#i could convulse and vomit blood and my family will tell me not to be dramatic

[gardenoblues]

i just bought something ugly and i regret it. This is impulsive buying at its lowest.

[allyeardepression]

@jegulus-microfic | march 23 coward | words: 1802

this one’s sad (i think). let me know what you think; enjoy;3

tw: child abuse, torturing, mentions of blood

Regulus Black has always been a coward.

It started when he was four and broke an old vase while playing with Sirius. Their mother stormed into the room, screaming like the mad woman she was. She asked which one of them did it, and Regulus froze.

He didn’t know what to expect of her, so he just stood there, looking at Walburga with wide eyes, until Sirius ever so confidently said, “C'était moi, Maman.” Regulus tried to deny it; he really wanted to tell her that it was him and not Sirius, but he couldn't get a word out as the first Crucio hit his brother. He watched as his best friend, his guardian angel, twisted in painful convulsions, screaming loudly.

When Walburga decided it was enough after almost a minute of torturing her son, she withdrew her wand and wordlessly fixed the shuttered vase. As she left the room, Regulus kneeled next to Sirius, helping him stand up and leading him to Regulus’ room.

He tried to make Sirius feel better, but the whole time he spent next to his brother, a quiet voice in his head was repeating over and over: You didn't even try to help him, coward.

It kept happening until the boys went to Hagwats. Unfortunately, when Regulus sat on the stool and the Sorting Hat covered his eyes, he became a coward again.

“Don't be afraid,” said the old hat. “You have so much courage, why would you suddenly be stressed?”

“I'm not brave. If I were brave, I would ask you to put me in Gryffindor so I could be with Sirius. But I saw what happened to him when you sorted him there, so instead, I'll ask you to put me in Slytherin like the rest of my family.” Regulus said it in a quiet voice full of panic.

The hat hummed appreciatively on his head. “This is the bravery I'm talking about,” and then a loud “SLYTHERIN!”

The boy looked at his brother with a sad, apologetic expression on his face, hoping the older boy would understand. Coward, coward, coward, said the voice he had heard in his head almost every day since he was four years old.

Years passed and everything stayed the same: Sirius still protected him from their parents, getting worse punishments every time, and he was still a coward who couldn’t help his own brother. Until one night, when Regulus was fifteen and decided he could.

There was a big fight between Sirius, Orion, and Walburga. At first, they were just talking passive aggressively, but as time went on, plates and spells started flying around the room. At one point, Regulus heard Sirius screaming in pain, as if someone were flaying him, and then everything went quiet. He just heard the door to his father’s study open and close before he ran down the stairs he had been standing on for the past thirty minutes.

The sight Regulus found as he entered the room almost made him vomit. Sirius lay on the floor in a pool of blood, his chest rising and falling frantically, and that’s when Regulus decided his brother would no longer suffer for him.

He picked Sirius up and led him to the nearest fireplace. Knowing Sirius and Potter were close, Regulus threw Floo Powder into the chimney and loudly said Potter Manor, pushing his brother into green flames and watching him disappear.

Hearing the loud sound of Floo departure, his parents almost ran downstairs to find him standing next to the fireplace with a wand in his hand.

“Where is he?” Walburga hissed at him, followed by Orion’s murderous look.

Regulus swallowed thickly, and with a trembling voice, he replied, "Somewhere, you can’t hurt him anymore.”

He just saw his father raise his wand before everything went black.

•••

When he returned to Hogwarts in September, he wasn’t expecting to see James Potter standing on the platform alone, looking like he was waiting for someone. As Barty laughed obnoxiously next to him, the Gryffindor raised his head slightly. When he noticed Regulus, the boy’s eyes sparkled a little, and he started walking in his direction. Regulus stopped then and told his friends he'd catch up to them later.

“Hi,” James said sheepishly, and Regulus tried his best not to jump out of his skin.

“What do you want, Potter?” he asked, trying to sound confident but failing thanks to his high-pitched voice. The Gryffindor looked at him with a small smile, righting his glasses in what seemed like a nervous gesture.

“I wanted to thank you. For what you did for Sirius, I mean,” James’ voice was a little shaky, like the mare thought of what he saw that night made him want to cry. “And, well, how are you? I know from Sirius what kind of monsters they are, so how are you holding up?” the boy added quickly, seeming afraid Regulus would dismiss him.

And in other circumstances, he would probably tell him to fuck off and go away. But he decided he wasn’t a coward anymore, so instead, Regulus took a deep breath and looked into James’ eyes.

“To be completely honest with you, I’m not holding up. The way they treat me is fucked, but I prefer that over seeing this happen to Sirius. I assume your family helped him at least a bit, and I'm really grateful for that. If he doesn’t want to see me, tell him I miss him and I’m sorry.” As he said that last word, he wanted to leave and get back to his friends, but a gentle yet firm hand stopped him.

“If you—um,” James started, clearing his throat several times before he continued. “If you’d need to talk about it, or smush something, or—or anything really—come find me. I owe you for what you did for Pads.” His eyes were glistening with unshed tears and honesty.

Regulus smiled slightly and promised to seek out James if he needed it.

The first time Regulus sent an owl to the older boy was in the second week of October. The last six weeks have been hard but bearable. On Monday, October 7th, he received a letter from his mother, telling him she went through his room and found one of Sirius' vinyls hidden under the mattress. She attached a photograph to the letter; on it, Bowie's Diamond Dogs record was being eaten by blue flames. On the other side of the photo, written in neat cursive, were the words, 'If I find one more, you will end up like this'. His mother was mental; he couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t do that.

So, Regulus wrote a short note, 'Meet me in the abandoned classroom on the third floor after supper?' and sent it to Potter. As the older boy received the note on Tuesday’s morning, Regulus could see him looking for him in the sea of students. When their eyes finally met, James just nodded with determination written all over his face.

That’s how Regulus found himself sitting on the windowsill in an empty room, watching stars while waiting for his brother’s best friend to show up.

When he finally did, James took a place opposite Regulus on the windowsill and waited patiently for the younger boy to say something.

“My mother sent me a letter,” Regulus said after a while. He took it out of the back pocket in his trousers and handed it to James. The Gryffindor read it fast and took a deep, slightly shaky breath as he looked at the picture.

“Do you think—"

“She’s crazy, so I assume she means it,” Regulus replied, still looking at the stars. James shifted a little and put a hand on his gently. Regulus nodded once, letting the older boy take his hand in a soothing gesture.

After that night, it happened at least once each week: they sat there, sometimes talking, sometimes in complete silence. Regulus liked it. James never pushed him to say something he didn’t want to; he just waited patiently until Regulus felt comfortable enough to tell him on his own. He always took Regulus’ hand to ease the younger boy’s nerves. At some point, the hand-holding turned into James holding him close to his chest, which turned into small kisses on his nose, cheeks, and forehead, and eventually even that changed, turning into real kisses; it all felt so good. Regulus felt so good.

In December, a few days before Christmas break, they met again. Regulus couldn’t sleep the whole week leading up to the break, afraid of what would happen when he was back at Grimmauld Place.

“You don’t have to go there,” James whispered into his ear, rubbing soothing circles on Regulus’ bicep. They were sitting on their windowsill, cuddling; it was peaceful, made Regulus calm down a bit. “You can come to my place. Sirius would be so happy to spend Christmas with you. And my parents would love to have you there; they said that themselves,” he continued.

Regulus turned his head slightly to see the other’s eyes. “You spoke to your parents about me?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

The older boy smiled crookedly, saying, “Of course, what if you’ll say yes to this idea and they’re not prepared?” Reg laughed quietly at that answer.

He started thinking about it—spending Christmas in a house where he wouldn’t have to worry about being beaten up if he said the wrong thing—with his brother and James, which sounded oh so very good. But on the other side were his parents. He was scared they would find him and take him back, punishing him like never before.

“I can’t,” he said, the sadness almost palpable in his voice. “They would kill me for that.” James just held him tighter at that.

They fell into thick silence, both thinking about a solution to their problem.

“You know,” James started after some time. “We could write them a letter. Threaten them that you will go to the Wizengamot about the abuse and violence against you and Sirius if they even try to find you.”

“That wouldn’t work,” he replied. “They have half the Wizengamot under their thumb.”

“Yeah, but my parents are friends with the minister,” James smiled at him.

So when Regulus returned to his dormitory that night, he wrote a letter to his parents, saying exactly what he needed to say. As he finished, he sprinted to the owlery and sent it before he could change his mind.

Two days later, Regulus received the Howler. Hearing his mother's angry voice made his heart sink, but when he realized there was a scared tone in her voice that he would actually testify against her in the Magical Court, he knew he had won. He was free from her.

translation: It was me, mom

[bodyswapmischief]

Andrew's Holiday Part 1 (An interactive story)

Part 2 Part 3

"Fine! Maybe I won't fucking come home for Christmas!" Andrew hung up and threw his phone on his bed. His heart was racing. His hands were shaking. The whole world around him felt loud and bright. The panic that sat within him before the phone call did not leave him. Even now, with the call over, he felt worse. He could feel his body begin to react to stress like it always had. His blood pulsed. He began to sweat. Every neuron was firing in his brain. All of them were telling the brain the same thing. "There is something in us, and it needs to be out of us." His stomach began to bubble, and a sour taste began to coat his mouth. He jolted to the trash can by his bed, as everything in his stomach came out. Tears began to stream down his face with each convulsion of vomit.

"What's wrong, Andy?" A voice came from behind him. Shame washed throughout Andrew's body. "Go! I don't want you to see me like this!" He tried to yell. But, Oscar's presence just added to the anxiety in this moment, and Andrew threw up again.

"Are you sick! Do you need anything?" Oscar called out again. "I was just coming back from class and heard..." Oscar stammered, not knowing what to do in this moment. "Leave!" Andrew cried out in the corner. His back turned away from Oscar. He could still feel the uneasiness of his stomach. His body shook as he cried.

Oscar let out a sigh. "No ... Andy! I'm not gonna leave. I'm your boyfriend and I want to be here for you." Oscar knelt beside Andrew and began to rub his back. "I'll be here ... I'll be quiet. I'll let you process. Just let me know if you..." Before Oscar could finish, Andrew turned around. His head sank into Oscar's chest, and he let the tears rush out.

The two sat there for sometimes, as the tears of Andrew face began to dry. His nose clogged, and his eyes puffy red. He sighed, feeling like he could finally breathe. He felt so safe in Oscar's arms. He couldn't believe he got lucky enough to be paired with him in freshman year as roommates. How they spent every day together. The shared anxiety they had not knowing if the other was gay. But, now it was sophomore year, and they were committed to each other. And Oscar was proving it, in this moment. However, comforting Oscar was, Andrew felt like he didn't deserve it.

"I came out to my dad today ... it didn't go well." Andrew pushed himself away. The shaky anxiety could still be heard in his voice. And, his body plops onto his bed. Oscar follows him and sits at his side. "I'm sorry ..." Oscar grabbed Andrew's hand and began to rub it. "He was mad, of course, but also in denial ... Between cussing me out, he'd throw in talks about me coming home and him fixing me and taking me to therapy and getting me through this phase. So, I told him I'm not coming home."

Oscar shook his head with a pit of disgust in his stomach. "That's sick. Wow, I don't even know to say ..." He lies down next to Tyler and pulls him close to his body. "He's wrong, tho ... you know that, right? There is nothing wrong with you. You ... us ... we are prefect." Oscar gives Andrew a reassuring squeeze.

Why is Oscar so prefect? Is all Andrew could think about at this moment. "Yeah, I know that." Andrew finally smiles and rests his face against Oscar's chest. "You know ... my offer is still out there. You could come home with me for the holidays. My parents would love to meet you. And, I could help with any fees to change your ticket this late." Oscar turns onto his back. Excitement is clearly ringing from his voice.

Andrew turns on his back as well and weighs his options. Spending time with Oscar would he nice. Meeting his family could be interesting. But, is he really not going to go home? Would he punish his mother just because of his father. His mom has been accepting of him ever since he came out to her in high school. And, then all his friends would be there. He'd find ways to ignore his dad. But, maybe he just needed time alone. He could stay on campus and just spend time to think. Think about who he was without family or a boyfriend. He loved Oscar, but there was always this feeling of not being good enough for him. Maybe some time apart could help him with these feelings.

