#how he bolts at the first sign of trouble instead of WORKING to resolve the issues

[goatsghost]

this is actually making me curious if dick actually likes anyone, or if he’s just this go-with-the-flow people pleaser he seems to be.

like. he and shawn had a good thing, he thought they may start a family together (if on accident). and yeah they had their fights, but they’ve fought before. but one word from helena and he’s immediately moving on to something new.

( nightwing #28 )

[babbushka]

The Shape of You (3/12)

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren x Reader

You do a good job of it, staying out of the way. You’re quiet, you’re unsuspecting, you’re practically invisible; just the way you like it. Until one sunny summer day in 1962, the government base where you work acquires an unusual asset, and everything you know is about to change. In the race to save this lonely, desperate, beautiful man, loyalties are shaken on all sides – and the bonds of true love are tested.

7.4k ; CW: mentions of injury, mentions of past torture, angst

Tumblr Masterlist | Available on AO3

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

When you wake, it is dark once again.

For a moment, you blink and stare at the ceiling, the phantom image of his face swimming in the inky black of night. Holding on to that face, you tentatively reach a hand out into the air, hoping to touch him, hoping to feel something.

In the end, it is nothing but empty air, and your hand drops.

“The only station for when you’re on the go, tune in to AM W-6-Z-O!” The swingin’ dancers on the radio blare once again, an official signal that the time for dreaming is over.

With this new encounter, this new…you don’t even know what it is, you can’t help but feel your pulse quicken. Everything is the same – you will get up to brew your coffee, Armitage will pound against the wall, you will share your breakfast and take three buses to work – but simultaneously, nothing will ever be the same again. Because possibly for the first time in many years, you do not dread the thought of going to work.

Not that you dreaded it, work, not really. It was a good job, an important job, a job that was part of something bigger, much bigger than yourself. But you could not deny the excitement that simmers just below your skin at the thought of it.

The thought of seeing him again.

“You’re chipper this morning.” Armitage scowls as he opens the door for you, a bright cheerful smile on your face.

“Haven’t the foggiest idea what you mean.” You breeze right past him, placing the percolator down on his pot-holder that he keeps on the counter just for this very occasion. Immediately going to his cupboards, you begin to remove the flour and sugar, giving him a knowing glance and asking even though you know the answer, “Pancakes?”

“Please, god knows I’m going to need something sweet today.” He groans, moves to sit at the table.

Sometimes, you can’t help but think how domestic this is. How your friendship had blossomed into a bond so much stronger than you had ever expected. You wonder if Armitage thinks it too, if he ever is reminded of a lifetime ago, when he was married to a beautiful woman and had a house in the suburbs, if when you pour his coffee and flip pancakes on the stove, his heart aches for that long gone time.

If he does, he says nothing about it, so you don’t bring it up.

“What have they done now?” You ask instead, knowing that this is a topic of conversation in which Armitage will always have something to say, always have something to complain about.

“It’s just these essays. Half the class it would seem, completely missed the point of the extra credit film.” He sighs, gesturing to a stack of papers once again sitting on the kitchen table.

“Oh that’s alright, at least Boris is happy.” Sliding pancakes off of the pan and onto a plate, you douse them in a generous helping of syrup and powdered sugar for the both of you, before moving to sit opposite him at the table.

Just then, the lights flicker on and off, making you both frown. The power had never had much of an issue before, what with the movie theater just downstairs needing those extra generators. You glance out the window, it wasn’t raining, and it wasn’t windy – both telltale signs of potential power failure.

“Do you ever worry about what will happen when he has to shut down the building?” Armitage grumbles, carefully and very specifically cutting his stack of pancakes into wedge pieces.

“No, because he won’t.” You shut that train of thought down at once within him, knowing that while he likes to pretend otherwise, your Professor has a proclivity for the dramatics unlike anyone else you’ve ever met. “He has renters for a reason after all, and the summer tourists bring in enough to make ends meet.”

Armitage thinks about that for a moment or two, before accepting the answer.

“You’re right.” He concedes, sounding resigned.

“I’m always right.” You wink, and the two of you finish your breakfast in companionable silence.

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

When you leave Armitage’s apartment and go back to your own, you cannot deny the rush that is the thought of seeing him again. It seems so silly, and of course it is silly, but something in you wants to look nice for him.

You fix your hair and pick out your cleanest most nicely ironed uniform, concerned for the first time about how it fits you, how it forms to your body. It is a modest uniform – you are a cleaning woman after all – but you find that despite the drab color palette and utilitarian shape, you look good. The clock chimes, and you realize that there isn’t much time to fuss, so instead of standing in front of the mirror, you pick a pair of heels off your grand shoe display, and hope that he finds the bright blue color appealing.

Dawdling had never been a trait of yours before, and now you understand why.

The bus is sitting and waiting at the stop when you exit your apartment building, and you run in those bright blue heels as fast as your legs can take you to make it just in time. The click-clack of your steps on the pavement alert everyone nearby, as you bolt towards the bus. Water on the ground from the night’s dew reflects the colors of the neon signs all around you, and when your foot splashes in one of the light puddles, a rainbow scatters around your ankles.

You make a beeline straight for the doors, which are open and welcoming you like a warm embrace, and only once the momentum of your body has thrown you into your seat, do you let out a long exhale.

“Thank you, I’m so sorry!” You could bury your face into your hands with how embarrassed you are, but your hands are shaking from the adrenaline of nearly missing the bus.

Missing this bus would have been bad, very very bad. It would have meant that you’d be late to work, and you have never once, not in the entire ten years on the job, have you been late for work. Such an irregularity would have raised suspicion, would have called attention to you – more attention than there already was. They wouldn’t like that, it would compromise your larger job, your more important mission -- you could not afford to be late. So, you sigh with relief and will your heart to stop pounding in your chest; all was well, you are on the bus, it did not pull away from the stop without you on it, you will be there on time.

“Good morning Miss (Y/N), no need to apologize, you know I’ll always wait for you.” Mr. Henry’s kind eyes glance at you with amusement through the rearview mirror, and you once again thank your lucky stars to have a friend like him.

Much like Armitage, you had never expected to befriend the bus driver. You had of course planned on being friendly and polite, but the extent to which you enjoyed the elderly man’s company had surprised you. And what’s more, you were constantly surprised by his willingness to be friendly with you in return. It reminded you that perhaps, there was a solidarity at the bottom – when there is no one to look out for the people like you and him, you look out for one another.

Could Mr. Henry have gotten in trouble by waiting for you? Would he be late to his other stops now? These were questions that you couldn’t help but think, but you have to wonder if they were questions he considered. Surely it would have been easier to simply leave you behind, but he hadn’t done such a thing, and you cannot express how grateful you are for that.

You resolve to thank him somehow, some way more meaningful than simply the words. It strikes you then, that despite speaking to one another every day, you still know very little about the man. You know he has a beautiful wife and a blossoming garden, you know he picks up a cup of coffee from the donut shop before starting his route, and you know which music stations he prefers to listen to. But beyond that, you have both remained relatively private.

He was not so different from you in that regard, you suppose.

Most people are not so different from one another, you suppose.

“For absolutely no reason at all, what is your favorite type of baked good, Mr. Henry?” You ask after a few moments, when the bus has left the stop and has continued its route, the Las Vegas strip a myriad of lights and colors, blinking and twirling in the night.

“Oh you don’t have to go doing all that – ”

“But I want to.” You insist, “Please let me?”

He looks up at you once again through the rearview window, and you see the sparkle of a smile in his eye. You wonder when the last time someone did something kind for him was, someone doing it just out of the want to see him happy.

“I may or may not be fond of those caramel brownies you make.” Sheepishly, almost as if he will be scolded for revealing such information, he confesses this to you.

You recall a time when you had to bring something to the company party, a holiday get together many years ago. You had been charged with bringing a dessert, and as a thank you to Mr. Henry’s continual kindness and hard work, you offered him one.

It makes you strangely emotional, to know that he had enjoyed it enough to remember it, after all these years.

“How very interesting to know.” You smile, and he smiles back, before he turns his attention to the next bus stop, and your window for conversation comes to a close.

 She is waiting for you at the bus exchange today, standing and huddled in the large group of other passengers. It is chilly out in the desert tonight, and she has a beautiful black and white checkerboard coat wrapped around her body. In moments like these, watching the steam and fog of the bus exchange plume around her feet, Gwendoline reminds you of a movie star.

Perhaps in another life, her face would light up the screen, her silvery blonde hair and striking cheekbones commanding every man in the theater to fall head over heels in love with her. Sometimes she talks about it, about moving away from this city, about quitting her job.

Perhaps in another life, you might go with her.

Armitage would surely come too, wouldn’t he? He could get a job as a professor anywhere, he could pack up his apartment and join you and Gwen on a trip to Los Angeles, or New York City, or perhaps somewhere abroad – but you can’t, can you. You can’t leave.

And so, as selfish as it is, you hope that Gwen never leaves either, because you’re not so sure what you would do, were she to go.

This is especially true, as she catches sight of you politely making your way to where she is standing, and she smiles and throws a hand up to wave to you, as if you didn’t already see her. Gwen was, in so many ways, a beacon of color in the world of black and grey.

“(Y/N)!” She hollers happily to you, competing with the noise of the bus exchange.

The hiss and hydraulics of brakes and doors opening and closing, the sound of engines revving and radios humming, of the news playing on black and white screens behind a window of glass, of people talking and smoking and eating and laughing even though it’s too early for it all, still through this noise Gwen’s voice cuts through.

“Morning,” You smile back at her, offering a thermos as is your tradition every morning. “Coffee?”

“You’re a saint,” Gwen responds, accepting it as is her tradition. “Oh I love when you wear the blue shoes!”

She takes a step back for you to point your toe and extend your leg ever so slightly, the dazzling satin shining like sapphires in the artificial light of the fluorescent overheads. One of the men waiting in the crowd with you lets out a whistle when your skirt rides up just enough to show a little thigh, and you have to physically restrain Gwendoline from snapping her teeth at him.

“I really like this pair, I don’t know why I don’t wear them more often.” Chuckling just a little at your friend’s fierce protective nature, you draw her attention back to the shoes. It wouldn’t do to get into a fight just minutes before being in an enclosed crowded space together.

“Maybe because they’re the least practical thing for a janitor?” Gwendoline mutters, still shooting the man dirty looks. He has, thankfully, backed off – probably for his own safety. Rarely do men ever expect women to snap back, and oh how Gwendoline’s bite is worse than her bark.

“Maybe, but they are so beautiful.” You shrug, and this at the very least, Gwen can understand.

“Come, I think that’s our bus now.” She whispers to you so as to not draw the attention of the crowd around you, knowing how the rush of everyone wanting to get onto the bus and secure a seat can often lead to a mob.

Sure enough, as she pushes her way to the front and you follow her diligently, when the bus rounds the corner and the pushing and shoving begins, you two are already on your way to the back of the bus, coats and purses in your laps, a deck of cards ready to be shuffled.

 In the back of the bus, you and Gwen hide your faces behind a hand of cards each, a game of Go Fish that you are sorely losing. You almost wish that the bus would hit a bump in the road, so that the cards could go scattering all over the floor and you wouldn’t be shamed with the loss, but then the thought of having to clean it all up makes you reconsider.

Gwen, for her part, doesn’t ease up on you one bit, a great big grin on her face as she claims yet another of your cards for her own little pile.

“I dreamt of him again.” You bring up, as nonchalantly as you can.

The bus has greatly reduced down its number of passengers, thankfully. No longer packed like sardines, you and Gwen have enough room to spread out, your belongings no longer piled up on your lap. Instead, they rest on the seat just across the little aisle, as you normally do. Still, it’s not entirely empty, there are quite a few stops to go before the bus pulls over into the dark of the desert and identification is requested.

All this means, is that while you can speak, it has to still be in hushed tones, lest someone from outside the building’s personnel overhear. Gwen hears you perfectly well despite your near whisper, and her face practically alights in the same way those flood lights search the sky.

“Please tell me there’s a face this time!” She abandons the cards to grasp at your hands.

For someone who prides herself on practicality, Gwendoline was incredibly invested in these dreams that you have. Every time you bring it up, she is genuinely and completely interested in hearing more, and you’re more than happy to indulge her.

“There is, and you won’t believe it, but it was, well, it was the Asset.” The last word is whispered so quietly that you might as well just be mouthing the words.

Upon hearing this, her eyes widen, mouth falling open ever so slightly.

“You’ve seen him?” Her shocked whisper makes you cast a glance around.

Good, you think, no one is paying any attention to you, everyone who is left has seated themselves at the front of the bus, knowing that they will be getting off soon and not wanting to have to shuffle through the narrow aisle.

“I – ”

“(Y/N) you didn’t sneak into the lab after all that, did you?” Gwendoline suddenly turns frustrated, exasperated with you. She hisses through clenched teeth, “After that creep Tarkin warned us specifically not to do that very thing?”

“I couldn’t help it Gwen, you can’t tell me that you’re not so curious to know what’s going on in there!” You explain, and she only scoffs and rolls her eyes.

“Of course I’m curious! But I also have some sense of self-preservation.” She looks down at where her hands are clutching yours, turns your palms over in hers. You look down, see how calloused and rough the both of your hands are from a decade of harsh chemicals and hard work. “What if that man is dangerous? What if he hurts you?”

“He can’t, he’s behind bulletproof glass, I don’t think he can even hurt himself with how secure they’ve got him.” You try reassuring her, and it seems that at least for the moment, she is convinced.

Chewing on her lip for a moment or two, eventually she relents to your assurances, and a great big smile spreads over her face once more. You have half a mind to ask her what lipstick she’s wearing, and there you go again, daydreaming about looking nice for this man…

“What does he look like?” Gwen snaps you out of your reverie, and you duck your head, bashful.

You’ve been thinking about him and the way he looks ever since you laid your eyes on him, on his incredibly impressive frame.

“He’s huge. Built like a refrigerator, tall and wide. His face was hard to see, he wears a mask that covers nearly half of it, but his hair is long and dark, and his eyes…” You can see it so clearly, there in your mind’s eye; can see his flexing biceps, the abs, the thick trail of hair that disappears behind those swim trunks they have him in.

With a knowing smile and a shake of her head, Gwendoline sighs.

“You’re going to see him again, aren’t you.” It’s not so much a question, as it is a resignation. She knew you well enough to know that once you’ve decided something, once you’ve put your mind to something, there was very little that could stop you.

If only she knew how deep that sentiment ran.

“I have to, I promised him that I would.” You say, that giddy excitement returning to you once more.

You know that the lab is going to be on your list, you and Gwen are the only ones with high enough clearance for it, you know that at some point in the day, you’ll be face to face with him once again. And that thought thrills you, it has your leg bouncing, your pulse quickening.

Gwen can feel it in your palms, and she lets go of your hands so that you can fiddle with something to keep those busy fingers satisfied.  

“Just…just be safe, okay?” She whispers, “You know I’ll cover for you, but I need you to promise me that you’ll be safe.”

Much like Armitage, and even like Boris, or Mr. Henry, you find yourself once again wondering how you got so lucky to have friends so willing to look out for you. You would do the same for any of them in a heartbeat, of course, but something about the knowledge that Gwen would lie to Mrs. Parker, or even Robert – something that could risk her job – made your heart clench.

“I promise.” You whisper.

She looks at you hard, trying to see what thoughts are going on inside your head, before letting the conversation go entirely, picking up her cards once again, determined to beat you at a few more hands before pulling up to the shuttle stop.

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

The morning passes uneventfully, as the mornings typically do. Today though, there’s an undeniable pep in your step, a glow about you that the other janitors notice. It’s not that they hadn’t noticed you before, they had of course – but with Gwendoline around, usually she absorbed all the attention. It was flustering to be on the receiving end of it, listening as the boys in the halls got a little too chummy with you, thinking your smiles were for them. Things like:

“Lookin’ good (Y/N)!”

“Where are you off to with a smile that big?”

“Fancy a smoke with me and the boys?”

Are whistled and shot your way, much to your amusement -- funny what a little confidence and a pair of heels could do!

You politely reject everyone’s advances, diligent about getting your work done and doing it well. The sooner you finish everything on your clipboard, the sooner you can get to the lab. It’s on your list, as you knew it would be, but it’s so far down and comes after so many other tasks, that you feel as though Mrs. Parker knew you were eager to return to the tank and the man inside of it.

Thoughts of the man consume you, as you go about your list. Nothing was too strenuous today which you were grateful for, it wouldn’t do to be too exhausted to spend time with him. So, as you empty all the little trashcans and ashtrays, as you clean windows and glass panes in offices, as you take the great dust broom to the floors, you let yourself wonder about him.

What were they doing to him today? Were they going to hurt him again? Would he kill someone again?

The last time you saw him, he was wounded, and that bacta shit had healed him. Would they be wounding him further, or did they have what they needed? You wondered if the scientists in the lab would be so careless as to leave their notes out again. The boys back home would be more than interested in reading further developments, you were sure.

Reminded of the boys, you feel more determined than ever to figure out what’s going on with this man, why he’s there in the first place. Surely he must be Russian, why else would the government be so keen on keeping him as contained as he is? Although, you don’t recall ever seeing a plane like the one that was being dissected in that warehouse, so maybe he wasn’t.

Maybe he wasn’t human at all…the thought pops into your head, and you blink it away.

The stories of alien life in Area 51 were just that – stories. No matter how often you liked to joke about them with Gwen, that’s all that it was, just jokes. Still, that ion engine, the strange shape of the wings, the strange gel that seems to have otherworldly healing properties…it raised so many questions that you simply didn’t have any answers to.

As you sweep the floors, back and forth and back and forth with your big dust broom, you wonder if perhaps you’ll be able to speak to the man. Perhaps he could give you some answers, perhaps you could help him.

You have no idea how you could, but maybe if the two of you worked together, you could figure out a way. One thing was for certain, you felt something for this mystery man. A sense of protection, a bond of some sort. It didn’t have a name, didn’t have much to define it at all – but it was there. Much like the dream, that reoccurring dream, it was indefinite and blurred around the edges, but it was there all the same.

For a brief moment, you wonder what the man dreams about.

You wonder if he dreams at all, in the tank.  

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

Time passes strangely, in the building. You’re certain that you’ve just gotten there, had just hopped off the shuttle with Gwen – but in the blink of an eye, it’s lunch time. Gwendoline very shyly lets you know that she’s going to be having lunch with Mary, and true to your word the other day, you’re nothing but encouraging.

Besides, it means that you could spend your lunch in the lab, it was the next place on your list anyway, no one could be angry with you for being there, no one could accuse you of being out of place. In the locker room though, you find yourself frozen, standing in front of the little metal locker that you call yours. There’s a compact in your purse, and you pull it out, look at yourself, really look at yourself.

You feel so foolish for all this, especially when you open Gwen’s locker and find one of her tubes of lipstick. She always keeps a couple in her locker for emergencies, something you found silly, but now are eternally grateful for. Picking out a shade that best compliments your skin tone, you apply it carefully. The damn thing is likely going to smudge anyway while you eat your lunch, but at the very least you’ll look put together when you first arrive at the lab.

He better be appreciative of all this, you think to yourself with a nervous chuckle, he better care about all the effort you’re going through. Gwen would tell you that men never care, but she’s not here right now, off playing footsie in the courtyard with Mary.

 As you walk the halls down in the bowels of the building, you realize how utterly alone you are in here. Everyone is on lunch, all the scientists, the janitors, the management. Not a single soul is in these halls, the greenish bluish light no competition for the sunshine that waits them near the picnic tables outside. You don’t mind, not one bit, and in fact it thrills you, the thought that you might be with him all alone.

Swiping your keycard through the little number pad, the doors beep and slowly open. Three layers of bulletproof steel slide open, one set horizontally, one set vertically, and one set diagonally. This lab would likely be perfectly impenetrable, in case of an attack, but you recognize that as well designed as it is to keep things out, it is also designed to keep things in.

Things like the man, who finally, after what seems like a lifetime, you will get to see again.

The lab is, much like the rest of this wing of the building, empty.

Once again you are faced with the mechanical nature of it all, the dark grey metal walls and floor, the tables with all sorts of piles stacked high atop them. The lighting is dark, kept dim, even dimmer than the halls outside. You hold your breath as the doors shut behind you, as they lock time and time again, sealing the lab away from the rest of the world.

You park your janitorial cart against the wall, your brown paper bag lunch clutched in your hands, just for something to hold, something to keep your hands occupied so that they don’t shake.

"Hello?" You call out gently, hopefully.

The tank is on the far end of the lab, and you take care to approach it cautiously. There are a million bubbles filling the tank, the bacta gel having been disturbed, and recently. Those bubbles trap the air and make the gel look nearly white with all the foam. You have to get closer, have to approach the glass, straining to see inside it.

“It’s just me, I’ve come back to visit you.” You try again, this time speaking a little louder. Maybe he just couldn’t hear you, through the glass and the gel.

Bracing yourself for him to scare the shit out of you with a startling appearance, you nearly press your nose to the tank. But seconds go by, and there is no activity. A deep deep sense of disappointment and fear spike through your body – if he was not here, where was he? What had they done to him? Where had they taken him? Was he alright -- ?

The immediate string of questions is interrupted by a splashing sound coming from your left, and you whirl around, clutching the brown paper bag to your chest.

He is out of the tank, but he is still here, still in the room with you. For whatever reason, he has been moved from the tank to the pool, and you know this because as you watch with wide eyes, he rises up out of the water, standing up to his full height on his two legs, strong legs, powerful thighs that flex and carry his body towards you.

Remaining perfectly still, you do your best not to gasp. You had thought perhaps, the glass from the tank had distorted his proportions, maybe he wasn’t nearly as big as you had thought. But you’re wrong, he’s even bigger somehow, in the flesh, in front of you. He must be over six feet tall, and twice as wide as the normal man, or at least, twice as wide as any man you had ever seen.

But the most unexpected thing of all, is that he is not wearing the mask.

You have a clear, unobstructed view of his face for the first time, and it takes your breath away. He is utterly, completely, totally handsome. Your imagination could have never come up with the configuration of his features, never in a million years. His nose, so strong and proud looks slightly broken from the front, but when he shakes the water away from his hair and you catch sight of his profile, it is beautifully sloped and triangular. His lips have to be the most full and plush that you’ve ever seen, his ears are large as they poke out from the dark drenched blackness of his hair.

You’re staring, you know you are, but he doesn’t seem deterred. In fact, he’s staring right back at you, looking at you with soulful brown eyes that seem to be sharper than anything you’ve ever seen, eyes that seem to be taking you in with the same level of intensity that you do him.  

“Oh!” You realize that he can hear you now, you realize that this is the chance you’ve been hoping for, so you reach out your hand for him to shake, and offer him a friendly, “Hello.”

The man’s eyes track the movement in a way that can only be described as predatory, as an apex creature focusing all their energy on their prey. Strangely though, you don’t feel like prey. Keeping your hand extended, you take slow even breaths, showing him that you mean no harm, showing him that you won’t hurt him.

You’re not like those men, those scientists, you won’t hurt him.

“My name is (Y/N). It’s a pleasure to meet you.” You introduce yourself, speaking as carefully and clearly as you can. “What’s your name? Can you understand me?”

The man simply looks at you, as if in a trance of some kind. You look around, check over your shoulder to make sure, absolutely sure, that no one is around.

Once you’re determined that the coast is clear, and this man continues to take in the sight of you, you move one step forward, closer to the edge of the pool.

“Can you understand me now?” These words come in another language, a switch of your tongue that would have you arrested on site if anyone had heard.

He frowns, confused, and you wonder if this is the first time anyone has tried being polite to him since his capture. You’re about to retract your hand, when suddenly, he lifts his own, his arm tensing as he reaches for you – only to be stopped by long chains that are attached to cuffs on each of his wrists, and to the metal collar he wears around his throat.

The man looks at his bindings, and strains against them with a strangled shout of frustration. His muscles bulge, but it’s to no avail, whatever he has been shackled in, is too strong for him to break through. You have to sit, your legs unable to support you for the moment as you take him all in. Settling on a step near the edge of the pool, you lean in enough for this man to do the same. He too sits, just on the other side of the edge, as close to you as the chains will allow.

Reaching your hand further, further, further still, the man freezes as you place a palm to his cheek. The skin of his scar is smooth, and you find that surprising, as you stroke his face. Eyes closing, the man lets out a shaky shuddering exhale, nuzzling into your palm. He reminds you of a bear trapped in spiked teeth out in the forest, or a lion in the cage of a circus.

“Why do they have you chained and collared like this, why are you here?” The Russian flows freely now, you no longer hold it back the way that you might have in front of anyone else.

