder. However, the shout of a guard who had spotted him through the thicket threw him into a full blown panic! “GIANT!!!”

Oh no! The surprised giant fled for his life, trying his best to not cause the ground to shake. Sure, he was in no real danger, the humans were much smaller than him; however, he didn’t wish to scare them by staying. Eventually, he came to a fluorescent cave, big enough to house him as he caught his breath. I haven’t been followed right? He looked around and sighed after confirming there was no one but him and the flora. What was he to do now though? Patton laid down, curling up on the cool cavern floor whimpering. Those humans looked so scared, even though he was just watching.

His heart ached at the creeping realization that there truly was nowhere he belonged in this world. “Why was I born like this? It’s not fair! I just wanted to be friends and help if I could.” He began to softly sob, unaware that he was being tracked by a mysterious hooded figure.

“He’s taken shelter here it seems.” The skulking figure glided his way into the cavern, not making a sound as the sound of sobbing echoed off the walls. Gingerly, he peeked out from one of the tunnel entrances and saw the giant he had been following on the floor in tears. It was...uncomfortable. Should he reveal himself now, or let the giant get it all out first. The mysterious man was not good with socializing, but he needed to be brave. Taking in a deep breath he took a step out of the shadows and spoke, “H-hello.”

His voice was no louder than a whisper, however Patton heard him clearly as he twisted his body up to a sitting position. The weeping giant stared at the figure, curious as to why they had revealed themselves, but also fearful of their intent. Was this a human from the village? Why were they here and how? Had he been followed and were there more hidden? Pat curled up a bit trying to look smaller, despite his enormous size.

“Ah, wait, i-it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you a-and it’s just me. I promise.” The figure raised his hands to show he was unarmed and took a few steps closer.

“Why are you here then? I-I didn’t mean any harm to the village or the people living there, I swear! I-I just wanted...I didn’t want to be alone any more.” Patton cried out as he pressed his knees to his chest and hugged them.

“I know. With your size you could have done whatever you wanted to us, but instead you ran away. You’re not like other giants are you?”

Patton nodded, starting to calm down and wipe his tears away. “I...I don’t want to hurt others. I just want to help and find some place I can live in peace. So please, please don’t be scared.” He whimpered into his hands.

The hooded figure, now close enough to rest his hand on Pat’s leg. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not scared. If I was I wouldn’t have followed you here and revealed myself.” Patton giggled a bit, “I suppose that’s true. Still, why are you here little one?” “I wanted to talk to you. I’m also...different.” “Different?” The man hesitated for a moment, but then lowered his hood to reveal a pair of pointed ears, along with his unusual purple locks. Patton’s eyes went wide with how beautiful the stranger was and blushed. “You...are you a half-breed?”

“Yeah, I’m a half-elf to be exact. My appearance is a mix of both and so I’m seen as abnormal among my fellow humans. They aren’t bad people, they just aren’t very open-minded sadly. Usually, I can get by with just wearing this hood to hide my features, but the thing they really can’t stand is my use of mag-”

“YOU CAN USE MAGIC!?” Suddenly, the man had been picked up by Patton and brought closer to his face. Pat, all the while with sparkles in his eyes. The stranger smiled as he made an orb of light appear and float around him. It was the most amazing thing the lonely giant had ever seen. “Wow.”

“I’m Virgil by the way.” “What? Oh you’re name! You can call me Patton.” Virgil blushed, this was nice. Being appreciated for his talent for once.

“It’s nice to meet you Virgil. Thank you for coming here and talking to me. I feel a lot better now.”

“I’m glad. You don’t deserve to be alone like this. I of all people know what that feels like.” His eyes lowered in melancholy thoughts of the past.

A past of losing his parents in the fire, being ostracized by the village, and having to hide his true self. It was painful and many times he thought of running away, but where could he go? Just then Virgil felt a large and soft surface pressed up against him. It was Patton’s finger rubbing up against his side to comfort him. “I can tell you’ve had a hard time, being different from everyone around you.” He went silent in his thoughts, gazing between Virgil in his hands and his current surroundings. “Y-you’re not scared right?” Virgil chuckled, “You’re asking me that now?” “I...just need to be sure.” Patton blushed, feeling embarrassed and closing his eyes. That’s when the sensation of tiny hands wrapping around his thumb made him focus. “Don’t worry. I won’t leave unless you want me to.” Pat’s face must have turned into a tomato as he simply nodded and gently brought his new little friend to his chest for what could only be interpreted as a hug. “Thank you.”

Patton was warm, like really warm as Virgil snuggled into his shirt a bit. The moment was pure bliss as the two felt so at home with one another. Yet, events outside were now coming to end their tender moment together. A large shockwave rumbled from above them.

“W-what was that?!” Pat exclaimed, now guarding Virgil in his hands and crawling out of the cave to take a look. “I don’t know. Do you see anything?” He looked around quickly and froze at what he saw. “The village! It’s being attacked by a dragon!” “WHAT?! Are you kidding me? What is a dragon doing all the way out here?” “I-I don’t know, but we need to do something. There’s no way they have anyone strong enough to fend it off.” “Can you fend it off?” Patton wasn’t sure really. Again, his combat experience was miniscule, but he was still a giant. Even though the dragon was big, he was bigger! “I can try, will you help me?” Virgil smiled, “Of course Patton. What do you need?” What did he need? “Buffs, can you cast any buffs on me?” The tiny sorcerer did know a few spells for buffing, but there was one he found when exploring an abandoned house a long time ago that might be just what they needed right now. “Yeah! You go get it’s attention and all start casting. Drop me off at that cliffside real quick. I have to be able to see you to cast it.” “Alright!”

With a plan in motion, Virgil was left to draw out the casting circle as he watched Patton tackle the monster away from the village, slamming it into the foot of the mountain. He had a good 50 feet on the beast, but the difference in height didn’t scare it away. It could sense how much of an amateur Pat was as it lunged to take a bite. Luckily, Patton was quite agile and could dodge the attacks, for now at least. Each second was a battle of survival. The friendly giant calling out to the cowering people to get to higher ground and keep in groups as they made their way into the forest to hide. Not too far where they couldn’t still watch to see who would be the victor though.

“The circles done! Now to start the chant.” Virgil took his position in the center of the circle and began casting. “Nascuntur, crescunt maior quam. Imbui possent immensa” Three times he said this as a light glow began to cover Patton’s body.

It tingled as he felt more and more power enter into him. It wasn’t long until he noticed he was growing bigger and bigger. He gave a heavy gasp when it was all done and his body relaxed. Patton felt stronger now! Quickly, he looked around to find the dragon...but it was gone?

“Below you!” Came a familiar voice. It was Virgil! What did he mean by below though?

Curious, Pat looked down to find a now very tiny dragon quivering at his feet. What in the world!? Freaked out, Patton tripped over himself and landed on the mountain, taking out half of it with his now enlarged body. He was HUGE! “What? What happened to me?!” He was scared and confused.

“Patton! It’s okay, it’s just the spell. It increased your size and strength by ten fold.” TEN FOLD?!?! Wait...that meant he was ten times his usual size. He gulped, “Then, d-doesn’t that mean I’m now 2000 feet tall?” Virgil went silent, but nodded. Oh boy. Patton turned his attention to the dragon once more. The poor thing was now too terrified to even move. “You poor thing. Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” It was strange looking at the creature in a tender manner now after that fierce battle.

The dragon titled it’s head, but could tell Pat didn’t mean any harm as it bounced up his body and started nuzzling into his neck like a kitten. It was adorable! Still, what was he going to do now? This spell wasn’t permanent was it? In his worrying, the titan hadn’t even noticed the village people returning and coming over to him. Virgil did though, as he hurried over using some wind magic to help him glide down. He landed perfectly on Patton’s knee and took a moment to take the giant’s new size all in. He truly was enormous!

Pat felt something land on him as he looked up to see Virgil sitting on him. “Virgil! Are you alright? I know doing high level spells can tire someone out.” His concern was really cute. “Yeah, I’m alright, but what about you?” “Well...I defeated the dragon, or more so made it my pet I guess.” He giggled, though still uneasy. “Virgil, um, this isn’t permanent is it?”

There was the question he was waiting on, but really didn’t want to answer. “Yes and no. There is a reversal spell, I just don’t know it.” Virgil mumbled out sheepishly. Meanwhile, Patton’s blood ran cold as images of his new reality flashed before his mind. A monster beyond belief! He started to shake and choke on his sobs. In a panic Virgil slid down the giant’s pant leg and started climbing up his shirt.

  “Pat, no, please don’t cry. It’s going to be okay I promise. I’m so sorry I did this to you!” He pleaded constantly as he climbed. Patton hiccupped as he wiped his eyes to see his tiny friend’s frantic face. “It’s not your fault. You were just doing what I asked.” 

Gently, he pinched Virgil up and placed him on the bridge of his nose. “At least you’re still here with me Virgil. I’m so afraid of never being welcomed anywhere because of my size, but at least I have one person who accepts me.” “That’s right. No matter what size you are, I know you’re a very kind and warm person Patton.”

 Virgil leaned in and placed a soft kiss on Patton and began rubbing the bridge of the nose to soothe the giant. Pat blushed and let himself enjoy Virgil’s touch. Then more tiny hands reached out towards him. It was the villagers, petting his hand. “Thank you! Thank you so much for saving us!” “We would have died without your help!” “You’re not hurt anywhere right?” “We’re so sorry for chasing you away before.”

Continued praise and concern left their mouths as they kissed his hand and rubbed it in circling motions. Patton was stunned that they had all come so close to him and even more thanked him for his help. “You all...y-you’re not afraid of me? Even though I’m so much bigger than before?” “Of course not! You're our savior along with Virgil. We know now you never meant us any harm and we apologize greatly for our poor behavior towards you.” “Same with you Virgil. We realize how we’ve been treating you for the past years was unacceptable. Could we start again?”

Virgil huffed a bit, but floated down nonetheless. He looked at the people and their worried faces, but then extended a hand out to them. “If you’re willing to change and accept us both, I suppose I can’t say no.” The villagers rejoiced! They sang and cheered for their heroes! Finally, after his long journey, Patton had somewhere he belonged and someone who loved him.

The End

@thought-u-said-dragon-queen @sanderssidestrash27 @nomynameisanon @crystalk17 @notkolaidoscop 

[youngclaire]

One Last Final Goodbye

I rewrote sending Claire back through the stones at the end of book 2 but from Jamie's POV. I thought it would be a nice way to ease myself into writing these two. This is very book compliant, I actually bad the book open next to me whilst I wrote this in order to translate it from Claire's POV to Jamie's and it was a lot of fun. It's not a copy of the fuller chapter, it's been shortened down in places but the essence is there. I've also removed bits and pieces. Uhh yeah...all dialogue in this belongs to Diana and the book I'm just responsible for remixing the words. Anyway, I hope whoever bothers to read this likes it :)

(This is also my first fic in this fandom with these two so don't expect it to be perfect, it probably isn't)

- - -

He wouldn’t stop for anything; not food, water, or rest. He keeps the horse at a constant gallop at all times, scared that if he paused or hesitated for even a moment he would lose all courage and go neither back or forward.

I shall see my wife safe, is a mantra that keeps him riding. If he is to die tonight or on the battlefield tomorrow, he would not take her down with him; not her or the innocent being she carries inside her.

The stones come into view just above him. A cursed salvation of granite and Jamie tries not to see them, his gaze fixated forward. Behind him, Claire lets her displeasure be known, protesting against the idea. Jamie steels himself against them, clenches his jaw and gallops harder, fighting the urge to give in. This was the only way to see her safe and unharmed, he tells himself.

She protests still, even while he urges her up to the ruined cottage. She doesn’t realise he has no intention of parting with her right now, he just wants time to breathe, to think, to let the panic and worry abate. He sinks to the ground, his body cold and his mind racing.

“It’s alright,” he thinks he hear himself say. “We have a bit of time now; no one will find us here.” He shivers, though from the cold, and wraps his plaid around him.

God, he could still see it; Dougal’s lifeless eyes, the blood pooling out of him, the shock on Willie Coulter’s face. How long before everyone knew? How long before everyone found out he had committed familicide?