[ragingbookdragon]

The Vampire's Masquerade PT. 2

A Jason Todd x Vampire!Reader Story

Word Count: 14,090 Warnings: NSFW (Smut), Explicit Language, Violence, Mentions of Past Assault and Abuse

Author's Note: I made a story mixing DC and Skyrim and you're going to like it because that's what I've put on your plate. I've chaptered the story but Tumblrs a bitch and I can't post the entire thing so I'm going to do two parts. But it's still going to take forever to read. Enjoy! :) -Thorne

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

***Chapter Six***

He was uncomfortable. He was extremely uncomfortable under the scrutiny of his brothers and father, and yet she looked like she was over the moon as she laughed at another dumb joke Dick told. And he didn’t know what he was more unnerved by, the fact that she’d lied straight through her teeth about what she did for a living like it was the easiest thing in the world, or that his family of “Master Detectives” couldn’t figure out that the twenty-eight-year-old freelance artist was actually a ten-thousand-year-old vampire from another dimension—some detectives they were.

Jason watched as she grabbed the silver fork again and took a bite of the cheese souffle appetizer that Alfred had prepared for dinner. He worried about the contact of silver on her skin. None of the jewelry or silverware in her home was silver, in fact, nothing in her home was silver. It was either bronze or gold. She’d mentioned that prolonged exposure to silver would cause a rash and even if she were older than most vampires, and well-weathered against many of the things that would seriously wound younger ones, he knew it had to be causing discomfort to her.

As she chewed silently, he leaned over, turning his head away so his family couldn’t see his lips moving and whispered, “Is your hand, okay?”

She pressed a hand to her mouth as she swallowed and nodded. “I’m alright,” she replied too-cheerfully for his liking. “Thank you for asking.”

“Is something wrong, (Y/N)?” Dick questioned and they both looked at him.

She smiled and shook her head. “Oh no, I’m alright. I just had a bit of a…womanly pain before I came here earlier.” She sipped her wine. “Jason had some ibuprofen in his glove compartment and gave it to me.” Leaning over, she pressed her lips to his cheekbone, leaving a dark, wine red lip print. “He’s just worried about me.”

While his brothers snickered, Jason glared at his plate, incapable of stopping the crimson spreading over his cheeks. “You’re gonna pay for this later,” he muttered under his breath and she merely smiled in return.

“So, Richard—”

“Please, (Y/N),” he grinned. “Call me Dick.”

“Of course. Jason told me you used to work at the Blüdhaven Police Department. I remember the talent you possessed while working for Haly’s Circus.” Her eyes bore into his and Jason was slightly worried they’d see the auburn behind the green contact lenses. “Did you ever consider a career in gymnastics? I’m sure someone as talented as you could’ve been an Olympic gymnast.”

Dick nodded, setting down his glass of water. “I did compete in some tournaments growing up, but I guess I’ve always had the desire to serve the public. Guess BPD was the closest I could get.”

(Y/N) smiled wholeheartedly at him. “A noble desire, indeed, Dick. I’ve no doubt the family around you is proud of your accomplishments.” His cheeks tinted pink, and he looked down at his plate, murmuring a quiet ‘thank you’, and she glanced at Tim.

“Jason’s spoken quite a lot about you as well, Timot—Tim. He says when Bruce isn’t working at Wayne Enterprises, you act as the CEO.”

Tim glanced up from the souffle, cheeks stuffed, and immediately flushed as he swallowed the food in his mouth. “Uh, yes. I do.” He coughed a bit. “It’s, uh, no big deal.”

Her eyes widened and she leaned forward a bit. “No big deal? That company has so many different branches and subsidiaries! You say no big deal but keeping track of every one is a feat all on its own!” (Y/N) shot him a knowing look and winked. “I bet you’re wicked smart though, hmm? Genius level and you could do it with your eyes closed, can’t you?”

He didn’t say anything, but the small curve of his lips told her all she needed to know, and when she turned her gaze on Damian, he simply rolled his eyes. “Is it my turn for the foolish flattery?” he deadpanned, and Jason gripped the edge of the table.

“Be nice,” he warned darkly and (Y/N) inconspicuously rested her hand on his thigh, squeezing gently.

“I guess you saw through me, huh Damian?” she questioned, and he scoffed, slouching enough in his chair to tell her he was bored.

“Richard isn’t a career cop and Timothy works with Lucius who is the actual CEO.” His evergreen eyes narrowed. “Even you would scrape the barrel for those compliments.”

When Jason’s thigh started tensing, she tightened her grip and smirked. “Rapiers or katanas?”

“Katanas,” he glared. “Cutlasses or scimitars?”

“Cutlass,” (Y/N) replied. “Easier to use in close quarters.”

“Hand to hand mastery?”

“I’d like to say I can hold my own but I’m certain you’d wipe the floor with me,” she teased, and he smirked for a split second then it was gone.

“One last question,” he muttered. “Cats or dogs?”

(Y/N) leaned forward and whispered, “Why limit yourself to just the two?”

For a moment they simply stared at each other, then Damian glanced at Jason. “She’s acceptable.”

“Happy to get your approval,” Jason griped, and she patted his thigh quietly.

“Well, Ifor one am happy to have it,” she finalized, and shifted when Alfred pulled the souffle out of her way and placed down the main course. “Thank you, Mister Alfred.”

He smiled warmly at her. “You’re most welcome, Miss (Y/N).” he placed the other dishes around the table, explaining, “Tonight’s dish is grilled pheasant with a juniper berry and rosemary sauce, accompanied by roasted potatoes and brussels sprouts.”

She watched the others pick up their forks and start eating but her hesitance kept her from it. Juniper wasn’t poisonous to her, but it would weaken her considerably to the effects of fire. She could feel her lungs begin to tighten as she stared at the grilled bird drizzled in the burgundy sauce. All she had to do was pick up her fork and put it in her mouth and smile through it, but she couldn’t manage to do it.

“Never had pheasant before, (Y/N)?”

Her head shot up and she gaped at Bruce who had a knowing look as he cut into it with his knife. “What?” she said, just shy of shocked.

He chuckled. “The first time Alfred made this, I wouldn’t eat it because it smelled funny.” Bruce’s steely blue eyes found hers and he smiled. “I promise it tastes better than it smells.”

(Y/N) gave him a tight smile and nodded. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be awkward.”

“No worries, Miss (Y/N),” Alfred replied. “I would be alright with making you something else, if you wish.”

He started reaching for her plate and her eyes widened as she shook her head. “What? No!” the family stared at her and she felt her cheeks warm. She inhaled and cleared her throat. “Please don’t, Mister Alfred, I’ll eat it.”

(Y/N) cut into it quickly and stuck a piece in her mouth, ignoring the burning sensation rolling over her tongue as she chewed, and down her throat as she swallowed.

She let her eyes widen again and she made a show of gaping at the plate then back to him. “Oh wow! That’s fantastic!” she huffed a laugh an embarrassed laugh. “Of course, I’d be worried about something I never tried.”

Alfred chuckled, as did the others, though Jason knew something was wrong by the way she winced with every bite, but he didn’t voice his concern for fear of letting them know her secret.

***

(Y/N) stifled a yawn behind her hand and he glanced over. “Tired?”

She nodded. “Just a bit, but I’m alright.”

Jason shook his head. “We can go to bed if we want.”

“But the house is—oh you mean stay here?” she questioned, and he nodded. “But I don’t want to put anyone out.”

“You’re more than welcome to stay here, (Y/N),” Bruce said. “I’d be a horrible father and host if I said get out.”

Laughing, she nodded her head and met Jason’s eyes. “Are you?” He nodded and started pushing back his chair.

“We’re gonna go to bed,” he commented, holding out his hand to her.

She took it and stood to her feet, pushing in her chair behind her, then she looked at his family. “Thank you for inviting me for dinner. It and the conversation were wonderful.” The others smiled and waved, watching as Jason led her out of the dining room and down the hall.

When they were far enough away, he spun around and took her face in his hands. “Are you okay?”

(Y/N) shook her head. “I need to get to a bathroom. I’m going to be sick.”

Jason nodded and pulled her up the stairs. “My bedroom is on the farthest end of the manor. No one will hear you.” He shot a worried look back at her. “What was it?”

“The juniper sauce,” she groaned, putting the back of her hand to her mouth as her stomach churned uncomfortably. “It weakens my ability to resist fire.” She suddenly stopped, leaning against the wall, and Jason gaped as her skin flushed with red swirls, all the way from her face to her toes.

He wasted no time, immediately picking her up in his arms as he all but sprinted to his bedroom, shoving the door open with his hip. (Y/N) saw the bathroom in the corner of the room and rolled out of his arms, almost gliding to the bathroom—he barely saw her move, like flash steps—in one place one moment in another the next.

She slammed the door behind her, and he closed his bedroom door as he heard the toilet seat shove open, and she began retching. Jason felt terrible as he locked the door and made his way to the bathroom, listening to her. He also felt very disturbed because he’d never heard such violent convulsing.

“Are you okay, (Y/N)?” he worried. “Can I do anything?”

A low groan followed by another round of vomiting sounded from inside and she grunted, “I’d ask for—ngh—clean blood but…but I just have to—oh Divines—ride out the effect.”

Jason didn’t like that answer. “Give me something to do, doll. I feel horrible.”

“It’s not your—ugh—fault, darling,” she hissed. “Just—just get in bed and wait for me.”

(Y/N) went silent after that and he was still beside himself about her, but at least she wasn’t puking anymore, and Jason heaved a sigh, moving away from the door to sit on the bed, eyes still trained on the bathroom.

***

It was almost three full hours before the bedroom door opened and he shot up, eyes wide but still hazy from sleep. Jason hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep.

(Y/N) thrust a thumb back towards the bathroom. “I borrowed an extra toothbrush and your mouthwash,” she muttered. “I hope you don’t mind.”

He shook his head, holding out his arms and she walked to him, letting him wrap them around her legs as she rested her hands on his shoulders.

“Are you feeling better now?” he questioned, eyebrows pulled in concern and she offered a smile that looked a lot like a grimace.

“I’d prefer to avoid any flames for the time being, but yes, I’m much better now.”

Jason lowered his head. “I’m so sorry, (Y/N). I didn’t know that juniper was poisonous to you.”

This time she did smile as she crawled into his lap, letting him bury his face in her shoulder. “You didn’t know, Jason.”

“I should’ve,” he mumbled, words muffled against her sweater. “I should know by now what’s going to harm you.”

(Y/N) sighed and pulled back, stifling a giggle when he whined from the loss of contact. “Look at me, Jason,” she murmured, and he did albeit shamefully. “I can be harmed by anything that you can be. Gunshots, stab wounds, physical attacks,” she shrugged. “Food is not so much a touchy subject. The things that make me ill are far, few, and in between.”

She placed a hand on his cheek. “It just so happens that juniper is one of those things, but it’s not your fault and neither is it anyone else’s. Things just happen sometimes.”

He took a moment to absorb her words, then he asked quietly, “…Are you sure you’re feeling better?”

(Y/N) gazed at him, and something in her eyes made his body flush with desire and she suddenly grinned. “I can show you if you’d like?” Rather than waiting for a response, she slipped off his lap and sunk to her knees in front of him and Jason’s legs automatically spread to accommodate her. She giggled. “I guess you know where this is going, darling?”

“I think and I very much hope it is,” he agreed, heart fluttering, watching with enjoyment as she placed her hands on his thighs and shoved them farther.

“Take your pants off,” she commanded lowly, and Jason was scrambling for his belt buckle, then shimmying out of his jeans. (Y/N) gave an amused hum. “I’ve half a mind to make a joke about how obedient you are.”

“You’re a woman worthy of my obedience, (Y/N),” he replied simply before stripping his shirt staring down at her on her knees for him.

She chuckled and biting at his thigh. “I’m worthy of a lot,” she retorted. “Much more when I was back in my homeland.”

“Did you sit on a throne and rule over the people?” he questioned, grunting when she dug her fingers underneath the seam of his boxers.

(Y/N) leaned up, lips brushing his ear as she whispered, “Oh darling, I was the most powerful being alive. There was nothing I didn’t have.” She shoved him back so that he was propped up on his elbows and she pressed kisses to his chest, nipping her way down his body until she got to his groin.

Jason was already hard, and she curled her fingers in his boxers and tugged them down and off when he lifted his hips. She took his length in her hand and gave him a tug, smirking when his hips jumped, a grunt escaping him, then she stilled, and he gaped at her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, voice straining as he barely kept himself from thrusting into her grip.

“Oh, I’m simply waiting for you to tell me what you want.” (Y/N) responded with a pleasant smile and he scowled.

“Isn’t that a little obvious?” he retorted, inhaling when she nipped at his thigh.

“What? You mean the way your cock is standing at attention for me?” she rolled her eyes “I had no idea.”

Jason growled and cocked a leg up, nudging her behind. “I want your mouth, (Y/N).”

“Say please,” she cooed, shifting her hand so she could run her thumb up the thick vein that ran the length of him.

He groaned and briefly shut his eyes as she applied pressure. “Please, (Y/N).”