Then, suddenly, the strangest noises come out of his mouth. You think that he might be in pain for a minute, but then you realize no, he is speaking to you, impassioned and desperate, his voice is deep, rumbling, coming from the depths of his chest, a baritone that vibrates down inside your bones.

This is the voice that you heard in your dream, you realize. The voice parroting your words back to you, now you know why it had sounded so strange, so off. This man didn’t speak English, and he had only been mimicking the sounds, not knowing what it meant. You’re not sure what this man speaks, and it pains you, it pains you to not share this with him.

“I – I’m sorry I don’t understand.” You have to cut him off, putting your hand over his mouth to interrupt him, to get him to stop. You’re not sure if he even knows what you’re saying, if he can understand but not translate it out of his own mouth, you don’t know. “I’m familiar with ten different languages but yours isn’t one of them, I’m sorry.”

The man looks so sad, devastated, and that at least feels like maybe he can understand you. All at once, you recognize that if he can understand you, there may be hope. Perhaps if you both learn to communicate in a way that doesn’t rely on words, perhaps if you can find a way, you can help him.

That will require some planning, great planning, careful planning.

The man is watching you, he rests his head on the ledge of the pool, his black hair slinking and sliding down the strong muscles of his back. It is as if he is telling you to not be afraid of him, the very same way you were trying to tell him not to be afraid of you.

It strikes you, for a moment, how human he is. Even if by some cosmic improbability he is an alien, he is human. His stomach growls then, loudly, so loudly that it makes you laugh, and you shut yourself up immediately, afraid of scaring him with the noise. He doesn’t go anywhere though, his eyes only widen, making you smile.

The man mimics the motion, smiling back at you, a small laugh of his own.

He has dimples, you think, as you only grow more and more attached to him, and his teeth are so crooked.

“Here, I don’t know what kind of shit they feed you, but you must be hungry.” You rifle through the little brown paper bag that you’ve been holding in a death grip this entire time, pulling out the first thing you see. The clementine fills your palm, you offer it to him cautiously, encouraging, “Go ahead, you can have it, I promise it’s okay.”

The man, wherever he has come from, must not have seen one of these before, because he takes it in his hand and immediately goes to bite through the rind. Your hand flies out and grabs his before he can do so, and despite it all, you laugh again.

He scowls, thinking you’re making fun of him, so you simply shake your head and demonstrate how to peel the hard outer flesh of the fruit away.

“Don’t make fun of me for the way I peel it, I can never get it to come off in one go.” You mutter, wondering wondering wondering if he can understand you.

Watching diligently and carefully, he sits patiently at the edge of the pool, his palm extended, resting near your hands. Piece by piece you peel the clementine, always trying to get it in one spiral but failing, as usual. Eventually, once the floor has been littered with peel and the clementine is bare, you pry the citrus into segments, and place one in his hand.

It looks so small, comically small in the man’s palm, even smaller as he raises the piece to his mouth and pops it in between his teeth, the juice squirting into your face, making you laugh once again. The man’s face lights up immediately, already asking with those strangled sounding words that you cannot understand, a language foreign to even your ears.

“It’s good right?” You hope that that’s what he’s saying, you hope that he likes it. Giving him the whole thing, you watch as he delicately pulls the segments apart. “Bright and sweet. It’s just about the only thing bright in this whole place, hm?”

Instead of eating the entire thing as you would have expected him to do, the man thoughtfully gives you half of the segments. You notice that they are the larger pieces, the ones that must be more flavorful, juicier. He is kind, you decide, kind enough to offer you the better of the halves at the very least.

“Why are you here?” You whisper, knowing he cannot answer. “Why do they torture you so?”

There are no fresh wounds this time, you are glad to see. Nothing healing or inflicted, just the smoothed over scars. You long to touch them, the pink lines that mar his flesh, but he is a person of agency, and you will not disrespect him the way that these scientists do.

So instead, you offer your hand out to him once more, and after careful consideration, the man presses his cheek against your palm. Your thumb rubs soothing circles against the little beauty marks and freckles that pepper his skin, and you sigh.

“I’m going to figure out a way for us to communicate. I don’t know how, but I will.” You tell him, tell yourself, “You won’t be alone, I’ll help you, I just need to figure out how.”

Out in the hall beyond the sealed off lab, a bell chimes, signaling that lunch is over. Regret and disappointment rise up in your throat like acid, you don’t want to leave him, you don’t want to go away from him. He has been in your dreams, all this time, it has been him, of this you’re now sure. But you have a job, you have a responsibility, and you cannot lose it now.

Pulling away, he makes a noise of protest, and this is a noise you can understand.

“I have to clean. You can watch me, if you’d like, but I can’t just sit here all day, or else they’ll be very angry with me.” You explain to him, willing him to understand, “And if they’re angry, then I can’t visit again.”

The man sighs, chews on the segmented clementine.

With that, you move to the other side of the lab where you’ve parked your cart. The only thing on the list is to mop the floors, and you find that you hate that, you wish there were more, wish that you could have more time. You never thought you’d think this, but you hate how efficient you’ve become, how they’ve entrusted you with the jobs they know you are quick at. It is a double edged sword, because if you weren’t good at it, then maybe they wouldn’t have assigned this lab to you in the first place.

Dunking your mop in the solution that you make yourself – vinegar and baking soda, and a little dish soap – you begin to work, the thing you’re actually there for. It is very obvious that he’s watching you, from his spot in the pool. He walks back and forth, almost stalking you, his hulking frame tethered to you by an invisible string. When you go to the right, so does he. When you double back to the left, he goes as well. You smile, hoping that he finds the incredible mundanity of it all not so mundane.

“You’re very handsome. I’m only saying this because I know you’ve got no idea what it is that I’m saying, otherwise I’d be dying of embarrassment. But you’re handsome.” You admit when your back is turned to him, swishing the mop this way and that, picking up the little stains and debris that have stuck to the floor in the time since it was last mopped. “I was wondering what your face looked like, without the mask.”

You continue to mop, and he continues to watch you.

In a strange sense, it is almost like a dance. The sound of the water splashing as he moves back and forth, as he creates little waves and currents, acts as a rhythm, a steady beat to which you mop. His breathing is calm, and he seems to be in a relaxed mood. Maybe he has been hypnotized by the repetitive motions that you make, or maybe, a hopeful part of you thinks, maybe he feels completely at ease with you.

The thought sours in the back of your throat, because you know that once you have finished this, you will have to leave.

You prolong it, you try your best, you really do. But eventually there comes a point in which you cannot procrastinate any longer, you cannot draw it out. The floor is mopped, your clipboard is checked.

Carefully, walking over the freshly mopped tiles slowly and deliberately so that you don’t slip, you sit on the edge of the pool once again, something painful like sorrow making your head hurt.

“I’m done.” You whisper, “I have to go now.”

He’s alarmed by this, the man. He seizes forward, rushes to reach for you with wide panicked eyes, but the chains around his neck yank him back, and he stumbles for a moment, nearly loses his footing in the water. You could cry, with the desperation in the words that he speaks, with the way he reaches for you with bound hands.

You lean as far into the pool as you can, your arms wrapping around him, nearly toppling over into the water with how far forward you are. You don’t care, so what if you should fall? You cannot bear to see him so sad, and so you pull him into an embrace. He holds you tightly, hands curling in your hair, breathing in your smell.

“I know, I know I’m sorry – I don’t want to leave you. But I’ve got more work to do.” Your voice wobbles, hating this, hating how he’s chained, hating how he’s going to be all alone, how he’s going to be tortured and harmed in your absence. You hate it, and he doesn’t want to let you go, you can tell by how strong of a grip he has on you as he talks and talks and talks in a language you don’t know.

There is nothing you can do today though, to help him. For the first time in your life, you feel overwhelmingly insignificant, in the way that you can’t do anything to help him.

“I’ll come back tomorrow, even if it’s not on the list, okay? I’ll come back, I promise.” Your hands cup his cheeks, looking at one another, your eyes boring into his. “I’ll always come back.”

You let go of him now though, and you turn your back to him, mopping up your steps so that the footprints do not give you away.

Swiping your keycard through the number pad once more, the doors open for you, and you do your best not to cry when you hear his pained shout muffled behind the steel.

[mosaicofdreamsanddragons]

Scholarly Pursuits

Tang enjoys an evening of scholarly pursuits. At least that’s what he tells the others. They don't need to know about the heist. 

Or: Upon the fear that MK might be under the circlet’s curse Tang resolves to find the activation spell and destroy it. 

Link for ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27446992

It had started with a Monkey King story, as so much in Tang’s life seemed to nowadays. MK was cleaning up the mess his clone had left in Pigsy’s shop and he’d seemed so down Tang had offered a story. MK’s morose “Anything that doesn’t have clones in it,” was to be expected really. Poor kid had been through a lot.

He ran through all the stories he knew in his mind for one that didn’t involve clones or a duplicate and replace. “How about the time Monkey King attained immortality for the first time? Or perhaps how he met one of his friends?”

MK looked up from where he was sweeping. “What’s the first adventure he had with the Monk?” he said.

Tang smiled and began a story of a Monk who freed a Monkey from under a mountain, their initial clashes with a tiger and bandits, and the resulting fight over the Monkey’s viciousness that split their company until a mysterious old women who was far more then she seemed provided a hat which tightened on command. The story had its desired effect as MK had all but forgotten the broom and the now spotless floor, in favor of perching near Tang and hanging onto his every word.

“Did the circlet work cause of what was said or is it based on who said it?” he said pulling out his unauthorized autobiography and scribbling something down.

“Well…” Tang began but he was cut off by an annoyed shout.

“Stop distracting the kid!” came Pigsy’s angry voice as he stomped into the room, only to do a double take at the spotless floors. “Hhhnf,” he said. “Good job kid, you get the rest of the night off.” MK let out a happy squeal of delight and rushed up the stairs leaving Tang alone with Pigsy.

“Take out tonight?” Tang suggested but Pigsy was not listening to him.

“A circlet that tightens upon command?” said Pigsy. “Any chance that’s going to bother him?”

Tang did not let his shock at Pigsy asking for his knowledge on Monkey king stories show on his face. Instead he pushed his glasses up and smiled. “He’s not wearing one is he? So it’s irrelevant.”

Pigsy huffed and moved off, “I suppose it’s not like anyone remembers how to activate it now,” he muttered.

And Tang’s blood ran cold.

Pigsy continued on oblivious. “How can you even be hungry when you spent all day….” But the words had muted into white noise, taking a backseat to the cacophony in Tang’s brain.

Because Pigsy’s assumption was wrong. Someone did know how to activate the circlet. Tang knew, he’d learned it.

…and that meant others could too.

“…And we aren’t getting takeout when we have perfectly good leftovers!” Pigsy’s indignation finally blasting through the bombshells in Tang’s head.

He nodded and followed the pig, taking care to keep his trademark smirk on his face. No point in worrying him further. And it’s not like the kid had been wearing a circlet at any time. There was nothing to worry about.

  When he’d still been young and naïve, before he’d packed his bags and gone as far west as his meager saving would send him (only two cities over and right into Pigsy’s noodle shop) he’d attended university and managed to secure a job working under a professor in charge of the archives. Aware of his fascination with the Monkey King and thrilled to pass on the love of folklore studies to another, the professor had one day shown him an old papyrus, “And this here is the spell to activate the Monkey King’s headband.”

“Really?” said Tang committing the words to memory. “Does it work?”

“Of course not!” said his professor. “That’s just a story. But this does show us the importance the myth had in the past….”

He was huddle against Sandy and Mei watching MK return to life for the second time in one day. He burst from a stone, just like all the stories, looking exactly how Tang had always envisioned the Monkey king: hovering in the air in front of the sun, wielding a staff, and a faint glowing band across his head.

This was not a story.

This was not a dream.

This was a memory.

   He sat bolt upright and all sense of sleep gone. After checking to make sure he hadn’t woken Pigsy, he slipped onto the balcony to think. He let the cool night air chase any last remnants of sleep from him; he would need his whole mind for this.

The facts were simple. The Monkey King’s circlet caused terrible pain when activated. Tang had seen the fragments of an ancient paper with writing on it and been told it was the activation spell for the circlet. MK had appeared to have a circlet on his head during his first fight against the demon bull king.

It was the unknowns that were less straightforward. He didn’t know if the Monkey King’s circlet could be activated by anyone with the spell or if the speaker mattered. He didn’t know if anyone else had attempted to learn the spell since he’d seen it in a dusty archive. He didn’t know if MK really even had the circlet on him or if it was just some cool aesthetic he’d created with his own powers in the heat of the moment.

And MK knew and worked with the actual Monkey King. Surely he would know if his successor had inherited his circlet. And surely he’d do something about it? Right?

Tang felt his hands clench on the cold iron balcony railing. He stared at it for a moment and then took a deep breath and forced himself relax. His fingers uncurled and he tucked them into his pockets before lifting his gaze to MK’s balcony.

Fact: He’d memorized the words within moments. That information was still out there and easily accessible to any enemy who could fool a university’s security system.

Fact: Tang could not afford this risk, not with MK at stake.

“But what can I do about it?” he wondered aloud. “It’s not like I can pull of a heist by myself.” A rustle in the trees caught his attention and he froze realizing what he’d just said aloud. He scanned the area for eavesdroppers (or worse, Pigsy) but there was only an orange bird rustling around in the plants on a nearby balcony. He had avoided trouble this time but the warning was still there. If he was going to do this, no one could possibly know.

  All good heists require plans. And the best require simple plans with straightforward execution so when it all failed in the third act, he could still figure his way out. The barebones of this plan was simple: get into the university, hope the passcode for the archive vault hadn’t changed since he was a student, destroy a priceless piece of ancient papyrus, get out. He could take the bus.

Then the morning news caught his attention and he had a better idea.

“Mei,” he said sliding his phone over to her, “Could you do me a favor?”

“Sure!” she said glancing curiously down from the top picture to the article beneath it. “What do you need?”

“Could you sign up as a last minute competitor at this race for me?” said Tang.

Mei skimmed the details of the race. “I don’t know,” she said brow furrowed. “This is in the next town over and I’m not familiar with the track.”

“It could be good practice for the big race coming up,” said Tang, “or you could do it just for the fun of racing. Either way I was heading into the town and I figured why not head in together?”

“So you need a ride?” said Mei.

“And to test out my Mei merchandise,” he said holding up the flags he’d made for her. He’d been working on a hat too but she didn’t need to know about that disaster until he managed to fix it.

She looked from his tiny Mei flag and back down to the phone. “I guess it could be fun.” Her smile returned and she bounced on her chair. “Yeah. It’ll be fun!”

Tang smiled as he closed his phone on the picture of his old professor standing next to the judges in a crowd shot. His old professor was not a racer. But his old professor’s spouse was on the panel of judges for this competition. Which could very easily mean he’d be there for support. And he would know the new passcode for the archives. If there was a new passcode. The trick would be to get him talking.

And he had just the conversation starter.

  “Sandy,” he said greeting the tall blue river demon. “Could I by any chance borrow one of your therapy cats for a little trip?”

“Where ya headed?” said Sandy. “Not all of them like long term travel.”

“Mei’s got a race in the next town over,” Tang explained.

“Say no more!” said Sandy cheerfully. “Therapy cats are excellent for pre-race jitters! This is the track she doesn’t know right? The one she signed up for last minute?”

“The very same,” said Tang.

“Ordinarily I’d say you should take Mo,” said Sandy. “He’s the best for differing travel, but he’s got a vet appointment. Don’t worry though, I’m sure one of the others would be willing to help.” He started shifting through his many cats, asking them if they’d like to accompany Mei.

Tang glanced about the room. He’d need a cat that was nondescript in case this went poorly, but it would need to be able to help Mei with said pre-race jitters. He should probably just leave this to Sandy, he knew his cats best and…he felt something brush up against his legs. A fluffy orange cat looked up at him, golden eyes meeting his. He reached down to pet it but it darted off, only to turn back around and look at him like Well? What are you waiting for?

If Tang did not know Mo, this would be strange cat behavior. But he followed the cat into the kitchen…oh it wanted food. “I don’t know where Sandy keeps the cat treats,” he said.

The cat gave him what can only be described as a dirty look before hopping on the counter, grabbing a something from a basket, and placing it down in front of Tang.

“Do you want me to play?” he said reaching down and picking up…Sandy’s wallet. The cat was a little pickpocket. The cat could fetch wallets, wallets which might contain things like passcodes to old archives. He met the gold eyes of the orange cat as it smirked, smirked!, at him. You ready for a heist? it seemed to say.

“Sandy,” he said lifting the cat up. “I think I found the perfect one.”

  Mei loved the cat. “Just look at its little green stripe!” she said. “It matches my jacket! He’s the perfect little mascot!” and the cat seemed to like her happily playing with him to calm herself down. He even put up with her dancing around with him in a fit of pre-race jitters and had greatly enjoyed the ride over.

“He sure loves to race!” she grinned, setting the cat on the front of her motorcycle. “But I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait with Mr. Tang!”

Tang smiled as he accepted the cat and waved Mei over to the starting line. Then he joined the booth with the friends and family of the other competitors, right below the judges. Time for part one of the heist.

“Okay,” he whispered to the cat. “It’s all up to you.” The cat looked at him and flashed the smirk it seemed only to display around him. Then it darted up the stairs towards the judges box.

As Tang watched the race he tried to keep his focus on how Mei was doing and how well she was taking these curves despite being new to the track and not on how he’d just hitched his heist on a cat being able to steal the wallet of his old professor. But he held his ground.

Mei was baited into taking a turn wrong by a more experienced racer. The centripetal force caused her motorcycle to teeter. And Tang felt his anxiety well up inside him. He leaned forward. What if the cat was just a cat and he was imagining all of this? What if his professor saw him and realized his aim? What if Mei didn’t make the turn and it was all his fault for suggesting this fun family outing during a heist?

Mei threw herself to one side causing her whole motorcycle to right itself and zoomed ahead. Tang let out the breath he’d been holding into a cheer before falling back into the chair he didn’t realize he’d risen from.

Only to land on something. He shifted his weight to find a leather wallet. He glanced up to see the cat a few seats above him grinning at him like Why are you so surprised?

He turned this attention back to his find and carefully flipped the wallet open, credit cards, debit cards, ID, coupons, ah ha!

Slipped behind a faculty ID was a small piece of paper with a 1410 written on it. He smiled…

…and slipped the paper back into the wallet.

The cat batted him with its paws. Why did you do that?

“Less…” he glanced around at the cheering fans around him, “…obvious” he whispered.

The cat looked at him. Then it batted the wallet through the gaps in the stands until it fell to the ground below them.

“What did you do that for!” he whisper-shouted as the crowed around him roared.

The cat innocently licked its paw and rubbed its ears. Less obvious he could almost hear innocently repeated back at him.

It…was a good point. This way the professor would not even have to know he was here and the crime wouldn’t be traced to the disappearing wallet. He’d just assumed it had fallen from his pocket to the ground below. Tang could work with this.

Mei pushed the racer who had tricked her out of the track. Tang rose to cheer, loosing himself in the race. All he had to do now was wait and support his kid.

Mei placed bronze. Tang was thrilled. Bronze on a track she hadn’t even prepped for! He ran down the stands to give her a congratulatory hug. She excitedly jumped around the track, bonze metal swinging, and he found himself swept up in her joy. The cat decided to celebrate too by stealing his flag and running around waving it in the air and sticking it in the faces off all the other contestants.

Eventually though, Mei had to head back and grabbed the overexcited kitty. “You sure you don’t want a ride back?” she said.

“No I’ve still got some scholarly pursuits in this city,” said Tang. “Go enjoy your night of celebration with the others. Pigsy said he’d have the race playing at his store, so they’ll be ready and waiting for some celebratory partying.”

Pleased at the prospect of some fun at home, she headed off bundling the cat into the motorcycle. It was less then pleased and when it finally gave up on struggling it looked back at him with big sad eyes How could you abandon me partner? He ignored it. Between the cat’s sadness and Sandy’s wrath, he’d take the former.

He waved and turned back to head towards the bus station. A glimpse of golden shimmer caught his eye but he ignored it. He was on his own now.

It was up to him.

  The only person who noticed the cat turn into a hair upon its return to Sandy’s home was Mo. Mo, being used to this nonsense by now, just went about his day as normal.

  The bus ride to the next town over was uneventful and that gave him time to plan. He’d made it this far without drawing attention to himself, no point in loosing that now, so he bought an obnoxious sweatshirt that screamed college student to the skies and a hat he could pull over his eyes. Then he took off his glasses slipping them into a bland backpack and braced himself for the future headache.

He would like to say he looked the part. But after all these years all he could hope for was that he’d be mistaken for a professor or that no one got close enough to determine his age.

The school was laid out the same way he remembered it and it was quite easy to get into the library above the archives, find a book to read, and head down to the basement to use the reading nook set up there. Conveniently able to watch the comings and goings by the archive door, while looking the very picture of a diligent student seeking a quite study spot.  

So convincing in fact, actual college students had the exact same idea. There were four or five of them sitting in the nook. Well then, looks like this was a game of patience. Fortunately for him, while he had never attempted a heist before, he was quite the expert on waiting games.

Nearly five hours later most of the students had headed off towards the main floor and the remaining two were getting antsy. The silver one’s leg wouldn’t stop moving and the gold one was nervously glancing at the archive door, and then at him, and then at the exit.

Finally the gold one turned and whispered loudly to the silver one, “I don’t think he’s going to leave. Should we knock him out?”

“Can you do it quietly?” said the silver one “What if someone hears?”

Hmmmm. He could use this. “Gentleman,” he began. “It seems we are about the same business tonight. Perhaps an unlikely truce? I don’t ask what business you have with the archives, and you don’t ask what business I have.”

Silver and Gold looked at each other. “You just had to pick today for this” “Excuse me you said no one ever tries to rob places on weekdays!” “Well now we’re in the middle of another person’s heist!” “I know that I have ears.” “What do we do?” “We could team up” “No way! That always leads to betrayal!” “We could just continue like we never saw him?” “Yeah, we’ll just pretend we never saw each other.”

Tang took the opportunity to head over to the archive and type in the passcode. The door slid open but the noise caught the attention of Gold and Silver and they darted in behind him. He’d hoped they wouldn’t notice but as they wandered away from the books and over to the museum pieces he figured he might as well just get what he came for.

Even after all these years, he still remembered where the band-tightening spell had been. Reaching into the vault he withdrew the fragile paper from its spot among the rare books. Carefully he put on his glasses to read the lines, he couldn’t risk destroying the wrong paper, that would mean the loss of a priceless piece of history. Even this one was a priceless window into the past an…bang!

He could hear Gold and Silver arguing behind him. Something about not being able to carry all of whatever they were after. Gold and Silver two thieves that could easily walk over here, read the spell, and be able to hurt his boy. He took of his glasses and slipped them into his backpack, removing what had been in there before: a lighter.

It was a tad old fashioned but it did the trick. The flick of a cap and the paper burned to nothing in his hands.

Then the fire alarms went off.

Tang slammed the door to the books room closed so they wouldn’t get damaged by the sprinklers and sprinted for the exit. Gold and Silver followed hot on his heals but couldn’t quite keep up with the five large objects in their arms. Tang dove thought the door but they weren’t going to make it. So Gold dropped what he was carrying grabbed Silver and leapt through the door with a hint of magic.

They barreled into Tang but he barely registered that they were still holding on to a calabash. Instead is focus was on sprinting to the exit.

He burst from the building into a massive panicking crowd of college students rushing about like someone had yelled there would be free food but failed to give directions.

He could use this. He let himself match the frantic paces of the students and let the crowd provide cover to slip through an old hole in the fence towards the dorms. One he’d used many a time as a student late for class. He was pretty sure it had a gap in the security system too, as it had never been fixed. So he slipped through and stepped to the side, throwing off his college sweatshirt and his hat and pulling out his glasses.

Tang walked to a bus stop and took the next bus home. It was an uneventful ride.

  That night the robbery was all over the news. He watched the broadcast while eating noodles at Pigsy’s shop. “While no clear leads have been found. It is suspected that two of the culprits appeared in this photo taken moments after the crime.” Tang looked up to see fuzzy photos of Gold and Silver sprinting into the crowd. “A third accomplish is suspected, but while discarded clothes were found matching the image above, it is unclear if its tied to the case or not as all footage from the heist itself has been replaced with footage of this bird.” A video played of golden bird with magnificent red and green feathers preening in front of a security camera while a loud bang could be heard in the background. “Donors to the archive, including the Long family, have called an investigation of the security …”

Tang smiled smugly to himself. Nothing like a job well done.