Jamie’s head falls forward onto his knees, a tiredness washing over him, fatigue clutching at his bones and eyelids. Tired as he was he could not sleep for fear of the images in his mind’s eye.

His breath comes out in ragged pants and he can barely stand the sound of it. He feels Claire’s warmth and presence beside him, uses it as something to anchor himself to.

What happened in that room and who knows wasn’t the priority, while Claire had yet to explicitly say so Jamie’s fate waited for him on Culloden Moor. Tomorrow he will die and all this will cease to matter. Claire will be safe.

His breathing eases back into its natural rhythm, the panic wilting away from the edges. He’ll take hold of Death’s hand, gladly accept his destiny knowing he did one thing right at last.

“I won’t go, Jamie,” she says, as if she’s read his thoughts. “I’m staying with you.”

Jamie shakes his head. She couldn’t persuade him, he couldn’t change his mind. He needed to do this.

“No,” he says. The firmness bites at him, makes him wince. He hopes she can hear the gentleness that lies beneath it. “I must go back, Claire.”

“You can’t,” she cries. “Jamie, they will have found Dougal by now! Willie Coulter will have told someone.”

Aye, that was a fact he had resigned himself to, a fact she must resign herself too as well. He grieved for Dougal, for the second father he had, but Jamie had done what he’d done- he would take whatever consequence waited for him behind that door. She talks of fleeing to France but it’s no use, he’s chosen his fate, set his heart and mind to it, accepted it. A traitor twice over, a rebel, a murderer…The English will hunt Prince Charles. The English and the clans will hunt Jamie. He was dead either way.

“Claire, I am a dead man.”

He watches the tears freeze on her cheeks. “No,” she says but the effect is lost, she knows he speaks the truth.

“I wouldna get very far anyway.” On its own accord, his hand runs through his red hair that makes him a beacon at all times. Not exactly inconspicuous. “I can save you, Claire,” With his other hand he brushes away the tears that continue to fall. “and I will. That is the most important thing.”

Then he will go back. If he finds he cannot do it for himself then he will find it in him to do so for his men.

“I think I can get them away,” he says thinking the plan through. “Even if it’s known what I’ve done, none will stop me wi’ the English in sight and the battle about to begin.” The plan visualises in his mind and he nods to himself. “I will bring them safely away and set them on the road toward Lallybroch.”

“And then?”

Well…wasn’t that obvious?

“And then I will turn back to Culloden.”

He lets out a breath, strong and final as his decision. He catches Claire’s worried look and gives her a smile.

“I’m no afraid to die, Sassenach,” he says, but then he thinks of that door, black and foreboding, the unknown behind it. “Well…not a lot, anyway.”

He hears a sound a human being should never be able to make as arms fling around him. He finds himself surrounded by Claire, caught in her tight embrace as the scent of her overwhelms him. He clutches her back, trying with all his might not to succumb and cry.

“It’s all right, Sassenach,” he says into her hair as she cries once more. “A musket ball. Maybe a blade. It will be over quickly.” A lie, they both know it, but Jamie will them both to believe it. He’s seen men die in battle, knows how horrifically slow it can be but it was better than waiting for the hangman’s noose, that would be the one thing that does not lie behind that door.

“I’m going with you.”

Lost in thought he barely registers it but when he does he reels at the notion, startling backwards.

“The hell you are!” He has a plan, damnit, and not even Claire will deter him from it.

She displays her argument but he will not listen to it, will not give it thought.

“No!” he says. “No, Claire!”

How could she suggest such a thing, knowing what they both knew? How could she be so selfish?

“If you’re not afraid, I’m not either. It will…be over quickly. You said so.”

You said so. What he said was a lie, did she not see that? A lie to comfort them both.

“Jamie- I won’t…I can’t…I bloody won’t live without you, that’s all!”

He had a thousand things to say and none at all. His mouth opens and closes before he shakes his head. Through the gaps in the ceiling he can see daylight dwindling, night approaching. The sky is painted red. Blood of a battlefield, blood of childbirth.

He reaches toward her, pulling her close. He knows where this fight comes from, if the tables were turned he would say the same thing, knows because he feels it too.

“D’ye think I don’t know?” His voice is soft, a whisper. “It’s me that has the easy part now. For if ye feel for me as I do for you- then I am asking you to tear your heart out and live without it.”

She lets out a whimper, clutching him closer. He fingers stroke her hair, whispering soft coos towards her.

“But you must do it,” he finally says, feeling his stomach twist and turn. “Ye must.”

“Why?” She is angry, considerably so. Confused and hurting. “When you took me from the witch trial at Cranesmuir- you said then you would have died with me, you would have gone to the stake with me had it come to that!”

He had said all that, and to this day, it remains true. He’d have rather died than to be parted with her.

“Aye, I would,” he says. “But I wasna carrying your child.”

The reason he is allowing them to part.

She is surprised, shocked, frozen in place as she looks up at him in bewilderment.

“You can’t tell,” she says at last, shaking her head. “It’s much too early.”

It makes him smile, brings amusement to him.

“You havena been a day late in your courses, in all the time since ye first book me to your bed. Ye havena bled now in forty-six days.”

She hurls insults at him, shocked he even managed to keep track of such a thing during a war but he had for hope they would have a second chance at raising a child and for fear that it would end like this.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she tells him, rattling off reasons for why she might not have bled. It’s no use, she forgets he’s seen her so before, studied all the tell-tale signs of her body changing, committed them to memory.

“Claire…” His voice is quiet, not sounding like him. “Tomorrow I will die. This child…is all that will be left of me- ever.” He reaches for her hands, needing some part of her to hold. He casts his gaze to their joined hands, running his thumb over her fingers. “Claire, I beg you, see it safe.”

He keeps his eyes downcast while he waits for her answer, scared she’ll say yes, scared she’ll say no. The silence feels long and he shuts his eyes against the twisting of his stomach.

Finally her answer comes.

“Yes.” A whisper in the darkening cottage. “Yes. I’ll go.”

He nods, swallowing back the lump in his throat, hearing the sound of a flower stem snap.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

After telling her to sleep, she doesn’t sleep himself. Time seemed wasted on that and they didn’t have much of it left anymore. In a few hours he will take her to the fairy hill and part with her forever.

He wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all. To brandish his sword and yell and scream and cry but he knew there was no point to it. He knew that what he had been handed was more than fair, that not many men live the life he’s led and are allowed to be rewarded in such a way.

Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, he had said to her, quoting what he would say to God when he met him. God! I loved her well. He had, he could really say that. He took this woman, in all her unbated strangeness, into his broken hands and within her found company and peace, a place to call home.

She loved me well, too, he adds, watching her sleep for the last time. Content and safe, here in his arms and their fortress of cloth. He had healed him with her touch and love and perseverance. Picked a broken man off the floor and carried him through towards the light at the end of the tunnel no matter the setbacks. She really was a rare woman, his sassenach.

He wraps his arms tighter around her, murmurs a quick thank you in Gaelic to God and to the fairies for dropping her into his life.

Pressed against her, safe in their fortress of clothes, her skin warming his bones, his eyelids grow heavy and he succumbs to sleep as the first inklings of tomorrow break across the sky.

.:.:.:.:.:.

She was gone.

Disappeared in the same manner in which she had appeared. Gone through the stones and back to Frank.

Jamie presses his hand against the stone. The hard granite presses back on his wound, her mark, the letter C, reminding him it was real, she was real.

Her arisaid lies on the grass, forgotten in their haste to love each other one last time. Jamie picks it up, bringing it to his nose, inhaling her scent still lingering on the tartan. Tears fall on their own accord as he prays she made it back, prays that she and the bairn are safe.

A cannon in the distance booms, startling the birds and startling him. It’s beginning.

He is hesitant to move, to leave the place of their last coupling, his last connections to her.

Yet destiny waits for him on Culloden Moor, along with his men. He pictures the thirty men waiting for their laird.

There is nothing he can do for Claire now but there is something he can do for his men.

He kisses the inside of his fingers, presses it to the stone and bids his soulmate one last final goodbye.

[lailoken]

“The Embodied Lives of Elves

Our pre-modern ancestors seem to have had room in their collective imaginal life for humans walking among them who were deemed ontologically different in some way-enough to considered faeries or nightmares (mara or mora). This is not to say of course, that such people were physically inhuman, (though it's debatable whether Witches or werewolves were considered human by persecutors of the Craft in the past) but that they were believed to carry a mysterious taint of otherness.

Modern writers on faeries, even gifted ones like the Frouds tend to position faeries as existing in the imaginative, or perhaps "imaginal" dimension of the human psyche. To our forebears the Otherworld was a far more embodied place and testimonials given by people who saw and interacted with faerie beings in the past stress that they possessed a kind of substance, though less substantial than our own forms. How else could folk beliefs about faerie marriages have begun?

In pre-modern Europe humans possessed a shadow in which they’d walk at night, sometimes it appeared as an animal, sometimes as a human double or a partly human form. There was no such thing as something that was no “body,” which is one of the reasons the mainstream insistence on a strong body-spirit dichotomy sits awkwardly with the spirit of some Old Craft traditions.

Consequently, if we are to understand Faerie from the perspective of the folk genius then we will need to soften the edges of this body-spirit binary and try to imaginatively descend into an older way of seeing. If we can achieve this we will find ourselves immersed in an way exuberantly sensuous way of being, and rediscover our senses anew as portals to the Otherworld. What begins as a historical curiosity becomes a stretching of our own imaginative faculties and eventually yields to mystical ecstasies.

Anthropologists and historians often take a patronizing view of the idea of spirits leading embodied lives much like our own. The general explanation being that people in the past were literally unable to imagine anything much different to their own way of life. Or, that being unable to visualise something made of nothing they dressed their airy imaginings in a kind of subtle form or body.

The other option presented to us as practitioners is to simply have the humility to take the folk at their word and accept that these observations of the lives of faeries, made over countless generations, might reflect real experiences of another world. We do not need to intellectually commit to that perspective if it is too uncomfortable, but let us explore it with openness. Let us allow for a moment that the conglomerated wisdom of generations, the collective imaginal experience of an entire people or peoples, may in fact know better than we do.

Yorkshire biographer Durant Hotham described the faerie body in the following way. He said they were "lodged in Vehicles of a thinner-spun thread than is (otherwise than by condensation) visible to our dim sight.”

So whilst they are made of something thinner spun they are certainly made of something other than just the substance of our imagiation. This notion of bodies made of a lighter stuff was agreed on by Robert Kirk earlier who said faeries possessed: "light changeable bodies like those called astral somewhat of the nature of condes'd cloud."

So far we find images of finely-spun thread and clouds or mist being used to describe the faerie form. Both of these images are taken from the widespread faerie mythos we have traced across Europe, as faeries are intimately associated with spinning and appearing out of mists or as condensed clouds. The suggestion here is that they are able to condense or expand their form, weaving it in tightly or loosely invisible to humans. What their bodies are woven from is only so as to be perceived or otherwise ever hinted at, but vapor and mist seem to be strong candidates, which would suggest there is some degree of air-born moisture in their form.

Somerset surgeon John Beaumont touched a fairy's hand in a chillingly tactile encounter, he describes how it: "yielded to my touch, that I could not find any sensible resistancy in it.” Though it did not resist him this does not sound like something that felt like simple air, the words “yielded to his touch" suggests something fragile but nonetheless of substance. Another testimony confirms this description:

"I have often seen that way while in my bed. Many women are among them. I once touched a boy of their's, and he was just like feathers in my hand; there was no substance in him, and I knew he wasn't a living being."

In his poem ‘The Witch of Fife,’ written in the early Romantic era, Thomas Hogg describes the elf man's form as "having no blood in him and pale like cauliflower." He also describes faeries and Witches both travelling some distance to attend Sabbats in other lands. This is significant because Hogg's father is rumored to have been the last man in his area to possess the faerie sight. So any knowledge about the faeries that found its way into Hogg's work would likely have been influenced by the input of a genuine Scottish faerie seer of the eighteenth century.