“Just a little more, darling,” she murmured, nipping the juncture of his thigh and pelvis.

“(Y/N), please, put those pretty lips on my cock and suck me,” he begged, and Jason’s eyes went wide when she obeyed, taking his head in her mouth. “Fuck,” he cursed, expression contorting with pleasure as she dipped her tongue into his slit, her hand starting to move on his length.

She hummed and his back arched as the vibrations went straight through his cock, then she flattened her tongue and took him into her mouth as far as she could.

“Oh shit, (Y/N),” he breathed, and shifted one of his arms, curling his hand around her head. Jason groaned as her jaw went slack and he tugged her, watching her head bob up and down.

Hollowing her cheeks, she pulled back and kept his head in her mouth while her hand slicked up and down his cock.

“(Y/N),” he purred, and she met his teal eyes. “Touch yourself for me, doll.” He let out a moan when he saw her free hand disappear between her thighs. Jason couldn’t see but when he heard her muffled gasp and felt her knees spread, hitting his ankles, he knew she was.

“Are your fingers inside?” he questioned, and she hummed, bobbing her head as she pushed her digits in herself. “Imagining my cock instead?”

Her eyes found his and he saw the desire clouded with irritation—Jason did get cocky when it came to sex. (Y/N) lifted her head and swirled her tongue around the head of his length, sucking sharply and his hips jerked, as he let out a startled moan.

“Right there, doll. Right there.” Jason moved his hand and cupped her cheek, pressing his thumb against his head when it poked the side of her mouth. “I wanna know what lucky bastard you practiced on to get this good,” he praised. “Fuck, your mouth is talented.” She smirked around his cock and tongued his slit again. “I’m gonna come of you keep doing that, doll.”

He immediately realized that was horrible to tell her because with her track record, she would’ve started teasing him, but evidently, she wasn’t in the mood too because she did it again. And again. And again. Until Jason’s hips were rising off the bed and he was whimpering quiet little, “Yes, yes, yeses.”

And the warmth spread across her tongue, bitter, but she groaned and swallowed him, all the while Jason’s eyes were screwed shut, toes curling as the tightness in his gut suddenly snapped.

(Y/N) pulled away when he moaned lowly and he watched her press her cheek to his thigh, staring up at him with glazed eyes as she panted and he reached down, caressing her cheek.

“You did so well, doll. It’s your turn, please.” He pleaded, thumbing her lip and she took it in her mouth, sucking it. Jason’s gut stirred again, and he begged, “Come on your fingers, (Y/N). All over them. Come for me.”

He watched her go still, then shudder with a pitched whine against his leg before she collapsed against him with a heavy breath. They caught their beath, then she rose and climbed onto the bed, lying beside him.

For a moment, they were silent, then he commented, “That was incredible.”

(Y/N) giggled and turned her head, kissing his shoulder. “Tell me about it.”

She sighed, feeling sleep calling to her and he murmured, “Tired?”

“A bit,” she answered. “I might be more resistant to things because of my age, but I definitely notice that I recover slower.” She shimmied out of her pants and sweater before crawling up to the covers.

Jason followed, slipping underneath with her, and he pulled (Y/N) into his arms, lifting the sheet and comforter over them.

“Sleeping it off can’t hurt, huh?”

She snorted halfheartedly, already feeling her eyelids drooping as she propped her head on his shoulder, nose brushing against his neck. “That’s how I’ve dealt with…a lot of my problems.”

He chuckled. “Same here, doll.” Jason kissed her forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you more,” (Y/N) murmured, and he felt her breathing even out against his throat moments later.

***Chapter Seven***

The werewolf hadn’t shown up in a month, and while the citizens of Gotham had celebrated by returning to the nightlife, like the idiots they were, Jason and his family knew otherwise that it was still out there, waiting for another hunt. At least, that’s what (Y/N) had told him, and he believed her more than anything though even she herself was concerned about how quiet the nights had become, and he’d gotten more than comfortable patrolling with her following close behind in the shadows, usually invisible to avoid detection.

Jason knew she was using him as bait for the Lycan, waiting for it, to see if it would try attacking him. Had it been anyone other than her, he would’ve said hell no, but he knew (Y/N) was always watching him and his surroundings, and there was no one he trusted more to watch his six than her.

That being said, she wasn’t with him that night, a call from one of the council members had finally come and she’d stayed behind to discuss a course of action, leaving Jason to patrol his portion of the city alone. He was fine alone but (Y/N) insisted that Nevermore come with him just in case; he agreed when she shot him that firm glare and he couldn’t help but cave, sighing when the raven pecked at his helmet, sitting atop his shoulder pads.

***

Jason stood on the ledge of the clocktower, staring out at the large expanse of city before him. Usually, he knew where to start but right now he kept running the “If-I-Were-Blank-Where-Would-I-Hide?” question, wondering where a werewolf would be—it wasn’t in the sewers, they’d checked multiple times.

He sighed just as the sound of boots came behind him and he glanced over his shoulder, seeing Nightwing and Red Robin coming his way. “Hey,” he muttered, going back to the city.

“You’ve been up here for like thirty minutes, Hood. The city isn’t going to patrol itself.” Nightwing commented. “Something on your mind?”

He shrugged. “Trying to think where it’s hiding.”

“The werewolf?” Red Robin questioned, though it sounded rhetorical.

“Yeah,” he replied. “All this city space and one giant beast. You’d think we’d be able to find it.”

“Maybe it got shot with a silver bullet?” Nightwing offered. “Or taken up by animal control?”

Red Robin snickered but Jason merely raised his arm and whistled, waiting while his brothers stared at him like he had three heads.

A low croak sounded above, and they watched as the raven fluttered and perched on his wrist. “Find anything?” he asked it and the bird turned its head and shook it. “Damn,” Jason cursed and fished around in his pocket for a treat. “Keep a lookout would you, bud?” The raven cawed and took off into the night sky once more.

“Was that a crow?” Nightwing asked, blinking in shock and Jason bristled.

“He’s a raven. Name’s Nevermore.”

“Where’d you find a trained raven?” Red Robin quizzed with wonder.

Jason glanced at him. “He’s (Y/N)’s.”

Nightwing’s jaw went slack. “She’s—she’s got a raven?”

“And a wolfdog, two cats, and a Neapolitan Mastiff named Fang.” He looked at his eldest brother. “The little demon-spawn would keel over if he met them.”

“Wait, if Nevermore’s (Y/N)’s raven…and he’s with you…does that mean…?” Red Robin trailed off and Jason nodded.

“Yeah, she figured out pretty quick actually,” he remarked. “She’s a lot more than what she lets on.”

“What? Is she like us?” Nightwing joked, Red Robin cackling along and Jason turned his head.

“(Y/N) outclasses every one of us. Especially Bruce. In every way. And I’m not saying that because I’m her boyfriend. I’m saying it as warrior who knows she’s my better.” It was all he said before diving off the ledge, shouting, “Have fun patrolling your sectors, losers!”

***

It had come out of nowhere during the evening and knocked him out of mid-grapple before he’d even realized what it was. Jason rolled along the rooftop a couple times before he slammed into the barrier with a pained grunt. Gravel scattered across the roof and he looked up, seeing the werewolf hunched over on all fours, saliva dripping from its jowls as it growled, and he felt his stomach clench in fear.

“Ah crap,” he hissed quietly and slowly got to his feet, all the while the beast started edging towards him.

A sharp cry echoed above and stupidly, he looked up to see Nevermore. It was all the time the creature needed, lurching forward with a snarl.

Jason brought his arm up as the werewolf’s clawed hand came down at him. It tore through his brown leather jacket like it was a wet napkin, and he thanked God that (Y/N) had taken it upon herself to reforge most of his body-armor plates because when the creature’s nails raked across his wrist guard, it sparked viciously, but didn’t shear.

He cocked his leg out and hit the beast in the stomach as hard as he could, shouting, “Nevermore! Go get her!”

Another cry sounded above, and Jason prayed that he had the strength to hold out as the Lycan came back his way.

***

She rubbed at her temples and resisted the urge to slam her head into the wall for what seemed like the millionth time. “I know, Alexander,” she griped. “I know what the council designations are. I fucking wrote them. What I want to know is when are you imbeciles going to contact the Lycan Alliance Colony in Virginia so we can figure out who the hell is in Gotham.”

The vampire on the line sighed. It’s not that simple, (Y/N), and you know it.

“Not that sim—Alexander, all you have to do is pick up the fucking phone and contact the chambers. Then you meet and acknowledge the problem and contact the LAC in Virginia. How hard is that?”

It’s time consuming, (Y/N). We’ve already got—

“WE ARE IMMORTAL! WE HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD!” (Y/N) screeched. “I CANNOT KILL THIS WEREWOLF UNTIL THE LCA IS CONTACTED AND INFORMED THEY’VE LOST ONE!” Her blood boiled. “INNOCENT PEOPLE AR BEING MURDERED, ALEXANDER! I CANNOT WAIT FOREVER!” Silence was all she heard for a moment after her tirade.

I will contact Lady Heady and Lord Bartholomew and see what we can fit into our schedules.

(Y/N) bit her tongue so hard it bled and before she could speak, something flapped against her living room window, frantic squawking following. She put the phone down, ignoring the vampire’s calls and opened the window, gaping at Nevermore who was still cawing wildly.

“Nevermore!” she shouted, trying to calm him. “It’s alright! What’s the matter?”

He hopped repeatedly along the window ledge and croaked, pointing his beak back towards where he’d flown and she bent forward, smelling his feathers—its blunt scent invaded her senses and she recoiled with a hiss.

“Where is it?” (Y/N) demanded, deathly quiet.

Nevermore answered her with a squawk and she grabbed the window ledge, her skin turning that dark gargoyle shade as her fingernails grew, scratching the wooden frame, and her eyes glowed a bright crimson.

***

Jason’s back hit the edge of the roof, knocking the wind out of him, and he collapsed into the gravel. He pitched forward, catching himself on his hands while he coughed harshly, blood splattering across the rocks. His left arm had already gone numb from blocking every swipe and his right leg was bleeding in three different places; he was sure he’d broken multiple ribs too; maybe his sternum, but in the grand scheme of things, Jason was lucky the werewolf hadn’t disemboweled him yet.

A growl made his head cock up and his breathing stuttered as the beast came around for another swipe. He tried to climb to his feet, but he couldn’t. He’d wasted way too much stamina blocking and waiting the fight out, and now he had nothing left. His body was too tired to keep moving. He was going to get ripped to shreds all the while mentally aware.

Jason’s eyes went wide as it got within striking distance, and a blur of gray overtook his vision and the most vicious snarl he’d ever heard filled his ears. He watched as the blur suddenly expanded and in the light of the city, he saw the full-bodied, gray wings stretched out before him. He thought it was Bruce at first. The points of the wings were sharp and black, and Jason saw the muscled legs beneath them, just as he looked up and saw the white-haired head snarl again, baring its razor-sharp teeth.

His eyes darted to the werewolf who was coming back to strike. The creature let it come, dodging the arm before it struck back, a single slash with its long, black-clawed hand and the beast recoiled with a cry of pain, bright red blood flowing down its face. The clawed hand dropped something, and Jason gaped as one of the werewolf’s yellow eyeballs bounced; it was quickly squashed into mush by the creature who screeched one last time and the Lycan turned tail and fled, outmatched, and wounded.

When it was clear, the winged being turned and Jason shifted back just a hair as he came face to face with the ashen gray creature. His breath caught in his throat as he took in the facial features, gaunt skin pulled taut over high cheekbones, nose flat and pointed with wide nostrils, brow bone full over its eerie crimson eyes. His gaze lowered to the thin-lipped, open mouth and he stared at the pointed teeth and canines.

“Jason,” it boomed, voice like thunder, and knelt, clawed hands reaching out. He wanted to move away but couldn’t, and when the ice-cold palm touched his cheek and its eyes narrowed in what looked like concern, suddenly he realized.

“(Y/N)?” he whispered, and she nodded, placing her other palm to his cheek.

“I got here as soon as Nevermore called,” she replied, then looked down his body. “Divines, Jason. We—I have to get you somewhere safe.” She moved, one arm curling under his legs, the other his back and she lifted him like he weighed nothing.

He let his head rest on the frigid gold metal covering her shoulder, but it was nothing compared to the relief he felt now that he was safe. “Held out as long as I could,” he groaned, and she stepped up onto the ledge before spreading her wings out.

“You did well, darling,” she praised. “I’m proud of you despite my fear.”

Her voice sounded so distorted from its usual one, but Jason wasn’t bothered—this was still (Y/N), just another form. She took off the ledge in the opposite direction of her home and he inhaled sharply when he went weightless, her heavy wings beating around them.