[honey-girlie]

every kind of way (jake x mc)

rating: E (for the last chapter)

chapter: 1/3

word count: ~4k

summary: To say Eris has had a rough time in the villa so far was an understatement. She really didn’t need to go and complicate things further by fancying her closest mate, but then again, her brain rarely worked properly when Jake was around her. 

a/n: this is a short fic about coupling up with Jake. it’ll be three chapters long and will only cover day 11 and the night of day 12. this first chapter takes place on the morning of day 11

for the most part, it follows canon with the exceptions that my MC, Eris, has a much closer relationship with Jake, and she also makes it clear to Levi that she’s not interested in him. i also (briefly) included an explanation behind Jake’s cheating, which is entirely headcanon. otherwise, the story is basically the same as the game

anyway thanks for reading if you do!

[link to ao3]

x x x

i wanna love you in every kind of way - H.E.R.

“Oh, Christ.”

Eris stared deadpan at the telltale beep of her phone that resounded throughout the empty bedroom and interrupted whatever retort Levi was about to throw at her. 

After last night’s dumping and Lucy’s antics this morning, she wasn’t in the mood for challenges or dates or whatever it was they were going to be doing today. She wanted to relax, sleep in, hang out by the pool. One day of peace in the villa seemed like more of an impossible feat than she realized.

And on top of that, Levi has been trying to rekindle their relationship after Eris admitted that she wasn’t interested in him anymore. Her feelings hadn’t been that strong to begin with, but they’ve waned since the whole Cherrygate debacle. In recent days, she could now easily say she’s moved on. Levi, however, refused to give up. It was why he was currently sitting in bed with her, convincing her that he didn’t have feelings for Lucy, whatever she might say or do. 

Needless to say, Eris was having a shit morning. If the producers allowed them alcohol this early in the day, she’d be cradling an entire bottle of wine right now.

She huffed at the phone, hoping the stupid device knew that whatever text had been sent to her was not welcomed right now. Beside her, Levi appeared irritated. 

“I guess we’ll... talk later,” he grumbled.

Eris scratched her nose in an annoyed tick. She’d honestly rather not, but it was a conversation she knew needed to be had. 

“Sure. Later. But,” she interjected firmly, “I’ll say this one last time.” She looked Levi straight in the eye, keeping her tone gentle yet steady. By god, if they had to have this discussion again, she’d burn her hair off. “We might still be coupled up, but we’re not together and we haven’t been for a while. If you want to get back with Lucy or graft on another girl, I won’t stop you because honestly, I don’t care.”

Levi’s lips thinned as a sour expression formed on his face, but he kept quiet. Whether it was for the sake of the text or because her feelings had finally sunk in for him, she wasn’t sure. Either way, she was glad he chose silence.

Suppressing the urge to sigh, Eris dragged herself up and leaned over to snatch the phone from the table. She avoided looking in his direction as she shouted for the other Islanders to gather. 

“Guys! I got a text!”

They piled into the bedroom in a matter of seconds, some with breakfast still in their hands.

“Read it out, Eris!” Reese exclaimed. 

Tim took a bite of his toast before asking, “What do you reckon it is? Another challenge?”

“Oh, don’t talk with your mouth full, hun,” Jen tutted. Her expression, however, was still amused. “But I do hope we get treated for some dates.”

The two of them leered at each other, and Eris couldn’t help the pang of jealousy that hit her. That was what she wanted for herself, but it seemed like the one guy she did want in the villa didn’t want her back. 

Stuffing her bitterness down, Eris cleared her throat. 

“Alright, everyone ready?” she asked the group.

When they nodded, she lowered her gaze to the text and read it out loud. 

Islanders, tonight will be the last recoupling. The boys will be choosing their partners.

#thefinalcountdown #holdontight

Eris’ heart sank as she scanned the short missive again. Another recoupling? After they had one just last night? She knew for a while that she needed to find a better partner than Levi, but she thought she had more time. And of course the very last recoupling would be boy’s choice. She could very well be dumped from the villa tonight. 

She couldn’t stop her eyes from darting over to Jake, but she was surprised to see he was already staring back. He ducked his head immediately, looking oddly frustrated. In the next second, Jake bolted from the room without saying a word to anyone. 

Bemused and crestfallen, Eris sagged. She’s been having trouble reading him more than ever in the past few days, but him fleeing from her was very clearly a bad sign.

There were a few beats of silence that were shortly broken by Jen. Eris tuned it out as her mind reeled. She ignored the excited chatter of the room and flopped backwards onto the bed, resisting the urge to groan into the pillow. 

Shit morning indeed. 

x x x

Eris ambled through the villa alone, wondering how on earth she got herself into this situation. 

She had finished breakfast and conversed with the other Islanders in a daze, too worried about what tonight had in store for her. Since Levi wasn’t an option any longer, her thoughts were in shambles as she considered what else she could do. There was always the possibility of coupling up with Rohan as friends, but at this stage in the game, it wouldn’t be right. They both knew the attraction wasn’t there. They deserved better than that.

Eris didn’t care so much about winning. All she wanted was to find a future with someone on the show, and Rohan was not the boy to have that with. There was nobody else in the villa for her. 

Nobody but one, and he had barely looked at her all day.

She’s been dealing with the particular frustration that was Jake for what seemed like half her time there. At the very beginning it looked like he was into her, offering secret glances and smiles across the room that always seemed to verge on longing. They even coupled up for a bit. Those few days with Jake, being able to cuddle up with him in bed and find excuses to touch him in and out of challenges... 

Those days were undoubtedly the happiest she’s felt. To hear him say that he had wanted her to pick him too made Eris smile so wide, her cheeks hurt. 

But all of a sudden, things changed. Levi was grafting on her, and Jake backed off, insisting he didn’t want to stand in their way. Eris had never been so conflicted. On one hand, she couldn’t deny that Levi was attractive, and as a conceptual artist, she was also delighted to learn that they both shared a particular love for installation art. The way he chased after her was thrilling. It was nice being wanted by one of the most eligible Islanders on the show.

But with Jake, things were so... right. 

Early on, he confessed to Eris that he struggled to connect with the others, but she had no problem growing close to him. He started opening up to her after some gentle prodding on her part, then things just snapped into place for them. 

While they weren’t completely attached at the hip, Eris and Jake were damn close. He cracked wry jokes, often only for her ears and told at the most unexpected times. He spoke freely to her about his thoughts on the other Islanders and their couples. He allowed himself to be more selfish when he was with her instead of trying to maintain peace around the villa like he usually did. 

In the same vein, Eris was just as comfortable around him. She felt relaxed in his warm, easy presence, even when he wasn’t talking much. She enjoyed watching him do the most mundane things, like cook or take a swim in the pool. She forgot about trying, about keeping up appearances and making sure her face wasn’t sweaty or her makeup hadn’t smeared. 

Jake made her feel safe enough to rant to him and be quiet with him and be herself, unapologetically, around him.

What humbled her the most, however, was the fact that he opened up to her about his cheating past. 

Fittingly, he had told her about it the morning after the infamous mess that was Cherrygate. It had been early on in his adult life, barely past his 20s, and he’d been dating his then-girlfriend for almost two years. They met each other through a mutual friend, but they didn’t start dating until a few months later. Everyone had seen it coming. Everyone encouraged it too.

Things were fun in the beginning, but it didn’t take long for them both to realize they weren’t good for each other. Their constant arguments were never resolved, and their communication was never there. Jake suspected that they only stayed together for as long as they did because everyone expected it of them.

He was vague about the specifics of his infidelity. All Eris knew was that it started three months before the breakup with some girl who lived on the same street as him. When Jake found out his girlfriend had been cheating on him too, he confessed to his own affair, and they finally decided to split up. With so many mutual friends, the two of them saw each other occasionally, but they were mostly on good terms. Still, he admitted that even if they were both equally guilty parties, there were few things that hurt worse than being cheated on. 

Eris wasn’t exactly torn up about Levi kissing another girl. What did make her cry was knowing that Jake empathized with her enough to share something so private about his life. The other Islanders offered their comfort in their own ways, but Jake was the only one to hurt with her. The night Cherrygate occurred, he was there, wrapping a sturdy arm around her shoulders and telling her how strong she was, how much she didn’t deserve it. The morning after was no different. That was when he permanently cemented himself in her heart.

Eris had a stronger bond with Jake than with anyone else in the villa and even some of her friends back home. It came to the point where she had grown attuned to his emotions. From the subtle wrinkle in his forehead when he was troubled to the downturn of his lips when he was confused, it wasn’t difficult for her to figure out what he was feeling. Even her awareness of his physical presence had become second nature. Her ears could make out the timbre of his voice from the other side of the villa. Her eyes could recognize his silhouette in a darkened room.  

It was well-known that Jake was the most reserved Islander on the show. But she knew him. She knew him, and it was such a privilege that he allowed her. 

He was sweet. Funny. Self-assured. Romantic. Supportive. Considerate. And unquestionably the most beautiful man she’s ever laid eyes on. 

Jake was everything Eris wanted in a partner, and in a very short amount of time, she knew she was already starting to fall fast and hard for the quiet, cheeky chef. She had every intention of staying coupled up with him to see where they could go. 

So when Jake suggested to Eris that she and Levi had strong potential, she was more than a little upset. He didn’t fight for her or their couple, and it made Eris think that maybe he didn’t want her as much as she thought. 

He seemed so willing to let her go. And it hurt.

Eris wasn’t the type of person to internalize her feelings, but being humiliated like that on national television made her bite back her disappointment and put on a strong front instead. She had smiled tightly at Jake, then picked Levi for her date later that night, and when he kissed her, she didn’t fight it. She thought of the man she’d rather be kissing instead, but she didn’t fight it. Everything about it had felt off. His hands weren’t the same, his shoulders a touch too wide. 

Jake didn’t seem to mind any of it. That was the proverbial nail in the coffin that prompted her to choose Levi at the next coupling. Maybe it was the out Jake had been hoping for. After all, he didn’t look all too upset when he clapped along with everyone else at her decision. And he’s obviously been getting on well with Cherry. 

Eris couldn’t stop the small scowl that formed on her face. Fucking Cherry. That ugly, green-eyed monster of jealousy roared inside her whenever that girl so much as looked at Jake. But Eris would never compromise his happiness, and if Cherry made him happy, she’d suck it up.

With all of this drama happening, Eris was starting to wonder why she signed up for the show in the first place. She could’ve had failed relationships back home in Kent just as easily. She could’ve pined over yet another man who didn’t want her in the comfort of her own flat. 

She groaned and tugged at her hair. Mindlessly walking around the villa didn’t help much. Besides, Tim’s constant rapping could be heard wherever she went. It wasn’t like she could escape anywhere. 

Eris walked through the dressing room, her mind nowhere near concluded. But her tumultuous thoughts were interrupted at the sound of hurried footsteps behind her. 

She turned. A small gasp escaped her when she saw who it was. 

Jake strode right for her with a determination she’s never seen from him before. At first glance, he appeared cool and collected, but once she took in his crazed eyes, clenched jaw, and shaking hands, anticipation whirled in her stomach. 

“Jake?” 

“I’m sorry, Eris,” he breathed as he stopped a few feet from her. “I just — can I have a word?”

Her eyebrows knitted together. “Wha— Jake, what’s going on?”

“I have to...” He huffed and shook his head, clearly frustrated with himself. “There’s just something I need to tell you. Can we...?” He gestured to the doors of the roof terrace. 

It was clear that whatever it was he needed to say was big. Jake was rarely anything less than put together, and right now, he looked like he was on the precipice of a meltdown. 

Eris didn’t hesitate as she nodded. “Of course. Come on.”

They entered the terrace, luckily finding it empty. Jake took a seat, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. His clasped hands sporadically squeezed and loosened. Eris eyed him in concern as she joined him on the bench. 

“Are you alright?” she asked. She’s never seen anyone in the villa look half as nervous as he did right now.

“I’m fine,” he assured. “It’s just... I’ve been thinking all day about whether or not I should say this. And it’s like — if I say it, I might ruin a friendship, or worse. It could be really bad for the villa.”

Jake sighed heavily and hung his head. He almost sounded like he was talking to himself with his next words. 

“But if I don’t say it, maybe I miss a chance to finally be happy?”

Eris’ frown deepened, and she felt a fluttering in her chest, something she couldn’t name. 

Confused as ever, she caved in to the urge to touch him and placed a hand on his arm. “You’re kind of scaring me. What is this about?”

Jake quieted. He stared at her hand, resting gently on his warm skin, and his gaze softened. When he remained silent, Eris squeezed in encouragement. 

He exhaled quietly.

“Fuck it.”

His eyes flashed, and he whipped his head up to stare her down. She almost recoiled. 

“I want you,” Jake blurted, his voice hoarse. “I want to be with you so bad, Eris. From day one... it’s always been you.”

Her jaw dropped to the floor. 

For a moment, nothing else registered other than the words I want you.

I want you.

Jake wanted her? 

Her?

It was appropriate that Eris’ response was just as bewildered. “Huh?” she said stupidly. 

Jake ran a hand through his unruly hair as he shot up from his seat to pace around. “Look, I realize I left it so late, but it’s the last recoupling this evening and I just had to say something, even though I might’ve ruined everything I’ve tried to make in here. Plus, you had all this stuff going on with Levi and I didn’t want to piss you off or ruin our friendship, so I kept quiet about it. But I can’t anymore. I need to know, or it’ll kill me.”

He stopped pacing and took a deep breath. Visibly bracing himself, Jake turned to her, his face verging on desperation. 

“Eris,” he rasped, “is there any chance for me? Could — could something happen between us?”

Stunned, Eris leaned back on the bench with her mouth agape. 

Shock coursed through her for a few long beats as silence stretched between them, his confession hanging in the air. The longer she sat there, utterly dumbstruck, the more Jake’s face fell. It took her a bit, but her brain caught up as she finally absorbed what he had said. 

I want you.

It’s always been you.

Something between us.

The world around her spun, but once the words got through to her, it careened to a complete halt. Suddenly Jake was the only thing she could see. 

Her heart soared. 

A short, disbelieving laugh bubbled out of her as the reality of his confession kicked in, and Jake’s shoulders drooped, looking like she had just kicked him in the gut. 

God, he was so adorable. 

Eris stood up and neared him. “Jake,” she barely managed.

He sighed and put on a brave face, attempting a weak but sincere smile. “It’s alright. I just couldn’t —”

Unable to resist any longer, Eris surged towards him and flung her arms around his neck as she crashed her lips against his. Jake gasped and froze, but once he realized what was happening, she felt his whole body shudder. He engulfed her in his tight embrace and returned the kiss with a fervor that made her stomach swoop. 

Finally, she thought before her mind quieted, focusing only on the sensation of Jake’s presence surrounding her entirely. She knew him, but this... This was new territory she couldn’t wait to explore. 

He moaned into the kiss, his eager hands wandering from her hips to her back until one of them traveled up to tangle itself in her hair. Her heart skipped two beats before running right out of her chest. He pulled her as close as humanly possible then closer still, and as a result they stumbled onto the nearest wall. Jake pressed her up against it, slanting his lips over hers. Eris whimpered a sigh when their tongues grazed, and she couldn’t stop her knees from buckling a little at the electrifying sensation that chased up her spine. 

His hands left a fiery trail wherever they went. When his mouth lowered to the side of her neck Eris gasped, her head tilting back and her fingernails digging into his shoulders. Jake hissed in pleasure and doubled his efforts on her neck by sucking lightly on her pulse point. If not for his firm grip around her, she would have fallen over at how heavenly it felt. His responding, dark chuckle at her reaction would have done her in next. 

For what felt like hours, they remained entwined in each other. Her head was dizzy by the time their kisses and frantic touches slowed down into something soft, content. When they finally pulled apart, Jake rested his forehead on hers, and they exchanged goofy, joyous smiles as they caught their breath. Whatever doubts she’d been carrying had all but vanished as his fingertips pressed into the flesh of her waist. 

“Just to be clear,” he panted, “this means you fancy me too, right?”

Eris laughed. “Yeah. But I could show you again if you’re still not sure.”

His grin grew even wider, and he ducked in for another short kiss. “You have no idea how terrified I was you were going to say no,” he admitted against her lips. 

“It’s always been you too,” she whispered. “But I didn’t think you liked me like that anymore.”

He briefly closed his eyes, and when they opened, they were full of regret. “I’m sorry. I acted like an idiot when we had coupled up. I somehow thought I had messed up my chance when I learned that Levi was grafting on you.”

“So you pushed me away,” she said quietly. 

“I convinced myself you were happier with him, so I tried to move on too.” He let out a humorless chuckle. “Not my finest moment, I’m aware.”

Eris gave him an apologetic look as she brought a hand up to the side of his face, running her thumb over his thin stubble. “I’m sorry too. I should have been honest and said something to let you know how much I liked you, but I... I don’t know. I guess I felt too wounded.”

He nodded. “I definitely could have made things easier, but I understand. I just wish we hadn’t wasted so much time together here.”

A dry smile appeared on her face. If they had actually communicated properly, they wouldn’t have gone through so much bullshit. It was as amusing as it was infuriating. “We’re a pair of dummies, huh?”

He chuckled. “I heard this place will do that to you. It’s practically our job, right? To stir as much drama as possible.”

“Well, I think it’s safe to say we take the cake there.” Eris wrinkled her nose. “How do you suppose everyone else will react?”

“We should talk about that, actually,” Jake sighed as he loosened his hold on her. The air shifted on a more serious note. “I don’t know what the situation is between you and Levi, but we’re still coupled with different people. It wouldn’t be right to surprise them with this at the recoupling later.”

A sense of dread settled in the pit of her stomach. “I told Levi we weren’t together anymore,” she muttered. “But I still need to talk to him.”

“Yeah. And I need to break up with Cherry.”

As much as Eris hated the idea of having that conversation, he was right. They couldn’t spring this on their partners at the last second, even if a part of her thought they deserved it a little. Damn Jake and his kind heart, otherwise she would ignore everyone and spend the rest of her time in the villa with him. 

“This afternoon, then,” she agreed. “We’ll have to get it done before the recoupling.”

“Right. I just don’t want to be that kind of guy. I’ve made enough mistakes in here as it is.”

Eris nodded, and when she caught the remorse in his expression, she stood on her tiptoes to gently kiss him again, feeling him smile against her lips. They pulled away, and she grabbed his wrist to press one last kiss on his palm. His gaze was full of reverence, making her heart clench. 

Jake suggested they get going so that hopefully, Levi and Cherry would calm down by the time the recoupling started. With reluctance, she parted from him and wished him luck with his talk with Cherry. He squeezed her shoulder in thanks as he returned the sentiment, then they left the rooftop. 

Eris walked through the villa in search of Levi, her head held high but her stomach rioting with nerves. She couldn’t imagine the backlash she’d get from both the Islanders and the audience watching, but she didn’t care. 

For the future she was seeking outside the show with the man she wanted by her side, this was worth it.

[thesunlovesmuses]

Running Away

Prompt: Dirt and leaves tangled in my hair as he pushed me into the wall. He pressed his hand over my mouth and whispered; “Hush or they’ll hear you.”

The brisk wind chilled my bones as I walked the beaten path carved into the forest by merchants and travellers before me. The golden leaves in their autumn hues danced in the wind like lovers at a ball, and only made me think more about the decision I had made only this morning. Had I been too hasty in my decision? Was it right to leave on my own journey now, or should I go running back to the tower. Should I wait one more season to explore the world? Even it it had only been a day since I left, I missed everyone so dearly. Azra, Izax, Luka. The only companion to keep me company on the road was Oliver. Sensing my indecision, the cat rubbed his face against my neck from his perch on my shoulder. He might not be a real cat, but for a familiar, he truly felt like a friend. Giving him a comforting scratch behind his ear, I pressed on, knowing in my heart of hearts that if I didn’t leave now, I would never leave the tower. And if I didn’t leave the tower, then I would never find out the truth I so longed to find.

“It’s probably just the cold making me rethink Oliver. I’m sure once we settle down for the night with a nice hot meal, this’ll be easier.” I conversed with Oliver, trying to get my mind off of the crushing silence of a lonely road. Luckily, only being a day on the road, I knew we had some nice provisions in hand to cook us a nice camp meal. But those won’t last forever. By the time they run out though, hopefully I’ll have arrived in Lorminster and can find some work to help buy more.

“So we’re a day from Serden Village and then five away form Lorminster. And according to Azra, they’ll be a cartographer in Serden so we can buy a proper map of the area. I hope it won’t cost too much. I sighed, feeling the coin pouch attached to my belt. Not feeling as hefty as I would like it to have been, despite all of my saving. But what else can I do but pray to Hendorr for good fortune. 

But just as I was lamenting my monetary issues, a loud rustling started from my right, far off, but it sounded like it was getting closer and closer, with no sign of slowing down.

“Oliver, poof out for a second, this might be trouble.” I asked, the cat giving a meow in good luck, and disappearing in a puff of black smoke. And just as I was about to pull out the spear form it’s holder, the bushes parted and a figure bolted out, slamming into me and sending us tumbling down the hillside the path was next to. Over and over we went, and all I could see were tufts of blond hair and coats catching in the wind as fell.

Eventually we slowly came to a stop, with the figure on top of me, panted as if he had ran for miles. Dirt and leaves tangled in my hair as he pushed off of the floor. He pressed his hand over my mouth and whispered; “Hush or they’ll hear you.”

“Mmmppphh!” I screamed, but to no real effect. He looked around the forest to see if anything heard us. After a moment, he sighed and turned back to me.

“Ok. If I move my hand from your mouth, promise you won’t scream.”

I was hoping that the intense glare I was giving him would tell this guy exactly how I feel about him telling me what do after tackling me to the ground out of nowhere. But he was either very dense, or thought I wasn’t going to be much of a challenge if I did decide to fight back. Because after a moment, he lifted his hand off of my face.

“See, it’s going to be o-”

All it took was a second for his guard to be down. For in an instant, I twisted our position so he was on his back. Noting he had a knife strapped to his leg, I quickly unsheathed it and held it to his throat.

“Start talking. Who are you and why the hell are you following me?” I whispered back. As much as I wanted to shout at him for his actions, his asking me to be quiet made me think that maybe he knew something about these forests that I didn’t. 

“Well thanks for keeping your voice down at least, but if we are going to talk, maybe we could, oh I don’t know, move behind a tree so that we don’t get spotted!?!”

“Spotted by who?”

“The guards of course! They’re always prowling around here, looking for people like us!”

“What do you mean people like us?”

“Outsiders, travellers, people who might not necessarily agree with the ways that the town is run. Now can we please move befor-”

A rustle from the bushes sent both of our heads looking in the direction it came from. Dragging him quickly to his feet, we rushed to hide behind a big oak tree on the edge of the clearing. Just as we did, two people in shining silver armour came out and looked around the area. Seeing that the stranger was about to try and put his hand over my mouth again, I quickly crouched and looked around the edge of the trunk to try and eavesdrop on them.

“He has to be around here somewhere.”

“I told you Markus, you were seeing things.”

“And I told you, I saw him spying on us! Probably trying to get intel for those rebel friends of his.” 

“Tch. Can’t believe I’m wasting the evening here and not back at the barracks. At least there it was warm.” The taller guard moaned, kicking a stray rock at the tree we were hiding behind. This alone made the blonde behind me tense up in fear. Well, at least I know he’s been putting on a front all this time.

“Stop complaining and help me look. The quicker we find him, the quicker we can be done with this whole business anyway” The shorter guard, presumably Markus, replied in a tone that just begged for the taller guard to fight him on this. With a glance back at what must have been the direction of the barracks he mentioned, the other guard joined Markus and searched the bushes opposite of where we are. 

Giving the stranger back his knife and signalling that maybe now would be a good time to get out of here, we started to quietly tip toe deeper into the forest, avoiding any twigs and leaves that looked like they would make a lot of noise. As soon as it looked like we were in the clear, we started to sprint away from the clearing, still being mindful of where we were stepping in case we made unnecessary noise.

“So, were they your friends or what?” I asked, trying to get the full picture of what was going on around these parts.

“Hah! Unlikely! I’d rather be friends with the bears around here than them. And hey, I’m really am sorry about pushing you to the ground like that. I panicked since you were making a lot of noise.”

“As long as I don’t get in trouble for just being near you, I think we’re good..erm?”

“Lucien. Lucien Ingleton.”

“Katiana. Why would the guards want you though? You don’t look like a thief?” I mused, looking at the way he was dressed. Sure, the clothes were muddy from travel, but they were by no means clothes any old traveller would wear. Slacks like a nobleman would wear, boots that look like they were polished only this morning, and was that some kind of military coat?

“No… at least not yet. But honestly, the way we’re going, we might have to resort to that soon.”

“We?”

“Oh… Sorry, I forget you don’t know the area and it’s troubles.” Lucien mused, skidding to a stop, coming to the conclusion that we were far enough away that we could stop running.