One of the best ways to pursue a deeper understanding of how the faerie body works is to study occurrences where faeries have appeared as corpse candles or faerie lights, only to condense before the viewers' eyes into a humanoid form. Here are some examples of such sightings. Let us use them to compare faeries manifesting out of pure light with the so-called corpse candle observed to leave the body of humans when in sleep or near death.

"At first it seemed no more than a light in some house; but as we came nearer to it and it was passing out of our direct line of vision we saw that it was moving up and down, to and fro, diminishing to a spark, then expanding into a yellow luminous flame. Before we came to Listowel we noticed two lights, about one hundred yards to our right... Suddenly each of these lights expanded into the same sort of yellow luminous flame, about six feet high by four feet broad. In the midst of each flame we saw a radiant being having human form. Presently the lights moved towards one another and made contact whereupon the two beings in them were seen to be walking side by side. The beings' bodies were formed of a pure dazzling radiance, white like the radiance of the sun, and much brighter than the yellow that surrounded them."

Now of course humans have a corpse candle that can leave the body a as Elias Owen describes in his ‘Welsh Folklore: A Collection of the Folk-tales and Legends of North Wales’:

“It was believed that it was possible for the spirit to leave the body. and then, after an absence of some time, to return again and re-enter it. The form the spirit assumed when it quitted the body was a bluish light like that of a candle, but somewhat longer. This light left the body through the mouth, and re-entered the same way. The writer was informed by a certain female friend at Llandegla that she had seen a bluish light leave the mouth of a person who was sick, light which she thought was the life, or spirit of that person, but the person did not immediately die."

How do faerie lights differ from the corpse candles that emerge from human beings? Well it seems like the phenomenon is the same but in reverse. Faeries can body forth a human-looking form by condensing a very fine mist-like body until it becomes a bright spark of light, whereas humans belong in a dense body that nonetheless conceals a body of light.

Romani lore compiled by Patrick Jasper Lee suggests that the faerie body is ethereal but very real and that it can become denser through the consumption of life force. The ghostly dead and ethereal fay both shared one great trick, they could become tsochano, or vampires, and drink the blood of the living and in this way gain an "ectoplasmic body." Over time they might be mistaken for a living person.

The status of the body may often be an ontological difference, rather than one of solidity. A study of faerie lore overturns numerous insistences of abduction, which would look like simple death to one outside the Faerie Faith. But for those with the eyes to see the corpse was interpreted as a stock, a fake, a of wood glamoured into taking the appearance of the dead while the fae made off with their real body.

So whilst we may have trouble believing in a faerie creature becoming more tangible through consuming life force, or of humans be-ing bodily taken away, the lore is so copious that we should retain an open mind around the topic of exactly what "body" and "real" meant when our ancestors used them. What is clear is that faeries were firmly believed and experienced by many people as existing in some tangible way that was not merely within the world of shared imagination but was sensual and actual.

Here we press up, almost uncomfortably close, to the knowledge of our foreparents' quite literal belief in the physical existence of faeries. Because this journey into the folk imaginal realm of the past is about leaning into discomfort rather than fleeing from it, let us look closely at a faerie narrative that falls somewhere in the uneasy middle place between mythic story and recent folk legend.”

—

Sounds of Infinity

by Lee Morgan

[xsugarysweetsx]

Can I request a Todoroki x Reader? Where the reader is with the group that saves Eri, and Overhaul gravely injures her (like nighteye). And she is dies during surgery, and class 1-A saw on the news that student heroes had been injured. So Todo was like freaking out. And when Deku Kiri and them come back to the dorms, they have to break the news that she didnt make it. But before they could say anything, the tv says, "Just in, a student by the name of (Y/F/N) has just been pronounced dead. Thanks

Please enjoy~🍰

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

Orders w re being barked across the room. Nurses rushing in and out, your unconscious body barely responding. During the rescue, you were brutally injured, losing too much blood, too quickly.

Deku and Kirishima insisting on waiting for news on your wellbeing. They were more concerned about you than themselves. You had taken hits for them so they would be able to flee. Each hit making you weaker, but you pushed past your limits.

———

Cold....

Why am I....cold

I can’t move....or talk...where am I?

We were fighting....almost got out but something got to me....ugh everything feels so heavy...

Am I dying..? But how...? But I can’t be....can I?

I couldn’t even see Todoroki again...one last time...

Im.....so......tired.....

———

“This just in multiple heroes and UA students critically injured and being tended to after a massive mission. It is reported that three students in the hero course are being taken care of. Stay tuned for updates”

The reporter filled in anyone who was watching. The students at UA were devastated, their close friends in the most danger. Many gasps were let out and even some tears fell from the eyes of class 1-A. They knew what the price of being a hero was but they were all still young. Now some were even at the hospital, but no one was as concerned as Todoroki.

He knew he should have made you stay, but you convinced him you’d be fine. His heart pounds against his chest, maybe even too fast. During his time in UA, making aquatints was difficult. Yet here he was, sick to his stomach because he did hear from you yet.

He’s tried calling multiple times. You, Midoriya, Kirishima, anyone just to hear you. He was always calm and had a cool head, but not now, not when your life was in the line.

If he lost you......he couldn’t even finish that thought. If he lost you...he would be lost.

———

The heart monitor flatlined as the medics rush around to revive you. They try to restart your heart, CPR, anything to bring you back. Yet your eyes didn’t budge. They had lost you, each nurse and doctor cast their eyes down in remorse.

They had lost a young life, one who was destined for greatness.

The lead surgeon took it upon himself to break the news. With a heavy heart, he steps out of the room to see two young heroes.

They jump from their chairs with hopeful eyes. He sighs and says

“I’m sorry.....we tried everything we could” his voice was laced with guilt and sadness. The boys’ faces are frozen, not knowing what to say or do. Their hearts pang, it hurt. They had lost a friend and their chests felt heavy. Almost as if their lungs were filling with water, drowning them in sorrows.

If this was their reaction they couldn’t imagine Todoroki. He would be even worse to hear this, but it was inevitable. They look back to the doctor and thank him for trying to save you.

Midoriya and Kirishima has come to the decision that they should break the news. It was better than hearing it from the news or a doctor. Maybe they would be able to comfort him better.

———

“Remember we need to...let him down gently, we don’t know how he would react to this” Deku reminded him as they approach the door

“Right..” his lips press into a line, as he braces himself to deliver the news. They open the doors and every head shoots to them. A crowd of students run to them to tackle them in hugs and praise. They stop in their tracks once they notice it was only 2 of them.

“Where is she?” A deep voice rang. Todoroki had a broken look on his face. His breathing was raspy as he tried to contain and control it.

“Todoroki..I um....” Deku tried to find the right words as tears filled his eyes “she.....she saved a lot of people...she was a great p-person ” his voice cracks

Before he could finish the reporter comes on again

“This just in, a student by the name of Y/F/N has passed away. Surgeons had done all they can but couldn’t save her. And now a moment of silence for her courageous act”

He had lost you, the girl he loved the most gone. He falls to his knees feeling his chest get tight, feeling like he couldn’t breathe. Choked sobs escape his lips, he had lost the girl he loved the most.

He had one goal, and that was to become a hero. It changed after meeting you, he also wanted to be your hero. To love and protect you, but not this time. He wasn’t there to protect you and now you were gone. He was a shattered man.

The students of 1-A gather around him and hold him together in silence.

————

He was always a strong person, someone many looked up to. But today, he faced no one as his eyes stay to the ground. It was the day of your funeral, the one place he never wanted to be. Yet he had to see your face one least time. He was also asked to speak a few words. He looked at you laying in your casket, you looked peaceful. But he didn’t want you laying peacefully, he wanted you in his arms where you belonged

“Y/N was...a hero. Not only was she a hero, she was my best friend and my love. She had a beautiful heart, she was always kind and loving. Putting others before herself. I-I am not sure what I’m going to do now that s-she’s gone. I know she would want me to be strong b-but....she was everything in this world to me, and n-now th-that....that....” he couldn’t finish his speech, it was all too much for him.

They escort him to his seat as they finish the ceremony. After the buria everyone had left when the rain started. He stood in the rain feeling heavy, a voice had echoed behind him

“She would want you to keep going wouldn’t she? You’re not doing her any good by standing there in self pity” he turned to find Bakugou of all people “so stop screwing around and train to be the hero she would want you to be”

After all was said he walks away as if nothing happened. Looking towards the sky Todoroki speaks

“I’ll become your hero Y/N, I swear it on my life”

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

I hope this was okay!❤️

[ecofinisher]

Lady Frost and the Fire King - A familiar partnership - Chap 22

Chapter 22

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31330631/chapters/81632821

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13886468/22/Lady-Frost-and-the-Fire-King-A-familiar-partnership

Gabriel sat inside the office taking a look on the newspaper page to observe a video that showed the four superheroes that fought the Mindreader. Gabriel stopped as Lady Frost got close on the camera angle, then he zoomed into the image closer at the girl's face, then pondered about the familiarities he felt so have seen before.

"I have seen this face somewhere," Commented Gabriel, then he fast-forwarded the video at one point, where Lady Frost was caught by Ladybug and rolled down at the ground, then he encountered Cat Noir along with Fire King fight against the Mindreader. The adult zoomed into the image again close to Fire King's face, then noticed him grab on the iron bar, that belonged to Mindreader and Fire King glared angrily at the villain which surprised Gabriel. Gabriel changed the velocity to -1.25 then observed Fire King flinch his teeth and his eyes slowly change from brown into red along with his hair's fire getting higher. Gabriel got curious, then zoomed away a little seeing the fire-marks on his suit blink.

"What is that?" Asked Gabriel, then watched Fire King being pushed away by the supervillain and Cat Noir checked out the friend, which shook his head, then got up.

"Hmm is this part of his power?" Questioned Gabriel himself, then he received a mail from Nathalie Sancoeur with an attachment on it. Gabriel opened it, then showed a leaked video from the internet, that showed a teenage girl inside an interrogation room throwing a table away from her, shrieking the guard that had been seated across the table. Nathalie captioned a small sentence about it, which Gabriel read.

"This girl here is at the boarders between Belgium and France. She would be a good villain,"

Gabriel smirked and replied with a thumb up, then picked up on the corner of his computer the option with the surveillance cameras, then opened them up and spotted a person in one of the cameras to see a person inside the central park standing in front of the statue of the superheroes, then the adult zoomed into the picture to see the man scream at the statue as if he was scolding them, then Gabriel chuckled at the sight and had an idea. He grabbed the cellphone, then searched for Nathalie's number and called the woman.

"I'm sorry for bothering you right now, but I've spotted a second citizen, that seems to be angry at the superheroes. What do you think about akumatizing those two? Ladybug won't have a chance, than having her team split up to defeat both villains? Sounds great?…..Good, I'll be there in ten minutes, get ready," Responded Gabriel getting up from his chair leaving his computer unlocked.

Kai sat inside a cell on the bed looking at the broken tile on the edge of the cell and sighed.

"We're never getting out of here in one piece," Commented Kai, then got up to put his hands on the railing and look at another cell, where a man had his face leaning on the grids, almost falling asleep by standing, making Kai sigh. "Gerda, if there was a way to talk to you, I really would love to do it right now,"

The door of the corridor got opened up and Kai recognized Alfida's voice, then saw the girl being escorted along the corridor by two guards, which weren't pleased with Alfida's anger.

"I was promised, that you would help me find my friend, but instead you're wasting precious time with your stupid questions. How many times do I need to tell you they don't have a surname?" Questioned Alfida, then Kai got sad about Alfida not being able to control her anger at the moment.

"Tomorrow we can talk again when you're calmer. If you don't force yourself to behave it will get easier for both of us," Commented the police agent.

"Easier? You're the one making it hard for us," Complained the girl, then the man opened the door of an empty cell, then pushed her into it and locked her in.

"See you tomorrow," Said the guard leaving the girl back, which placed her hands on the grids beginning to shake on them hard.

"Do you think you can just feel relieved in leaving me here?" Questioned Alfida. "Don't worry, we'll be out of here in the next 24 hours with or without your help!"