“I have you, Jason. You will not fall,” (Y/N) affirmed. “Rest darling, you will need it.”

Far be it from him to disobey a request like that, especially with how exhausted he was, and the last thing he remembered was comforting beat of her wings, and the soothing timbre of her voice.

***

The sound of calmly running water woke him and when he came to, Jason felt like he was laying on a bed of stone. When he turned his head and looked beside him, he realized he was laying on a bed of stone. With a groan, he pushed himself up and glanced down at his body as the blanket covering him fell down. He was still in his undergarments, but he had no stiches or scars and he wondered if (Y/N) had used her magic to heal him this time.

At the thought of her he looked around, eyes widening at the amazement surrounding him. He sat on a stone bed surrounded by ankle deep water in the middle of what looked like a natural waterfall. Ivy grew along the walls of the cavern and he saw the moon shining on him from a hole in the ceiling. It felt like one of those ethereal places you only ever dreamed of discovering.

Drawing his eyes down, he saw (Y/N) sitting at the end of the stone bed, no longer in her other form, her legs crossed beneath her, eyes closed. Her hands were resting on her knees, palms up and he watched the purple magic swirl between them, like the northern lights, and Jason took a moment to just gaze at her. She looked beautiful. Peacefully beautiful.

He reached for her. “(Y/N).”

Even though his voice was a whisper, her ember eyes snapped open, and the purple spell faded as she breathed, “You’re awake.”

Jason blinked. “I thought you were meditating or something?”

(Y/N) shook her head and inched forward so she could sit next to him. “I was spellcasting while you recovered.”

“What spell?”

“A life detection spell. I wanted to make sure nothing came here while you slept.” She raised a hand and brushed it through his hair before sighing, “Thank the Divines you’re alright. I—I was so scared when I got you here.” Her hand moved to his face, cupping his cheek.

Jason reached up and cradled her hand to his face. “Did something happen?”

“You had already slipped unconscious, and I was worried you were losing too much blood internally.” Her thumb twitched against his skin. “I pooled all my magic into my Restoration spells and healed you for the better part of two hours.” She gazed at him. “Are you hurting anywhere?”

He shook his head. “Nowhere, (Y/N). I feel great, in fact. Like I’ve lost aches I didn’t know I had.”

She returned his quip with a halfhearted smile. “Yes, that’s the power of Restoration healing.”

“But you don’t seem very happy about that.” He commented and she shook her head.

“You were almost murdered because I wasn’t with you and the werewolf got away.”

Jason wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her to him, laying back on the stone bed. She laid her cheek against his bare chest, her hand flat against his heart. “(Y/N), you got there in time. That’s all that matters to me,” he murmured as he rubbed her back.

“But you were hurt.”

“You healed me.”

“The werewolf still got away.”

“Then we’ll find it again,” he countered and propped his arm behind his head, gazing at her. “You scratched it’s eyeball out and it bled. There’s DNA on that rooftop we can use to track it with.” He smiled. “For someone who hasn’t done this in a while, you proved you’ve still got it.”

(Y/N) exhaled through her nose, but she cracked a smile. “Thank you, Jason.”

He hummed. “Always, doll.” He kneaded his fingers into her flesh, asking, “Did you learn anything when you were fighting it?”

“I did,” she said. “I’m falling on intuition here, but I think it’s feral.”

“Feral? Like wild?” Jason made a face. “They are wild werewolves?”

(Y/N) snorted. “Indeed, there are.” She propped her chin on his chest and looked at him. “Vampirism and Lycanthropy are quite different when it comes to actually being the creature you become. Vampires completely transform—we’re no longer humans. But werewolves are still humans, they just have the wolf spirit inside.”

“So what? They call on the spirit to transform?”

“Mhm. When you take on the wolf form for the first time you call on the wolf spirit, but some can’t separate the animal from themselves and eventually go feral. Trapped. Lost forever.”

His eyes narrowed like he was figuring something out. “Sounds like you’re speaking from personal experience.”

(Y/N) nodded. “At the time that I accepted the gift of vampirism, I was a werewolf, but Harkon’s blood purged it from my body.”

“The way you talk about him makes him seem like some overlord who was in power because he was the greatest vampire. Was he like a pureblood or something?”

She shook her head. “No. Harkon wasn’t a pureblood, but he did get his vampirism straight from Molag Bal and not another vampire like the ones in his court.”

Jason’s brows furrowed. “Who the hell is Molag Bal?”

Her mouth opened, then it snapped shut and she tipped her head side to side. “Okay, this won’t make sense unless I explain it completely.” He gestured for her to continue. “So, in my realm there are two types of deities which we worship. The first are called Aedra, which roughly translates to ‘our ancestors’, and they are essentially the Gods that created the lands and everything. In the most common pantheon, there are eight Aedra: Akatosh, Arkay, Dibella, Julianos, Kynareth, Mara, Stendarr, and Zenithar. Each correlate with some type of virtue: beauty, love, time, fortune, fortitude, you get the point.”

(Y/N) took a breath. “The second kind of deity are called Daedra and that translates to ‘not our ancestors’. They’re typically viewed as evil and worshiping them out in public is not a good idea. Daedra worshipers are very secretive about their beliefs for fear of persecution. I have witnessed it firsthand,” She admitted. “There are seventeen Daedric deities and they are: Azura, Boethiah, Clavicus Vile, Hermaeus Mora, Hircine, Jyggalag, Malacath, Mehrunes Dagon, Mephala, Meridia, Molag Bal, Namira, Nocturnal, Peryite, Sanguine, Sheogorath, and Vaermina.”

“Who did you worship out of both?”

“When it came to Aedra, I really only followed one deity and that was Akatosh. I was—am blessed with great power and called, ‘Dragonborn’. My body is normal, but my soul is that of a dragon. I can speak their tongue and do lots of other weird shit I’ll tell you later. But Akatosh divinely gifted me the soul and blood of a dragon so I hold him in reverence.”

“Is that why you always say ‘Divines’?” he questioned, and she nodded. “That explains a lot.”

(Y/N) snorted. “When it came to the Daedra however, it’s hard to exist in my realm and not at some point interact with them. They like messing with people, it’s…their nature to change things.” She tipped her head. “I’ve talked to them all, met four in person. I personally reverenced Azura, Meridia, Nocturnal, Sanguine, and sometimes Sheogorath, but honestly that fucker is balls to the walls crazy.”

Jason chuckled. “Sounds like he’d fit right in with Gotham.”

“Oh, he would, absolutely,” she agreed. “But, to answer your original question, Molag Bal is a Daedric Prince who is revered as the Lord of Domination and Enslavement. He is also the father of all vampires, though the first woman was…not a willing participant of the process.” He fell silent at her words. “He raped her and left her for dead. Legend has it that he shed one drop of blood on her brow and when a tribe found her, they tried to heal her, but she appeared to have died. They made her a funeral pyre and lit it.”

(Y/N) frowned. “She walked out of the flames as the first pureblooded vampire and in a fit of rage, slaughtered the nomads, ripping the women’s throats out, feasting on the children’s eyeballs, and raping the men.” Her voice quieted. “She became known as the first ‘Daughter of Coldharbour’.”

Her eyes found Jason’s and she could see the horror and revulsion within them; she didn’t blame him. “She is where vampirism descends from in my lands, unless Molag Bal grants it instead.”

Jason took a long moment to speak, and when he did, his voice was almost a whisper. “You said she was the first? Were…were there more?”

(Y/N) nodded. “A tradition grew amongst his worshippers where on his invocation day, the females of the cults would be offered to him. The women lucky enough to survive emerge as pureblood vampires and henceforth referred to as ‘Daughters of Coldharbour.” Her eyes darkened. “My friend, Serana, who was Harkon’s daughter…was one. As was her mother. They both were a part of the ceremony.”

“They did so willingly?”

She couldn’t help but shrug. “They were his followers and being selected to participate in the ritual was held in great honor and not something that was rejected lightly. Knowing Harkon…Serana and her mom didn’t have a choice but to accept it. Though Serana told me all I needed to know about the ceremony. It was degrading and agonizing, and she didn’t want to revisit it.”

They fell silent and Jason mulled a question on his tongue that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to ask or not until she whispered, “You can ask me whatever it is you wish to, Jason.”

His hand tightened on her back. “Did you…are you a…”

“A Daughter of Coldharbour?” he nodded, and she shook her head. “No. Even if Molag Bal had ever personally requested my presence I would never accept.” Her eyes darkened with a hatred so cold, Jason almost shivered. “If Daedric Princes could be killed, I’d’ve stomped into his domain and slaughtered him for everyone he’s hurt.”

(Y/N) stared into his eyes. “Are you relieved I’m not one?”

Jason’s expression filled with agony. “No, it’s…the thought that you could’ve endured such an event just…makes me—it makes me—”

She cut him off by leaning up and pressing a kiss to his lips. “I know,” she murmured. “I know Jason…and thank you.”

Pulling away enough to gaze at her, he breathed, “I love you, (Y/N). More than you will ever know.”

“I love you most,” she promised, resting her head back on his chest. “Rest, darling. We can both still rest until the morning.”

***Chapter Eight***

Jason hadn’t spoken to Bruce about the incident with the werewolf, knowing that it would also involve (Y/N)’s secret too. Instead, they both started their own tracking of the Lycan in addition to the normal route patrolling. Apparently as well, in her haste to get to him that night, she’d grabbed a bottle of wolfsbane too and applied it to her claws. Its healing capabilities would be slowed down considerably, and she’d assured Jason that the wound she’d given it would take at least a month of healing meaning they’d have some time to do more tracking.

It also happened that the monthlong wait fell in time with Bruce’s annual Wayne Charity Gala, and while Jason had been planning on inviting (Y/N) to it, the continual pestering from his brothers almost made him keep his mouth shut and skip it entirely. They were just as captivated by her as he was—he wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but the night was young, and (Y/N)’d yet to arrive.

***

He sipped the golden champagne from his chute and ignored the urge to cold cock Dick who was practically stuck to his side.

“C’mon, Jason!” he whined. “Please tell me you invited (Y/N)!”

Following the crowd silently, he waited patiently for her head to pop in the crowd.

“Richard, you are embarrassing yourself and the family,” Damian muttered. “Todd invited her. Relax.”

“Or he didn’t because we scared her off,” Tim remarked, grinning when Jason’s gaze narrowed at the statement.

Of course, that set Dick off again and after the fifth whine, Jason reached over and gripped his eldest brother’s bowtie, crumpling it and his collar in a white-knuckle grab as he hissed, “For the last time, she’s coming. Now quit fucking badgering me and go do something useful with your useless self before I lose my goddamn patience and shove this chute up yours.”

Dick choked slightly, grinning, “Think that’ll fit up my chute?” His brothers snickered and Jason glared and let him go. He straightened out his collar and bowtie. “Just making sure you did, Little-wing.”

“Why?” Jason quizzed, exasperation evident in his tone as he glared at him. “Last time I checked, (Y/N)’s my girlfriend.”

“Well yeah,” Dick started, glancing around the room. “But we’ve only seen her that once and you haven’t brought…her…” he trailed off, jaw slacking, and he slapped the back of his hand against Jason’s chest. “Jason,” Dick breathed. “Look.”

Jason followed his brother’s gaze to the main entrance of the event and suddenly, his brother’s odd mood shift made sense because he too went slack jawed as (Y/N) stepped into the ballroom, head high and shoulders squared like she the main event herself.

(Y/N) wore a strapless gown that looked like she pulled it straight out of Gone With The Wind, red fabric and black laced up to her chest where it split across and around her arms. There were little gold chains dangling from the arm cuffs and she wore elbow length black silk gloves.

He trailed his eyes up her bare collarbones to her face and neck where she had a black velvet choker wrapped tight around her neck, a garnet the size of his pinky resting in a gold plate, dangling off it. Her lips were a deep wine red, and her eyelids were painted elegantly with black and gold eyeshadow, topped off with perfectly drawn eyeliner and dramatic eyelashes.

Everyone in the room was spellbound by her and Jason’s feet were moving before he knew what was happening, heading straight to her. She saw him coming and her dark lips split into a pearly white smile, making his knees go weak and he almost fell at her feet. Not that that seemed like a terrible idea because from the glares of the women and the hot-eyed stares from the men around, he wasn’t the only one who wanted to drop to his knees and worship her. Something tight pooled in his gut at the thought.

(Y/N) held out her hand and watched with amusement as he took it and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “Good boy,” she murmured, and he felt that tightness again as he pulled away.

“(Y/N), you look…” he shook his head, unable to find the words.

“Beautiful?” she offered, and Jason swallowed.