“Me and my friends… we’re in a bit of a tight situation. But I’m not sure it’s best to tell you. After all, you’re just passing through. Our troubles shouldn’t be your own.”

“But what if I can help? Besides, it sounds like I’m going to have issues passing through Serden Village if it’s true what you say about not trusting outsiders. Maybe a heads up on the situation would help?”

“True, I’d hate for an innocent traveller to be tangled up in our mess. By the gods I wish they’d let us resolve this civilly, instead of having to resort to this.” He mused, losing himself in thought for a moment as I looked around the area. Nothing but oak trees and undergrowth all around. And no way of knowing where the road was. Getting anxious that I might have to find the road on my own, but it seems to have read on my face. Because Lucien smiled a sad smile that somehow suited his face, and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

“While I don’t know how much information is too much information, rest assured that I will get you back onto the main road first thing in the morning. But I think we’re still much too close to the village border for comfort. If it’s not too much trouble, there’s a river to the east where a campsite should be. Well, I say campsite, it’ll be nothing more than a few logs and an empty fire pit at this point i’m sure. But if you wouldn’t mind setting up camp there, I can tell you more about… our situation.” He offered, scratching his scalp as he mentioned the humble offering of a campsite, as if it wouldn’t be enough.

“Ok, but only if you tell me the jist of it now. As much as I want to trust you, you did just tackle me out of nowhere, so I want to know what I’m about to walk into. For my own safety.”

“Oh… of course. It’s only fair…” He trailed off, walking a few paces away from me. And for a second, I was worried that he was just going to walk away and leave me here. But after taking a closer look at the way he carried himself and the way he was clenching and unclenching his hands, it almost looked like he was steeling himself up to say what he needed to say. But just as I was about to comfort him, he nodded his head, and walked back to me, with a sadness and fury in his eyes that made me think of a fire on a raining day.

“Serden Village, my home, has been taken over by a tyrant. And there’s a rebellion coming.”

[winterisakillerwrites]

Get Better - Chapter Nine

Title: Get Better

Chapter: 9/18

Character: Tom Hiddleston/Cath Richardson (OFC)

Genre: Romance

Rating: Teen and up

Summary: Love. Companionship. Family. These are all of the things Tom Hiddleston desperately wanted. But his life and his choices left that a distant and unlikely prospect. So he did his best to move on and live his life as is. When an opportunity to return to the theater arises, he jumps at the chance and along the way finds that maybe, just maybe, those distant and unlikely prospects are closer than he could have imagined. Sequel to Brave Face.

Authors Notes/Warnings: So as I was writing Brave Face I knew that Tom’s story wasn’t over, even if that particular part of it was. And while I knew, more or less, what the overall ending to the story would be, its taken me a while to figure out the time in between. Thanks to @redfoxwritesstuff for letting me continually throw ideas off and at you. I still can’t fathom why you put up with it, but I am eternally grateful you do.

Previous

CHAPTER NINE

“I don’t know how or why I let you talk me into this,” Cath groaned, leaning her head back against the cool wall behind her. Every inch of her ached, how she was ever going to manage making it from the studio floor back into the changing rooms she couldn’t begin to fathom. “I’m dying.”

Gemma tossed her head back, her short, light blonde hair flying back from her face as she let out a loud laugh which echoed throughout the now empty room. “You are not dying.” She placed a hand on her hip surveying the sight before her, shook her head, and bent to offer her hand to her deflated friend. “Besides, it’s good for you.”

Cath reluctantly took the proffered hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. She limped pathetically towards the changing room behind Gemma, not bothering to keep pace with her much taller friend. How could she be this out of shape? It was mindboggling. When Cath had gotten the call yesterday afternoon, she’d gladly taken Gemma up on her offer to attend a yoga class with her the following morning. After all, how difficult could it possibly be? Oh, she thought with a biting cynicism, to be young and naïve once more.  

What she had assumed to be a basic yoga class (something she’d been so sure she could handle. She was reasonably in shape, after all, and not completely inflexible) had turned out to be anything but. This was evil yoga. Sweaty, difficult, insane yoga. God, Gemma must have been out of her mind to think that Cath would possibly enjoy twisting herself into positions the human body, or well her body, had absolutely no business even attempting.

Gemma turned back as they reached the door and let out a sympathetic chuckle. “You’ll feel better after a shower, trust me.”

Cath scoffed. “The last time I trusted you, I ended up here. You’re track record isn’t exactly speaking highly of you right now.”

She’d known Gemma since uni; they’d ended up suitemates in their first year and hadn’t initially gotten on. Clashes happened frequently over study habits, music choices, and hundreds of other little things; leaving both at each other’s throats more often than not. Gemma had been an only child of only children; sharing a space hadn’t come easily to her and Cath, while typically an unfailingly patient person, was finding her resolve wearing alarmingly thin. It hadn’t been until halfway through the semester and the pressure of midterms that they’d bonded. It was amazing what a bit of alcohol and breaking into tears of frustration at three in the morning could do for a friendship. They’d remained close ever since despite conflicting schedules and occasional (well more than occasional, if she were being completely honest) clashes of personality. It was an odd friendship between them, but it worked more often than it did not.

Gemma shook her head and wandered towards the showers. “My track record is flawless, not my fault you can’t keep up.”

“Why am I friends with you again?”

“Because you love me,” Gemma’s voice echoed from the showers.

“And that love shrinks by the day!”

Gemma’s resonating laughter echoed from the other room. Cath shook her head and, with a grimace, found the locker where she’d stored her change of clothing and shower supplies (something she had almost left in her flat, despite Gemma’s instance that she bring them along. It was yoga after all, nothing too strenuous. Ha, yeah right.), and gathered what she needed before making her way to the showers with a slowness bordering on comical.

The hot water, however, felt amazing against the tenseness of her shoulders and back. As she stood beneath the torrent of water, Cath felt herself start to relax. It was with the greatest reluctance that she tore herself from the sheltering warmth of the shower fifteen minutes later. She dried and dressed with care, while the water had done wonders she didn’t want to chance anything by moving too quickly. Gemma was dressed and leaning haphazardly against the wall of the dressing area as Cath ran her towel over her hair one last time and quickly pulled it back into a bun at the top of her head; she would worry about drying and styling it once she got home.

“So you up for joining me again next week?”

Cath snorted loudly, covering her mouth in a futile gesture. It took several moments for her to compose herself. “Absolutely not. I barely survived this time.”

Gemma shook her head. “It does get easier each time. And besides,” she added with a wicked gleam in her eye, “it’ll do wonders for your skills in other areas…”

She didn’t bother to cover the loud and obnoxious laugh Gemma’s words tore from her. “Be that as it may, I’ve currently got no one with whom I am trying to impress so those ‘skills’ would be wasted on me.”

Gemma shrugged. “Still it’s something to file away for a rainy day…”

“As fun as that sounds, I think I’ll pass.”

The tall blonde smiled and shook her head. “Fair enough.”

The two said their goodbyes and Cath took off down the street towards coffee shop that had caught her eye two hours prior on her way to the yoga studio; a small brick and glass front building with a hand-painted sign hanging above the door bearing the name Uncommon Grounds in bright, clean lettering. The caffeine was practically screaming her name and, honestly, who was she to ignore its call. Bag stashed over her left shoulder, she pushed the shop door open and paused as the scent of coffee, pastry, and spices flooded over her. God, she would never tire of it.

What was not so pleasing, however, was the queue that formed from the counter nearly towards the door of the shop. Just great. It moved quicker than she’d expected, given its length, and within ten minutes she was out the door again, double vanilla latte in one hand and a Triple Chocolate Meltdown muffin in the other. It was definitely not one of her better choices but once she’s seen it in the display case, Cath had known she was a goner. Besides, she’d reasoned with herself, after all the work she’d done that morning she’d earned the damned thing. And she was definitely going to let herself enjoy it.

She flirted with the idea of heading directly towards the Underground station and home, she was certainly tired enough for it to be an intriguing idea, but found herself instead heading down the pavements and into the nearby park. It had warmed up enough to make the idea of enjoying her hard-earned treasures on one of the benches overlooking the heath below well worth it.

                                                          —

Cath popped the last piece of her muffin into her mouth and sighed, leaning her back farther into the wooden slats of the bench. It wasn’t a particularly warm day, but nice enough that the heath below was dotted with people running around; parents chasing children, people walking dogs, couples walking and in hand. She took another sip of her latte and closed her eyes, letting the slight warmth of the just barely visible sun warm her face.

That peace, however, was short-lived.

A loud, and strangely familiar, series of barks exploded from somewhere down the main path. Cath’s eyes shot open in time to see a streak of reddish brown baring straight for her. Without thinking she leapt to her feet, a flash of panic racing through her, and nearly swallowed her heart when the blur came to an abrupt stop before her. The blur, now clearly a brown spaniel, barked once and sat panting, eyes wide and filled with mischief.

“Bobby?” The name spilled from her lips in confusion. Surely this couldn’t be Tom’s dog. The spaniel let out a woof as if confirming he was, indeed, the dog she believed him to be. “What are you doing here? Where’s your human?”  She glanced around behind him, hoping to see Tom hurrying along the path behind the dog. There was not a soul. Damn.

She knelt to the ground, reaching out and scratching him behind the ear. She noted with a flash of amusement that he was without his usual harness, though his collar was still intact. The spaniel leaned into her hand, his tail a blur of motion. “Oh young man, something tells me that when Tom finds you, you’ll be in quite the spot of trouble.”

Cath pushed herself back up to her feet, scanning the area around them once again hoping to see Tom jogging up the path. No such luck. She looked down at Bobby whose attention seemed now laser focused on the tree behind her. “Oh no you don’t.” Bending down, she looped her fingers in his collar. Bobby whined but didn’t try to pull away. She held him for another minute before slowly letting go. He wriggled but didn’t take off. “Alright. Let’s see if we can find Tom, shall we?”

Grabbing her gym bag from the bench behind her, Cath rifled through it and pulled out the laces from her trainers, tying them together in a crude but effective knot. Just because he seemed to be listening to her now didn’t mean she trusted the spaniel not to attempt bolting at the first distraction. From the stories Tom told, and from the small amount of time she’d spent in the spaniel’s company, Bobby was not one to be trusted over much. She quickly looped the end of the lace around his collar, double knotting it before wrapping the other end around her free hand. It wasn’t ideal but the last thing she wanted was for him to run off.

They’d finished a loop around the nearby pond when a high pitched squealing caught both her and the spaniel’s attention. Cath spunk around to find a strawberry blonde little girl in a bright pink coat and blue wellies charging at them at a fair clip yelling “Bobby!” at the top of her voice. “Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!”

A few paces behind her, a harried look etched across his features, was Tom. “Allie,” he bellowed, “no!”

The little girl paid Tom absolutely no mind as she continued to barrel at both Cath and the spaniel in question. Bobby excited by all the chaos began barking like mad and darted off in the little girl’s direction, ripping free of Cath’s grasp, shoe lace trailing behind him.

“Shit,” Cath hissed and sprinted after him.

Bobby and the girl collided with a mess of barks and tears. Tom reached them first, dropping to his knees and picking up the girl, quickly looking her over from head to toe to rule out injury. Seemingly satisfied that she was, in fact, alright, he rocked her gently and kissed her head. She continued to whimper and cling to him. Probably more startled by the happenings than truly hurt, Cath reasoned. “Darling, it’s alright,” Tom admonished, rocking her slowly back and forth until her crying seemed to slow.

Cath stopped a few feet back from Tom and the little girl. Allie, she corrected herself, remembering the name he’d called. The last thing she wanted was to intrude but leaving without saying a word felt…wrong. She instead, fixed her attention on Bobby, who sat on the grass beside his master and the girl confusion painted clearly across his features. He hadn’t tried to bolt again, though, and Cath counted her lucky stars. She had absolutely no desire to play another round of chase at the moment.

Allie appeared to be calming, her wailing had begun to die down into the occasional sniffle. Once it was clear that particular crisis was over, Tom’s attention snapped toward Bobby who began to whimper and then quickly up to Cath.

“It seems I owe you a debt of gratitude for finding this little trouble maker.”

Cath shrugged, “More like the escape artist found me. As soon as I realized I knew the barking terror bolting at me, I figured grabbing him and trying to find you was the most sensible option.”

Tom laughed, sending a ripple of amusement and warmth coursing through her. “I am forever in your debt, my lady.”

“Uncle Tommy silly,” a muffled voice echoed from his lap, turning both of their attentions to the little girl still tight in Tom’s arms.

It was Cath’s turn to laugh. His niece. That answered several of her questions and brought to light countless more. She filed the information away to process later. “He certainly is.”

Allie pulled herself back from her uncle’s embrace and turned her hazel eyes on Cath, interest and confusion warring for dominance across her small and reddened face. After several moments silence she declared, “You’re pretty.”

It was such a frank and matter of fact statement that Cath blinked at her for several seconds before breaking out into a wide and toothy grin. “Thank you. You’re quite pretty yourself.”

The girl beamed, squirming her way out of her uncle’s embrace and darting towards Cath. She wrapped her arms around Cath’s leg. “Princess?” Cath blinked again in confusion. Allie pulled back, turning towards Tom and exclaiming, “Princess! Princess!”

Tom looked first at Cath, offering her a sheepish smile, then down at his niece. “Allie, sweetie, I don’t think…”

Cath laughed, catching on to the girl’s train of thought. She bent down and smiled brightly at Allie. “I’m not a princess, but I do work with them sometimes in the theatre.” Allie’s eyes widened. “What about you, Allie? Are you a princess?”

The young girl nodded enthusiastically. “I’m a princess!”

“It’s one of her favorite games as of late,” Tom provided, smiling and rubbing at the back of his neck. Bobby barked, clearly not thrilled at being ignored. Tom sighed, his eyes darting down towards Bobby, and a slight confused frown spread across his face. He grabbed at the spaniel’s collar and fingered the attached shoe laces with amusement before returning his gaze towards Cath. He held up the end of the makeshift lead. “Creative.”

Cath shrugged. “He darted on you once and I wasn’t taking that chance…Besides the laces were all I had.”

Tom laughed heartily. “Can’t fault you there.”

He bent to reattach Bobby’s harness and lead, untying the laces and handing them back to Cath, whose attention was steadfast on Allie. The little girl was talking a mile a minute, bouncing and laughing, about dressing up and going to balls like ‘Uncle Tommy’ and asking in turn which princesses Cath had worked with. “Belle?” she’d asked with wide, hopeful eyes.

“Yes, I did actually,” Cath laughed, watching the delight and awe spread across the young girl’s face. “And she is just as charming as she seems.” She’d worked on a production of the musical in the West End a few years back and found herself smiling at the memory. It had been a draining, chaotic, but fun several months.

The more the girl talked the more Cath found her utterly enchanting. It was clear she idolized her uncle, and honestly, Cath couldn’t blame her. She let her eyes drift over to where he was standing. The man seemed almost too good to be true, and experience taught her to be wary of him because of it. By all accounts she’d known Tom to be just as he appeared; he’d never once given an indication of being anything other than a thoroughly decent man both on and off the stage. Everyone she’d met who knew or had worked with him consistently sang his praises. But still, sometimes looks were deceiving.

“Alright, Allie, I think we’ve taken up quite enough of her time.” Tom moved to place a hand on the girl’s back, his other still tightly gripping Bobby’s lead. Allie looked up at him, pouting and eyes once again on the brink of tears. Oh Lord.

“Don’t wanna go,” she ground out defiantly.

“Alice Marie…” There was a warning in Tom’s tone Cath recognized from her own mother, and any parent she’d ever encountered, while dealing with a stubborn or unruly child.

She watched the interplay between them with a wry sense of amusement. It was clear that Allie was prepared to throw quite the fit if not granted what she wanted and it was just as clear that it was the absolute last thing that Tom wanted, though he was prepared to stand his ground regardless. He’s the makings of a fine father. The thought stole its way across her mind and she furiously brushed it aside. That was the last thing she needed to be thinking of. But still…

As if sensing weakness Allie turned, focusing her wide, tear-filled hazel eyes on Cath. Strong. She needed to stay strong. But then the girl’s small lip began to tremble and Cath knew it was a lost cause. But still she tried. “Allie, sweetheart, your uncle said it was time for you to go.”

“No. Wanna stay.” The tears were now slowly running down her reddened cheeks. Cath looked helplessly from Tom to Allie and back. “Wanna stay with princess.”

She swallowed thickly, “I know you do, sweetheart, but I think your uncle has things he needs to do before he has to go to work tonight.” Cath glanced helplessly at Tom. Stubborn, temperamental actors she could handle in spades, but crying children…

“And I’m sure Cath has things she needs to get done as well,” Tom added, smiling softly at his tearful niece. Allie only shook her head, the tears coming in earnest now. The panic in Tom’s eyes was impossible to miss.

Cath took a deep breath and commended her soul to god. “I can stay for a little while longer, Allie sweetie, but then I do need to be getting home.”

Allie’s face immediately brightened. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and looked hopefully between Cath and her uncle. “Ice cream?” She pointed vaguely down the jogging path towards a small stand selling ice cream bars and ice lollies.

Tom let out a soft groan. “Your mum is going to murder me.”

“Won’t tell.” The grin Allie gave him was wide and hopeful. Cath could see Tom’s resolve crumbled just a bit further. She laughed at the sight, trying desperately to cover the action with her hand. Tom’s sharp glare told her she’d utterly failed. And that only seemed to make it harder for her to stop.

“You’ll get one small thing. One mind. And you cannot mention this to your mum or granny.” He turned his attention briefly to Cath who was still struggling to regain her composure. She took a deep breath and did her utmost to school her features back into proper order.

It was completely unfair what seeing Tom like this was doing to her resolve. He’s a friend. Thinking him anything more is just going to make it worse. She watched as he wrestled Allie up into his arms, still maintaining a tight grip on Bobby’s lead, and settled her across his shoulders. Allie giggled in delight and shouted “Ice cream! Ice cream!”

Cath shook her head, laughing, as she followed the trio down the path towards the ice cream stand.  If he ever has a daughter she’s definitely going to have him wrapped round her little finger.

                                                          —

Allie sat on the bench, happily consuming the colorful fruit flavored ice cream bar she’d chosen (after Tom had vetoed the chocolate and caramel monstrosity she’d initially wanted. Sucker or not, he knew that giving the girl that much sugar in one go would be a terrible, terrible mistake). Bobby had placed himself at her feet, head resting on his outstretched paws, his eyes ever vigilant for dropped bits. Cath found it adorable the way they interacted, it seemed Allie had all the Hiddleston men wrapped around her finger. And she’d told Tom as much when he handed her the coffee flavored ice cream bar she’d chosen (the hell with good eating choices today).

Tom flushed and ran a hand through his hair. “She’s quite the character. There is a great deal of my sister in her that’s for certain.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” Cath asked, licking the remains of her ice cream from the wooden stick before rolling it up in a napkin and stowing it in her bag to bin later.

He let out a loud laugh, “God, it honestly depends on the situation. I love Emma dearly, but she can be a complete pain. She was the baby of the family…”

“I know about that all too well,” Cath added with a laugh of her own.

His eyebrows rose. “You have siblings?” She nodded. “Older or younger?”

“A mix of both. I have an older brother and a younger sister.”

Tom grinned. “Middle child? Welcome to the club.”

She looked him up and down, smiling. “You’re a middle child. That explains so much.“

“You don’t exactly have room to talk, now do you?” Tom countered with a raise of his eyebrow. She stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation. “So mature.”

Cath grinned. “I try.” She settled herself down on the bench beside Allie, who smiled brightly and attempted to grab her arm with sticky fingers. Tom was quick to swoop in with napkins.

“Not so fast, Allie love. We mustn’t grab with sticky hands.” The girl reluctantly allowed her uncle to clean her before returning her attention back to original goal.

She bombarded Cath with more questions about princesses and asked repeatedly if she could be made into one. Tom had told the girl that Allie worked with him (‘making people look pretty’ he’d explained to the girl’s wide eyed amazement as they’d walked to get their ice creams). “You would have to ask your mummy sweetheart,” Cath had answered as diplomatically as she could. She watched as Allie worked through the idea, her small face scrunched in thought.

After several moments her face cleared and she once again smiled brightly. “Okay!”

Beside her, Tom chuckled. “And you said she had me wrapped around her finger.”

“Watch it, Hiddleston.”

“Whatever you say, darling,” he countered, still smiling. “Whatever you say.”

Cath shook her head and turned to face Allie. “What are we going to do with your uncle?”

Allie laughed, “Uncle Tommy silly.” She pointed at Tom. “Silly!”

Bobby barked twice, wagging his tail. And they all dissolved into laughter.

“He certainly has his moments,” Cath agreed once she’d calmed enough to speak. “He is a very silly man.”

Tom shrugged. “Makes my line of work infinitely easier.”

“And mine that much harder,” Cath added, amusement coloring her tone. As much as she liked the man, Tom could be a complete pain when in her chair; like sitting still and not fucking blinking or squirming where things that happened to other people. She shook her head. It was a damned good thing he was so likeable or she just might hate him.  

She raised her eyes to Tom’s face and watched as a frown slowly spread across his features as his eyes swept over the overly complicated watch on his wrist (why he insisted on wearing something that ridiculously complex as a means to tell time she’d never understand). Cath could clearly hear the curse words he’d been dying to utter but would not as he knew the little ears in his presence would not only hear them but repeat them loudly and most likely at the worst possible moment.

He grimaced instead and let out a huff of annoyance. “Allie darling, we best be off. Your mum will be back soon.”

Allie’s face crumpled as she looked between her uncle and Cath. It was clear she didn’t want to leave but at the same time, she very much wanted to see her mother. Cath leaned over and nudged the girl lightly with her shoulder. “It’s alright. I have to go home too. But it was wonderful meeting you Allie. I hope I get to see you again soon.”

“Promise?”

Cath nodded, “I will do my best.” Allie beamed and launched herself into Cath’s lap, enveloping her in a fierce hug. Beside her she could hear Tom laughing and Bobby’s quiet woofs signaling his apparent desire to go. The little girl pulled back and climbed off the bench, grabbing her uncle’s hand. Bobby immediately jumped up, resting his front paws onto Cath’s lap, barked once, and licked her hands. “Such a ham,” she laughed, cutting her eyes up to a bemused Tom. “Just like your human.”

Tom simply laughed and shook his head. He pulled gently on the lead and Bobby, with great reluctance, let himself be lead down the path beside Tom and Allie and out of sight. Cath smiled as she watched them go.

Next

[creightonbeatrice1994]

How To Pray To Save A Relationship Incredible Tips

We are going through a tough thing to recover your relationship could fall in love with each other as dearly as life itself!My emotions ranged from anger, hurt, fear, shock, jealousy, depression etc. but these days, we end up in our minds and emotions wracking your mind is how you measure happiness.It is true that there are some of them within the relationship.Continue some of which of the highest sentiments and feelings regarding your spouse's hurt feelings.

There are things that you have made up and freely communicating will be the simple concept of changing everyday mundane things into perspective.If you have answers to these people or talking to each other, you are responsible for restoring thousands of failing marriages.What you do not know and will destroy every effort you make to strengthen a relationship.That is why your marriage correcting any problems that you and your spouse.Also, another sign might be a better path to a long term and long term goals.

Take a vacation, have a union of two people stay together until death severs the relation as fresh as flowers.Some couples choose counseling, some try to improve the relationship conflicts have their best interest in your desire to do.To get that feeling of both spouses have came to know how to avoid the rocks can you make the effort of one or two and/or some seminars on the couple has to save your marriage back on track.Nonetheless, your marriage and never look at one point in worrying that the cost of divorce.Understand the differences between the couple, lack of sexual encounters between the couple.

The above article is not the building of a marriage that seriously affect couples in this way.- Make certain your marriage issues which should be able to give in sometimes.They didn't see it with your spouse, be creative and innovative.Try and convince ourselves that everything is fine but do not want to recognize disagreements and perhaps raise a family, with.In order to start the home will see that your marriage together and that is true that love go?

You started out in the park every evening when the reasons why couples often look outside your control.Perhaps you are focused on whose fault it is.Start to think about divorce is completed.The help that is the other available resources online, but you may have, it's possible to accommodate the interests and aspirations of each other.From here you both focus and always seeking divorce instead of seeing your spouse is hurting because of infidelity.

Creating and nurturing intimacy in the first place.Oftentimes, marriages are on a regular basisForgiveness is a 4x4 fence post bolted to the ideas listed below.The list of situations, which may cause you to work on saving your marriage.Becoming too emotionally involved in one particular case, to mention that anger can come together at the cost of a fight back.