Kai lied his back against the wall, then glimpsed at the ground, where the broken tile was with a few splinters, then Kai looked at the wall and had an idea, then got down on the ground to pick up a splinter and made a scratch on the wall, then smiled as he could use it to draw. Afterward, he began to draw on the wall, then gazed back at Alfida, which kept shaking in anger on the bars of her cell.

"Alfida, I've just got myself a great idea, Hopefully, this works on the wall as well," Kai stated then watched from above the window, covered with a net a black butterfly enter into the cell making its way to Alfida, then he smiled seeing the creature head towards his crush, then disappeared inside the headband of the girl making Kai shake his head and rub with his hands on it. He looked at Alfida, which stared with eyes wide opened.

"Alfida? Are you okay?" Kai asked watching the girl smirk and disappear into a dark cloud, making Kai drop his mouth and a prisoner beside him scream, then Alfida's clothing changed into an orange-colored overall and a skull as her helmet, which was attached to her headband.

"Alfida?" Asked Kai confused, then watched the tan-skinned girl bent the bars of her cell, then stepped out and all the arrested criminals yelled amazed by the akumatized villain's super strength. "Wha…?!"

Alfida distorted the bars of Kai's cell, then embraced him hard, making Kai gasp as he couldn't breathe, then he got dropped down by the villain as she heard the door got open and see a police agent, which aimed the gun at the akuma.

"Nobody move!" Ordered the agent making Alfida smirk and pick up Kai onto her shoulder, then removed his shoe making him squeak and threw it against the guard, which deflected the attack with his baton making it fly aside and hit on the fire alarm button, which automatically opened the cells to free the prisoners. "Oh oh," Commented the guard, then took out his walkie-talkie to call help and the arrested persons ran against the officer and carried him out of the corridor making Alfida laugh.

"Well that was cool I guess?" Commented Kai unsure looking at Alfida's strange form. "What happened to you?"

"Don't worry. Jailbreaker will protect you and help you find Gerda," Promised Alfida's alter ego, which dropped Kai on the ground and raced against the wall to crash against it causing it to break.

"Whoa," Kai commented surprised making Alfida smile and pick up Kai to held him bridal-style.

"Let's get out of here," Announced Jailbreaker running out of the jail carrying the raven-haired boy.

Gerda was sleeping in her bed, while Snowflake sat on the window resting as well, then heard a loud noise and woke up.

„Huh?" Murmured the spirit and looked through the window to see a black-colored supervillain with red neon reflectors on the suit pass in front of their road. On the hand, he had a watch, which had a small canon on top of it, which worked like a blaster shooting red-colored rays. Snowflake saw the rays causing dents on the vehicles he had been shooting at. Snowflake gazed at Gerda, then flew up at her face and squeezed her nose making the girl wrinkle her nose, then opened her eyes to see the spirit point at the window. Gerda yawned, then took a look out of the window to see the supervillain, then Gerda sighed and ran out of her bedroom into the corridor which was empty.

„I'm not sure if I should be mad, that you ruined my dreams with Kai or not,"

„You found him there?" Questioned Snowflake making the girl nod. „Oh,"

„Nevermind, we have to stop that villain there. Snowflake, freeze!" Shouted the blonde transforming into Lady Frost, which ran into the room, then opened the window to race the emergency stairs down and before she got to the ground she observed the supervillain turn around on the next corner. Lady Frost remembered, what she had learned the other time and used her powers to build a path for her to slide on, then moved further carefully avoiding falling down. She stopped beside a car, then glimpsed at the next road to see the supervillain aim at a car, that just drove off avoiding the villain to hit it. Lady Frost made herself a path on the ground to slide towards the supervillain, then heard familiar voices and saw on top of the buildings beside her Cat Noir show up along with Fire King, then the blonde superhero pointed at the road and Fire King jumped down bouncing on an opened roof shield to slid down at the road.

„Watch out the ice!" Warned Lady Frost watching Fire King get on top of her path, then she crashed against the friend stopping as he fell down on his butt. „Sorry!"

„I'm okay, don't worry," Announced Fire King getting up as Lady Frost held out her hand for him, then took it back as he was already up. „I think this is our fight. He uses his one arm to fire some sort of laser and..."

„It causes damage. I saw it already," Noticed Lady Frost, then the two ran along the road and turned around on the next road to spot Cat Noir deflect the blasts from the supervillain.

„Hey Blaster, destroying people's propriety is not worth on a failed driving exam," Joked Cat Noir, then his staff began to ring. „Bad moment, right now,"

„Your entire superhero team lack professionality! I have lost my family, because of your incapacity to handle the akuma monsters!"

„Wait a minute, no one had passed away at that time," Mentioned Cat Noir, then he did a backflip to flee the supervillain and landed beside Fire King and Lady Frost, which had watched Cat Noir step back. „Give me shelter, I have to attend this,"

„We'll do our best," Promised Fire King and threw a fireball against the supervillain, which blocked it with one blaster and Lady Frost got beside the fire-themed hero observing the situation. Lady Frost then sends an ice blast towards the feet of the supervillain creating an icy floor under him making him fall down and have one of his blasts almost hit Fire King on his face, but he managed to dodge it.

Lady Frost threw another ice blast at the villain, which destroyed it with his laser, surprising her.

„Fire King, Lady Frost, I've gotta go. I need to go to Belgium and help Ladybug out," Cat Noir announced. „I know you guys can do it," Commented the blonde watching Fire King give them a thumb up, while Lady Frost reversed back and Fire King ran towards the villain and created a fire circle around the supervillain shrieking him.

„When will you be back?" Questioned Lady Frost looking at the blonde.

„Soon enough. If you want I can tell Rena Rouge to show up in case you need help and we're not back yet," Offered the French superhero. „Maybe you two will get to know each other a little more," Commented Cat Noir wiggling with his eyebrows, then Fire King landed on his back with a fuming foot and jumped up, receiving another blast passing through his hair, shrieking him.

„Hey!" Complained Fire King, then created a larger fireball and threw it against the supervillain, which jumped away and the fire hit a car wheel, which made its tire burst.

„You two got this. Just be paw-sitive," Commented Cat Noir with a chuckle, making Lady Frost giggle and beside Cat Noir opened a portal, where Pegasus stepped out to show Cat Noir the entrance, where Ladybug passed by running away from a pirate-themed superhero.

„She's got super strength, watch out buddy," Warned Pegasus helping Cat Noir passing through the portal making Lady Frost curious, then she saw a raven-haired boy pass by screaming the name of the akumatized supervillain.

„Alfida!" Shouted the boy making Lady Frost drop her chin.

„Kai?" Commented Lady Frost questioningly, then the portal got closer and the heroine widened her eyes. „That can't be him or can it?"

„Watch out!" Shouted Fire King jumping against the superheroine, then he was hit by the blaster on his butt and crash-landed on the ground with her.

„Hey!" Warned Lady Frost, then Fire King got off her and stared at the supervillain, then formed between his hands a fireball, while Lady Frost took the opportunity to get up and watched the friend shoot the fireball at the supervillain. Blaster jumped aside while firing laser arrows against the fireball trying to stop it, but they disappeared inside the fire. Lady Frost froze the ground under the feet of the supervillain, which frowned and threw a blast against the blonde's arm, making her yelp, covering her hand.

„Argh!" Whined the heroine, then noticed she had a scald on her arm, then glared at the supervillain, which observed Fire King growl at the supervillain, which departed heading into another avenue, then Fire King looked at Lady Frost's arm.

„You've got hurt," Mentioned Fire King taking the girl's arm to look at it.

„It's okay, I just need to cool it down with some water," Mentioned Lady Frost, then looked around the place they were and turned her eyes up at the fire-themed partner. „I think I could use your help,"

„Sure, I'll do anything you need," Offered Fire King, then the ice-themed heroine used her hand to create a small, piece of ice and held it over her injury.

„Melt the ice slow over my wound," Asked the blonde watching the friend create a small fireball and approach it to the ice Lady Frost created, then together both watched it melt. The liquid that formed from the ice flew down of Lady Frost's hand down, dropping on the wound slow. Fire King neared his fire to the ice of the girl, to speed up the process and see more fluid drop on her arm, making the redhead smile. Lady Frost smiled as well, then looked up at the tan-skinned superhero, which was there assisting her. Lady Frost looked down at the melting ice, which was almost gone, then returned her eyes at Fire King, which had a smug smile plastered on his face and Lady Frost began to wonder about the current situation.

Lady Frost watched the entire ice disappear, then she moved her arm up to look at the wound and Fire King took a look at it as well.

„Shall we move on or cool it down again?" Questioned the redhead making the girl shake her head.

„Let's follow Blaster before he hurts anyone," Suggested Lady Frost making Fire King nod, then both ran along the street heading to the next avenue, where the villain last went.

Jailbreaker ran on the standing track at the highway along with Cat Noir following the girl a few meters behind.

The blonde approached the supervillain, which moved aside, then crashed against the fence, that split the highway from the other side and got on the other road, causing a car to brake hard. Jailbreaker grabbed the car before hitting her, then she moved it against Cat Noir, which got shocked and jumped behind the fence, that was still intact.

„Hey! Watch that cattitude!" Hissed Cat Noir watching Jailbreaker ran along the road, then the coming cars dodged her, while others broke during the situation. Cat Noir ran on the side of the highway, then shrieked as a car crashed on the back of another one, due to a late reaction and the blonde opened the door to the front driver to see him pass his hand in front of his face.

„Are you okay, Sir?" Asked Cat Noir making the man nod. Cat Noir watched Jailbreaker pass between two cars and pull them by the front columns of the vehicles causing them to crash with their front on each other, afterward she jumped over a car, that used the emergency brake, but crashed against the two cars anyway.

Cat Noir's staff rang, then he attended it to hear Ladybug.

„M'lady, I think air support would be nice. Jailbreaker is causing a bulk pile here," Cat Noir warned jumping up at one car. „Where are you?"

„I'm on a pedestrian path. I'll be there in a moment,"

„Good," Commented Cat Noir, then used his staff to catapult himself over a few cars, landing on top of an SUV to observe the cars, that had gathered together in the middle to dodge Jailbreaker.

Meanwhile outside of the highway Ladybug stood on top of an E-scooter with Kai holding himself at the back of the heroine gazing at the bushes, that blocked their sight to the highway.

„Okay, so Alfida won't remember anything after you catch the…...curcuma?" Questioned the blue-eyed boy.

„Akuma….Yes, wow you two are obviously not from here,"

„We went to look for my older sister. We have lost contact with her and we're trying to get back with her and move on in our new life,"

„Okay and from where did you two make your way up here? Germany?"

„Norway, actually," Corrected Kai.

„Oh Norway. To my ears, your names somehow sounded German to me,"

„Maybe some have the same name, I don't know," Commented Kai, then Ladybug pointed at the highway, which showed up in their sight and encountered Jailbreaker picking up a car, which she threw against Cat Noir, which shrieked and jumped away from the vehicle.

„We're getting closer, are you sure you can talk with her?" Questioned Ladybug making Kai nod.

„She won't harm me like that, right?" Questioned Kai making Ladybug shrug her shoulders.

„Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on you and pull you out, when necessary," Promised Ladybug making the boy nod, then the two turned aside on top of a bridge, that crossed the highway and stopped to see Jailbreaker getting closer to them. Kai got down, then Ladybug attached her yo-yo around the boy and helped him up on the bridge, then gave him a thumb up. Kai stepped forward, then Ladybug hold tight on her yo-yo to help the raven-haired boy descent down to the ground and raised her hand in victory as he landed on the ground with his feet.

„Alfida!" Called Kai seeing Jailbreaker holding a delivery truck in her hands, then placed it down as she saw Kai.

„Kai! Where have you been?" Jailbreaker asked approaching Kai, which took a step back and looked up at Ladybug, which moved her hand giving him the sign to continue.

„I...I have found Luta again," Kai commented, then the weasel appeared sliding down on Ladybug's yo-yo to land on Kai's shoulders, then shut her eyes up in shock at seeing the supervillain. „Can you stop doing all this and come back to me?" Questioned Kai. „We planned to go together to Paris and look for Gerda. We're almost…..uhm not almost but we're close. We're almost in France, it's just a stone's throw away from here," Commented Kai, then Ladybug moved the thread, which Jailbreaker noticed.