“That and everything more,” he whispered, and she laughed, sending shivers down his spine.

“I’d love to hear them all, darling.” She stepped towards him and grazed his cheek with the back of her hand before sealing his lips in a kiss that had his whole body flushing as gasps echoed around them. But he didn’t give a damn—he was too busy being seduced by the woman in front of him.

(Y/N) pulled away and smirked at the look on his face. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how to speak, Jason.”

He chuckled and held his arm out for her to take. “Not just yet, doll. But something tells me I will tonight.”

“Count on it,” she winked and rested her palm on his wrist, allowing him to escort her around.

“Everyone is staring at you,” he murmured as they walked towards his family. “I think it’s the dress.”

She didn’t make the show of glancing down, but she hummed. “You said formal, and this was as formal as I have.”

“Really? A corset and a period gown?”

“Don’t act like it doesn’t make you want to bend me over a table, darling. I saw your eyes when you gaped at me,” she retorted with a smile and he huffed.

“You saw that?”

“The way you lost all control of your facial features and body? Oh yes. I saw it all.”

Jason grunted though a smile was on his face as they met his family. “Mock my attraction to you at your own peril, (Y/N),” he threatened lowly, and she giggled.

“Oh, I tremblewith fear, darling,” she murmured, then lifted her hand for Bruce to take. “Bruce, it’s a pleasure to see you again. You look wonderful tonight.”

He chuckled and kissed her hand. “And you look radiant, (Y/N). I think you outshine us all.”

Her laugh was like tinkling chimes and she smiled at Dick who took her hand and kissed it too before tugging her forward just a bit. “Would you care to dance, (Y/N)?” he asked. “Someone as elegantly dressed as you must obviously know how to waltz as well.”

She shot a look at Jason who appeared to be fuming and if looks could’ve killed, Dick would’ve been dead and buried. “I’d love to dance, Dick,” she replied, letting him lead her to the dance floor.

“You look absolutely beautiful, (Y/N),” he flirted. “And all I’m really doing right now is seeing how pissed I can make Jason, so if you’d smile or laugh and play along, I’d love you forever and ever.”

(Y/N) giggled and he twirled them. “You are going to get punched in the face, you know that right?”

Dick smirked and leaned close into her ear. “Yeah, but it’s going to be so worth it.” He spun them again, so she was looking over his shoulder. “Look at him. He’s so jealous he’s practically spitting like an angry bull.”

She inconspicuously glanced in her lover’s direction and gave a rather unladylike snort at the sight. Jason stood beside Bruce with his fists clenched, jaw tight and she could see him grinding his teeth as his eyes narrowed on them.

“Hmm…I wonder who he’s going to be more upset with? Me or you?”

They glanced at each other and she said “Me” while Dick said “You”, then they both dissolved into laughter and she pressed her forehead against his shoulder to muffle her giggles.

As the song ended, they separated and Dick bowed while she curtsied and someone came up and said, “Pardon me, may I have this dance?”

Just as (Y/N) turned to excuse herself, a strong arm wrapped around her waist and tugged her backwards and she let out a quiet gasp as her back collided with someone’s equally strong chest. Turning her head, she saw Jason glaring daggers at both Dick and the new dancer.

“Fuck. Off.” he spat, and he watched the two scatter like they’d been shot.

“Darling,” (Y/N) purred, raising her hand to caress his jaw. “Don’t be so green.” Jason’s turquoise eyes lowered to hers and her stomach fluttered from the heated stare.

“I don’t want any other man touching you,” he growled, and she smirked.

“Trying to say I belong to you?”

His arm tightened around her waist. “Like I do to you.”

(Y/N) merely gazed at him before extending her arm across his chest, raising the other beside her breasts, whispering, “Tell me you have a song just for us, darling?”

Jason’s arm shifted to her hip as his free one took her hand in his larger one, giving her a heated stare. “Of course I do, doll. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

The music started and he took the first step, leading her and she barely managed to contain her startled laugh. “The Vampire Masquerade? Really, Jason?”

His lips brushed her ear as he pressed just behind and he murmured, “It’s fitting, don’t you think?” he spun her out and pulled her back, wrapping his arm around her waist as she placed hers on his shoulder.

“Fitting indeed,” she flirted. “But awfully bold to play in front of all these people.”

Jason stepped forwards and her backwards and as they danced, he said, “I like to think I’m bold about the woman I love.”

It felt like hours in just mere moments when the music began to pick up again, signaling the climax of the song and he inhaled deeply as her eyes narrowed in amusement, and suddenly they were twirling, each spin moving them faster and faster across the dancefloor. All eyes were on them, but they simply gazed into each other’s eyes.

“I’ve been thinking about something, (Y/N),” he said lowly.

She nodded. “Go on.”

“It’s about vampirism and…the idea of joining you.”

(Y/N)’s footing failed her, and she stumbled as the song ended on the final note of the cello, her eyes wide. “What?”

Jason glanced at the party then behind him towards the door leading down the steps to the garden. He turned and pulled her along, through the crowd and into the night. They hurried through the maze of bushes and ended up beneath a willow tree in the far corner of the grounds, the moon and stars hanging overhead. She didn’t know where to start and neither did he apparently, but she figured they had to do it somewhere and she stepped just out of reach.

“What you said in there, Jason…at the end?”

He glanced at her, gaze solemn. “Believe me when I say, I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, (Y/N).”

She inhaled deeply, taking in his words and she turned away, looking out at the garden. “Have you told your family about me?”

“No. Not just yet. I was waiting until you were ready.”

(Y/N) tipped her head side to side. “While I thank you for doing so, I don’t think this is a decision to make until we’ve revealed everything to them.”

“Why’s that?” Jason questioned, brows furrowing in confusion and she spun slowly.

“Jason, vampirism is a…a lifechanging transformation. Not just for the individual but for the people around them as well.” She shook her head. “No, I don’t think this conversation should be had right now until we tell your family the truth.”

He took her words in stride and reached out for her. She placed her hand in his and he took her into his arms, resting his chin on her head. “Would you want me to join you?”

(Y/N) was silent for a long time, then she murmured, “…More than anything Jason. But you’ve yet to really grasp the concept and all it entails.”

“What do you mean?”

“Vampirism isn’t just extended life and protection from disease and poison, darling. It’s…it’s watching every human in your life grow old and die while you remain young forever. It’s remembering every detail that plagues history while the books get it wrong. It’s watching the world go by while you remain frozen as you are.”

She pulled back to stare into his eyes. “Though I would love to be with you for all of time, I don’t want to witness your despair as you watched your family and friends pass on.”

Jason’s mouth opened then he closed it when he realized he didn’t have a thing to say, and she smiled knowingly. “Darling, we’ve all the time in the world to figure this out.” Raising a hand, she cupped his cheek. “Don’t decide on forever, right now.”

“But I want to be with you,” he insisted quietly, that firm look she loved dearly in his eyes again.

“And I you. But as I said, you still need to discuss this with them first.”

Whatever comeback he had was cut off by a croak and they both turned their heads upwards as a bird circled them.

“Nevermore?” she called, raising her arm and he flew down, perching on her wrist. “What’s a matter boy?” He squawked and (Y/N)’s gaze hardened. “Do you know where?” When he answered her, she lifted her arm. “Take flight and lead me,” she commanded already pulling from Jason’s arm to head for the thickly barred iron gate.

“(Y/N), what is it?” Jason asked and she spun on her heel, still heading to the gate.

“Nevermore saw the werewolf hunting the city.”

He was already moving back to the ballroom. “I’ll get the oth—”

“No.” she commanded, and he stopped, gaping at her as she said, “I will be the one to finish this tonight. And I alone.”

“(Y/N), you can’t be serious,” he argued, and she shot him a sharp stare.

“Jason. You almost died last time.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “I need to do this by myself.”

She was gone before he could say another word and he couldn’t help but stomp his foot into the ground and curse, “Shit.”

***

Finding it didn’t take long this time, less than two hours. Now that she had its scent, she had a straight path to it and even she was surprised at the location it was in—the same rooftop she’d fought it the first time on. She landed behind it and curled her wings around herself, watching as it sniffed around the rooftop.

“You’re not going to find your eye, Lycan,” she said, and it spun around, dropping to all fours as it snarled menacingly. (Y/N) merely gazed at it, taking in the pink scars across its face and the hollowed orbital socket. “Tell me who you are. I know your kind can speak in that form. Or are you feral?”

Again, it growled, and she tipped her chin up. “Couldn’t separate the man from the beast, hmm?” she challenged. “That happens when you’re weak and can’t control your own spirit.”

Something in her words set it off and it charged at her with a snarl. (Y/N) simply sidestepped when it came her way, safely avoiding the snapping jaw and it skidded in the gravel, spinning around to charge again.

“I would feel pity for you had you not murdered so many people.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “I bet you got cocky in whatever circle you were in. Thought you could handle the beast before you were trained well enough.”

The werewolf swiped at her, but she dodged each strike and sent back one of her own, slicing into its side like it was paper. Howling, the beast scampered back a bit.

“Who was it that gave you their blood to consume? Your friend? A lover? Or perhaps some younger, more naïve circle member?” She shot forward and shot her wing out, colliding with the wolf. “The worst kind of transformation is the kind where the participant is foolish and inexperienced.”

(Y/N) hissed when it bit at the flesh of her wing and she scratched its leg with the claws on her feet. “How many transformations were you in control? Three? And then you just lost all control as it took over and you couldn’t come back!”

She closed both wings then extended them with a powerful beat, knocking the werewolf back a few feet. Wasting no time, she pushed off with her foot and surged forward, one hand gripping the wolf’s neck, the other flat and pointed.

“Your curse ends tonight, Lycan.” (Y/N) struck out and felt the warmth bleed across her arm as she planted her hand in its chest. “May you find mercy in whatever plane you end up in.”

Yanking her hand back, its snarl died in its mouth and she let go, watching it fall to the ground, gurgling and bleeding before it stilled, going slack in the rocks. (Y/N) cast one last look at it then turned her eyes to the moon high in the night sky. Almost a whole year of chasing and searching for this werewolf and it’d taken less than an hour to end it.

“Such a waste,” she hissed and stepped away. “So many people murdered and—”

Something latched onto her back and she spun to see what it was when she felt it spread out and dig into her skin. She grunted and reached for whatever had pierced her when it shocked her violently.

(Y/N) screeched and spun around, reaching behind her but whatever it was, was too far down. It kept pulsing and each one got stronger after the other and as she stepped forwards, she suddenly tripped and collapsed onto the gravel. Looking down through the pain, she saw her legs tied together with some kind of tri-weave rope.

She reached down to cut it when another pulse split through her body and she bellowed, back arching, wings beating out. (Y/N) knew she had to get away and she crawled along her hands, dragging her tied legs towards the edge. She was almost there when another compressed shot came from behind and she found herself cocooned by her wings, shocks still pulsing her body.

Struggling, she screeched and hissed, hoping to scare off whatever it was when she heard, “I’ve got this.”

It sounded like Dick and before she could say anything, he pressed something against her spine and the worst of the electric shocks passed through her and she descended into darkness.

***Final Chapter***

When (Y/N) didn’t contact Jason within the few hours she had left, he started to worry. He started panicking when Nevermore didn’t come to find him either.

One of the great things about her house is that other than it being a magic house that was bigger on the inside, it was also enchanted, and people didn’t notice it, so she kept the door unlocked.

Jason burst through the door, startling Fang who had been sound asleep on the couch and part of him wanted to apologize but his concern overrode it. He sprinted through the house, shouting her name.

“(Y/N)!” he turned down the hall and ran to the studio. “Where are you!” it was empty and he cursed, checking both bedrooms before entering the study. She wasn’t there either.

The only place she could be was in the basement and he moved back to the hall closet, pulling the door open. Jason yanked the rug away from the hatch and propped it up, getting on his hands and knees to yell down.

“(Y/N)! Are you down there!” he waited, voice echoing down the ladder and through the basement. “(Y/N)!”

A growl sounded beside him and he looked over, seeing White-Fang staring at him.

He reached over and ran a hand through his haunches. “Buddy, where is she?”

The wolfdog merely blinked and turned his snout into Jason’s wrist.

“She went after it, White-Fang. She went after it and I didn’t go with her and now she’s nowhere to be found.” His gazed at him. “What do I do?”

White-Fang bared his teeth in a snarl and Jason looked at them.

“I gotta tell them, don’t I?” he sighed and pulled his hand away, running it through his hair. “Alright. She might’ve wanted to tell them, but if she hasn’t sent Nevermore to relay, something’s wrong.” Jason stood and slammed the hatch shut.

As he ran down the hallway, he paused and looked back at the wolfdog. “Thanks, buddy.”