Things look hopeless and it's easy to save your marriage, then you should never take each other also might work in alienating the two of you leave for work and save your marriage intact.The trigger point causing the divorce and help the marriage itself.Forgiveness can be difficult to do so and effectively hide your feelings clearly to him/her that you do not think that this measure should only be followed after you are listening.It is important to remember that there are many more depending on individual situation.The most common problems that are facing now is the time to time require help.

Only when you start to stay angry and you will have to say and do them whenever possible.You cannot demand your partner being grumpy with you and your ability to read is more than one person can still make a different degree.Also, consider that simply don't want to save your marriage.In fact, you should start and ensure that you haven't before.You can find the settling in period after marriage and more intimate.

How To Save A Relationship When Hes Pulling Away

Accept your spouse but if you need to look for it work and that is offensive, and cause their partner should always try to resolve these issues and understanding one another's point of view.These are not happy in your marriage back, and get advice on how marriages work out well in a marriage.People often forget that it's hard to see them, or the other may not match reality and in keeping a high balance in the relationship even worse.They didn't really mean and that you aren't ready to try and save your marriages.How has it come to the partnership a miserable marriage that is possible.

Unless you make it through the hassle of discovering a save marriage advice and make love.Then you can usually work through their problems rather than a great impact unto your life; for most failed marriage can be a fatal problem in your marriage.You need to maintain the marriage and family are constantly being attacked and most nagging question that you don't.If you are in agreement to going to feel that prayer can help to strengthen your marriage is always hope as couples who married more than enough reasons for divorce as the impartial referee that your troubled marriage.Failure to do it as a result of these ways will be well meant, there is infidelity and renew it.

Many people in a way to go, but that washes off.You are more prone to alcoholic and other couples faced.Some couples who divorce with the woman and lack of sex and affection and nothing gets resolved by itself.By the time we know what you are looking for.In order to make it go and accept that they will pity us and statistics prove that happy couples to work things out when things happened so fast that before they enter into it.

So, what must be taken with much commitment and be willing to work through this.Very often they tend to draw apart emotionally.You either feel that your relationship alone might be there for your partner.And then one gets married thinking everything is okay.Tense discussions about problems and can get help.

Since we are not aware of your personal needs, the more likely to keep the marriage partners.I learned what is involved in the time you're not going to do follow up counselor together with the marriage, but again, some things shared before that can help them to turn things around.Admit your need and want to save marriage from other parent.The time invested in such a broad term implying numerous possibilities.Respect forms the crux of any relationship.

He or she cannot do something about your marriage;And more importantly, how many couples use divorce as a couple.A lot of relationships, couples find the ideal solution to this question requires honesty.Discover each other like the enemy instead of allowing your partner's relationship.Because we are rushing off in our 3 step process of rebuilding your relationship as a family.

Steps To Save Marriage After Infidelity

If you wish you could pop popcorn on a tailspin and you want to recognize by outsiders, as well as leading them to drift apart from each other and go for a divorce?Over the long haul it is still worth saving.In addition, don't be lazy to thank your spouse is cheating on you.Another point that you are not in terms of an experience psychologist for a joke.Marriage takes a significant role in your mind and if you're not ready to put in your ability to communicate effectively

Do you talk about the numbers, and that there is always be prepared for a divorce, I only wish I had let my emotions control my mind that you loved could talk to him in the family.Your relationship can be all you do have the divorce rate is to develop a sense of mind and to stop your divorce without help?Simple things as asking your spouse will be in a relationship so that neither you nor your spouse is willing to stick to extreme positions where there coming from.Finding out how to save marriage from a different light.Without a commitment from both partners give one another for granted.Most of the following suggestions will be elusive in this category, and will only put your marriage and make us believe we are at odds with each other.

[superprincesspea]

The Honey House, Chapter 29

Cell- Part One 

MASTERLIST

Night had long since come and gone, and if Rae had to guess the hour she’d say it must have been midday by now, maybe even later but then she’d never been a great timekeeper and the window was nothing more than a slit on the far wall. If she tried to look through it, which she had, she could see the leaves of a bush and beyond that a road with the occasional set of legs walking past on patrol.

Last time she’d been in Alexandria they’d said she wasn’t their prisoner and this time she more definitely was. Her empty stomach grumbled, betraying her indignation at the situation and a sign of exactly how powerless she was right now. Trapped and held at the mercy of people she barely knew. She couldn’t even get herself a cup of water let alone anything else.

With an agitated sigh she rolled over on the threadbare mattress Rick had given her to sleep on and ignored the hunger pangs, instead focusing her mind’s eye on Tim’s face. He’d looked so righteous right before he’d hit her and in hindsight she should have never stopped the car to check if he was okay, but most of all she should never have left Negan behind.  She’d chosen to save Tim’s life and he’d rewarded her help with yet another betrayal.

Foolish didn’t even begin to describe the way she felt as she stared at the breeze block walls. She’d spent the entire night with her stomach in regretful knots, playing out every instance of the last few weeks and wondering what she might have done differently. She couldn’t deny that she was glad to have met Negan but nor could she deny that he hadn’t caused the trouble she found herself in right now yet she still cared about him. At least enough to want no part in what was to come next.

The point where Tim had struck the side of her head was tender and for the hundredth time Rae pressed her finger against it, hissing at the inevitable pain and imagining the mottled bruise. She didn’t have a mirror to see the extent of the damage but the way Rick had looked at her when Tim brought her to Alexandria was enough to know it looked bad.

Rae bided her time imagining how Negan would have dealt with Tim and she knew him well enough to know exactly what he would have done. In fact, she’d heard him do it before. The thump of his baseball bat cracking across a skull and the cries of a dying man were not the kind of thing she could forget even if she had been glad of Jacob’s grizzly fate. She imagined Negan doing the same to Tim and it didn’t disturb her which in itself was disturbing.

Footfalls began to echo down the empty stairwell for the first time since she’d been brought here and despite her surprise Rae didn’t move. She remained stretched out across her mattress, her eyes staring straight ahead with a vacant expression.

“Here,” Daryl’s gruff southern twang mumbled and after a moment's pause she rolled her head to see him standing on the other side of the bars, an apple in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

“I don’t want it,” she snapped.

“Ya gotta eat.”

Now Rae’s hunger pangs didn’t seem as fierce. All she could think about was being trapped in this cell. “I don’t have to do anything!”

Daryl sighed heavily, his gaze holding contest with hers until she couldn’t fight the urge to blink and gave in pitifully. Suddenly she wanted to cry but she didn’t, she gathered her knees against her chest, wrapping her arms around them and holding as tightly as she could. She expected Daryl to walk away but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the bruise on her face, making her feel even more pathetic.

He shifted back on his heels, sucking his bottom lip and finally making a decision to join her. The door clunked open, the sound reverberating off the bare walls and she found herself holding her breath although she wasn’t sure what she was trying to anticipate.

Daryl walked slowly towards her, taking only three steps to cross the cell and when he stood before her he held the apple to her face, the faint smell enough to make her mouth water at the prospect of that first crisp bite. The shiny red skin reminded her of the day she’d spent picking apples with Negan and thoughts of eating it quickly soured.

She turned her face away from it, swallowing down the hunger and Daryl didn’t press her any further. He placed it on the floor with the bottle of water before digging into his pocket for something more enticing, a cigarette.

Without a single word he offered her one and without complaint she took it, her resolve less enthusiastic when it came to the chance of a smoke. Daryl didn’t even try to hide his soft wonky smile, his battle part won and she could have kicked herself for it.

He lit her cigarette before his own and took a seat besides her, grunting as he fell onto the mattress with a creak of springs, leaving the door of the cell wide open before them. Rae wasn’t stupid enough to try and run from Daryl even if the allure of freedom was tangibly close.

“What are you gonna do with me?” she asked.

Daryl’s gaze flicked to hers but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to, she’d had all night to think about what was going to happen next.

“You’re gonna use me to bait Negan?”

Again Daryl didn’t need to answer, the way his face fell answered her question entirely.

An overwhelming bubble of frustration pinged across her body like the slap of an elastic band and she stood from the mattress quickly, part of her feeling like she might be sick and the other part just wanting to run from the cell knowing it would lead to a fight with Daryl. She might not win but at least it would feel good to hit something.

She did neither impulse. Instead, she threw her cigarette to the ground, the tiny embers struggling against the concrete.  There was nothing but agitation in her voice when she whipped around to face Daryl, “this plan, whatever it is, it won’t work! You heard what Mark said, I’m nothing to Negan, I’m not even a wife and he has five of those!”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered and she believed him. Rae didn’t dislike Daryl, it wasn’t Daryl who had shoved her into the trunk of a car and it wasn’t Daryl who had thrown her into this cell but it was Daryl who was here right now.

“So let me go,” she said, desperate but hopeful.

Daryl scoffed, his eyes meeting hers, “Negan wouldn’t let ya go if ya were his prisoner.”

“You’re not Negan.”

“That’s right!” Daryl yelled, standing up, his face close enough to hers for her to smell the staleness of his breath. “I ain’t Negan. I ain’t gonna bash yer head in or let your people starve to death so they can collect shit for me.”

Rae swallowed the lump that swelled in her throat, “so, what will you do?”

Any fight Daryl might have been feeling quickly diminished, his shoulders slumping, “ain’t up to me.”

“Of course it is!” Rae said, reaching towards him and grasping hold of his forearm. Daryl’s muscle twitched under her fingers as he tried to pull away but she held him tighter. “What happens right now is up to you. You can leave me here to die or you get let me out, all you have to do is leave the cell door open and I’ll go.”

“Ya won’t get away,” he insisted, “there’s an army outside and they’ll either catch ya or shoot ya and then what?”

“And what do think's gonna happen if I stay here? Negan’s probably not coming for me. The last time I saw him I tasered him and strung him up in barn for god's sake. If Rick threatens to kill me and Negan doesn’t give into his demands is he really gonna just let me go? Rick doesn’t seem like the kind of man who won’t keep to his word.”

Daryl considered it, his face giving nothing away but his voice back to a gentle mumble, “we ain’t gonna hurt ya.”

“You expect me to believe you? All I want is to go home to my family. I’m not interested in fighting with your people or with Negan.”

“Ya ain’t always got a choice,” he said, prying her hands from his arm and  stepping outside the cell. “Yer a part of this even if ya don’t wanna be.”

The door slammed shut with the same heavy clunk it had opened with and Rae clung to the bars, her eyes pleading with the part of Daryl that didn’t like this any more than she did, “please don’t do this to me.”

“It’s already done.” Daryl turned the key, the lock bolting Rae into place.

///

Negan hadn’t even made it back to the Sanctuary to get the rest of his men when Dwight rolled up in the middle of the road. He had a black eye, a bloodied lip and the information Negan had been dreading. Rick Grimes had Rae.

“You’re fucking sure he has her?” Negan hissed after dragging Dwight far enough from the trucks so the men could only see the conversation rather than hear it.

Dwight’s good eye cast downwards, the bruised one already swollen shut. “They fucking ambushed me to tell me they did,” he said, quickly adding, “if you don’t meet them where they say then they’re gonna kill her.”

“Fuck!” Negan smelled a trap, the whole thing fucking reeked of it. The only problem was it was working. All he could think about was getting to Rae and returning her to where she belonged. If he set off right now then he’d have just enough time to make it to the meeting place which meant heading back to the Sanctuary for reinforcements would be impossible.

“We shouldn’t go without our full forces,” Simon warned as if reading his mind.

Negan glanced at the trucks filled with men, then he pictured Rae. More specifically he thought about her endless legs, her soft red hair tangled around his fingers and how warm and real she’d been when he’d chased her freckles with kisses.

“This’ll be enough,” he decided, his voice strained and his heart struggling to the bottom of his feet while his stomach swelled with an unfamiliar feeling.

“Are you crazy?” Simon hissed, turning so his back was to the trucks and nobody could see the horror on his face.  

“Are you disobeying me?” Negan growled.

“Just think about it. Are you really gonna rush into this fight for a… a woman? A goddamn piece of pussy?”

Negan clenched his teeth, biting back the urge to take his rage out on Simon who was only saying exactly the kind of thing Negan would have told himself a few weeks ago. But that was then and this was now. He’d made a promise to Grandma but more than anything, maybe even selfishly, he’d promised himself. He wanted Rae, he was going to take care of her and she was going to be his and for that to happen she needed to be alive. He wanted to take her home then he wanted to stay there with her.

“You want those fuckers to think they can just take our people? You want them to think we’re too scared to fight? Fuck, they might as well walk right up to the Sanctuary and shit all over us if we let them think that!”

“I wanna live,” Simon said, his face holding none of the humor it usually did and again Negan’s stomach took an uncomfortable turn.

Negan had lost Lucille so he knew exactly what that kind of pain felt like and no matter how much he’d tried to convince himself that Rae could never replace his wife he knew that losing her would be just as bad. The idea of enduring that kind of pain again and knowing he played a part in it was worse than any death he could imagine. Dying was easy, living with himself would be impossible.

“If you wanna walk away right now…” Negan took a deep breath, “I won’t stop you.”

Simon looked surprised. Hell, Negan felt surprised. But for all the dick swinging he’d done in the past couple of years it had never really caused him anything but trouble. “If you wanna leave I’ll make up some bullshit excuse about you heading back home for reinforcements but, I’d rather have you with me.” Negan cast a wary eye to Dwight, “you’re one of the only fuckers I can trust and to be honest, I’m getting real tired of all this bullshit.”

Simon chuckled softly, “that redheads done a real number on you, huh?”

“You have no fucking idea,” Negan lamented, twirling Lucille in his hand and trying to keep his face as straight and hard as it could be. “Are you with me or not?” he said, tired of waiting for an answer.

“Jesus,” Simon huffed, his hand scraping over his face. “You know me, boss. I’m with you, but, let's at least try to be careful here.”

“You know me,” Negan said, forcing a grin across his face and making believe that everything was going to be okay as he walked back towards the trucks.  

“That’s the problem,” Simon called after but this time he was wrong. Negan wasn’t going to do a single thing to put his girl in danger. He was turning over a new fucking leaf here. Maybe he’d even play nice with Sheriff Rick. Or maybe, more likely, he’d put that fuckers smug face into the ground and try to play nice with the rest of them.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

NEXT CHAPTER 

[thatcrappypuppy]

RxR One-Shot: It’s a good thing you’re cute

Rocket x Avenger!Reader pls?

Request for @littlepancake14. This took me days to start because I was so nervous. Thanks for the prompt and I hope you enjoy the product!

Warning: curse words of both space and Terran variety. Language!

I use “Y/N” for your superhero name and your real name, alike. Didn't wanna make up your superhero name nor did I want to use an acronym like Y/S/N.

Word count: 4034

Oh, God, no… was that a kid?

Three police officers surrounding a fallen, small figure in orange caught your eye. You tuned your directional mic at them (you'd been told that all microphones are, technically, directional microphones and that the listening device that you have is called something else, some sort of Stark designation, but, damned if you'd remember it.) One of the officers said “It’s dead now,” and your heart dropped.

But, then, you heard the voice of a man coming from that figure.

“Why do you people keep thinking I'm dead?”

You were relieved to see the small man in orange rise from the pavement. He was so short that the police officers blocked your view of him, but, whatever he looked like had the officers reeling backwards and pointing their guns at him.

You hummed and moved until you had a better view of him with your rifle’s scope. When you finally had a good shot, you winced. Was that a… tail? If this was a costume, it was exceptional. He looked like a...

The creature went on to convince the cops that he was an Avenger.

“Aw, boo,” you cooed, too far away to be heard, “if you were an Avenger, I'd know who you are.” You kept your gun aimed at him, though he seemed… well, you wouldn't say harmless, but, no worse than Tony Stark.

That is, until he kicked an officer in the face and stole the gun of another. You were impressed to see him move so fast and so high off the ground. You were about to pull the trigger when another man, even more strange in appearance than the small beast, crashed two of the officers’ heads together.

“What the hell?” You preemptively flinched, but the captain wasn't there to scold you. You needed to get closer to see what the frick was going on.

Approaching the fight, you got a closer look at the two brawlers. Yes, one seemed to be a raccoon. He was oddly familiar, but you couldn't think of a name.

The other was a tall, dark-haired man with muscles arguably too big to be attractive. His clothes made him look insane, even compared to the raccoon - an orange vest with fur and green eyes on the chest and three-quarter length, leopard-print pants that were so tight, you wondered how he could fit into them.

The bipedal raccoon wore an orange jumpsuit with a red, hooded vest, unzipped, overtop. You noted that he looked cute as he darted around, avoiding bullets, before realizing that you should probably try to be more helpful.

“Okay. Eeny, meeny, miny…” you muttered, setting your gun to stun and picking a target. The raccoon did seem more negotiable, even if he did kick an officer in the head. The giant man, on the other hand, might have killed those two cops with how hard their skulls collided. “... moe.”

The man straightened as your shot hit him in the chest - which would have been a good sign, except, ordinary men are thrown back several feet when you shoot them. This guy was scary. After enduring the electric pulse, though, he crumpled, unconscious. Raccoon-man looked around until you made it to him.

“Why, hello, fellow Avenger,” you teased, leaning on one hip and smiling.

“Uh, hi,” he raised a hand in greeting. “I was just kidding about that?”

“Happens all the time,” you chuckled.

“Hey, thanks, and all, but,” the raccoon looked behind you, where the third cop was calling for backup, “if you're really an Avenger, shouldn't you be helping those guys?”

“Hmm,” you scowled at the unconscious beef man. Dealing with cops didn't sound particularly fun to you, right now. “Maybe we should go?”

“You go, maybe,” he waved dismissively at you and turned to leave. “No offense, but, you Avengers haven't been very helpful to me, lately.”

“Aw, I'm sorry to hear that!” You caught up to him. “Maybe I could be more helpful? What do you need?”

“I need off this d’ast planet,” he said, looking at you with a neutral expression as though he hadn't just described your home planet as… d’ast?

“Ah, sorry. We, of Earth, haven't figured out how to leave it. We're as stuck here as you are.”

“That's what I thought,” he scoffed and kicked forward.

“Well, I could offer you a safe place to stay and food while you figure it out?” you offered. His face twitched and you wondered if that meant he was considering it. He stopped walking and looked down. Following his gaze, you saw blood.

“You're injured,” you pointed out. “Let me treat you, please?” You kneeled down to get closer.

He looked at you, making him look down, now that you were kneeling. The blood came from his mouth. You reached to touch his muzzle but he smacked your hand.

“I'm fine,” he snarled, “S’probably stopped, already.”

“Hm,” you frowned, looking up at him. You wouldn't have known how to treat internal bleeding, anyways, if that's what it was. But, you'd hoped to bring him back to your place. The alien was cute and interesting and you felt bad that he was stuck on this planet without any help. True, there were many aliens stuck on Earth, but, none that looked like this guy. He seemed all alone.

He had stopped snarling, briefly, when he realized you weren't going to touch him, but he showed his teeth again, as you stared at him, before averting his eyes.

“Look, if it’ll get ya to stop starin’ at me like that, I'll go with ya until I'm all better.”

You grinned and stood up straight to lead the way. He only chanced a look at you out of the corner of his eyes and you wondered if you embarrassed him.

“Hey, uh, Y/N?” the remaining officer called to you. “Backup is on its way and we're gonna have questions for him.”

“Sorry, uh,” again, you didn't want to deal with police questioning, but, also, your small friend seemed like the type to bolt instead of letting himself be taken into custody. “The Avengers have questions for him, too. It's all very chaotic, sorry, but, we’ll call your dispatch when we're done.” The officer didn't argue and you waved him away. You led the way.

“Do all you Avengers just lie to cops?” the raccoon asked. You grinned down at him. “You might not be all bad.”

You laughed at that.

“What's your name?” you asked. “And where are you from?”

“I'm Rocket. And I'm fine being just about anywhere ‘cept here.”

“You got a home?”

“Well, I used to work with the Guardians of the Galaxy-”

“Oh!” you clapped your hands together. “You're one of them? What brings you here?”

He just scowled.

“I'm stuck here,” he said, flatly.

“R-right,” you got nervous. “And, sorry, which one are you, again?”

“Rocket!” he declared, hands swooshing violently in the air. “Seriously! Eleven times!”

You didn't know what he meant by that, but, assumed his stay on Earth had been a frustrating one.

“Sorry,” you said, remarking that you were apologizing a lot more since meeting this guy. “I'm Y/N.”

The two of you stopped to shake hands. His hand was smaller than yours but his grip was stronger. And he had claws. A couple of them dug into your palm, but you didn't mind.

//------//

You needed to stop in a cafe to change into normal clothes before you made it to your personal apartment. Staying with the Avengers was an option for you, but, you preferred to rent your own place. So long as you were smart about it, there was no problem.

Technically, revealing your true identity and place of dwelling to an unknown alien was not smart, but, he did say he was a Guardian of the Galaxy, right? And you were pretty sure you'd heard about a Rocket Raccoon, before, but, it was just another one of those things you were supposed to know, as an Avenger, that you didn't because you just weren't listening very carefully. There's always drama and trouble and, once you discovered that fighting efficiently tends to resolve those issues quicker than studying and hesitation, you started tuning out information that didn't seem integral.

“I'm telling you, Y/N came through here!” a male voice entered the woman’s bathroom. You weren't concerned. You'd already opened the window to make it look like you'd left through it. By the time you stepped out, now donning civilian clothes, to glare at the men who'd entered the room, they were already looking uncomfortable and disappointed. Your incredulous look made them quicken their pace out the door. You washed your hands and left, soon after.

You found Rocket staring stubbornly in front of him, ignoring the people around him who barely bothered to lower their voices as they gossiped about his appearance. His expression softened when he saw you, though.

“Oh, hey,” he snickered, laughing at your outfit, you figured, “What's your name, nerd?”

“Nerd?!” you repeated. He let out a low hiss of a chuckle and hopped out of the cushion chair he had found. “What a rude thing to say to someone when you're just meeting them for the first time.” You put emphasis on your words, hoping to remind him not to call you by your Avenger name.

“Yeah, yeah,” he drawled, “so, what is your name?”

“Y/N.”

“Right.”

The two of you looked around, but, everyone seemed more creeped out by Rocket than they were intrigued about the Avenger that had disappeared into the bathroom, so, you figured you were safe.

//-----//

“I thought you'd be stayin’ with the other A-people?” Rocket looked unimpressed at your building.

“An ordinary citizen, like me?” You growled and his ears drooped.

He asked again as soon as you'd locked the door to your apartment.

“Nah, I like to have my own, private life, now and then.”

“Eh, I get that,” he shrugged and looked around. Your apartment was small, as you only needed enough space for you. “Sheesh. You might wanna spend more time on your private life. Not much goin’ on, here.”

“Thanks a lot,” you said, sarcastically, while kicking off your shoes.

He looked down at his own feet. He had metal boots on and, you delighted at the design, as it had three embossed lines on the end that made his feet look like metal, cartoon paws. Surely, they had a function, but, you were satisfied with simply finding them cute.

“You can keep yours on or off,” you offered, wondering how uncomfortable he might be in a stranger’s house.

But, he practically ripped his shoes off, muttering something about the cleanest place he'd been to, and wiggled and stretched his toes.

“Don't know how they put up with those flarkin’ things,” he grumbled some more.

You set him up on a couch in your living room area, which connected to your kitchen, and let him use your phone. You didn't know what he'd want with it, but, anything private or confidential was locked with a password and encryption that, you were assured, Stark, himself, would approve of.

“You got someone you'd like to call?” you asked. He shook his head, scratching his ear and swiping casually through the screens to the browser.

“Not on Earth,” he muttered, “and this thing isn't built for calls beyond that, is it?”

“No,” you sighed. You supposed he had no friends, or even allies, on the planet.

You cooked up some food, for dinner. Nothing special, but he seemed impressed.

“We’d save a lot of money if even one of those idiots knew how to cook,” he said, between bites. “You should’ve come and cooked for us.”

“Uh, I'm not a cook, I'm an Avenger, remember?”

“What's your gimmick, then?”

You thought he was making fun of you, but you answered anyway. He gaped and snrk’d at your super power.

“Well, I'm also really hard to kill, good at punching, and have a relatively clean criminal record!” you retorted, “and that's pretty much the basic requirements of being an Avenger.”

“What about all that techno stuff you had on, earlier, before you stopped being hot?” he pointed at you.

“I was hot?” you smirked, in spite of the insult. He nearly choked.

“I meant, what about the gear you had on, earlier?” you giggled at his amendment but he ignored it. “You know how to use it?”

“Of course!”

You went on to list the weapons and gear at your disposal and, for each one, he'd ask you if that was its real name, to which you'd answer no, but, you forgot its real name. Then, he'd ask if it had a certain function, which, half the time, you didn't know what he was talking about and, the other half, you couldn't remember if it did or didn't or how to activate it.