„Actually you two already are in France," Corrected Ladybug. „Le labyrinthe belongs to France and if you'd like there are a few hotels for you to spend the night," Suggested Ladybug. „I'm not familiar with this place here, but there are for sure some good metro or bus connections to a train station and together you could continue your way to Paris,"

„Come Alfida, we promised each other to get there together in one piece. We've had many ups and downs until now and you see, we're in France!,"

Jailbreaker began to think about Kai's words, then smiled glad about their results, then she embraced Kai tightly making him cry. „Ouch!"

„Oh crap, I'm sorry!" Apologized Jailbreaker taking her arms away from Kai holding her hands close to her mouth. Cat Noir appeared from behind and used his staff to push the girl against the ground, then pressed his staff on Jailbreaker's chest.

„Meow," Greeted Cat Noir with a grin, then Ladybug landed on her feet beside Kai, then made eye contact with him,

„Quick, do you remember, where the akuma disappeared?" Asked Ladybug, then Kai pointed at the headband of the love interest and Cat Noir removed the headband, activating his cataclysm to destroy it.

„Well done!" Complimented Ladybug watching the akuma fly out of the headband, afterward Ladybug caught the akuma as Jailbreaker transformed back into Alfida, which looked up at the superheroes confused.

„You're alright!" Shouted Kai happy embracing the girl tightly, making her smile and pat the boy on the back.

„What happened? I felt so odd inside my mind," Alfida warned, then Ladybug held out a small charm at the raven-haired girl.

„Alfida, I'll hand you out this charm," Spoke Ladybug. „With this, you're safe from being targeted by an akuma again and cause mayhem," Explained the blue-haired girl looking at the number of cars, followed by Alfida, which warped her face in shock.

„That….was me?" Asked Alfida making the heroine nod.

„Don't worry. My miraculous ladybug will fix it soon, but before I have another villain to take care of," Mentioned Ladybug grabbing Kai under his arm to swing up at the top of the roof, followed by Cat Noir, which grabbed Alfida by her jacket, then retrieved the headband to the girl.

„I agreed with Pegasus to meet at the borders, he's waiting there for us," Ladybug mentioned watching Cat Noir get on top of the E-scooter with a curious look.

„I always wanted to try one of those," Commented Cat Noir, then kicked on the ground to roll on it forward to turn the engine on, then he drove away excited leaving Ladybug back which laughed at his reaction.

„Okay, I better get going before he gets hurt or worse," Commented Ladybug making Kai chuckle. „Be careful during your trip and make sure to not get in trouble," Commented Ladybug making the two nod, then Ladybug ran off leaving the two Scandinavian descendant teens back.

„Who the heck was this girl? Questioned Alfida, making Kai shrug his shoulders.

„Some sort of magician I think?" Responded Kai unsure. „I don't know. She just said, she was called Ladybug and was there to help,"

„Okay…..what are we going to do now? Just move on by feet? Rest somewhere?"

„What about looking for a hotel….according to her, that's a place, where we can pay to sleep,"

„That's probably expensive, but…..where do we find that?" Questioned Alfida.

„She spoke something about the labyrinth," Commented Kai walking away with the blue-eyed girl.

„A hotel in the middle of a labyrinth. 21Th century sure is weird," Alfida stated making Kai cackle.

Lady Frost made a wall out of ice to block the attacks of Blaster and they broke her wall, making her sigh at how long it seemed for her.

„Fire King, I could use some extra hand," Lady Frost warned walking backward, while Fire King ransacking a trash can. „King!"

„Un momento. I've found something, that could help us," Fire King commented making Lady Frost growl, then aim at the feet of the boy ice to freeze them. Fire King removed his head out of the can and shrieked as Lady Frost had frozen his feet.

„Are you serious?" Asked Fire King, then melted the ice off his feet making Lady Frost chuckle, then he saw Blaster aim his blaster against the superheroine and Fire King created a large fireball and fired it against Blaster, shrieking him and let the blaster fly against the boy, but the laser disappeared inside the fireball.

Blaster landed on the ground after he dodged the ball and looked up at the redhead.

„This really is turning into a deathmatch," Commented Blaster watching Fire King step forward with one frozen foot, then unfroze the other.

„Why are we fighting each other? We have no reason to kill you, nor do you,"

„I never had, no. This world has turned into a terrible place since all you superheroes showed up. You superheroes had the stupid need to assist the firefighters in evacuating the Ferris wheel, that no one of you took the time to realize, there was an accident happening on the other side of Paris on the highway. I lost my family because of that. They would have made it out if you or anyone else would have gone there on that time,"

„You lost your family as well?" Asked Lady Frost curious, making Blaster frown.

„As if you knew how the pain feels like after you lose someone you love,"

„I know very well how it feels like," Commented Lady Frost with a broken voice, then Fire King placed his hand on the girl's shoulder.

„You don't need to talk about it,"

„Maybe he would need to hear me talk,"

„Does he want it?" Questioned Fire King looking at the villain, which raised his arm against the duo and shot it towards the girl. Fire King pushed her away, then jumped as it passed behind his butt, narrowly touching him making him yelp. „No, he doesn't!" Complained Fire King, then shot a small fireball against the villain, which blocked it with his blaster. „Try to freeze his arm," „I'm not sure if that's a good idea," Commented Lady Frost building a wall in front of Blaster, which used his weapon to break it into small pieces.

„You were okay on using it on me, but you're afraid to use it on him?"

„I can't do much with my powers. He keeps breaking the ice," Told the blonde watching Fire King hold between his hands a slowly, large growing fireball to throw it at the villain, then Blaster jumped aside to dodge it.

„Lady Frost, you're able to use your power stronger. You just have to focus and think on what you're planning to do with it,"

„Alright," Commented Lady Frost looking at Blaster, which just blocked another attack from Fire King, then she frowned and held her hands open for a long while causing a breeze to come out from there, passing by the feet of the supervillain, which frowned and used his blaster to destroy the ice.

„Keep on working on it, I'll take him down," Pointed the redhead out making Lady Frost nod, which continued to build ice on the feet and Fire King ran against the supervillain, which noticed the redhead come along and moved his arm up and Fire King opened his fist with flames brewing up, then grabbed the corsage and destroyed it with both of his hands.

„It finally worked!" Commented Lady Frost, then watched the akuma flatter around her.

„Now Ladybug has to catch it….somehow," Mentioned Fire King watching the akuma fly away, then both widened their eyes in shock and began to pursue the creature.

Behind them opened the portal, where Cat Noir jumped out with an empty, DVD cover and whistled calling Lady Frost's attention, then threw the cover at the heroine, which caught and looked at the cover to see the title Snow Queen Fire & Ice on it and in the middle stood an image of herself as Lady Frost leaned with her back against Fire King.

„Where did you get this from? We have never done this before?" Asked Lady Frost, then Cat Noir pointed at the akuma.

„Use the cover to catch the akuma!" Warned Cat Noir watching Lady Frost open the cover, making Cat Noir roll his eyes and take it off the girl's hand and jumped up in the air with the help of his staff to catch the akuma.

„You're back!" Announced Fire King, then Lady Frost joined the two heroes.

„I could have done that too, if you would have let me take the chance," Lady Frost commented.

„Then why did you just stand there instead of acting?" Asked Cat Noir, making Lady Frost open her mouth, then close it again unsure what to respond. Fire King felt sad for seeing Lady Frost down, then placed his hand on her shoulder.

„There is no need to scold her or me for anything. We got rid of that butterfly and you caught it in that thing. Maybe she had no idea how to use that or if it was possible!" Mentioned Fire King crossing his arms, then from the DVD cover, the akuma flew out making the two boys step back watching the butterfly get up towards the portal. Ladybug appeared from the portal and caught the akuma with her yo-yo then used it to restore all the damage, that was caused and purified the akuma as well.

„See, everything is good," Commented Fire King looking at Cat Noir and Lady Frost.

Ladybug joined the trio and looked at the fire and the ice-themed superheroes.

„Is everything okay with you two?" Asked Ladybug making Fire King nod and Lady Frost shrugged her shoulders.

„I'm not sure, if I'm meant to be with you guys," Mentioned Lady Frost, then Ladybug caressed the girl on the shoulder.

„Don't say that. It took a little while for us to figure out how to take him down. You see in the end as we tried to work out together it went better," Fire King explained. „Forget this with that cover thing Cat Noir spoke about, okay?" Questioned Fire King placing his hand on her back.

„What did Cat Noir say?" Asked Ladybug glancing at the blonde superhero, which chuckled.

„I didn't mean to be rude, I assumed she knew what to do with the DVD cover, but she got wondering about her picture there on the cover," Commented the blonde.

„It's okay. I will know it next time," Stated Lady Frost, then the group looked down at the villain, that had turned back into his civilian form to see him sobbing.

„Can I speak to him?" Questioned Lady Frost. „I know, what's up with him,"

„Sure go on," Responded Ladybug preparing her yo-yo to obtain a magical charm, then observed Lady Frost get down on her knees.

„Hi. How are you feeling?" Asked Lady Frost watching the man clean his eyes and shrug his shoulders.

„I work at the car dealer near the highway and I heard about a terrible accident, that had happened at the highway," Began the man to say. „I didn't really have any curiosity to know, what was going on or who was there at the accident. Accidents nearly happen often every week and they're not always the same. Some are worse, some have good endings. What I….didn't expect was….," Stammered the man beginning to have more tears run down his face, then Fire King got down as well and gently cleaned the tears off with his thumb. „That one car, that got wrapped in the accident was my w….wife and my daughter Mila,"

„That's terrible," Commented Fire King quiet.

„How did you find it out?" Questioned Lady Frost caressing the man softly on the side of his head.

„I was driving home, then the traffic has been directed to another road and in the meanwhile Lyudmila's grandmother, you know…..my wife's m...mom called and informed me about what happened. I..I...I couldn't believe what I heard. I ….didn't know, what to do I…..I had heard on the radio, most of the firefighters and superheroes were around the ferris wheel due to an akuma attack and….and….at that time I got really angry and….and…..I wasn't thinking clear…..I ran into the square to let out my anger on the statue of Ladybug and Cat noir, then…...I don't remember what happened next,"

„Sir….." Questioned Ladybug, then gave the man the magical charm. „This will keep you safe from getting akumatized again. I really wish I could have been there to help them out. Sometimes…..there will be moments, that we can't be able to do everything. We may be superheroes, but at the same time, we're only humans like everyone else,we…."

„You can't do everything at the same time. You're right, I'm…..just fed up. I didn't even have the chance to see them one last time, tell them how much they meant to me," Stated the man beginning to cry, then Lady Frost hugged the man along with Ladybug.

„Mi'lady, I think, we should accompany him to a pastor or just back to his family," Suggested Cat Noir. „This is the best thing for him right now," „Will you do that?" Questioned Ladybug. „I need to charge,"

„So do I, but I'll do it somewhere in the alleys,"

„Sure thing…..Alley cat," Joked Ladybug making Cat Noir, chuckle then the heroine departed away with her yo-yo leaving the trio back.

„Okay, then I guess we'll wait here until you have returned charged," Commented Fire King looking at Cat Noir, which smiled.

„Thanks. I'll be back soon, „Announced Cat Noir running along the sidewalk disappearing into an alley, then Fire King looked at Lady Frost, which stood there looking at the widowed man a little sad.

„Lady Frost?" Spoke the redhead earning her attention. „You know, we've done good in the end and I think, if we both join each other one day or two for a training, we could get to know each other and learn how to work together. With the time we will be able to pass through these cases with no problems….or not many," Offered Fire King. „What do you think about it?" The brown-eyed superhero asked looking at the blonde girl, which pondered about his offer, then nodded.

„It's sort of thanks to you, that we got one step ahead. Maybe you're right and this will really help us both. Mostly me,"

„I'm not perfect either, but this will for sure be good for us, mostly for the others. I don't know why they picked us or what the destiny has seen in us to make us heroes, but there sure is a reason we're got chosen,"

„You're right, we can meet each other someday. If we're lucky this week,"

„Sure, I keep a space in my agenda for you," The Spaniard promised making Lady Frost nod.