***

Bruce was anything if not punctual, and when he said for a party to be over, it was over. Honestly, it was actually Alfred who relayed the message and cleared everyone out—he had a knack for it, but Jason figured the loaded rifle he liked to clean in front of everyone.

That being said, the only people still in the ballroom when Jason got to the manor, were Lucius and Alfred. He sped up to them.

“Alfred. Lucius. Have either of you seen (Y/N)?”

Alfred blinked, shaking his head. “No, Master Jason. The last we saw of her, Miss (Y/N) was with you.”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out and Lucius asked, “Is something wrong, Mister Todd?”

“I can’t find her,” Jason admitted. “She left the party to find something, and she hasn’t called back or…or sent…” he trailed off and Alfred placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Your brothers are in the cave.”

He offered Alfred a tight smile. “Thanks, Alfred.” Glancing at the other man, he nodded. “Lucius.” They watched as he hurried off to the study.

***

His feet hit the bottom step and he strode to the Batcomputer where Dick and Damian were crowded around Tim who was typing away at something. “Hey,” he called, and they spun around, eyes widening.

“Little-wing, where’ve you been?” Dick quizzed, then took in his appearance. “You haven’t changed out of your suit.”

Jason’s hands subconsciously went to his tux and he smoothed it. “Yeah, haven’t gotten around to it yet.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Have any of you seen (Y/N)?”

Tim spun around in the chair. “Thought she was with you?”

“No. She left after we went into the gardens.” He reached out and curled his hands around the latches of Dick’s armor. “Dick, this is serious. I need to know if any of you have seen or heard from her.”

They gaped at the seriousness surrounding their brother and before they could respond, footsteps echoed behind him. Spinning around, they saw Bruce walking over. “Talk to me,” he demanded.

“We found the beast while you were dallying with the elite, father,” Damian quipped, then nodded to a medical table on the far side of the room.

Jason finally noticed it and his eyes widened at the werewolf’s dead body. “What?” he whispered.

“You killed it?” Bruce questioned and Dick snorted.

“Oh no, wedidn’t.” he nodded at the opposite side of the room. “That thing did.”

Everyone’s attention turned to a glass case about half the size of the study and what Jason saw made his heart drop into his feet. (Y/N) was in the farthest corner of the cage, her wings curled around her. She was still and silent.

“What is that?” their father asked, and Tim shrugged.

“Dunno. We ran a blood sample, but we have no idea what to make of it.”

“What doyou know about it?”

As they delved into a conversation, Jason made his way over to the cage. A flash of black appeared in his vision and he looked up, seeing Nevermore gliding to sit atop the cage. He tipped his head, staring at him with a beady eye.

“Is she okay?” he whispered and Nevermore nodded, hopping down to Jason’s wrist when he held it up above the cage. He glanced at the keypad and knew it had some type of failsafe to shut down on the first failed attempt.

“What’s the number, pretty boy?” he asked softly. “Four digits.”

Nevermore cocked his head to the keypad then back to Jason. “One-Nine-Eight-Nine.”

Jason punched in the number and the door slid open with a hiss. Nevermore fluttered up to the bars away from the cage and as he stepped inside, he slammed his fist into the keypad, watching as it sparked, and the door slid shut.

He heard his name being shouted behind him, but he moved to her, yanking off his gloves. “(Y/N)?” he whispered, fingertips tracing the ashen gray skin of her wing. “Doll? Are you alright?”

Someone hit the glass door. “Jason! Get away from that thing!” It was Bruce.

“I’m here, (Y/N),” he promised. “I’m right here.”

A single wing curled away, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped into it and it curled around him, darkening his vision, though he could see the faint glow of her crimson eyes.

He felt her arms wrap around his body and he shut his eyes, one cradling the back of his head as she stood to her feet and he grabbed tight to her as she bent her knees and suddenly shot up through the glass ceiling, shattering it into a million pieces.

It felt like an eternity, being weightless in her arms, then the shock of the world came back as they hit the cave floor and she uncurled her wings, exposing them to his family.

Jason opened his eyes as he heard the various weapons unsheathe, charge-up, and extend, and he stared up at (Y/N). “It’s going to be alright, doll.”

“I can hear their hearts, darling,” she whispered lowly. “They are afraid for you.” (Y/N) looked down at him. “Of me.”

He shook his head and smiled, “Let me handle this, okay?”

For a moment she didn’t move, then she slowly uncurled her arms and he turned, but he didn’t step away from her, merely extending his arm out to protect her.

“Guys, you’ve got to relax,” he directed, and Jason saw their eyes dart from her to him.

“Jason, you’ve gotta be joking man,” Tim countered. “That thing killed that thingover there.” He took a step forward. “Put its hand through its chest.”

“I know she did,” he replied and held out his other hand to motion for them to stop. “But she’s not going to hurt anyone here.”

“She?” Dick repeated. “That’s a she?” From the look on his face, he didn’t believe his brother.

Jason looked at Bruce. “She’s not going to hurt us, B.” he inhaled deeply and pleaded, “You’ve gotta trust me on this. Put the weapons down.”

They stared one another down and then Bruce held out a hand, and the weapons lowered. He glanced back at (Y/N) and nodded, though her eyes were still wary, and he murmured, “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”

Sighing, she stepped back and cocooned herself with her wings once more, then a swirl of black smoke rose around her and a moment later, (Y/N) stepped forward, her face unreadable and Jason would’ve paid all the money in the world to have a picture framed of the expressions his family gave at her reveal.

“Good evening,” she greeted. “I’m sure this is coming at a surprise.”

No one said a word. Not a single word and Jason was sure this was the first time he’d ever seen his family speechless.

“I have contemplated revealing my true nature to you all since our first meeting, understand though that I didn’t wish for you all to see my…other form.” (Y/N) explained. “But please, do not be afraid of me. I’m not going to harm you.”

Jason reached back and took her hand, pulling so half her body was behind him. “I know this is confusing but (Y/N)’s been doing this a lot longer than we have.”

“Uh…how long exactly?” Dick wondered.

He looked back at her and she sighed. “About ten…thousand years.”

Again, he wished he had a picture of their faces.

Tim blinked. “Is there a term for older milfs that isn’t cougar?”

At that, the cave descended into hysterical laughter and (Y/N) pressed her face into Jason’s shoulder as she cackled, and even he was rubbing at his eyes as tears gathered in them.

“Oh my God, I’m so happy I’m no longer the only one being known to date older women!” Dick shouted and the mood was broken by Bruce who walked up to them.

“How long have you been in Gotham?”

(Y/N)’s laughter faded, and she pulled a solemn expression. “About four centuries. I helped the American soldiers against the British when the war came here.” She looked away. “It’s been a long time since I involved myself in human affairs but…” Jason squeezed her hand and she glanced down at their cojoined grip. “But Jason changed that when he picked a fight with a coven a year or so ago.”

“Okay, technically I didn’t pick the fight, they started attacking me,” he retorted.

“After youwaltzed into their territory like you owned the joint.”

Jason scowled. “Semantics.”

(Y/N) chuckled and met Bruce’s gaze, and something passed between them. “Is there something on your mind, Bruce?”

“What are you?” he asked, and she opened her mouth, flashing her fangs. “Vampire?”

“Yes…but that doesn’t seem to be the problem for you.” her eyes narrowed. “So, what is?” Bruce glanced at Jason and she knew right then. “I haven’t used any powers over Jason to sway his mind.”

“Are you sure?”

(Y/N) reached up and undid the tie from Jason’s neck, then unbuttoned the first two of his shirt and showed his neck to them. “Vampiric seduction only works when a vampire has consumed the blood of someone they enthralled.” She let Jason go. “I haven’t fed on Jason nor any human for ten millennia. This I swear to you.”

Jason nodded. “(Y/N)’s never hurt me, B.”

“She killed that thing,” he said, nodding at the corpse and she turned to it, pulling away from Jason to walk over.

“I did. As was my duty as a vampire.” She examined the werewolf. “But I did confirm my suspicions. It was a feral. But now it’s dead and no more people will be ravaged by it.”

“Feral?” Dick repeated. “Like crazy?”

“Wild,” (Y/N) corrected. “When a human can’t separate the beast from themselves, they lose control over their abilities to shift.” Her fingers trailed delicately over the hole she made in its chest. “They’re lost forever. A mindless beast.”

“You mean this was a human?” Damian questioned. “A person?”

She nodded. “Was. Hasn’t been for some time now.” Shaking her head, she admitted, “Though I’m still unsure of how it got into Gotham City. The nearest werewolf colony is in Virginia. It is…concerning that it got this far, especially with as many vampiric territories between here and there it must’ve passed through.”

“We could’ve saved them,” Bruce grunted, and she gazed at him.

“No. No you couldn’t’ve.”

“You don’t know that,” he shot back, and she cocked a brow.

“With all due respect, Bruce, you’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“And you do?”

(Y/N)’s face pinched. “I’m a ten-thousand-year-old vampire that’s battled against Lycans for thousands of years.” Scowling, she griped, “Yeah, I think I know what I’m talking about.”

Bruce took a step forward, but Jason cut him off. “Look, I know how much you love being right, but this time, you’re not, okay? (Y/N) stopped this thing from hurting anyone else.”

“She killed it. We don’t kill in my—”

“Bruce.” She silenced him with a firm call. “I understand your no kill rule, but you need to understand that Gotham City isn’t your city. And even if you think it is, my centuries of being here out way your family’s.” She got in his face, staring him down. “I did what was expected of me by the council and I’m not going to apologize for taking care of my business.”

Pointing back at it, she added, “And this was mine. Not yours.”

They glared at each other and Jason rested a hand on her shoulder, prompting her to soften her eyes when she looked at him. “(Y/N), you’ve expended a lot of energy being in your form for so long. We should get you something to eat and some rest.”

(Y/N) reached up and wiped the fatigue from her eyes. “I need to contact Alexander and tell him I took care of it.”

“Do it tomorrow,” Jason urged, pulling her into his arms. “Doll, you’re exhausted. Even I can tell.”

“I’m fine,” she retorted but his arms tightened around her.

“I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you if I have to,” he threatened, and she hissed.

“I am not a sack of potatoes.”

“So, you’re going to walk willingly?” he asked, blinking those pretty teal eyes expectantly and she scowled at him.

“Fine.” (Y/N) started towards the stairs, him grinning as he followed.

“(Y/N),” Bruce called, and she stopped, glancing back at him.

“Yes?”

He didn’t look at her. “Can I expect more of these again? Or any of you? That form specifically?”

“Lycans? Not likely. Vampires? More likely. Me though?” she shook her head. “No, I’m the only one of my kind in this dimension.”

“This dimension?” Tim queried and stuck himself to her side. “Are you from another dimension?”

(Y/N) blinked down at him. “Why do you wanna know?”

“That’s not a no.”

She smirked, ruffling his hair. “Tell you later. How about that?”

His lips pursed, but after a moment he nodded. “Can we test your stamina and any other limits you’ve got?”

“Sure Tim,” she agreed and took Jason’s hand. “Hundred bucks says I can give your dad a run for his money.”

He grinned. “I’ll take that bet.”

(Y/N) waved at the others and leaned on him as they walked up the stairs in silence.

***

He’d already changed out of his suit and slipped on a pair of boxers when she stepped out of the bathroom and immediately collapsed beside him on the bed, letting out a groan.

“Tired?” he chuckled, rolling over to lay on his stomach, hand caressing her back.

(Y/N) nodded. “It’s odd. I don’t get tired like I used to when I first started out but…”

“But?” Jason encouraged and she turned her face to look at him.

“But I’ve noticed that when I spend long amounts of time in my Vampire Lord form, I revert back and am just overcome with fatigue.” She exhaled deeply and buried her face in the mattress before inching up to lay her face just below the pillow. “I’m tired,” she said, voice muffled against the fabric and Jason snorted, raising up.

He straddled her hips, pressing himself against her and smirked at the curious noise she made when he yanked the towel away leaving her exposed. Jason dug his hands into her skin, kneading every knot she’d gathered the past few months.

(Y/N) groaned into the sheets as he squeezed her shoulders, digging his thumb into the curve of her back muscle and she couldn’t help but shift slightly, the relief almost shy of painful. It was, however, the price to pay for all she’d put her body though recently.

“I think you’re more knotted up than a fishing net,” he murmured, massaging her sides.

She grunted and wiggled her hips, listening to him inhale sharply. “Can’t help it,” she said. “I knot easily.”

Jason smirked and shifted back slightly, hands moving down to knead the flesh of her lower back and haunches. “You must be happy to have me as your personal de-knotter.”