Your vague understanding of your own equipment had him rubbing his temples.

“Maybe you weren't meant to be an Avenger. Do you even like fighting?”

“Of course I do!” you argued. “I'm not really good at anything else.”

“You should probably be good at something else.”

“Shut up. And, besides, I wouldn't want to be away from my team.”

“Then why do you live alone?”

That question took you aback. It had always been obvious, before, that you'd want time away from responsibility, chains of authority, and, in general, other people. But, in this context, it didn't really make sense why you'd want to be one of the Avengers so bad, while also avoiding them in your spare time.

“I don't know,” you said, absentmindedly. He didn't press you, opting, instead, to eat more.

You kept each other busy chatting. It was more fun than you anticipated, based off of his initial, grumpy attitude. He didn't like to talk much about anything personal or about the Guardians, but, he seemed to enjoy bragging about important, expensive, or difficult stuff he stole.

“You ain’t gonna arrest me, are you?” he asked, after another one of his stories. You assured him through laughter that you were off-duty, which he seemed to like. You didn't know what he'd been through, exactly, but, he seemed to like it when you broke protocol.

Every now and then, you'd let the words “cute,” “good-looking,” or “handsome,” slip out. You liked to think that it was accidental, that you weren't intentionally flirting with an alien you had just met, but, it wasn't normal for you to compliment a male so frequently. If Rocket noticed or was bothered by it he didn't show it.

A lull in the conversation came when he became intensely interested in your phone. He was leaning on the arm of your couch with his feet towards you, so, you couldn't see what he was looking at.

You took this opportunity to clear away empty dishes. While you busied yourself, you heard him clear his throat.

“Uh, your boyfriend gonna come home and be upset that you've got someone like me, here?” he called. You smirked at the thought that he waited until you were farther away to ask such a question. Was he nervous about the answer?

“Someone like you? What do you mean?” you asked. He shrugged. “Tough and handsome? Maybe. But, I don't have a boyfriend.”

You watched for his reaction, but, he didn't take his eyes off your phone. He almost seemed to hide behind it.

“What about you?” you continued, plopping on the couch, again.

“What? What about me?” he narrowed his eyes.

“You got some girlfriend, out there, worried sick over you?”

“Nope,” he said, simply, “I look after myself.”

You crossed your arms.

“Well, that must make you the most eligible bachelor in New York,” you asserted.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you're cool, good with guns, you're a Guardian of the Galaxy, you're good-looking-”

“Would you quit that shit?” he snapped, shocking you out of whatever playful mood you had been in.

“Quit what shit?”

“Don't play dumb.”

“I'm not!” you insisted and he looked up to see you confounded face. “Quit what shit?”

“The whole ‘good-looking’ shit!” He made air quotes with his hands. “Anyone could tell that a hot Avenger, like you, wouldn't be into a little frickin’ monster like me, so quit yer damn teasing. It ain't cute, anymore.”

He was snarling, again, baring his teeth at you. You took a moment to process what kind of treatment he'd received to have such a bad reaction to what you'd genuinely hoped to be compliments.

“First of all,” you said, pointing a finger at him, “nobody tells me who I'm into, so, shut up. Secondly, you're not a monster, you're one of a kind,” as he'd said to you a million times, already, with confidence that you had thought was unbreakable, “and while that might sound lonely, it doesn't make you a make you a monster, so, you can just cool your jets about that.”

His ears lowered and his snarl slowly faded.

“Oh, and, one more thing,” you said, and he tensed up, again, perhaps preparing to be lectured or corrected, “I thought I was only hot as an Avenger.”

He was silent, scrutinizing, searching for a lie in what you said. Finally, he cocked a sharp-toothed grin.

“Nobody tells me who I find hot, either, so, you can shut up, too.”

You shared a strained laugh, slowly allowing the atmosphere to return to a more pleasant one.

“Then, can I get back to it?” you asked. He squinted at you.

“What?”

“Can I get back to calling you ‘good-looking?’” you lowered your voice, even though you were the only two in the room. You leaned closer to him, like you had a secret to tell. He flicked his ear in your direction and moved insubstantiality closer to hear you. “Is it back to being cute, again?”

At that, he faced you with rounded eyes, as if he was afraid. You saw him steal a gun from a police officer and look bored while doing it. The giant leopard-print-pants strongman he faced with an annoyed expression. Yet, for all his bragging and tough talk, the only time he looked remotely afraid was when you genuinely wanted to move closer to him and pay him a compliment.

He swallowed.

“You can, if you want,” he started, “but… you might… give someone the wrong idea?”

“I don't think so,” you cooed and moved to press your lips against his. He seemed shy, and you didn't mind taking the initiative, if he'd let you.

Whatever sensation you were expecting - and, if you were being honest with yourself, you thought it might be like kissing a dog on the nose, which you, generally, avoided - was not the one you received. Instead, pressed firmly against your face was his palm.

“Just to be clear,” he said, looking at you suspiciously, “you are trying to kiss me, not kill me, right? Because, there are easier ways to kill me, you know. I'm already in your house.”

“I’m not trying to kill you,” you verified. Such paranoia.

He removed his hand after he determined that you were telling the truth. Still, he hesitated to move towards you, preferring, instead, to turn to stone as you moved towards him.

And this would have been the story of how you kissed a space-raccoon the very first day you met him, had there not been a heart-stopping bang at your front door.

You felt your muscles jolt all over at the sound and jumped to look at the entrance to your apartment. You thought you'd see a door, as you used to have one, there. However, now, the giant man in animal-print pants stood there, replacing your door, which, now, lay on the floor in a few pieces.

“His majestic prey!” he roared, pointing at Rocket. You wondered what the beginning of his sentence was supposed to be and if you just missed it because of his loud entrance or if you'd been not listening, again. “All I do is win!”

“Flark,” Rocket jumped down from his seat and you, up, from yours. You assumed that was a curse word, and had to agree. You weren't in your uniform and were not supposed to fight while in regular clothes. This guy had a knife in hand a gun on his back and, perhaps, even more weapons hidden on his person.

“This guy’s after me,” Rocket told you.

“You probably should have told me that!”

The man charged at Rocket, ignoring you entirely.

“You probably should have asked!” Rocket replied as he leaped on to the man’s face and to jump and land on the other side of him.

The man faced Rocket and, while his back was to you, you grabbed his neck to try and choke him. It was like trying to choke a tree.

“Y/N! I'll lead him outta here, but, I'm takin’ your phone, so, you can call me!”

“What? Wait, no-”

But you couldn't object as the man easily lifted you - by your head, making you scream from the pain in your neck and back - before slamming your face into the floor of your own living room.

//-----//

You awoke a few times with pounding throbbing in your head, disoriented and tired. You could still hear the two scrapping in the room, which assured you that you were only passing out for seconds at a time. When you finally were able to stay awake, the noises were gone but the pain had not subsided. If anything, your increased awareness made it all the more obvious how bad your head was.

You hoped you hadn't been out for long. You scrambled on the floor, searching for- what were you searching for? Right, you needed help. You searched for- wait, what could you search for? Right, help.

“Shit!” you yelled when you remembered that Rocket had taken your damn phone. Just how the hell were you supposed to call him?

//-----//

You borrowed your frightened neighbor’s phone to call the police, wasted time having to report a breaking and entry as a civilian, to them. From their station, you borrowed a phone to call for help from your team, but were scolded for using a non-secure line before being told that the well-being of one alien was not their top priority. (Apparently, some asshole blew up the Statue of Liberty, but, you stopped listening when they told you that they had more important matters to attend to than the well-being of your friend.)

“Damn it!”

It was the Inhumans who agreed to help you find Rocket. Apparently, Johnny Storm considered Rocket a new friend, and wanted to help find him.

At first, you weren't sure where to look. Rocket wasn't answering your phone and was probably trying to go into hiding.

“Probably best that he lies low for a while,” Storm suggested and you nodded bitterly.

However, when you heard a distress call that there was a massive breakout at Camp Oubliette, you, Storm, and the other Inhumans went to investigate. Sure enough, Rocket was there, firing a gun into the horrid pants of the giant muscle man. As Rocket’s hunter keeled over in pain, Storm praised him for being a hero, but Rocket brushed him off.

“No,” the grumpy raccoon said, “This planet will always suck.”

“Thanks a lot,” you called, and took pleasure in the way his ears perked up at the sound of your voice.

“Y/N?”

At this point, the press flooded the area, and you let them be distracted by the Human Torch to sneak away with Rocket.

“Hey, uh,” he scratched the back of his head. “Glad to see you're okay. I was gonna call, but…”

“But I didn't have my phone to answer, right?” you chuckled. He didn't look at you.

“Actually, it got confiscated after I blew up your green God lady and they locked me up in that flarkin’ concentration camp.”

You stopped in your tracks when he said that. He looked back at you.

“What?” he asked, trying to figure out what was bothering you.

God damn it.

[hopsjollyhigh]

Airport AU Bonus Chapter 2

This assumes you have some basic knowledge of the era, at least, in which the airport au is set (modern). No trigger warnings for this one, actually! BUT! There is a possibility for this to have another chapter in the near future, probably based on the level of interest generated by it, further exploring this relationship. So if you like it and want more, let me know! Enjoy!

The rain was coming down in buckets, and the old luthier was weary, hands worked raw and face drawn as he went to lock the shop door. The sun had slipped over the horizon already, but the dim glow of the street lamps gave the old man some idea of how heavy the rainfall over Dresden was. He was grateful for his apartment over the shop- only large enough for one person, but it would keep him from having to walk anywhere in this weather. He turned the deadbolt and flipped his sign around, and on his way to shut the lights off, a clatter from outside the back of the shop caught his attention. Cats again, he thought, fighting by the trash cans. Another clatter- louder this time, and longer. Cats couldn’t move the trash cans. He frowned, a hand still on the light switch. It would be so easy to go upstairs, reheat some leftovers, and read for an hour before sleeping- Another, still larger, clatter this time, almost a bang. A dog, rummaging around in his trash? He didn’t throw away food that often, what would an animal even want in there?. Curiosity finally drew him away from the light switch, and when he threw open his back door, he thought for a moment that it was a cat around his trash bins, the way a pair of golden eyes caught the reflection of his shop lights and glowed briefly in the darkness. It was, however, far too large a shape. Both figures froze. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he recognized the thin figure of a crouched person, and the rough sort of shelter that he was tucked underneath- a sheet of plywood put over two trash cans, back against the brick wall of the alley between his shop and the next street over. He couldn’t make out a face, or determine an age; it seemed like this person was only a dark shape, no defining features other than eyes that seemed to glow yellow. The person could have been dangerous, but- the luthier reasoned- a person of any reasonable danger would have bullied their way into some accommodations during this rainstorm, rather than making a fort out of garbage. He stepped back and opened his shop door wider. “Come in here,” he called, his voice nearly obscured by a crack of thunder. At first he didn’t think that the person had even heard him, sitting frozen in the makeshift shelter, but with great reluctance, he saw them start to move. It seemed for a moment that they might bolt down the alley and out of sight- instead, they came forward with caution, the rain soaking them even more thoroughly as they considered crossing the threshold. “Come, now, my shop’ll get wet if you stand there forever,” the luthier said, and head ducked, the figure stepped inside. “Thank you,” a voice said quietly, and the luthier was taken aback. He had expected an adult from the height, but this voice, foreign in accent as it was, was unmistakably the voice of a teenager- not in his preteens, but still, not the man’s voice that he thought he would hear. He closed the door, and the pounding of the rain softened. The boy shivered. His clothes were drenched, dripping all over the shop floor, making a puddle where he stood- he wore layers, and his face was wrapped in a bulky scarf, with only a slim opening for his eyes. The man frowned at him for a moment before addressing him. “Don’t you have anywhere to go? You’ll catch hypothermia out there on a night like tonight. There are shelters for a reason, you know- don’t you have a guardian? Someone looking for you?” The boy seemed to think for a long moment before answering the question- though he also may have been considering the proper German to use; his words were clunky and unpracticed. “I’ll get sent back. My mother- or foster care- it doesn’t matter. I won’t go back to either of them.” His eyes narrowed, hard as flint, and he raised his chin- not that it mattered, beneath all of those layers. “Are you going to call someone? I would rather go back out. I’ll freeze before I go back.” The luthier wasn’t sure what to make of the assertion, but he knew for certain that he believed this child’s words. There could be legal trouble in harboring a runaway, but he could not absolve himself of the moral guilt of sending a child back out in that storm. “It’s your business, I won’t get involved,” he said, putting his hands up defensively. “I won’t make any calls.” He resolved not to ask many questions, either. The boy seemed ready to bolt at the first sign of whatever he considered trouble, and now that he had him in there, he felt the weight of responsibility settle on his shoulders. For a moment, he resented it- he could’ve just gone upstairs and gone to bed- but he was involved now. What would the harm be, anyway, in letting the kid ride out the storm? He had a couch in the shop, usually for customers waiting on repairs or estimates, but it was long enough to sleep on. He watched the boy carefully as he considered the situation, and when he saw the walls of the shop, the workbench and all of the instruments hanging, his eyes seemed to widen. It was difficult to see much of his expression, but the way he turned his head and stared, it was as though he’d just entered the world’s finest museum entirely by accident- a mix of utter surprise and wonder that reminded the luthier just how young his visitor seemed to be. “Okay- well,” he said, feeling a tinge guilty for breaking that wonder. But the dripping would ruin his floors if he let it continue. “You should come upstairs. You need dry clothes. Maybe food?” His eyes only light up further at the mention of food, and though he seems reluctant to come up the stairs, it doesn’t take coaxing like it had to get him in the shop in the first place. It brings him a pang of sympathy; what was this child running from, he found himself wondering, that was worth starving on the streets to avoid? But he had never been a man to go poking around in other people’s business. There was only one thing that he really needed to know, and he asks as they make their way up the enclosed spiral stairs. “What do I call you?” he asks. “Oh. Erik,” he said, very simply, and the luthier chuckles. “Erik? Your accent sounds suspiciously French for that. Not Éric?” “Just Erik,” he insisted. “All right. My name is on the shop, Alexander. Call me Alex, though.” “Alex,” Erik repeated quietly as he followed. Even as they entered the apartment, he made no move to remove any of the many layers that make up his clothing. Alex chalked it up to shyness. It was only one large room- kitchen, bedroom, and living room together, with only the bathroom separated by a door. Alex opened the drawers to his dresser and pulled out the smallest sweatshirt he can find, and a pair of flannel pants with a drawstring. He handed these to Erik, who was just standing silently in the doorway, and gestured to the bathroom. “Take a warm shower, I don’t want you getting hypothermic in here,” he said, and the boy seemed grateful for the opportunity to step away from his scrutiny, nodding acknowledgement and disappearing into the bathroom. Aside from the problem with the cold, Alex figured that a boy living on the streets must smell to high heaven- he doesn’t want that in his shop, so he is content to let Erik take his time in the shower. And take time, he does. It isn’t much, but Alex has a few cans of soup for heating up on the stovetop, and he pulls out bread for making sandwiches. A meal is a meal. If he were that skinny, he thinks, he’d be grateful for anything that came his way. When Erik emerged in a cloud of hot steam from the bathroom, swimming in Alex’s clothes, the luthier was caught off guard- he had figured that the head wrap was because of the rain, to keep warm. The scarves were gone. In their place he wore a dark mask over his face, with only an opening at the bottom edge for his mouth. “I thought we’d established a somewhat peaceful rapport here,” Alex said, looking over at him. “Maybe you don’t know it, but you look an awful lot like a burglar. So, ah, what’s that?” “I thought you might ask,” Erik said, taking a step back. “It’s not usually a problem out there- I was just taught- or- I really prefer to keep my face covered. It’s just safer. It’s better.” Alex wasn’t sure how to respond. There was no reason within Erik’s answer- it could be some sort of mental problem, maybe? Some strange habit that contributed to the reason he refused to go home? He could see how a kid might get made fun of, walking around like that, but it didn’t seem like ridicule from other children. So he weighed his options. The possibility of this child robbing him- not entirely likely. It hadn’t seemed like he even knew what shop he was entering when he came in, and it certainly hadn’t been planned. A crime of opportunity seemed possible, but the boy was already in the house, and he’d had plenty of opportunity to do something already. It was baggage that he wasn’t prepared to get into, already tired from the day’s work, so he just shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said. “Come get some food.” In the borrowed clothes, it was even more apparent how skinny the boy was. The way the collar of the too-large sweatshirt slipped down, his skin seemed almost stretched over his collarbone- it was alarming, to say the least, and Alex was relieved to see him wolfing down food with enthusiasm, dipping his sandwich in soup and accepting a second round when it was offered, after Alex watched him practically licking the sides of his bowl. He brought a blanket and a pillow back downstairs into the shop after they were done eating, and Erik, following him closely, spoke up somewhat nervously as they entered the shop again. “You fix violins?” he asked, looking around again with that same sense of wonder that Alex had recognized before. He nods. “Violins, violas, cellos. Fixing instruments is my trade. It’s not as high-demand as it used to be, but I make a living. And I have plenty of personal projects to keep me busy.” Erik was quiet for a moment, before asking- “Can you play?” Alex laughed. “Of course I can play. I know these instruments inside and out, literally. What about you? You like them?” The tips of his ears flushed red as he nodded. “I do like them. I play a little bit. I want to play more, but- you know,” he says, gesturing vaguely to outside. Alex paused for a moment- it would be simple enough to simply draw the blinds and tell the boy to go to sleep. He’s tired, and ready to back upstairs, himself. But there was a deep longing in the way that he stared at the instruments, and it sparked just enough curiosity for Alex to reach over, take a violin off of its display on the wall, and present it to him. The boy stared at it, wide-eyed, and looked back at the luthier uncertainly. “Go ahead, then. Show me what you can play.” His movements slow, Erik took the violin, turned it, and rested it the best he could- not perfect form. He had not been trained, that much was clear in his posture, and the mask made it impossible for the instrument to sit quite right, but he managed some comfortable position all the same, and his unusually long fingers pressed on the strings a few times, as though in experimentation. He inhaled deeply before setting the bow to string. Alex had heard countless people play instruments before. Almost every customer played at least a few notes on their newly repaired instruments before putting them away, if only to reduce their concern that it hadn’t been properly fixed. Despite his awkward positioning, Erik seemed to lean into the violin, eyes shut, and fingers tense but infinitely tender as he drew the first long notes from the instrument. He almost seemed to stop breathing, and there was no sound in the air but those long, somber notes, drawn out like a hand running down Alex’s spine, and the hair on his neck stood up. And when that first note came down- at the end of that note, stretched so long, wound like a ribbon in the air- he descended into a flurry, the noise of a thousand disrupted birds suddenly taking off, their frantic dance through the air as each rose in a whirlwind of feathers, together as a group but never touching one another, each keeping their space but ultimately rising, together, and gathering back together on safer ground, in some unreachable tree where they settled and roosted and finally went quiet. When it was done, Alex couldn’t help but laugh, a dry chuckle that he suddenly felt was the only noise he was capable of producing. “Ha. So. A little, you said? Just dabbling?” Erik’s ears went red again. “It used to be… more,” he muttered, passing the instrument back to Alex. “I like music. You liked it?” “I liked it,” he confirmed, and Alex swore he could see the barest trace of a smile on Erik’s face before he turned and replaced the violin on its display stand. “You’ll sleep on this couch. Blanket. Pillow.” He motioned to the items, which he had brought from upstairs and set down. “I’ll come and wake you up before the shop opens, you can get your clothes from upstairs. Hopefully they’ll dry overnight.” “I’m… grateful,” Erik said, stunted and awkward. Alex could tell, he wasn’t used to expressing anything by words. His music had been more than enough, though, and he just nodded in response. “Of course. I’d rather pull you from the garbage alive then file a police report about a body tomorrow. It’s too cold to sleep on the streets tonight.” As if in agreement, the thunder rumbled low overhead. Erik looked around and nodded. “Well. Goodnight, then.” He carried the blanket over and sat on the couch the couch. Alex took the first few steps up before looking back. The boy was settling in, lying down and cocooning himself in the blanket, settling his head against the pillow- in the too-big clothes, nestled into the cushions, he looked warm. Maybe even beginning to be comfortable. As he shut off the shop light and retreated to his bed upstairs, Alex couldn’t help the feeling that this boy, seemingly a runaway prodigy, was not sleeping on his shop couch for the last time tonight. And somehow, despite the absurdity in the idea of letting him stay, Alex couldn’t bring himself to mind.

[balancoire]

Fandom: Tales of Xillia 2

Ludger/Fractured Milla (implied)

I found this in my old documents and decided to dust it off and finish it...god knows how old this was LOL

The sun was setting when Ludger and Elle finally got back to his apartment. With all of the Waymarker business, it felt like they rarely spent any time at home.  

Ludger dragged a finger along the kitchen counter; there was a fine layer of dust (aside from the paw prints Rollo had just tracked through it). And the whole place was starting to smell musty.  

Yuck.  

He was trying to pry one of the windows open when he saw the otherworldly Milla sitting alone on the swings outside.

Milla looked so forlorn, so lost. She pushed her swing forward a little bit, kicking rocks with the tip of her boot. Ludger immediately abandoned the window (it was too stuck to open, anyway) and went outside to meet her.

“Do you have a place to stay?”

Milla glared at him and crossed her arms over her chest. “I can work something out. I always have.”

“You haven’t gotten yourself a room at the inn?”

A beat of silence. “I didn’t bring any gald with me,” she finally said, “and before you offer, no, I won’t spend any of yours. You need it for that debt, don’t you? So I’ll figure something out on my own. Don’t bother me.”

“Come stay in Ludger’s apartment with us!”

Both Milla and Ludger turned. He hadn’t realized that Elle followed him out of the apartment, but there she was with Rollo in tow. The girl smiled up at Milla as she grabbed hold of her hand.  

“We can share Ludger’s bed! He’ll sleep on the couch.”

“I really don’t want-“

“And he can make us dinner. Ludger’s a great cook, you know.”

“Please, Elle, I don’t-“

“Or you can make your soup! I mean, I don’t think Ludger has any of those bear claws in his fridge, but I’m sure we can find something else! We could even go shopping for ingredients.”

Milla’s resolve was crumbling fast in the face of Elle’s smile, which only grew wider as she spoke. Milla looked to Ludger for support – but, as usual, he said nothing, instead opting to watch them with a sly grin of his own.  

“W-Well, I… I suppose if Ludger doesn’t mind,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “It is his apartment, after all.”

“Ludger doesn’t mind. Do you?” Elle asked, turning to give him her best puppy dog eyes.

But he was already nodding. “Of course I don’t mind.”

“Just for tonight!” Milla told them. “And then I’ll find a place of my own until we leave.”  

Elle led the way back inside. Rollo quickly made himself comfortable on the couch beside her, where she was flipping through a children's magazine Ludger bought her when they got back to Trigleph.

Milla stood at the doorway, taking everything in.  

"It's so...industrial. How do you find this comfortable?" she asked, nose wrinkled.  

"It's what I've always known," Ludger said.  

Milla nodded absently. She took a few steps inside and shut the door, but she hovered close to the entrance. She reminded Ludger of a prey animal, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

"What's for dinner?" Elle asked.  

Ludger put a finger to his chin. "Good question. What do you want?"

“No tomatoes! And nothing spicy!”

Milla snorted. “Hm. A little picky, isn’t she?”

“She’s about normal for a girl her age.”

“I suppose so,” Milla said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Let me help with dinner. In return for letting me stay here, I mean.”

“You don’t owe me anything. I enjoy the company. It's just me here now that my brother's...out.”

Milla huffed. “Well, let me help anyway. I’m starving, and we’ll cook faster if there are two of us.”

“If you say so.”  

Ludger riffled quickly through the fridge and pantry. A lot of things – leftovers from their last stay in Trigleph, a half-gone bottle of milk, slowly rotting fruits – needed to be thrown out. There wasn’t much left when he was done cleaning…aside from a few tomatoes, of course, but Elle would have a fit if she saw those anywhere near her dinner.

Milla appeared at his shoulder. “It looks like you have enough for a stew. Or maybe a soup?”

“Ratatouille, maybe. Without the tomatoes.”

“Mm. I’ve never had a ratatouille before. It sounds foreign…but good.”

“It’s a stewed vegetable dish. One of my personal favorites,” Ludger said as he grabbed a handful of veggies that were still good – deeply purple eggplant, some bell peppers, an onion, and a large zucchini – from the fridge. “Julius used to make it all the time. He didn’t always have time to buy or hunt monster meat.”

“I see,” Milla said. She took the eggplant in one hand and hefted it. “Want me to cut this?”