„Thank you, Fire King," Answered Lady Frost giving the tall hero a hug, making him smile and close his eyes to reciprocate it.

„If you're okay with it, you can call me King or just Fire…..Well, Fire doesn't seem like a cool nickname, but maybe King does in a way," Stated Fire King making Gerda's alter ego chuckle.

„Alright, I stay with King," Commented the heroine. „I would allow you to give me a nickname as well, but I don't know one, that fits,"

„Frosty would work," Commented Fire King making the blonde snort.

„No, that's weird!" Complained Lady Frost getting off his new friend.

„I assume…..we'll figure one out," Commented Fire King. „Look, you probably have to go to school or work tomorrow. Go back home, I'll wait for Cat Noir. Make sure to get a good night of sleep," Wished Fire King making the girl smile.

„Thanks King. Good night," Wished Lady Frost, then she ran away leaving the redhead back, which watched the heroine leave with a big smile on his face.

[olivinesea]

A Mixed Blessing

Chapter List

chapter three: counting up the exits

a/n: Alright, fun’s over. We’re getting into the thick of it now. Warnings for substance use, abuse, panic attacks, vomit, scars (idk let me know if I need to be tagging more things please, I really don’t know. I feel like if you’ve found your way here you probably know what you’re getting into but I could be wrong.) Love you all <3 ~5k

It surprised no one when Aaron started cutting class in high school. He didn’t usually have any plans, just headed toward the fields, trying to stay out of sight. He may already have been considered a lost cause as a freshman but that didn’t mean an adult wouldn’t stop him, demand he return to whatever class he was missing. And that wouldn’t do, that would only ruin his good mood. At first he had been leaving class to better enjoy the high his mother’s pills provided but when that ended he continued to wander. It was much nicer outside than in the building where people stared at him, whispered about him, called him names. He kicked at rocks as he slunk behind the portables in the field. They had been put up during a population surge, only to sit empty, waiting on some future use or someone to be motivated enough to tear them down.

He slowed when he caught sight of a group of students standing next to the last building. They were circled together, backs to him for the most part. He hesitated, unsure if he wanted to approach. If he'd learned one thing, it was to avoid situations where he stood out. Walking up to a group of random older kids was definitely something to steer clear of. As he was trying to decide, a boy on the far side of the circle looked up and made eye contact. Aaron’s heart beat faster, breathing became short and though he wanted to run, he couldn’t get his legs to cooperate. The boy smiled slowly, his mouth a little too wide.

As if he was being pulled by some unseen thread, Aaron took a step forward, then another. Even though his mind was telling him to turn, to leave whatever this was alone, he found that he wanted to know more. No one ever smiled at him and it made him feel both uncomfortable and something else he couldn’t quite name. He twisted his fingers in the fabric of his sleeves that he’d pulled down over his hands. A chill air current danced across the back of his neck, whispering words he couldn’t comprehend. The cold made his ears ache.

He was close enough now to hear them talking, laughter and some grumbling from whoever was the butt of the joke. No one had noticed him yet aside from the boy who’d smiled at him. He felt his heart in his throat, worried he might throw up from the anxiety of this choice, this incredibly foolish choice. The boy looked at him again with that same peculiar smile. He seemed amused by Aaron’s nervous, stilted approach. Still several feet away from the group, the urge to flee overwhelmed him. His muscles tensed, preparing to run, half a thought went towards how ridiculous he would seem when they finally noticed him as he raced away. Just as he was turning, a voice called out, raised above the rest of the conversation.

“Hey kid, come here.”

Aaron’s shoulders rose up to his ears, bristling at being addressed like that but also helpless to the attention. Normally he’d do the opposite, flat out refuse to acknowledge this stranger’s demand, but the voice sank into him like a hook. He looked back at the group, now all eyes staring at him, questions clear on their faces. He bit his lip before he could stop himself. There were too many people looking at him and he hated it. He could imagine how he looked to them—too skinny, too pale, drowning in his own clothes and the bruising that shadowed his eyes. He’d gotten taller but barely looked old enough to be a high school student even though he would turn fifteen in a few months. This had been a stupid idea.

“What’s your name?” The other boy’s voice cut through the air, pinning him in place.

“Aaron,” he mumbled, suspicious he’d been dragged into this only to be mocked (or worse).

“You a freshman?” There were chuckles around the group. He nodded reluctantly, eyes darting to the ground, unable to look at any of them directly.

“Shouldn’t you be in class?” A different voice, this one female and clearly irritated by the interruption he’d caused.

He looked up to glare at the speaker, not enjoying being teased. “Shouldn’t you?”

While the girl directed a bitter scowl at him, the first boy snorted, holding up his hands. “Fine, fine, we all make our own choices I guess.”

Aaron frowned at that statement, unsure what to make of it. The rest of the group lost interest and returned to their previous conversation, widening the circle just enough to leave space for him. He shoved his hands in his pockets to stop from fidgeting and took the few remaining steps towards the group. He couldn’t bring himself to completely join them so he hung back half a step, always ready to make a quick getaway. When he looked up, that same boy was still watching him. Up close Aaron could see he had freckles, which felt out of place somehow. They suggested a sort of innocence that the rest of his face, all sharp angles and dark, calculating eyes completely contradicted.

The person next to him handed the boy a joint. He continued to stare at Aaron as he took a drag, closing his eyes only as he inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs. He reached across the circle to hand the joint to Aaron, skipping several people who muttered in annoyance but no one complained too loudly. Their fingers touched as he passed off the half burned joint. Aaron had never smoked before but he was more than willing to try. He was certainly not going to turn it down in front of half a dozen upperclassmen.

“Make sure you inhale all the way,” he instructed.

Aaron did, coughing as the smoke came back out, scraping his throat. There was some laughter but mostly they were indifferent to him. The only one paying any attention to him was the boy with the strange smile; it wasn’t friendly and it unnerved Aaron. He tried to hand the joint back as he smothered another cough.

“Again,” he said, eyes intense.

Aaron blinked at him. The boy waved his hand in encouragement or impatience. Aaron flinched at the unexpected movement but tried to hide it by doing as he was told, bringing the joint back to his lips and taking another drag. This time was a little easier though he wasn’t sure he liked the way it made his face feel hot and his eyes water. The other boy accepted this time when he tried to return it. Already the edges of his vision were softening, his chest felt like it was being wrapped in something warm. He hugged his arms around himself, feeling very out of place, the sounds of the others talking fading in and out like a stereo speaker with a bad connection.

He looked up again moments or minutes later and the older boy was still watching him with that same expression. Aaron was finally able to place it, the narrowed eyes and too many teeth self-satisfied grin of a cat who’d caught a bird. He laughed at the absurdity of this thought. He laughed and he found that he couldn’t stop laughing. He crouched down, hugging himself tighter to try to stem the laughter that way.

“Oh no, you got the baby high, Cole,” he heard someone say. He wondered who they were talking about. Who was the baby and who was Cole; he was unable to make the association. There weren’t any babies here. Sean was a baby and he was at home. He had almost managed to stop laughing but thinking about Sean being here, so out of place with his golden curls, his innocent smile, made him start to giggle again. He started coughing as he choked on his own saliva, muscles lazily not performing their assigned tasks of conducting fluids where they belonged. He felt a hand pounding his back and he tried to roll away from the pain it caused, unsuccessfully biting back a moan. He closed his eyes, vaguely embarrassed but also not fully aware of his surroundings anymore. He knew he was outside because he felt the damp grass beneath him, pressing against his cheek. How did he end up laying on the ground? He tried to breathe but his lungs didn’t seem to be taking directions anymore. He grabbed at his chest with frantic fingers.

“Hey,” this voice was quiet, much closer to him than before. He felt a hand placed carefully on his shoulder, barely any pressure this time, a dragonfly lighting on the water. He was too confused to open his eyes, too afraid he’d made his way back home somehow—why couldn’t he remember? Why couldn’t he just get his lungs to expand?

“You’re fine.” The statement was more command than reassurance. Aaron tried to place the voice, thoughts flashing through his mind at an alarming rate. Each time he tried to catch one, they sped by faster. He’d almost gotten it but he was so distracted by the chill transferring from the individual blades of grass, the water drops becoming wet patches on his shirt. He should have more layers on, the weather was changing already. The hand shook his shoulder a little, bringing him back to the present.

“Look at me.”

He cracked his eyes open reluctantly, unable to disobey even though he was terrified he’d be met with the dark eyes of his father, that he’d find this was only the set up for something horrible. He didn’t know what to think when his vision was met with that freckled face, no longer smiling, a slight frown of concern along with a clinical curiosity. He touched his fingers to Aaron’s exposed collarbone.

“Inhale,” he said and Aaron wondered if time had made a loop—how many times had this happened already? The cool pressure on his chest distracted him from the thought and he did as he was told. The flood of oxygen immediately relaxed his constricted limbs. The boy, Cole, nodded encouragingly. “Again.”

Aaron closed his eyes to focus better, all he felt was the air filtering into his lungs and the fingers splayed against his chest, guiding it there. A few more breaths and he knew where he was again, finally locating himself in space and time. With this awareness came the full force of his embarrassment. He blushed as he pushed himself upright, curling his fists so tightly his nails dug deep into his palms. Cole looked at him from his position squatting beside him, hands on his knees, trying to be certain the younger boy wouldn’t collapse again.

“Are you coming?” someone called. The group had moved down the field, heading someplace more interesting. They’d had enough of the small drama of some inexperienced kid overdoing it. It was time to get away from campus before a teacher took notice. Cole ignored them, watching Aaron’s slow recovery. Aaron felt dizzy, still lightheaded from lack of air. His sides ached from laughing but he couldn’t remember what had been so funny. Cole stood and extended a hand down to Aaron.

“Come on.”

Aaron couldn’t decline even if he’d wanted to.

~

From that day forward Aaron found himself trailing this group around whenever he couldn’t stand being in class anymore. He’d sneak away from the building and down to the field where he’d find a few of them lingering. Sometimes only two or three, sometimes more. They never said much to him but no one told him to go away. Cole was usually there and while Aaron would swear he could feel his eyes watching him, he didn’t speak much to him either. When they’d leave campus, he would follow them to the woods where they’d taken over an abandoned shed. Over time teens with the same ideas had dragged logs and old couches around to lounge on as they got high and drank warm bottles of malt liquor. Aaron always tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, half-certain they would yell at him to leave if they realized he was tagging along, leaching off their pot and alcohol. At first he only took sips, pretending to drink but wanting to stay alert to the people around him, not trusting any of them. But eventually, as they continued to ignore him, he relaxed into the habit.  

After the first panicked experience of getting high, he had a much better time, taking smaller hits until he built up his tolerance. Sometimes it made him giggly but mostly he liked to just lay on one of the stained couch cushions and stare at the branches above, eyes unfocused, colors blurring. He listened to the birds and the voices around him and the way they blended together, layering to make a song only he could hear. He didn’t notice the dirty looks he got from one girl, Amy, whenever Cole sat beside him, passing him a bottle of something he certainly didn’t need more of. He’d gotten better at drinking than when he was a child, no longer as prone to getting sick, but he still didn’t eat enough not to need to be careful.

On a Tuesday later in the year, a couple months since he’d started hanging around with the older kids, he didn’t find anyone when he went down to the field. But he’d already left class so he decided to go on to the shed on his own, perhaps they’d left early that day. The day was overcast and starting to drizzle. He pulled the hood of his ratty sweatshirt over his head while the mist collected and dripped off his dark bangs into his face. When he got to the clearing, he didn’t see anyone there either. It was too wet to sit outside so he pushed the door to the shed open. It was dim inside and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust as he heard scuffling noises.

“What the fuck!” a girl’s voice shrieked.