“Could be happier,” she countered, gasping silently when he pinched her rear. “Jason!” she hissed and shot a look over her shoulder. “Don’t do that.”

He blinked innocently. “Do what?”

“I will punch you,” she warned, and he rolled his eyes.

“No, you won’t.”

“Excuse me?” she shot back, eyes widening at the audacity. “I won’t punch you? Who do you think you’re talk—oh wow,” (Y/N) inhaled sharply when he cupped her, fingers sliding between her thighs.

“What was that?” Jason asked and she groaned his name.

“Jason…”

He hummed, middle finger twitching enough that it had her arching back. “What do you want?”

“I’d personally rather die than beg you to finger me,” she hissed and placed her hands out away from her and shifted, sliding her legs from underneath him. (Y/N) turned over and propped herself up against the pillows, curling her pointer finger up at him.

Jason started crawling up the bed. “So, what will it take for you to beg?”

“Depends on what you want me to beg for, darling,” she countered, elegantly raising a leg, placing her foot on his shoulder. “But I’m sure you could persuade me to lower myself enough.”

He chuckled and reached up, grabbing the top of her foot as he leaned forward and she bent it, letting her heel rest on his back. Jason pushed her other thigh apart, exposing her and he looked up at her, waiting.

“Want permission?” she queried with a smile and he pressed a kiss to her thigh.

“Can’t come without it…isn’t that how that goes?” he teased and (Y/N) rolled her eyes, reaching down to grab his chin.

She tipped his head up and whispered, “Love me, darling. Like you want to.” Jason’s eyes darkened as he swallowed thickly and she pulled her hand away, resting it on her stomach. “Going shy on me?” (Y/N) murmured and propped her other arm behind her head so she could watch him. “But you look so pretty.”

“You’re a witch, you know that?” he countered and shifted her legs further apart. “You enjoy the power, don’t you?”

(Y/N) hummed. “I’m not called a ‘Lord’ for nothing, darling.” She groaned when he nipped up her thigh to her center. “My power isn’t challenged often.”

“I guess I’m just cocky enough to challenge,” Jason shot back before dragging his tongue up her center, smirking when she gasped, the leg over his shoulder tensing.

She reached down and carded her fingers through his hair. “Or foolish,” she breathed, grip on his tresses tightening when he circled her clit with his tongue. “Jason,” (Y/N) moaned, arching her back in need.

His only response was a groan that had her shivering as it sent shocks throughout her body and then he was sliding his middle finger into her, pumping it quickly.

“More,” she begged, and he obeyed, sliding another finger into her, curling them repeatedly until he found that spot inside her that had (Y/N) writhing, hips lifting with every pump.

Each time he gave her a sharp suck, she tugged his hair, pricking his scalp with points of pain and he returned it with low groan that had her whining and pulling him closer to her. At one point, she’d forgone watching him, tipping her head back, letting out little “Ah-ah-ah’s” and Jason knew the higher pitched she got, the closer the was and all it spurred him to do was make it happen faster.

Her thighs began to close around him and before he knew it, she was grabbing at his shoulders and yanking him up to kiss him. Jason kept curling his fingers and she gripped his wrist, stopping him.

“What’re you doing?” he questioned, pulling away to look into her ember eyes. They were blown wide with desire and she shook her head.

“I want you inside me.”

“I was,” Jason breathed heavily, though he removed his fingers and started shimmying off his underwear.

(Y/N) took his length in her hand and pumped him a few times, smiling breathlessly when he cursed and squeezed the flesh under her thigh still over his shoulder. “Not the part of you I want inside anymore.”

He took his length in his hand, guiding himself until he was up against her core, but he stopped and gazed at her. “Beg me.”

“I hate you,” she hissed, and he smirked.

“Hate sex is fun too, doll. We can do that instead if you want, but you’re still going to beg a little.” Jason leaned down and took one of her nipples into his mouth, rolling it with his teeth.

“Jason,” she whined. “Please.”

“Little more,” he coaxed when he pulled off, heading for the other one and she cocked her other leg around his hip.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” (Y/N) barked. “Fuck me already, you ass.”

Jason smirked and sheathed himself in one thrust, both of them gasping at the ripple of pleasure; his chest was heaving as he looked down at her. “How do you want it?”

“Fast,” she pleaded. “Fast and hard, please, Jason. Please.”

He grunted and pulled out only to thrust back in, setting a harsh pace that had her shouting, back curving up against him. Jason bent forward, pushing her leg into her chest and she dropped her head back.

“Fuck,” she groaned, feeling him deep inside her and he chuckled, though it sounded strained against her skin.

“Hard enough for you?” he growled, pinching one of her nipples and she nodded rapidly.

“Yes, yes, Jason. Keep going. More.”

He huffed a laugh. “Whatever will it take to please you?” Jason captured her lips in a searing kiss as he felt her slip a hand between them, and then she was tightening around him. “Shit,” he cursed, breaking their kiss and he gazed at her. “Doll…” he panted; his voice was taut, and he could feel it coming faster and faster.

(Y/N) whimpered beneath him and cupped his cheek. “Darling, please,” she begged, and that needy voice was the final push. Jason buried his face in her neck and moaned her name desperately as he spilled himself, hips stuttering and then she was gasping in his ear, clenching, and pulsing around him.

They both laid there panting, trying to catch their breaths for what seemed like an hour, then Jason helped her lower her leg before he eased himself out, collapsing beside her. (Y/N), very slowly, turned over and tucked herself underneath his arm, resting her head on his chest, listening to his heart.

“You know…” he started. “That was supposed to be a slow and gentle lovemaking.”

(Y/N) snorted, wrapping her arm around his waist. “We can do slow in the morning.” She looked at him. “Now was the time we tired ourselves out so we can sleep longer.”

“Oh? Is that what that was?” he asked with a grin and she nodded.

“Indeed, it was,” she answered and laid her head back on his chest, eyes starting to slip shut.

“(Y/N)?”

“Mhm?”

“I want you to know that my decision hasn’t changed.”

Her eyes opened but she didn’t look at him. “Truly?”

“I want to be with you. Now…and forever.”

For a moment, she was quiet, then she said, “I want you to spend one whole year talking to your family. If after one full year, you have gained their approval of this choice…then we’ll start the process and I’ll make you vampire.”

“Really?” he asked. “Just like that.”

“Just like that.”

“You won’t regret doing it?”

(Y/N) turned her head, gazing into his eyes. “I regret many things in my life, Jason. But I would never regret you.”

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, then murmured, “Nor I you.”

She smiled and reached up, grazing her fingers against his cheek. “Now that that has been settled, it is time to rest.”

“You’ll still be here when I wake up?” he asked, and she hummed.

“Always, darling. Always and forever.”

[hurting-fictional-people]

A Theft Gone Wrong

I started writing this last night, expecting it to be really short, but it endend up longer then I expected... oops

I don’t know, I have never posted something like this before so if you like it please let me know, I kind of have more ideas for this but don’t know if anyone would like to read it... Spoiler alert: It’s about a thief getting caught and not realizing how dangerous her captor really is. Also, as I haven’t posted something this long before I have never had to tag it, so let me know if I do it wrong or forget something!

Warnings: manhandeling, kind of a creepy and intimate whumper, noncon touching, murder (of very minor characters and only vaguely mentioned), mention of the death of beloved people, choking 

She leaned against the wall, her body relaxed and her eyelids almost closed, the living image of someone who had had way too many drinks.

The prince, on the other side of the ballroom, eyed her carefully, his gaze never leaving her even as he danced with other women. She let her body move along with the song, praying silently that he would believe her facade. Any other day and she might have enjoyed the attention of a royal, especially such a handsome and powerful one – it never got tiring to use a noble as she wanted and then watch their shocked faces when she just walked away satisfied and with a few more jewels that she would sell as soon as she could. That night, though, the only thing the prince made her feel was exasperation. She knew she looked pretty, especially with so much makeup and such a beautiful dress, but she was definitely not flirting with him, so why couldn’t he just stop staring?

She waited until he was talking to a guard, and as soon as he took his eyes away from her, she moved as silently as a shadow, disappearing in the dark corners of the ballroom, all of her drunk act left behind as she moved swiftly through the crowd.

If her comrades had done their job, the palace aisles should be empty, and all the guards worried about an invasion on the other side of the castle.

She made it to the second floor of the palace without seeing another soul and grinned wickedly as she hurried. 

Stupid royals and their arrogance, so sure that no one would dare touch their belongings they didn’t even leave a guard near their wealth.

The thief had already laid her eyes on the royal vault when she was suddenly pulled to the side, but when her training kicked in and she started to fight the hand that held her waist tightly and pressed her against a hard body, she felt the cold and sharp point of a knife touching her throat, so close to her skin that if she tried to do so much as taking a deep breath, she would cut herself.

She froze, her body going rigid in an instant.

“What is such a lovely thing doing wandering around my palace?” Murmured a husky voice so close to her ear that she felt the air that left his mouth against her skin.

She couldn’t answer, not with the knife so close.

“I’ve been watching you all night”, he said, the hand at her waist pulling her even closer to him. She could feel the prince’s entire body as she tried to lift her chin away from the knife “ah, ah, ah, stay still or I might cut this pretty throat of yours accidentally, and neither of us wants that now, do we, dear?”.

She held herself as still as she could. Not that there was any other option.

“You see, I thought you were just a simple, albeit incredibly beautiful, peasant. You would have been fun to play with like that, of course, but you have proven to be so much more interesting now” his breath was making her cheek tickle, and every part of his body that touched hers only gave her rage more fuel. As soon as she had even the slightest opening, she would not hesitate to open his throat with his own knife. Prince or not, no one touched or talked to her like that and lived. Nobody was crazy enough to do it anyway.

The prince seemed to feel her hatred, because he held her tighter still, until it started hurting and she knew she would have bruises in the morning.

Everyone knew the rumors about the prince’s cruelty, but she had never thought he also had a death wish. An enraged growl escaped her lips, and he laughed.

“Oh sweet thing, I love you already”, she locked her jaw and pictured him dead as he would be in a few minutes to try and calm down. He didn’t seem to sense that thought. “So, back to what I was saying… There would be absolutely no reason for a girl like you to be here in front of my vault in the middle of my ball. That is, unless you are one of the criminals that were wreaking havoc on the other side of the palace until my guards slaughtered them all”.

Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. Her head started spinning and her heart started racing as it hadn’t up until now.

No, that couldn’t be true. He could not have killed all her friends. There were at least twenty of the most talented thieves and assassins of the Guild there. There was absolutely no way they were all dead. Many of them had trained her, laughed with her, been her only family. But, then, how could the prince know about their attack if it weren’t true?

“Oh, they were your friends?” He asked, his voice filled with mock concern “I would say I am sorry for your loss, but that would be too big of a lie even for me”.

She couldn’t breathe. There was not enough air in the world.

They were dead. All the people who had loved her, who she loved, they were gone, and their assassin had a knife against her throat. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t, not until she saw their bodies. They were too good to have been killed like that. They could not be dead, she told herself, hoping she would believe it if she thought it fiercely enough.

She would destroy the prince for that, and she would do it slowly, painfully.

“If you keep trembling like that, love, you’re going to cut yourself” the prince warned, rubbing his smooth jaw against her hair. The thief didn’t even realize she was shivering until he said it. She wanted to vomit almost as bad as she wanted to see him bleed “Now, I’m getting tired of holding you here. Don’t get me wrong, my beautiful little thief, I love having you this close, but I have a ball to host”. She could almost hear his screams while she destroyed him bit by bit. He leaned closer to her, his mouth touching her temple as he spoke “Before I go, I feel we should clarify some things. All your friends are dead. I killed them. You, though, are so very lucky, because I like you. I could have you killed right here, or send you to jail for a lifetime sentence, but I am feeling merciful tonight. I’m going to save your life and claim you as mine. You belong to me now, darling, and no one is going to come looking for you, not that that would make any difference. We are going to have so much fun together. Or at least, I am”.

He laughed again, and that sound made her growl once more. The man was crazy, and she was tired of that too. But precisely when she began changing her stance to turn around and break free of his hold, the prince whistled, and ten guards showed up from around the corner. And then, ten more appeared from the other side.

“Hurt me and they will kill you before you can blink” the prince promised against her ear.

He pushed her at the same time he removed the knife from her throat, leaving a thin slice where the weapon stood a moment before. The thief tripped forward, and the only thing avoiding her falling on her face was the years of hard training.

She barely had time to prepare before the first guard attacked. She pulled free the dagger she had sheathed to her tight, cursing herself for bringing only one. She had not expected to fight that night, and even though her gown was flowy around her legs, it was definitely not appropriate for a fight.