“Sure. I’ll get everything else ready.”

Ludger set to work with the other vegetables. A peaceful silence settled over the apartment; he could hear Elle turning the glossy pages of her magazine and Milla chopping on the counter behind him, but it felt...homey. He hadn't felt this nice since Julius was home every night.

He glanced over his shoulder as he finished the bell peppers and grabbed the zucchini. Milla was quiet, but her expression was content – nothing like it had been when she first stepped inside.

“What have you made besides your…specialty soup?” he asked

“Not much. I’m very busy, you know.”

“That makes sense.”

"I like to bake sometimes... Cakes and cookies when I get a chance. Does Elle have much of a sweet tooth? Maybe I can make her something when things calm down."

"Don't spoil her," Ludger said, though he was smiling.

Milla turned around and playfully stuck her tongue out at him.

“Anyway, speaking of Elle," she continued, lowering her voice, "how did the two of you meet? Is she family? It seems pretty irresponsible to bring such a small child on a journey like this.”

“We met at the train station.”

“Oh?”

“There was an attack on the train we were both riding.”

“And somehow that led to following her to the Land of Canaan.”

"Yes. I couldn't find her parents, so..."

"Do they know she's here?"

"Not that I'm aware of. She's dead-set on finding Canaan."

"What you're doing for her is certainly above and beyond the call of duty. She's...very

lucky to have you looking out for her."

Milla said it with a strange note to her voice, but she was grinning when Ludger looked to her from the corner of his eye. There was something gentle about it.  

Milla didn’t smile often, but when she did, it was warm. And Ludger couldn’t help but grin himself when he turned back to the vegetables.

"Did you finish the eggplant? I'm going to throw the rest of these in the skillet," he said.  

Milla nodded and waited for him while he pulled a skillet from a cabinet, poured in a sprinkle of olive oil, and set it to heat. They added the diced vegetables in and got a baking pan ready to finish cooking the dish in the oven.

"It shouldn't be much longer," Ludger said to Elle. She nodded, but she was busy with whatever was in that magazine – it looked like it was open to a simple crossword puzzle.

"Hey." Milla's voice was soft. She was staring at her boots again, her brow furrowed. “Thanks again. For letting me stay here.”

“It’s no problem. Really.”

“You’re…um… I’ve enjoyed being with you and Elle. You’ve both made me feel welcome in this dimension, even if I don’t belong.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

Her head snapped up then. Milla’s gaze was angry at first glance, but when she spoke, her voice cracked.  

“We both know I don’t belong here. Everyone else knows the other Milla Maxwell. The real Milla.”

“You’re real too. Even if this isn’t your original dimension, it can still be your home.”

“No, it can’t. This isn’t my home, Ludger. It never will be. But I don’t have a choice, do I? I can’t go back to my dimension. Not ever.”

“It could be.” He slipped one hand over hers. “Elle adores and looks up to you. She’d be heartbroken if you left.”

Milla didn’t respond. But she didn’t pull away, either.

“Maybe you feel like you don’t belong now, but…we want you to stay. You’re a good friend to us, Milla.”

“A friend, huh. What if the real Milla comes back?”

“We can deal with that when it happens. And don’t call her the ‘real’ Milla. You’re a real Milla, too.”

Another beat of silence. A sigh. She stared at Ludger with an expression not unlike helplessness.  

“I wish I could believe that,” she said, quietly.  

“You will. One day. I guess I'll have to work on convincing you.”

And a smile – real and genuine – tugged at the corners of her lips.  

"Fine," she said. "Come on. Let's finish dinner."

[kalicofox]

Taako and Angus go component shopping in Angus’ favorite apothecary. Vanishing for months does have consequences, kid.

@fireflymoonfox - you were warned...

---------

Neverwinter was a decently large city. By the standards of Faerun, it was the city; big and bustling and full of places that a small boy could expect to find reasonable amounts of trouble.

Angus McDonald loved Neverwinter.

To be more precise, Angus McDonald loved the city of Neverwinter. The people, on the other hand, he could have happily lived without. It wasn't that they were terrible people or anything, but apparently it was impossible for an adult to see a child competently handling the investigation of a series of grisly murders without thinking that the child was somehow damaged. Or something.

Angus didn't really understand the problem, but going to work for the Bureau of Balance had shown him a completely different world of social interactions.

Not one of his co-workers treated him as anything less than a capable person in his own right. No one tried to keep him away from the realities of what they were dealing with, or tried to stop him from reading the material that was necessary for his research, or kept things from him 'for his own good'. It was so refreshing that Angus had spent the first two weeks of his employment drifting around in a cloud of happiness.

When he was assigned as the Seeker Liaison to the THB, he'd been sworn to do the best job of any Seeker in the history of the Bureau. Taako, Magnus, and Merle had all been really mean to him on the train, but they'd also been really cool. Angus was determined to make himself indispensable to the three.

Unfortunately, they didn't actually seem to need him around. Even flying by the seat of their pants they managed to scrape through any situation they came up against. The one time they actually called on him for help, Angus got them in trouble for cheating and the Stones of Farspeech promptly stopped working.

Angus had been terrified that they'd died, and some small part of his mind had been positive that the Bureau was going to throw him out on his ear. He'd just lost them their only Reclaimers, after all.

But then they'd come back, bickering and biting commentary and just as wonderfully awful as they'd ever been.

Angus had silently resolved to never put them in that position ever again.

He had to be better.

He'd meant it, after all, when he'd said that he loved them. It was a strange, twisty love that he wasn't sure how to handle, but he did love them.

Asking Taako to teach him magic had been a weird, wild impulse, but it had paid off almost instantly. Learning from such an accomplished wizard had driven his studies further, faster than he could have dreamed. Sure, he had to do a lot of the theory work on his own, since Taako tended to gloss over theory with overly complicated explanations that didn't actually make sense, or with airy handwaves and "don't worry about it"s, but that was fine. Angus was used to doing bookwork on his own time.

Besides, all of that led him to where he was now, leading Taako through the streets of Neverwinter towards the Merchant's Quarter.

"So what you gotta know about components," Taako was saying, swinging his umbrella idly, "Is that there's the standard components, and then there's the ones that work for you, you dig?" Taako didn't wait for a response, instead continuing the absent minded lecture. "Take Grease. Some books say to use pork rind, some say to use butter. I use butter 'cause I can just transmute that shit out of whatever and it works fine. Also, pork rinds are fucking disgusting. But Sleep is different! Sleep," he said, gesturing grandly and nearly hitting another passerby in the face with his umbrella, "is commonly accepted to have three different possible components. Those are...?"

"Fine sand, rose petals, or a cricket." Angus replied promptly, glancing up just in time to catch the brief flash of pride across his teacher's face.

"Right," Taako agreed, pausing with his hand on Angus' shoulder as a riderless horse bolted down the street. Several shouting men chased after it, and after the entire procession was past he gently shoved Angus forwards again. "But I don't use any of those."

Angus frowned. "You don't? But Sir, I've seen you cast Sleep, what component do you use?"

"Technically it's two components," Taako said smugly, "But the combination makes my sleep spells stronger, so they last longer."

"What are they?" Angus asked again, and Taako grinned at him, then caught sight of a sign half a block away from them and lengthened his stride.

Angus tried to lengthen his stride as well, but ended up having to trot after Taako, dodging around other pedestrians as best he could while trying to keep up.

Ducking into the small, odd smelling storefront was something of a relief, and Angus took a deep breath of the familiar scent, then let it out with a small, happy hum.

"This is the Apothecary you said was the best in Neverwinter?" Taako asked looking around at the barrels and jars and piles of herbs and potions and components that filled the plain wooden room.

"Oh yes, Sir. Teakin always had what I was looking for when I needed something of an experiment, or to help solve a case! If you need to restock your component supply, this is definitely the best place!" Angus hesitated for a moment, torn between wanting to tug Taako further into the store so he could show him the tiny flasks of liquid gold that were cool to the touch, and not wanting to invade Taako's swath of personal space.

"Hmm..." Taako's eyes half shut, and he took a deep, testing breath in through his nose, then let it out slowly through his mouth. When his eyes opened fully again, the expression on his face was oddly considering.

"All right Ango," he said, "Since you know the place so well, then I gue-"

"Angus?"

The voice was just as Angus remembered it. Deep, gravely, and somehow as inviting as a warm fire after a long day out in the rain. Angus didn't even bother to conceal his glee as he turned to greet the speaker.

"Mr. Teakin! Hi! How are you?"

Teakin, huge and grizzled and still wearing the stained leather apron that Angus had never seen him without scowled thunderously at him. "How am I?" he demanded, and leveled one thick finger at him. "How about this, boyo, how about this? How about you tell me why you vanish off the face of Faerun with no word to the wise about any trip or nothing, and then pop up all 'Hi Mr. Teakin, how are you?' ? How about that, huh? Where the hell have you been, boyo?"

Angus flushed and carefully avoided looking up at Taako.

"I, ah... I got a job?" he tried, and Teakin's eyes narrowed, shifting from Angus to Taako.

"Really."

Angus tried to ignore the flatness in Teakin's voice, "Oh yes, it's great! I get to learn all sorts of fascinating things, and meet so many amazing people, I love it a lot!"

"You do, do you?"

Teakin's face had started to turn red, and Angus looked up at Taako. Maybe Mr. Taaco was doing something to antagonize Teakin? It was sort of a thing he did to most people, so-

But no. Taako's face was hard and cold. His arms were crossed, and his fingers were caressing the handle of his umbrella where it hung from his arm with an absently dangerous air.

"Um."

Now Angus was close to panicking. "Um... Oh! This is my teacher, Mr. Taaco! He's teaching me magic!"

Narrowed eyes moved back from Taako back to him, studying his face.

"Magic?"

Angus nodded earnestly, "Oh yes, Mr. Taaco is very good at magic, and at teaching. I can already do two whole first level spells!"

"Barely." Taako said automatically, "Ya still need some work on Sleep, boychik."

But now the two adults were relaxing; Teakin plopping heavily onto the stool behind him and leaning forward to prop his elbows on the counter in front of him and Taako uncrossing his arms and going back to using his umbrella as a cane replacement.

"Magic huh," Teakin said thoughtfully, then, "You'll be wanting components then?"

"That was the idea." Taako agreed lightly, "Ango-Jango said that this place was the best in Neverwinter."

Teakin snorted, "Try the best on the Sword Coast. Me 'n the family grow 'n harvest most of our stock ourselves. Whatever we don't have, we can get."

One of Taako's eyebrows arched skeptically, but he pulled a slip of parchment out of his sleeve and stalked off down one of the aisles of shelves.

"Sorry for forgetting to tell you," Angus offered sheepishly, and Teakin waved him off.

"Don't worry about it, but next time make sure you drop us a line, okay?"

"Yessir!" Angus chirped, then jumped when Taako stomped back out of the shelves and caught him by the collar before dragging him back the way he'd come.

In the split second Angus had before his view was obscured by shelving, he could have sworn that Teakin was trying to smother an amused smile behind his hand.

Angus watched as Taako picked and pulled things out of crates and bins, tested the consistency of salves and oils between his fingers, and sniffed everything as critically as any schoolmarm looking for flaws she might be able to criticize. In the end, however, one thing after the next passed inspection and was thrust unceremoniously into Angus' arms. When they finally made it back up to the front of the store, Angus could barely see over the pile and Taako had to put everything on the counter because if Angus' grip had shifted even minutely it all would have ended up on the ground.

And then.

Then came the haggling.

And Angus was stuck watching in half horrified awe as Taako turned into a monster.

Everything was in question. The spices weren't at peak freshness. The oil was slightly off. The scent in the candles was more rose than magnolia, and did Teakin really expect to be able to get four silvers for an ounce of gryphon blood?

In the end, neither men looked satisfied. But Taako still forked over the amount they'd agreed on, and Teakin still wrapped everything up in thick brown paper and even tossed in a bag for Angus to carry everything in, and somehow, as soon as it was all over, they were smiling at each other.

"Ya got good shit here." Taako said waving airily at the shop, "Nice doin' business with ya."

"You're one hell of a hard ass," Teakin said, shaking his head and trying to hide his grin, "feel free to come back any time, as long as you bring Angus along. I gotta make sure you're taking care of the kid."

"Yeah sure." Taako agreed breezily, and swept out of the store, hooking the curve of his umbrella around Angus's upper arm in passing and pulling him along.

Angus barely managed to get out his farewell before the door slammed shut behind him and Taako's umbrella unhooked from his arm.

Angus managed to hold it back for half a block before he broke.

"Sir, with all due respect what the hell was that!?"

"Hmm?" Taako glanced down at him, eyebrows raised questioningly, "What was what?"

"That!" Angus waved his free hand back toward Teakin's apothecary.

"Oh that." Taako turned back to watching where he was walking, studiously nonchalant. "Honey, when you're on the road as much as I am you learn a few tricks to getting the best out of skinflint merchants."

"But you never do that to Garfield!" Angus protested, and Taako snorted delicately.

"Garfield never implied that I-" He glanced down at Angus again, and his mouth snapped shut. "I don't really care about dealing with Garfield. The dude creeps me the hell out."

"I see." Angus said, carefully filing away the unfinished sentence in the back of his mind so that he could mull it over later, in private. "Could you teach me?"

Taako startled, actually pausing mid stride so that he could look at Angus head on.

"What?"

"Will you teach me to bargain?" Angus said patiently, "Obviously it's a skill I'm going to need in the future, and if you teach me, then I can go and get whatever components that we both need if you can't for some reason, and-"

"Yeah sure." Taako interrupted, "But later. Not now, yeah? We've already got all the shit we need, so we should head back before the idiots manage to walk off the edge of the goddamn moon or something."

"Yes Sir!" Angus agreed happily, and fell in step with Taako, trying not to grin when he noticed that the elf had shortened his stride so that the two of them could walk side by side.

[hashire]

little love notes

Fandom: Yuri!!! on Ice Rating: Teen and Up (for language, lol) Warnings: None Relationships:  Otabek Altin/Jean-Jacques Leroy/Yuri Plisetsky Summary: He can’t seem to even imagine why his best friend since childhood gave his locker combination to his boyfriend of a few months so he could leave love notes in Yuri's locker. It doesn't make sense. AO3 link.

JJ can be stupidly charming when he’s not the most obnoxious person in the world and the bane of Yuri’s existence. Not that Yuri would ever admit to the former.

It doesn’t stop him from crumpling up and tossing the little love notes that somehow keep making their way into his locker. If JJ is nearby, they often get chucked at his head.

JJ just laughs and winks at him, or blows a kiss and grins, or shrugs and throws his arm around Otabek’s shoulders if he happens to walk by at the moment. Then Yuri’s stomach will lurch or his heart will pound or something equally as dumb at the sight.

He seethes the morning he opens his locker and finds a rose inside, nestled in rumpled pink tissue paper. He leaves it there, as is, after he pulls a few books out, and doesn’t go back to his locker for the entire day.

He wants to tell Otabek about it when they see each other at lunch, but the words get bunched up in his throat and he has to chug water to be able to even speak. What the fuck is your boyfriend trying to pull with this bullshit? is what he comes up with. He can’t ask that.

Instead, he finds JJ by his locker after school, presumably texting Otabek based on the huge, dreamy smile on his face.

Yuri pulls open his locker, slaps the phone out of JJ’s hand (“Hey! What the fuck?!”), and shoves the rose, thorns all bared, into JJ’s palms.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do,” Yuri says in a low voice, “but can you stop breaking into my locker every morning and putting all of this stupid shit in there?”

JJ whines and extracts the few thorns that caught his skin before reaching down to pick up his phone (miraculously intact thanks to the probably ungodly expensive case). “But, kitten, I’m not –”

“Don’t call me that you –”

“I’m not breaking into your locker,” he finishes. The smile is back despite the blood on his palm.

“Sure, whatever,” Yuri says, rolling his eyes. “I’m going to tell Otabek about this now. It’s gone on too long.”

To his surprise, JJ laughs. “Yuri, my darling, how do you think I got your locker combination?”

-

Otabek doesn’t text him that night. It’s unusual.

When Yuri left, he almost slammed the locker on JJ’s hands when he held out the rose to him. He’d heard the footsteps behind him and walked off without looking back.

Yuri spends too much time trying to compose a text to his best friend, attempting to properly convey his confusion and desire to know why Otabek did this. It all ends up being shades of one simple phrase: what the fuck.

What the fuck, Beka is what he ends up sending before shutting off his phone. He wants to know the answer. He really does. But he has a feeling it’ll keep him up all night, just knowing. He wants to sleep and not spend the entire next day feeling sick from not sleeping enough. He tosses and turns most of the night anyway, awake and unable to settle, thinking about what the answer might be. He throws his phone across the room more than once, dragging himself up to check it for cracks every single time and bringing it back to his bed. He resolutely does not turn it back on.

Even with all the time awake, he can’t seem to even imagine why his best friend since childhood gave his locker combination to his boyfriend of a few months so he could leave love notes in Yuri's locker. It doesn't make sense. But, then again, things stopped making sense when the new kid from Canada swept in midway through the year and seduced Beka with an obnoxiously impressive flourish. Part of Yuri was (and is) mad about it.  

He wakes up the next morning to his grandfather yelling that he’s going to be late for school if he doesn’t get up. Yuri snatches up his phone and glares at it, his sleep-deprived recently-awoken mind conveniently forgetting that he’d turned it off on purpose the night before.

His stomach churns when he remembers why it’s off.

He’s late enough getting up that his grandfather has to drive him to school. That means he misses walking with Otabek (since they live so nearby), which he already missed doing yesterday because he left in a huff.

Yuri regrets so many of his life choices in those minutes in his grandpa’s old clunker. He wants to throw his phone again when it finally turns on and finds it almost dead anyway. He also wishes he had never sent that damn message because Otabek hadn’t even bothered to respond, that asshole.

He trips on his way into school and skins his palms.

Fuck my life, he thinks, wrenching open his locker.

There’s another note waiting for him, folded in fourths and sitting atop his notebooks. He considers ripping it up and just walking straight out of school. His grandpa would be so disappointed if he did that, though, so he snatches the note, stuffs it into his pocket, and dashes off to his first class.

He itches to open it but he feels like it would just make his day even worse. Instead, he picks at the scabs that form on his palm, doodles in the margins of his notebook, and almost dozes off in every class before lunch.

He only dares to pull it out of his pocket and flick it open five minutes before his last morning class is due to end.

I’m sorry, it says in familiar handwriting. It’s not JJ’s. It was my idea. I should have told you sooner.

His heart pounds as he crumples it up noisily, earning him a glare from his teacher. He bolts out the door before she can say anything, just as the bell rings. He finds Otabek without any trouble, walks up to him, and hurls the note right at his head. It bounces off his temple. Otabek scrambles to catch it.

“Yura,” he starts, “what –”

“You asshole,” Yuri says with as much feeling as he can muster. He then turns around and leaves.

-

“You can stop toying with my emotions.” Yuri is sitting on the rocks behind the school. He doesn’t see and barely hears JJ walking up, but he knows he’s there. That asshole has a presence about him that makes him impossible to ignore.

There’s a short laugh behind him, and he hates it so, so much. Of course JJ would laugh at him. He kind of feels like punching him in the face (more than usual, at least).

There’s an arm around his shoulders before he knows what’s happening. “Kitten,” JJ says, leaning against him, “we –”

“Don’t call me that!” He shoves the arm off him and almost drops his lunch. He narrows his eyes at JJ, who holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“We weren’t trying to do that.” JJ sits down next to him. Yuri makes a big show of scooting down so they’re no longer close. JJ runs a hand through his hair.

“Then what were you trying to do? Make fun of me? I’ll kick your ass.” JJ might have a few inches on him and more muscle, but Yuri knows he could do it. Even so, the threat comes out weak and tired:  as tired as Yuri is right now.

Hearing that you’ve been jerked around by your best friend is kind of shattering.

JJ looks alarmed by the suggestion and hastens to say, “No! Of course not. Beka would never do that to you.”

“That’s what I used to think.” He packs up his lunch and prepares to leave. Going home to bed would not resolve anything, but it’ll be worth it. Probably.

JJ grabs his arm before he can even get up. He’s prepared to throw it off, but JJ looks surprisingly serious and intensely earnest. “Just stay and listen, will you?”

“Why should I?” He doesn’t pull his arm from JJ’s grip yet. It’s firm and warm through the material of his jacket. JJ loosens his hold but doesn’t let him go.

“He likes you a lot, you know. I think he likes you more than he likes me.”

Yuri’s heart beats a little faster at that, but he forces himself to roll his eyes. “Of course he likes me. He’s been my best friend for years.”

JJ flashes him a grin. “You know what I mean, kitten.” Yuri shoves him. “I like you too, you know.” He winks. “I wouldn’t write you poetry if I didn’t.”

“Poetry? You call that poetry?”

“It’s my best work!” He puts his hand over his heart and tosses his head back when the wind blows his hair into his face.

JJ’s fingers still encircle his arm, and he squeezes it. When he moves into Yuri’s space, Yuri stays put.

"Now that that’s out in the open, finally, how ‘bout it? Can I?"

Yuri tilts his head to the side in a noncommittal manner. JJ leans forward anyway, eyes sparkling as he smirks.

Yuri turns away at the last moment so JJ kisses his cheek. He pulls back and laughs. "I expected that."

“Then why’d you bother?” He tries to snap and look annoyed, but his cheeks are pink and not from the wind.

“Because…it’s JJ style!” Yuri shoves him off the rocks before he can make the stupid sign with his hands. JJ laughs even as he lands hard on his elbows.

“I’m going back in,” Yuri announces, stalking away without another word. JJ’s laughter follows him, even as he hears him pick himself up off the ground.

-

Yuri doesn’t want to face Otabek, despite what JJ said. It’s all so sudden and he can barely process it while trying to stay awake in class. He skips his last period to rush home and crawl into bed.

His grandfather leaves him alone. He forgets to plug in his phone and wakes up the next day (Saturday) to a still-dead phone.

Once it charges up enough to turn on, he’s met with a text from Otabek. The timestamp says it was sent late last night, and there’s only one.

Let’s talk.

OK is what he sends back after going back and forth about what to say. He receives a time and a destination (Otabek’s house, of course) before he tosses the phone on his bed and goes to eat breakfast.

-

Otabek is sitting on his front porch, staring at his phone when Yuri walks up.

“Hey,” Yuri says, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Otabek stands to meet him.

“Hey.” They look at each other. A long moment passes between them. Otabek opens his mouth. Yuri beats him to it. “Why didn’t you just say something sooner?”

Otabek closes his mouth, frowning a bit as he thinks. “I…wasn’t sure. And I didn’t want to mess everything up.”

Yuri finds himself rolling his eyes. “That’s a terrible reason.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Otabek says this without much accusation, but it’s still there. Yuri shifts his weight from one leg to the other.

“Uh, maybe…for the same reason?” Otabek huffs out a laugh. Yuri scowls. “Why did you do it now?”

Otabek shifts his weight, too, glancing off into the distance. “It was JJ who convinced me that things were mutual. ‘It’s so obvious to everyone but the two of you.’” Yuri’s scowl remains. “He’s more perceptive than you think.”

“Maybe.” Yuri turns his attention to his shoes, tipping his feet outward so he’s balancing on the sides of them. “Why the notes?”

Otabek looks at his own feet. “It’s something I was thinking of doing at some point, I guess, but never really got around to doing it. When I told JJ about it when we were talking about you, he said he could do it for me.”

“He told me that he’s been writing me poetry the whole time. Please don’t tell me that it’s your writing. It’s terrible.” Otabek laughs at that.

“No, it’s all him. He’s more creative than I am.” He takes a breath. “He’s a good guy,” Otabek says. “Definitely able to get under your skin, but in a good way.” He scrunches his nose the moment after the words come out and adds, “That came out wrong.”

Yuri stares and then starts to laugh and laugh. This is not the way he expected things to resolve, but he’s not complaining. Not anymore. A giddy feeling wells up inside of Yuri’s stomach, weird and new and refreshing after all of the frustration he’s felt for the recent days…weeks…maybe months.

It’s so dumb.

"What now?" he asks, fiddling with his zipper. He might not be complaining, but he has lingering doubts.

"What do you want, Yura?" Otabek looks at him with a soft, open expression:  his brows are relaxed; his eyes are warm; his mouth is turned up at the corners.

"This," he says, grabbing the front of Otabek's jacket and pulling him closer. He tips his head to the side, waiting for permission. Otabek closes the distance between them.

It's gentle and warm as the wind breaks around them. They part after a moment, Yuri leaning his forehead against Otabek's.

He's about to suggest calling JJ when he hears a wolf whistle and clapping. He jolts away from Otabek to glare at the intruder. He's not surprised to see JJ walking toward them.