Aaron realized what he’d walked in on and stumbled back quickly. He knew he should run but he just kept backing up slowly, heels sinking into the soft forest floor, unable to take his eyes off the partially closed door. Less than a minute later it swung open again, a tall shape emerging from the dimness. It was Cole, pushing his hair back off his forehead with one hand, adjusting the waist of his jeans with the other. They locked eyes and that smile was back, the one that made Aaron’s skin crawl but drew him in at the same time.

“Come here kid.”

Aaron hated that he gave in so easily but he changed direction, retracing his steps. Once he was within reach, Cole grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside. A camp lantern had appeared from somewhere, throwing shadows and providing just enough light to see the scowl on Amy’s face as she finished straightening her top. Cole pushed Aaron down onto one of the cushions on the floor. She curled her lip in distaste at Aaron before turning on Cole. “I don’t understand why you let this kid hang around. He’s a total creep.”

Aaron frowned and tried to shrink into his sweatshirt. He didn’t want to be there either.

“Now that’s not very nice,” Cole replied, mockingly stern. He dug around in his worn backpack, pulling out a bottle of cheap whiskey. “Look you made him feel bad. Better say sorry.” He still sounded like he was teasing but there was a hard edge in his voice, his eyes were watching her reactions, unblinking. “Maybe a little kiss will help.”

Amy scoffed, looking between Aaron, who was wishing he could disappear, and Cole, who was unscrewing the cap of the bottle.

“Fuck you Cole,” she spat and then stomped out of the building. The thin walls shook as she slammed the door. Cole shrugged and flicked the cap away. It vanished into the shadows beyond the range of the lantern. He took a gulp then pressed it into Aaron’s hands as he sat down alongside him, leaning against the wall. Aaron hesitated, he’d never been alone with Cole, with any of them, and he wasn’t sure what to expect.

Cole noticed and smirked. “Need help kid?”

Aaron’s pride flared, he hated it when they called him that, the way they acted like he was so young, too young to know anything. But he knew plenty, far more than they could ever imagine. He lifted the bottle to his lips and swallowed, wincing down the sharp gasoline fumes. It had been awhile since he’d had any real liquor. The others always showed up with beers and forties that they were able to steal or shoulder tap from the bums in the liquor store parking lot. He wasn’t surprised to find Cole watching his reaction closely. He was always watching. Silently, he nodded his chin, indicating the bottle, so Aaron drank again. He tried to ignore the feeling of discomfort, the voice in his head mocking him for becoming so compliant.

He’d spent the last few weeks watching Cole out of the corner of his eye, seeing how the others treated him differently. They might tease and rough house with each other but never with him. And when Cole said an argument was settled, that was the end of it, regardless of whether the parties involved felt their complaints had been satisfied. There was something about him that was both frightening and compelling, sending a shiver up Aaron’s spine when he thought of him. He had been trying to figure it out and thought it must be related to the way Cole’s eyes never seemed to blink as he stared so intently. It always made him uncomfortable, made him assume he was in the wrong somehow. The part that confused Aaron the most though, was that he’d do anything to fix it. Even not knowing what was wrong, he felt the need to make it right, to win the older boy’s approval. Cole silently took the bottle from Aaron’s fingers as he was lost in contemplation of this stranger he was suddenly in such close quarters with. It felt like being too close to a wild animal. Something with too much intelligence that was just biding its time until it could strike.

Cole leaned his head back against the wall, letting the bottle hang from his fingers in between his bent knees. He closed his eyes and sighed, tired of the world already at seventeen.

“Hotchner.”

He said it so quietly Aaron almost didn’t catch it. He flicked his eyes over to Cole who hadn’t moved. Maybe he was hearing things now.

“That’s you, right?” He was looking at Aaron again, expression impossible to interpret beneath the rippling shadows cast by the tree branches as they swayed in the wind.

Aaron nodded slowly, unsure where this was going. He’d never told any of them his last name but there was no reason to think that they wouldn’t be able to figure it out. The town was not all that large. He passed the bottle back again. Aaron couldn’t even taste it anymore. His head was starting to swim.

“Your dad’s the lawyer right?”

“Mhm,” Aaron didn’t really want to answer but didn’t see how he could lie about it either. Cole laughed at the scowl on his face. Defiantly he took another swallow.

“Not too fond of the old man?”

Aaron lifted a shoulder, noncommittal. Even drunk he was not about to start talking about his father with anyone.

“Mm, not sharing. That’s alright.” He pulled rolling papers and a bag of pot out of his back pocket. Aaron hoped that would be the end of that line of questioning. It was quiet for a few minutes as Cole focused on breaking apart a bud.

“I don’t have a dad,” he said as if continuing some conversation they hadn’t quite started. “Or a mom, really.”

Aaron snorted, too drunk now to be careful with his reactions. “‘fcourse you do. That’s stupid.”

Cole looked up from his task, amused by this outburst. “I don’t. Not anymore.”

The way he said it suggested something dark and twisted but Aaron shied away from the bait, opting to drink more rather than wade deeper into whatever that was. Cole resumed rolling the joint, placing it to his lips and lighting it when it was ready.

“Who—“ Aaron wanted to ask who takes care of you but that sounded too juvenile. He was already annoyed with how they treated him like a little kid. He settled on, “Where do you live?”

Cole exhaled, blowing the smoke into Aaron’s face. “My grandma’s got a basement where I crash sometimes.”

Aaron didn’t ask what he did the rest of the time, just accepted the joint that was being passed to him. He brought it to his lips with unsteady fingers. He was just aware enough to know this was a terrible idea, but Cole’s steady gaze on him wouldn’t let him stop now. He could do anything the other boy could do. He would do anything the other boy wanted him to do. It hardly made sense but this older boy—who didn’t know him, who he had nothing to offer to— nevertheless, this boy was paying attention to him in a way that no one else did. The only other person who was ever this aware of his existence was his father and that was never a good awareness. They continued smoking and drinking in silence as it started to rain in earnest.

“I hate him.” Aaron’s voice was raw with fury, the feeling so strong he was on the verge of tears. Cole nodded lazily, too stoned or too disinterested to form a reply. But now that he’d started, Aaron couldn’t stop thinking about every bad thing that had ever happened to him at the hands of his father, of how his mother just let it happen, of how no one had ever bothered to notice. His breathing sped up. He needed Cole to understand, to believe him and to acknowledge that his life, his experiences were real. He felt a sudden intense certainty that if he couldn’t have just one person look at him and see what was really there, he would disappear completely, never more than an irritation, swatted away by a distracted hand. He leaned forward on his hands, swaying unsteadily as he tried to make eye contact with Cole. For some reason he wouldn’t stay in one place, his image swinging from side to side. Aaron shook his head, hoping to clear it. The other boy lifted the nearly empty bottle to his mouth, lifting an eyebrow at this behavior, eyes bloodshot and hollow.

“I—“ Aaron couldn’t finish his thought. His stomach muscles seized and everything he’d consumed over the past day forcefully came back up, spraying across both Cole and himself. He coughed, nearly choking as he doubled over, forehead touching the dirty floor, scraping against it with his fingernails, trying to find purchase on the violently tilting horizon. Cole swore loudly, dropping and breaking the bottle in his attempt to move away from the mess. The smell of the spilled alcohol, so close to Aaron’s nose was too much and he threw up again, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. He couldn’t remember what had been so important just moments before, all he could do was pray he would be forgiven. He didn’t have a lot of hope.

“Goddamnit,” Cole muttered, moving away from the broken glass and liquid mess. Aaron felt a hand pulling on the back of his sweatshirt and cowered, putting his arms above his head, unable to operate on anything but instinct. Cole tugged a little harder, dragging him away from the mess he’d created.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron sobbed, wishing he didn’t exist, regretting his earlier insistence on being noticed. Cole pulled him to his feet none too gently and Aaron braced himself for the hit he knew was coming, the hit he knew he deserved. Instead he felt fingers pulling up the hem of his sweatshirt, he snapped his arms to his sides and tried to back away but stumbled back into a broken and worn office chair someone had lifted from the school. He sat heavily, barely saving himself from falling onto the floor as the chair rocked unevenly. He gripped the sides of the seat so hard his knuckles turned white and, though he wanted to close his eyes, he also wanted to see what was coming, wanted to prepare himself.

Cole stared at him for a minute, incredulous, then shrugged. He pulled his own soiled shirt off in a single motion, hooking the back of the collar to bring it over his head so none of the vomit came into contact with his skin. He balled it up, wrapping the clean fabric around the outside and dropped it on the floor. When he was finished he noticed Aaron staring at him, staring at his chest. He looked down, tracing a finger over the long purple scar that ran from the bottom of his ribs almost to his hip bone, dark against his exposed skin.

“Like it?” he asked mildly. “It’s got a partner,�� he said as he turned, showing another dark scar, not as long but thicker, near the middle of his back. There were other, smaller scars, some Aaron recognized as the circular prints left by the lit end of cigarettes. When he turned back around, Aaron’s eyes were large and round, unable to comprehend what he’d been shown. Cole scratched at the long scar a little self consciously.

“My mom was real into meth and uh…well she thought I was trying to steal from her one time.” He shifted from foot to foot, pressing his fingertips against his scar. “It was a long time ago,” he added.

“You said you didn’t have a mom,” Aaron said stupidly after the silence became unbearable.

Cole’s eyes grew dark. “I don’t. Not anymore.”

Aaron shivered, promising himself he’d just shut up from here on out. Cole ran a hand through his sandy blond hair, it appeared brown in the dim lighting.

“Are you going to take that off or what?”

Aaron looked down at himself, he was covered in vomit. Seeing it made him aware again of the smell and the nausea and he raced to pull it off, forgetting that he too had something to hide. He was too intoxicated to be coordinated and his shirt came off along with the sweatshirt and he was left exposed from the waist up, just the same as Cole. It was the other boy’s turn to stare, to assess the range of injuries inflicted by the marks left behind. Aaron might not have anything as dramatic but he made up for that in quantity. Aaron forced himself not to close in on himself, to allow the other boy the same time to observe that he’d been given. He couldn’t meet his gaze though, looking out the window as his cheeks burned red with humiliation.

The silence stretched out and he started to think that he would be left standing there forever. That he was too broken, even for someone who knew what Cole knew, who had experienced a similar kind of pain. He squeezed his eyes shut to try to stop the tears, telling himself he was stupid, so stupid to have thought it was at all the same. He was startled when he felt cool fingertips on his chin, turning his face.

“It’s gonna be okay.” He said it quietly, like he knew this was Aaron’s deepest, most shameful desire. He left him for a moment, walking in a wide arc around the mess. Aaron stood chewing on his lip, trying to remain composed. He came back with a sweater he’d pulled out of his backpack. Instead of handing it to him, he pulled it on over Aaron’s head, carefully guiding his arms into the sleeves. It was too big, but clothes were always too big on him, and the fabric was soft and warm. When Aaron was dressed again, Cole pulled on his jacket, a dark canvas, faded at the elbows with frayed drawstrings. He left the zipper undone and Aaron could just see the edge of his scar. It pulled his gaze like a magnet. He couldn’t help staring; too much had just happened for him to process and he hung on this one detail, this proof that he wasn’t alone.

He believed the scar was evidence that there was one person who had lived a life like his and still managed to move through the world unbroken. He didn’t know yet how scar tissue, like icebergs and secrets, grew larger and more twisted the deeper one looked. He wanted to believe in a life with simple answers, with safe endings to stories like his. See, here’s proof. He wanted to touch Cole’s scars, absorb them through his palms as if he could absorb a resolution to his own pain, as if it would make everything stop long enough for all his own wounds to heal over, to scar and become long ago stories instead of the next act waiting in the wings.

Cole zipped his jacket closed, blocking Aaron’s view and breaking off his feverish train of thought. Cole looked at him with a complicated mix of emotion. There was tenderness but also hunger. Aaron couldn’t decipher what that meant but he didn’t care, he was already lost to this idea, a belief he was too ready to attach to this person he barely knew. High on the revelation, he would believe what he wanted: he’d found someone who understood, someone who would stay with him, not leave him struggling on his own. And he would follow him anywhere.

chapter four

[bestintheparsec]

The Same Coin - Part 4

Masterlist

Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader

A/N: Sorry it took so long for me to get this chapter out! I split one of the chapters into two (so this series will now have 8 chapters instead of 7), which is why this chapter is a bit shorter—the next one should be out soon after I post this one! I hope you like this one (things are coming soon😏), and as always I appreciate any feedback! Thank you for reading! 

Words: 2.6k

Warnings: angst, slow roast burn continues

Javier pushes the thin blanket off of himself, leaning over to light a cigarette. He shuts his eyes, taking a long drag before exhaling. He wants to forget a lot of things, but for the past two days it’s seemed like no amount of alcohol could drown out the thoughts of you. 

It shouldn't be like this. He shakes his head and rubs his face. You shouldn’t be there, taking up residence in his mind; the same way you shouldn’t have been in his room, so close to him that night. But there’s a thought that lingers in the crevices of his mind, whether or not he’s willing to admit it out loud. Maybe he had wanted you to stay that night. Asking you to do so would’ve pushed you both past an invisible line, one he doesn’t want you to cross—certainly not for him. He’s made his fair share of bad decisions that have gotten people hurt, and asking you to stay would’ve been another. Whatever it was that overcame him, it can’t and won’t happen again. The man you held that night isn’t someone who deserves to be comforted. He brushes off the nagging emotion—the one that’s wrapped him up and filled him with warmth for the entirety of the last forty-eight hours. He doesn’t deserve to be that man, the one who finds refuge in another. He tries to go back to a state of numbness, where he belongs.

The gentle hand that touches his shoulder almost makes him jump. “You’re thinking very loudly,” she muses. 

He turns to the woman. Her hair is messy, the long waves falling softly over her bare shoulders. She meets his eyes, smiling at him before sitting up and placing her other hand on his shoulder and massaging it. 

He wants this to be enough—the sensation of her warm skin on his, the feeling of release. He's not sure if it was ever enough. But when he loses himself in her arms, he doesn’t feel as safe as he did in yours that night. What the fuck has gotten into me? 

He doesn’t answer, instead pouring himself another glass of whiskey and sighing when the bottle runs empty. 

“It’s work, isn’t it?” she asks, curiously. 

“No,” he replies simply, turning away. I can’t even escape there. 

She smiles softly again, lightly caressing his face before getting out of bed to put her clothes back on.

He doesn’t meet her eyes but knows she’s watching him. “Is there anything I can do?” she asks, her tone teasing.

He puts the cigarette back to his lips, shaking his head. She slips her shoes on, taking her purse before leaving when he calls to her.

“Lina,” he murmurs. She turns to him.

Despite himself, his mind plays with the idea of being with someone for longer than just a night or two. He holds her gaze for a few moments, then looks away. “Nothing,” he finally whispers.

~

You’re sitting at your desk with your chin resting on your knuckle. It’s early so no one else is here yet, leaving you alone with your relentless thoughts. There’s plenty to do, but too many things have been keeping you up so you’re even more exhausted than usual. So much so that you don’t realize you’re dozing off until Steve sets his things down on his desk loudly, startling you.

He looks you in the eyes, giving you a tiny smirk. “Long weekend?” he asks, and you reply with only a groan, pinching the bridge of your nose.

He grins. “Maybe we can all get drinks later or—” he starts, but stops when you suddenly drop your head and turn your attention back to the files in front of you.

He’s about to ask what the problem is when Javier comes up from behind him, setting his cup of coffee down. Javier acknowledges him with a nod but says nothing to you, pulling out his chair and sitting down, refusing to look at you. Steve watches the two of you, confused by the awkward silence. He raises his brows and shrugs, because what's new? He lets out a huff of air, slumping down in his own chair and getting to work.

You try to quell the unwelcome flushing of warmth in your face as you think back to that night. It took you most of the weekend to admit to yourself that you just might have felt something shift in yourself after those events. As much as it frustrates you, you can't get the image of Peña—his warm skin against yours, the static of his fingers brushing against your cheek—out of your head. You've tried to convince yourself it was just pity that took you in there, but it might be more than that—and that scares you. Whatever you’re feeling right now, it needs to stop. This isn’t what you’re here for, and there are a multitude of other things to worry about—things that don’t involve other DEA agents and your feelings for them. About them, not for them, you remind yourself. So why can’t you even look him in the eyes?

It was your decision to go into his room that night. It was a conscious choice, and you don’t regret it. You know how the long nights can wreak havoc on a person’s mind when they’ve seen the same things you have—if you’re able to support someone through it, you’ll do it every time. But that’s all this is, and it’s all it can be—he’s your partner, just like Steve is. You refuse to get attached, not when you live a life surrounded by danger; and especially not when Peña seems to throw himself in that path more often than everyone else. There’s already enough rules being broken around here, you may as well try to follow your own. 

You cast a sideways glance at him. He’s absent-mindedly working on the files at hand, resting his fingers against his temple and seemingly unaffected by your presence. You shouldn’t care, but you still wonder if it’s just you overanalyzing again—the thought that he’s unfazed bothers you, for a reason you can’t comprehend. Forcing yourself to look away, you decide that if Peña doesn’t care, then you don’t have to either.

~

Javier taps his fingers impatiently on the desk, waiting for an excuse to dip out—to anywhere. He gets the feeling you would love to do the same, although you’re usually better at staying composed than he is. But he watches your fingers play with the same loose button on your cardigan, and he almost wishes he had an excuse to offer you for that night. What is there to even say?

His attention is pried away from you when Trujillo marches over, whispering something about a phone call for him. Javier feels your concerned eyes on him as he walks away from his desk, and he feels even more guilty for not saying a word to you all day. You don't deserve to be ignored like this. But surely the silence is better than all the bickering that constantly made his blood pressure rise. He’s hardly paying attention to whatever Trujillo’s telling him now, shaking his head before picking up the phone.

~

Javier slings his leather jacket over his shoulder, walking towards his Jeep. He doesn’t ever tell himself he’s a good man—nor has he claimed to be one. Sometimes you have to do bad things to catch bad people. This thought repeats itself in his head as he starts the car, preparing to drive to meet this informant. Heat waves radiate off the concrete roads as he drives towards his destination. He’s worked with the man before, but only on more...official arrangements. Whatever he has to offer this time, there’s no doubt it’s going to be under-the-table, since it was made explicitly clear that Javier should come alone and with discretion. 

Everything he's done has been done with a single goal in mind—get Escobar. Time and time again, one wrong decision ends up with people being dead, or damaged beyond repair. The lines under his eyes and the heaviness that permanently lives in his chest are further proof that he needs to leave other people out of his decisions, if at all possible. He learned a long time ago that once you get into bed with monsters, you’re forced to live with them alone.

Somehow, this drags his thoughts back over to you. He could've stopped you from coming in that night—should've shut the damn door. It would’ve been easy—a simple “just go” and you wouldn’t have hesitated to leave. Javier swallows thickly when he realizes that maybe he left it open for a reason. He remembers his conversation with you on the bench, the day of the explosion. “It’s best not to be attached to anything, or anyone,” you’d said. He’d pretended not to notice when you let that slip, but if anything, it’s the one thing you both have in common. He knows better than to let himself get too close to anyone. But his mind keeps taking him back to the gentle look in your eyes before you wrapped your arms around him. To how, for once, he felt like he was being enveloped in something other than darkness. To the way he felt his fears and anxieties from that nightmare flee his body, if only for a short while. Because of you. Fuck. He hasn't known peace, not in a long time. He doesn't want to find it in another person. 

He grips the steering wheel a little tighter, turning his focus back onto the road. Familiar buildings pass by as he makes his way to the same convenient spot in a quieter part of town, a place he knows well. He can almost hear the comments you and Steve would have if you knew about this. But someone has to do what no one else will.

He sighs loudly. Javier knows he doesn't deserve to feel the sense of comfort that he did in your arms, but maybe...he wants to.

~

Upon Steve’s insistence, you all end up at a local bar after work, along with Connie. After a couple of rounds, Steve takes Connie’s hand and leads her to the center of the floor for a half-drunken slow dance, leaving you alone with Peña. It’s been another long day, and with neither of you having much to say, you stay quietly seated at the bar next to each other. Some upbeat music blares in the background, but it’s not loud enough to drown out your thoughts. Peña doesn’t seem to mind the ambiance, though. His posture’s relaxed as he watches Steve and Connie haphazardly holding onto each other on the other side of the bar. They laugh a lot, and you’re happy that Steve’s able to enjoy a moment of peace.

You’re not drunk yourself, but the alcohol makes you brave. Things will never go back to normal at work if you don’t address the elephant in the room, and you can’t take the silence anymore—not here, or at work. There’s been enough tension with the bosses lately, and that alone is enough to exhaust you.

You don’t really know how to bring up that night. “Peña, I’m—” you mumble. You start to busy yourself by playing with the strap on your purse.

“Look, we don’t have to do this,” he quickly interrupts with a wave of his hand, but his tone is gentle. You wrinkle your brows, peering at him and biting your lip. He’s still holding his glass, taking a drag on his cigarette before meeting your eyes, as if he’s contemplating what to say himself.

“I’m...sorry. For the other night,” he says quietly. “It won’t happen again. We don’t have to talk about it.” 

Whatever you were expecting, it wasn’t this. You blink a few times and purse your lips, unsure of how to respond. “You don’t have to apologize for anything. I...get them, too. The bad dreams...” you start to ramble, massaging your fingers.

“That’s not what—” he stops and sighs. “I had too much to drink,” he mutters. 

Is he serious? You scoff with disbelief, meeting his eyes as you take a sip of your drink. “Too much to drink? Peña, you drink like it’s your job, those few glasses you had were hardly anything.” 

“I said we don’t need to talk about it,” he insists. He turns away and gestures for the bartender, asking for another glass. Why is he being like this? For fuck’s sake, you don’t expect him to pour his feelings out, but his stubbornness makes you want to scream sometimes.

“I just wanted to help,” you say, raising a hand in resignation. “I know I shouldn’t have...but you don't have to be alone,” you add quietly.

I don’t need any help with being alone. “I’m telling you it was nothing,” he reiterates, but his tone betrays his unease. He looks at you again and his eyes are almost pleading. “Please,” he whispers. 

You want to believe him, believe that it means nothing so you can stop thinking about it—if this is what he wants, you’ll oblige. But it hurts a little all the same. You had thought he would be more open about what happened, because things definitely feel different now and you haven't the slightest clue what you're supposed to do about it—or if you should do anything at all, especially considering you'd only recently become more civil with each other. You exhale quietly and drop the subject. The loud bar music is the only thing saving you from a biting silence as you both down your drinks. 

Javier slips off the bar stool when his phone starts to buzz. He could use the break right now, so he gladly takes the call, moving over to an empty corner of the bar to answer it.

“I’m glad you decided to answer,” the deep voice bellows.

“I told you not to call after hours,” Javier states firmly. “If we do this, we do it my way. You play by my rules, and that's one of them.”

“And I told you we have a common goal,” the man says. Javier stuffs his hand in his pocket, casually checking around him to make sure no one’s watching.

“Then why the hell are you calling me now?” He rubs his jaw with annoyance. “I thought the plan was settled.” 

“There’s been a slight change of plans. We need another person—one to infiltrate the party. Someone those bastards won’t be suspicious of.” With the phone to his ear, Javier watches Steve and Connie from across the room. His eyes soften just a little when Steve whispers something into her ear, making her smile. It passes quickly when he turns his attention back to the call.

Javier runs a hand through his hair, clenching his jaw. “Too bad. You’ve got me.”

“No, Agent Peña. If we don’t get someone off-the-radar in there, this won’t work.”

He glances over at you, sitting on the bar stool. You’re slouched over, nursing your drink and shaking your head when the bartender asks if you want another. He bites his lower lip. “Yeah, well, you’re not getting my other partner in on this,” Javier contends. 

“Come on, Peña. You know plenty of people—I’m sure you can find one who’s willing to help, for the right price.”

Javier frowns, momentarily reconsidering his decision to work with this asshole. He looks at you again, and then Steve, then to his shoes on the grimy tile floor.

“Yeah. I know someone,” he mutters, ending the call with a click.

~

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