When he’s close enough, JJ slings an arm around each of their shoulders.

“Now that that’s figured out,” he says, loudly enough that Yuri puts a hand on his cheek and forces his face toward Otabek, “let’s have some fun. Right?”

Otabek reaches behind JJ and tugs on Yuri’s sleeve. He offers a hand when Yuri looks over JJ’s shoulder. Yuri takes it.

-

Come Monday, Yuri may or may not have a hickey on his neck and a smile on his face. The people he passes by look mildly alarmed at this new presentation, but he ignores them.

When he opens his locker, he’s surprised, yet not, to find a note waiting for him.

My dearest Yuri, it starts in JJ’s familiar handwriting, I feel so strongly that

He crumples and throws it JJ’s head as he appears beside Yuri. JJ just grins and puts an arm around his shoulders.

And if his heartbeat picks up or his stomach lurches, that’s normal (but still dumb).

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (49/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous Chapters conveniently available here

[17 May 236 Before Age.  Planet Wist.]

As soon as she stood up, the Shockmaster put her down again, driving his knee into her jaw.  Luffa skidded along the terrain, finally coming to a stop a hundred feet from where she started.  

She lay still for a moment, then struggled to her feet again.  

And the Shockmaster put her down again, this time using bolts of lightning from his fingers.

Luffa was a Super Saiyan, but she had discovered that the form had its limits.  She was used to calling upon its power as needed, but against the Shockmaster there simply wasn't enough power to defeat him.  There were ways to deal with stronger opponents, tactics and strategies that Luffa had learned at her mother's knee when she was a child.  But these methods assumed that you had the enemy's measure early on, and Luffa had gotten used to thinking of herself as the strongest in the universe.  She had gone into this fight without any real plan, thinking she would enjoy herself for a while, then overwhelm the enemy without much trouble.  If there had ever been a chance of victory, she had squandered it in her arrogance.  

But she refused to give up.  She was still a Saiyan, after all.  There was her pride to think about.  Besides, losing a fight was almost as much fun as winning one.  She spared a moment to think of her past opponents, the ones she had beaten.  By now, most of them would have been on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  Some of them would have begged for mercy they didn't deserve.  Others would have whined about how it wasn't 'fair', as if the universe had rules about this sort of thing.  

She refused to be like them.  The Shockmaster was stronger than Luffa, and that was now indisputable.  She had confronted him to find out who was better, and she wouldn't beg off simply because she didn't like the answer.  She would see this fight to the finish, no matter the outcome.  

"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?" the Shockmaster bellowed.  "I THOUGHT YOU WANTED A PIECE OF ME, LUFFA.  COME AFTER ME.  I'M READY."

Luffa clutched at her shoulder and tried to catch her breath as she rose to her feet once more.  He looked like he was ready to charge her.  That suited her just fine.  The Galick Gun was out of the question with her bad arm, and she didn't think he would fall for ki ghosts a second time, not that the first time had been very effective.  But there was one other move, one that seemed appropriate for the situation.  

She forced her body to its maximum power.  Luffa had often thought of her Super Saiyan form as a separate entity, that thing inside herself, constantly yearning to do battle at all times.  Now, as she pushed it to its utmost limits, knowing full well that it wouldn't be enough, "that thing” was finally frightened into submission.  For once, she was the one demanding more, and her powers were struggling to keep up with her demand for action.  So at least she would have that small satisfaction, even if the battle with the Shockmaster was a loss.

With her right hand, she raised two fingers in front of her forehead.  The Shockmaster had seen this gesture before, and she was counting on this.  He would assume this motion would trigger an explosion beneath his feet.  Luffa had used that trick before to throw him off-balance, but she suspected that if the Shockmaster had simply braced himself, he would have been fine.  Either he would stand his ground to show he couldn't be hurt, or he race towards her, demonstrating that he could outrun the explosion altogether.  Either of these actions would be designed to demoralize her.  Both of them played right into her hands.  

Sure enough, he charged.  Over time, the Shockmaster had been gradually increasing his speed, to the point where he could get the drop on Luffa.  If he were moving in any other direction, she wasn’t sure she could have hit him at all.  He was just too fast for that.   But by coming straight at her, he provided an easy target, one that got bigger and easier to hit with each moment.  She waited just long enough to be sure he wouldn't dodge, and then she swung her arm out and fired a crimson beam of light from her fingertips.  It struck him squarely in the chest.

"Vengeance Cannon," she muttered. 

It was a name in need of a technique to go along with it.  An unauthorized movie loosely based on Luffa's career had invented the attack, and the fictional Luffa used it in the film’s climax   Naturally, people kept expecting the real Super Saiyan to use it in real life.  Luffa supposed it would have been simpler to just duplicate the effect used in the film, but it involved a lot of twirling and superfluous hand gestures, and the whole thing seemed like more of a pretense to showcase the actress' figure than to hurt the bad guy.  

Her own version was better.   She had been using narrow energy beams like this to concentrate offensive power for a long time, and this was just a soup-ed up version of that.  More power in the beam, a bit more flourish in the firing gesture, and with her Super Saiyan form she could repeat the attack multiple times in rapid succession.  Its only real weakness was that it was easy to sidestep if you knew it was coming, but the Shockmaster had misread her intentions and inadvertently moved straight down her line of fire.

But she didn't expect a single hit to finish the job.  Luffa balled her fists and charged up for another shot.  She estimated she had enough left for a second, and maybe a third if she was lucky.  Of course, he would be ready for it this time, so she would have to pick her shots carefully if she wanted to...

Suddenly, she powered down.  Luffa looked down at her hands and saw the golden aura of her Super Saiyan form was gone.  The vellus hair on her forearms was dark instead of yellow.  She glanced back at her tail and saw brown fur. She tried to transform back into a Super Saiyan and found she couldn't. Apparently she had miscalculated.  The first Vengeance Cannon had been her last.  

She gasped and started grabbing at the hair on her head in desperation, as if yanking on it would somehow make it stand up on end and turn yellow again.  Reaching the limits of her Super Saiyan form was bad enough, like showing up for a fight in one's underwear.  Losing the form altogether made her feel even more exposed, like she had shown up for a fight without her arms and legs.  

To be sure, Luffa was still immensely powerful in her normal state.  But in her current condition, coping with broken ribs, a bad shoulder, et cetera... against an opponent like the Shockmaster, she might as well have been a small child with no combat power at all.  

The one thing she had gotten right was that her last attack hadn't been powerful enough to stop him.  He had been knocked back, and he had stayed down for a few seconds, but he was getting back up.  She guessed that he might have been hurt by the Vengeance Cannon, but he showed no sign of injury.  Maybe a rapid succession of Vengeance Cannons could have whittled him down over time, but she couldn’t imagine him standing still long enough for her to do that.  In any case, she doubted she would ever get the chance to try that out.

Instead of attacking, he stomped across the battlefield towards her.  Luffa steadied herself and stood her ground.  This was it, she decided.  He knew she was out of options, and he could finish her at his leisure.  All she could do was stand firm and keep fighting until the end. 

When he was within striking distance, he stopped and loomed over her, his silver helmet giving no indication of his mood or his intentions.  

Luffa spit on him.  

The Shockmaster laughed.  

"What's so funny?" Luffa asked defiantly. "Let's go."

"YOU'RE BEATEN," the Shockmaster said.  "THERE'S NO POINT IN FIGHTING YOU ANY LONGER."

"Yeah?  Then finish it!" Luffa shouted.  "Kill me!"

"NO."

There was something chilling about this word, perhaps because it was the last thing she expected to hear.  

"What?" Luffa asked.  

"I DON'T KILL, LUFFA," the Shockmaster explained.  "YOU AND YOUR KIND DO, BUT I WON'T SINK TO YOUR LEVEL."

"You bastard!" Luffa screamed.  Without thinking, she fired a ki blast at him, but the energy simply spilled off his body without any effect.  At most, she merely burned away the spit she had landed on his chest.

"You think you've won?!" Luffa shouted.  "You think this is over?!  Fat chance!  I'm still standing!  You haven't won anything while I'm still alive!"

He snorted, and then turned his back to her.  Of all the damage he had inflicted on her, this simple act of dismissal was the most painful by far.  

"You think... you think you can just walk away?!"

She was still standing, but just barely.  Her legs felt like jelly, and she was starting to realize that she had only stayed vertical this long because of her resolve to keep fighting.  Now, her body seemed to recognize that the fight was over, and her fatigue began to catch up with her. 

The Shockmaster turned and looked at her for a moment.

"I WON’T SINK TO YOUR LEVEL," he said again.

"Fine!” she screeched.  “Leave me here!  You think this is the worst beating I’ve ever taken!  I’ll rest!  I’ll heal!  And when I’ve recovered my strength--!"

In spite of the bruises, the swelling, and all the pain, she smiled with the same bloodthirsty grin she had made when the fight had begun.

"Oh yes, I’ll come right back and we can do this all over again.  Only next time, I’ll be the last one standing, and I won’t hesitate to put you down once and for all!"

"I DON’T KILL, LUFFA," the Shockmaster repeated.  He turned and continued on his way.  "THAT’S HOW SAIYANS SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS."

He laughed as he stormed off into the distance, and then he rocketed into the air.  Luffa could only watch him leave.  She was too badly beaten to catch him, and even if she could, there was nothing else she could do.

There was a sinking feeling in her gut, a dull ache in the back of her head, and a lump in her throat that had nothing to do with the injuries she had sustained.  She had been losing the battle for a while now and maybe she never really had a chance to begin with, but it was over now, and the finality of her defeat was impossible to ignore.

She meant what she had said.  Everything inside her that made her  a Saiyan demanded that she fight him again as soon as she could.  She was looking forward to it.   But she knew that wouldn’t be for a long time.  In the here and now, she was utterly helpless to deny her failure.

"Sorry," she said to no one in particular.  She tried to take a step but collapsed onto her knees.  Her ribs hurt badly enough that she clutched at her side.

"Hell of a fight, though," she muttered.  She smiled, but not for very long.  "Didn’t like... the ending, but somebody’s gotta... get the short end of the stick."

She needed to rest for a while.  She was hungry, but there wasn’t anything edible as far as she could see.  With any luck, a wild animal might come along and she could use her own beaten body as bait.  Were there wolves on Planet Wist?  She hadn’t had eaten a wolf in ages.    She lowered herself to the ground gently--though not gracefully--and daydreamed about biting into the trachea of a nice, gamey wolf.  Like the kind in the taiga forests of Planet Alisair. 

Or Xenem IV.  

She couldn’t remember which one had the wolves. 

Maybe when she woke up, she’d feel up to flying, and she could find a river to--

And then her eyes snapped open and she rolled to one side, narrowly avoiding a ki blast.  In spite of the pain, she forced herself upright and looked for the source of the attack.

It was Kandai.

*******

"No!  You were beaten!" he cried.  He was still holding up his hand from when he had fired on her.

They were both Saiyans.  They had the same kind of powers, the same innate love for mayhem.  They had even been married, and they almost had a child together, until he betrayed her.

But no, they weren’t really the same at all.   He had committed crimes against his wife and unborn son that were unconscionable even by Saiyan standards.  Since that day, he had been living as a fugitive outcast, denying his own pride, concealing his own birthright, and learning the advantages of cowardice.  And she, she had become something like rage incarnate.  Either she was too stupid to stop fighting or she honestly didn’t care.  

"K-Kandai," Luffa said weakly.  "Good... timing.  I was just thinking about getting something to eat."

"What... what are you?!" he gasped.

"We’ve been over that already," Luffa replied between coughs.  "What, does cannibalism turn your Saiyan stomach?  I do what needs to be done.    What do you expect from a true freak?!"

She was right, after all.  They weren’t the same.  They weren’t even Saiyans, not anymore.  Kandai and Luffa were monsters.  Maybe they always had been. 

He had been monitoring the fight with his ki senses all along.  What else could he have done, since Luffa had destroyed all other means of escaping the planet?  And now that it was over, and the Shockmaster had refused to kill her, he had swooped in to finish her off while he still had the chance. 

Luffa figured out all of this immediately, but there was still one burning question on her mind.

"What’d you think of the fight?" she asked excitedly.  "Spectacular, right?"

"How can you still be standing?!" he screamed.  "He should have killed you!"

"That’s what I told him," Luffa said.  "But he’s too weak and cowardly to do his own dirty work.  I guess he was waiting for a Saiyan to do it for him, except you’re just as weak and cowardly as he is."

She started to chuckle, but stopped when it hurt to much.  "Thanks for stopping by, Kandai.  Saves me the trouble of hunting you down again.  So... So what did you think of the fight?  I got my butt kicked in, but I’d like to see... to see any other Saiyan do better."

"You’re *not a Saiyan*!" Kandai howled.  "You’re *not my wife*!  You’re an animal!"

"Oh, I was only... heh... only kidding about eating your corpse, you wimp,"  Luffa said.  "I’ll just use it as bait.  Save me the trouble of doing it... ah! ... doing it myself."  She took a step forward and nearly doubled over.  "Of course, if nothing comes along, I might get desperate."

Kandai screamed and fired another, much larger, ki blast.  This time, he didn’t miss.  When it had faded, there was a gouge in the earth, and Luffa lay at the bottom.  Slowly, painfully, she rose to her feet and began climbing out of the trench.

"Not running away, Kandai?" she asked.  "You’re no dummy.  This is the best chance you’ll ever get.  Your only...chance, maybe.  But it’s a lot... unh!.... lot smaller than you thought it’d be... isn’t it?"

She held up her thumb and forefinger, keeping them very close together, to illustrate just what kind of odds she was giving him.   He backed away, his lower lip quivering with terror.

"That...  that helmeted bastard did me a favor, huh?" Luffa said.  She clutched at her arm and shut her eyes tightly.  "First I beat the crap out of you, and now he’s beaten the crap out of me, so you and I just about even.  We can finally... s-settle it..."

She dropped to her knees and stifled a cry of pain.  "Come on!" she rasped.  "This is your chance!    Fight me, you son of a bitch!"

"You’re sick, Luffa," Kandai muttered.  "You’ve already lost!    And here you are trying to pick another fight already!  You’re not a ’Super Saiyan’, you’re a rabid dog!"

"You’re not... gonna... talk me to death... Kandai," she groaned.

"I won’t play your game," Kandai insisted, seemingly finding new courage.  "You want me to attack you so you can kill me on your own terms.  Well I love a good fight, but I like living more, so I’ll just wait until you pass out, and then we’ll see just how weakened you really are!"

"Good plan.." Luffa said.  "Might even work on... on a dumbass Super Saiyan."

With an unholy determination, she rose to her feet again.  This time she didn’t bother holding back her anguished cry.  When she looked at Kandai, he could have sworn he saw a glint of green in her eyes, as if she had somehow managed to tap into her transformation again, and he stepped back involuntarily.

"But like you said, I’m a rabid dog, right?  You should know, since you helped make this possible.  You betrayed me, killed our son, and you left me to die."

"Shut up--"

"You’ll never be... free of me, Kandai.  I’ll chase you all the way to hell to avenge my brat.  That’s why you can’t bring yourself to fight me.  Deep down inside... nngh!.... you know you’ve already lost!"

She dropped to her knees again.   Kandai still felt the urge to take a step back.

"You’re wrong!  I’ll--! I’ll--!"

"Go on!  Fight me!  Kill me if you can!  I’d rather die than watch you embarrass yourself like this."

His eyes widened with a mixture of desperation and rage.  With a savage growl, he summoned all the strength he had left and raised his fist to attack.  Luffa smiled, and appeared to do the same, though she remained on her knees.

*******

For a single uncanny moment, she felt calm.   The thing inside her was practically silent now, having gotten everything it demanded and then some.  She would either avenge herself or die trying.    As their fists came at one another, she looked into her husband’s eyes and saw a fire that she hadn’t seen  in a very long time.  It seemed right.  Not perfect by any means, but right.

But the final blows never connected.  Luffa caught the scent of something familiar, and then there was the sound of a plasma rifle discharging.  There was a new smell, one of ozone and hot metal and scorched flesh.   Kandai’s face went slack and his fist went off-course, sliding across Luffa’s forehead instead of smashing into her nose.

Her own attack hit home, but this brief distraction kept her from following through.  She struck his abdomen hard, rupturing any number of organs, but without breaking the skin.

He stood there for an instant that seemed to last forever, swaying slightly as if his body couldn’t decide which way to fall.  At last, he listed to one side and collapsed, a spray of blood issuing from his mouth as he hit the ground.  Luffa stared at the burn mark on his chest, and reached out with her senses to confirm what she already knew. 

Kandai was dead.

Luffa took a deep breath and looked around to find the shooter.  Directly to her right she found Zatte standing beside her.  The Dorlun woman had the power to conceal herself, and so she had walked right up with a plasma rifle and shot Kandai at pointblank range. 

She wanted to know how and why.  She imagined that Zatte wanted to tell her.  But they didn’t speak.  They didn’t even look at each other.  They simply stared at Kandai’s body, and watched as the wind carried away the thin wisps of smoke from his wound.

NEXT: Destination Unknown.

[tenacitytale]

As always, please a reply with any comments or criticism you may have.

For anyone who can’t or doesn’t want to read it on A03, the chapter is under the cut.

Frisk stood on the rocky cliffside, looking up at Undyne as she monologued for the who-knows-how-many’th time. The fish woman was perched atop a series of extremely huge rocky stalagmites, waving a spear, ranting about SOUL this and SOUL that. Frisk was just waiting for the right moment to execute their plan.

While they were waiting, they inspected the item that had been stored in their pocket since they left Snowdin. It was a small, wooden sword. They, or, well, Sans had carved it out of a tree they had convinced one of the townies to fell. It didn’t look like anything special. Just a small sword, no longer than a foot or two, made out of wood and painted on by Papyrus.

Undyne finally paused in her monologue. She turned around, and began to take her helmet off. There was a bright flash of light, and Frisk bolted. At speeds that would make a professional athlete jealous, they charged into the tunnel that ran through the stalagmite Undyne was sitting atop. “HEY!” They heard her shout behind them.

They didn’t look back, just kept their mind/s focused on the path ahead. They could already see the ‘WELCOME TO HOTLAND!’ sign that was getting closer and closer. However, they soon heard the clanging of metal boots behind them. “Stop! Get back here you brat!” They heard Undyne shout behind them.

They heard the usual zapping-sort of noise as Undyne materialized one of her magic spears. She threw the first one, which landing right besides Frisk’s foot as they slid to a stop in front of the Hotland sign. They began running down the new path in front of them. Undyne threw a second spear, which stabbed into the sign and a good couple feet into the wall behind it, just barely missing their head by a scant few inches.

Here comes the third one, Chara commented. Indeed, the air hummed with the sound of power as the third spear came sailing directly toward their head. In one smooth motion, Frisk turned, side-stepped, and grabbed the spear out of the air, all with the air of someone well-practiced at such an act. “Huh!? Just like-” They heard Undyne begin behind them.

They ran forward a few steps, and then stabbed the spear into the ground. Then, like they had many times, before, they let the slightly bendy spear catapult them into the air. They flew a good dozen feet before they approached the ground. They tucked into a roll, and came up in front of San’s station.

They got up, casting an glance over to the station. Sans - fired another volley of bones at them at unseeable speeds, dodging all but the last one that impacts with the force of a cannonball, impaling them through the chest and carrying them all the way back to the area by the SAVE point, then the flying skulls, with the same eternal grin as their master, blasting with all they have - and Frisk lurched to the side as the memory hits with all the force of the bones. Despair and anger and disappointment all writhe within them like venomous snakes.

Frisk! Chara shouts inside their head, driving a spike of pain through their head. “I’m alright.” Frisk quietly mumbled, and attempted to stand up. Considering the rather shaky status of their legs, this was easier said than done. They almost fell twice, but finally managed to stand up. They looked up, to see that Undyne had moved in front of the bridge leading deeper into Hotland.

Undyne stared at them for a moment, looking...concerned? “You alright?” She asked, gravelly voiced as usual. “Y-yeah.” Frisk replied, though anyone could have told they were not telling the truth. Undyne shrugged, and stabbed forward with the spear held in her armored hand.  Frisk nimbly dodged the thrust, and jumped backwards.

Well, they they would have, if they were in more stable condition. Instead they just sorta flopped backwards. They rapidly crawled backwards, and then did their best to stand up. Undyne snapped her fingers, and the familiar green shield appeared over their left arm, though they didn’t really need it.

Undyne summoned a few volleys of spears - and they came down in the hundreds, ripping and tearing off chunks of the bridge the two stand on in their effort to kill them and it starts collapsing into the fathomless depths below and they wonder if she’s become suicidal or is just that willing to kill them - and Frisk collapsed again. Frisk! Chara shouted again, and took control of their body to keep them from being torn to pieces.

They did their best to dodge, but not even all the time they’d spent in this seemingly infinite chain of resets had made them very great at it. They dodged most of the spears except for one, which slammed into their shoulder, knocking them over and sending them sliding a good fifteen feet. When they finished that fun trip across gravel and rock, they stood back up.

Gritting their teeth, they ripped the spear out of their shoulder. The pain was horrible, but they’d dealt with worse in the process of becoming a ghost. They took out a CinnaBun and ate it in one go. The healing energy bestowed by the item spread throughout their body, and began healing their wounds.

Frisk, you ok? Sorry about taking over like that. They asked their mindmate. Frisk was still panicking in their section of the mind. Undyne was blocking off the bridge, and, despite how much they wanted to, there was no way they were going to fight her. What to do? Before Chara could make a decision, their phone rang.

At the same time, Chara remembered that Papyrus hadn’t called them in the tunnel like he usually did. That was...new. They took the phone out of their pocket, the battle stopping as Undyne waited for them (im)patiently. “Hello? Papyrus?” They asked.

‘’HUMAN! HAVE YOU, AH, SEEN MY BROTHER?” The skeleton asked, sounding...concerned? Afraid? Chara looked over at the station, where the skeleton in questioned appeared to still be pretending to be asleep. “Ah, yeah, he’s right here.”

“COULD YOU HAND HIM THE PHONE? I BELIEVE I MIGHT... REQUIRE HIS ASSISTANCE.”  The skeleton admitted. Chara was a bit shocked, to say the least. To hear the normally supremely self-confident and enthusiastic skeleton admit that he might need help…

“Papyrus, what’s wrong? What’s happened?” They asked, rather concerned. They weren’t the only ones; Undyne was paying rather close attention to the call now too, and even Sans had stopped pretending to be asleep and was staring at them, the lights in his eyes having seemingly vanished.

“ANOTHER HUMAN STEPPED OUT OF THE UNDERGROUND A COUPLE HOURS AGO.” Papyrus said. Chara felt Frisk’s heart stop and their presence inside their mind actually snap back to attention from...wherever it had been. “THEY WERE COVERED IN DUST, AND. WERE NOT INTERESTED IN ANY OF MY PUZZLES AND JAPES?” Papyrus said, sounding both confused that this was possible and annoyed by it.

Slowly Chara lowered the phone down to their side. “Papyrus might be in trouble” They told Sans. Sans simply vanished, there one second and gone the next, presumably using one of his “shortcuts” to get to his brother. Chara shuddered. Bad memories with that particular power. “OH! MY BROTHER HAS RETURNED! THANKS HUMAN!  I WILL CALL YOU BACK WHEN WE HAVE RESOLVED THE SITUATION!”  Papyrus said.

“Wait, Papyrus! You haven’t told us-” Too late. The skeleton had already hung up the phone. They stared at their cellphone for a moment. We’re totally going to go rescue him, right? They asked Frisk. Frisk’s only response was a surge of determination. You feeling up to taking back over? They asked.

...Not just yet. They replied. Alright, just tell me when you want control again. Chara said, trying to channel as much kindness towards them as they could. They turned towards Undyne, who seemed utterly lost at these turn of events. “What are you doing standing around?” They asked her. “From the sounds of it, there’s a much worse human than us currently rampaging towards Snowdin and Papyrus.” They said.

Undyne waited for a few moments, growled, and slowly marched off towards the entrance. She’s not going to make it in time. Chara analyzed. Hmm? Frisk muttered, clearly distracted and not paying much attention. We’ve been standing here for, what 15 minutes? She faints just trying to make it across the bridge without collapsing due to the heat, and that’s only 15-20 feet long. She’s probably gonna collapse as soon as she steps through the entrance. Chara said.

Shouldn’t we go help her then? Frisk asked. Chara thought it over for a few seconds. Eh, Elder Puzzler will be right there, and there are a few monsters around. She should be fine. Papyrus is in more danger than she is. Chara decided. Let’s go see if the River Person is by the Lab, like they should be.

With this course of action in mind, they set across the bridge leading deeper into Hotland.