She was a good fighter. She had killed people before and didn’t really have a problem with it. But even as she attacked guards and ducked their blows, she knew she could never win against twenty trained warriors. That didn’t stop her from fighting with all of her rage, slicing whatever body parts came near her.

She took the lives of two of the guards before three of them caught her from behind, and wounded at least five more before they disarmed her. She only stopped thrashing and kicking when there were four men holding her and six more around them ready to stop her if she somehow got away. Tired and shocked, she grinned wildly and with not an ounce of joy when she looked at them, showing bloodied teeth. She had been punched and bit her tongue at some point while they fought. They all held the same haunted expression as if they didn’t expect her to fight like that. Well, that was what grieve and rage did when mixed, she thought darkly. If only they knew that by now she was so exhausted she could barely stand they wouldn’t be so alert, but she was most definitely not telling them that.

She only remembered that the prince was still there when she heard someone clapping, and he showed up in front of her, smiling and looking very pleased.

“It’s going to be so much fun breaking such a wild thing”, he said. She took a deep breath, smirked, and spit right at his face. The prince’s eyes darkened as he cleaned his forehead with his long fingers.

“It’s going to be such a pleasure to open your throat from ear to ear and watch you choke on your own blood”, she said sweetly, the smirk still on her lips.

“You know what, love?” He said, taking a step towards her and stopping so close she could see his pupils expanding “I don’t think I’m going to be the one choking”.

As he spoke, he rounded her throat with his hands. She tried to pull away, but before she could move, he squeezed, and then she couldn’t breathe. As she struggled and convulsed, trying to escape, he started grinning, the smile growing along with her despair.

She couldn’t breathe she couldn’t breathe she couldn’t breathe

“You see now, love, who is choking? Don’t worry, you will learn to respect me and to be good. I’ll teach you. Oh, your eyes look so pretty when you are scared. It’s a pity we can’t play more right now. But worry not, I will come to you as soon as I can”.

She felt tears falling from her eyes, but there was no more strength in her to fight them. The world started to darken, and her body stopped responding to her.

The last thing she heard before she passed out was that awful, disgusting husky voice of the prince. “Take her to my room and tie her up. We are going to spend some quality time together later” he laughed, and then the world went black.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Yggdrasil

"Is there anything you want to talk about?"

Toyama sat in his office behind a cup of tea across from his patient Tigre. 

Tigre had been absent for two weeks performing entry exercises for Battlefield Training level 1. He'd performed exceptionally well,  surpassing the students in his troop and complying dutifully with the strict schedule and regiment.  At this point, not only was he physically able, but now he had experience in shooting, keeping watch, and setting up camp. He looked more tan, a bit stronger, more energetic. He kept decorum, but every time he saw him, he couldn't help but feel happy at his success.

Tigre had two more weeks of academic pursuits before returning to Battlefield Training for the next round. Toyama had been seeing him for his weekly counseling and needed to catch up with his mental health after missing a session. 

Tigre took a deep breath, turning the delicate tea cup in his scarred hands. "I've been thinking a lot about where I come from. I didn't really care before. But people ask me questions like: where am I from? Who is my family?  Where did I go to school? But all I remember is the cage. I should have memories growing up. Like going to school. I didn't learn to read and write in the cage. Who taught me? I don't know my real name. My real name is not Tigre. That's what they called me."

Toyama listened carefully. "Do you think these questions are important?"

Tigre was thoughtful for a moment.  "No. That's not it. They're not important.  I just don't want to tell people I lived in a basement all my life. I don't want to say that I don't know my real name. I don't know where my parents are…"

"But this is the truth." Toyama said gently.  "How do you feel when they ask you these questions?"

Tigre thought about this and Toyama pulled a tissue from the box next to him and offered it to him.

"Sad…" Tigre said, wiping his face.

"What do you feel sad about?" Toyama asked.

"Just not knowing. I don't have anything to say… they ask who your parents are, you say I don't know and they… they look at me like they're sorry."

"That makes you feel sad?" Toyama asks. "Or are you sad before then?"

"Um…" Tigre tries to think. "Starting out, I never thought about my past. But now I'm afraid that every time I meet someone, they will ask questions like that. I'll already start getting sad before they ask that."

"So you feel bad in anticipation…"

"Yes. That's it."

Toyama nodded and made a note. "So when you meet someone,  you feel sad because you feel like you can't open up to them about your amnesia.  Then they ask about it. You tell them. They feel sorry, and then you feel sadder. Because they're sad."

"That's the gist of it."

"How do you think that is affecting your social life?" 

"Probably not good. It's not easy to meet new people.  I don't want to talk about myself."

"Understandable." Toyama was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, and, as though to signal a change of subject,  he switched legs.

"Have you tried to remember?"

"Yes." Tigre licked his lips. "I remember hearing a big crash and seeing Chu Zihang walk out.  I called him brother. Before that, I was lying down in the chains. I…"

Toyama kept quiet, making notes.

"I remember… fighting.  Killing something or someone.  Their faces were distorted. But I don't remember when that was. I remember people calling me Tigre, but they are just shadows in my mind."

"You don't remember doing anything else? Only rescue, fighting, lying down… and the shadows?"

Tigre sat still. He tried to focus. He was recalling images from his captivity. But he couldn't understand what order they went in. They called him Tigre… when? He killed that creature… but when? How long was he stuck down there? Which image came first? His memory was like two mirrors facing each other creating an endless array of identical reflection. 

"What about before your confinement? Do you remember anything?" Toyama asked.

Tigre closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to think of a memory of his childhood. He tried to remember life under a bright sun and a blue sky. The feel of the warmth of the day on his skin…. and was struck with a sudden wave of nausea so intense that the tea he just drank bubbled into his mouth like a geyser. He rushed to the trash bin, knocking over his chair, and barely made it in time.

Toyama watched him gagging helplessly and stood up. "Do you need help?"

Tigre was shaking and struggling to catch his breath. Toyama knelt next to him. "It's okay. Just relax." He handed him a tissue to help him wipe his face. "Did anything come to mind?"

"No… nothing."

Toyama pulled Tigre's hair back to keep it from going into the vomit. "It's not a failure. We will find a way to recover your memories. Every attempt is progress. I'd like to propose something… I'd like to get a scan of your brain."

Tigre gave him a fearful look. "Will it hurt?" 

"No. But I think we can both agree that just the act of remembering something forgotten shouldn't have this reaction right? This reaction is more physical than mental."

A few hours later,  Tigre is back in the clinic, in the lab on the fourth floor where they had the MRI machine. Tigre was lying on his back listening quietly to music and staying as still as he could.

Toyama stood in the room behind the imaging machine and the technician operating it sighed in irritation. "None of the images are clear."

"Is he moving around?"

"No that's not it. I'm getting interference in the magnetic resonance. Does he have any metal on him? Or any implants?" The technician asked.

"Implants…" Toyama whispered. Could something have been implanted in Tigre? Something blocking his memories? "Can you see any implants?"

"I can't see anything with these terrible images! I have to stop the test." He clicked a few times on the program to abort the test. "Oh come on… what is happening…"

"What's wrong?" 

"The computer screen just froze!" In the next second, the computer switched off and all the lights went out.

Red emergency lights from a generator came on. "Tigre… stay where you are, I think… ah the communication system isn't working either." The tech said.. "I'll go get him."

From the technician booth, there was a window. So Toyama saw the technician enter the room. He had barely gotten three steps in when the man abruptly collapsed to the floor and began convulsing.

Toyama started to hurry down but stopped. If he entered the room would he start convulsions as well? Tigre was not moving. Was he dead?!

Power suddenly returned to the room and the man stopped his seizures and lay still. Norma's voice suddenly came over the loudspeakers. "A very strong EMP was detected in this building. Agents are in route to investigate. I am assessing the damage. " 

EMP? Electromagnetic pulse? The MRI machine was smoking!

Toyama rushed down to help the technician, kneeling down close.  His eyes were rolled back white and he was breathing bloody foam.

Tigre had slid out of the MRI machine and looked stunned at the scene. "What happened?"

"You're alive! Thank God. Here, call for help."

Toyama tossed him his phone.  He expected Tigre to catch it but it fell and cracked against the tile floor. Tigre just stared at him. "Who are you?"

Toyama felt the blood rush from his face. 

Tigre looked at him in confusion.  "Where am I? What is this place."

Toyama stood up. "No…" His voice trembled. He stepped towards Tigre in a daze. "No!"

Tigre backed away until he could back away no further.  "Stay away!"

Toyama's eyes suddenly blazed yellow. While it was true that students could not use Yanling on campus, due to the nature of his work, Toyama would need special access to his Yanling at all times. A top secret method of defeating the Alchemy matrix that suppressed Yanling was granted him. So even though no one on Campus could use theirs, he could use his.

He stared into the wide and frightened eyes of Tigre and dove into memories that were already fading, burning to ashes like trees in a wildfire! Memories of them together in the hospital. Memories of his first day of school. 

Burning fury burst from Toyama and he opposed the force operating on Tigre’s mind in a single burst, roaring like an angry lion and rushing in the fight. Such a reaction may have struck many as unexpected. Toyama was a gentle soul. He was a professor, a psychologist and a priest, but he was also a member of the Secret Party and a Hybrid. The trail of blood he left was invisible, the battles were fought on the stage of the mind. He’d erased family, friends, lovers, precious moments. So long as they were contaminated by memories of dragonkind, those thoughts were his to slaughter.

For the first time, this peerless psychological warrior was being tasked, not to destroy but to protect. He planted himself in the middle of this mental obliteration and started to rebuild it. Tigre didn’t understand how much Toyama knew him. He’d walked these neural pathways more ways than he could count, like a woodsmen in a forest, he knew the trails of the memories he created. He rebuilt them.

“Who are you?” He demanded this mental fire. “What are you?”

He received no answer, only a corresponding increase of force, like a bull locking horns with him. As their strength collided, Toyama received a vision that he’d never received so far. This was alien, not native to Tigre’s mind. An outsider thought. 

A great tree, shrouded in mist, grew out of the desert. It was so tall that it pierced the cloud cover. Toyama watched in wonder as the white gleaming speck of a 777 passenger plane looked like a sparrow flying through its branches. At the base of the tree was a black dragon, but the dragon was dead. One of the tree’s roots ran through its eye socket. “Yggdrasil?”

Toyama could feel his own hands squeezing Tigre's arms tight while the other man struggled.  Brainwashing was supposed to be a painless process. You were not supposed to be able to perceive the changes. Tigre didn't realize he was forgetting everyone around him a few moments ago. He had just failed to recognizeToyama.  But now that he was both forgetting and having memories restored at once, he was trying to pull away and crying in fear, unable to control his own thoughts as two powerful entities struggled for custody of his mind.

Toyama held on to him. He regretted the trauma he was no doubt inflicting. Even though he was not religious, he worked in the Church on campus as a junior priest and knew how to pray. For the first time he actually did. He was up against something powerful, otherworldly. Even if Tigre would never trust him again, he prayed that he could at least remember him! The force that was erasing his memories was relentless, but it wasn't smart. It didn't try to figure Toyama out. It just erased memories in the same pattern once he restored them. Toyama could learn that pattern.

So long as Toyama safeguarded those memories,  the attacker couldn't advance. The memory of meeting Chu Zihang the first time, waking up the first time in the hospital,  the 3E exam -- these were the main points of interest to this mysterious entity.  Toyama stood as a bulwark against them, and instead attacked this tree. Where is it? 

Tigre's mind suddenly shut off and he slumped against him. Toyama's mind was kicked abruptly back into his body. Toyama felt unbearably hot and thirsty. Sweat dripped onto the linoleum floor. 

Toyama reached up and felt Tigre's pulse through his neck. Though he was pale and limp, Tigre was still alive.

If there was really something implanted in his head, there should be a mark, a scar. Toyama carefully started running his hands over Tigre's scalp, looking for any deformity. His fingers ran over a small series of ridged right on top of his head. 

Toyama tilted Tigre's face toward him to see and pulled his hair back with his thumb and forefinger. A scar, in the shape of an Alchemy rune? It was a perfect circle in a circle.  Like an eye!

At this moment, members from the Executive board rushed in and surrounded him. “I’m alright! The situation is under control, but I have an urgent message for the school board! This is a serious situation!”

Toyama made sure that Tigre was moved to the 5th floor. “I’m sorry. But you have to be returned to quarantine. I don’t know if you can hear me...” Toyama whispered to the unconscious Tigre.

He raced back downstairs towards the library. He climbed to the second floor and burst into the door. The library was like a beehive that had been struck. It was full of workers trying to reconnect with everything that had been knocked offline by the EMP blast. Schneider and Guderian were watching. Who know where Manstein was.

“I need a word.” 

Schneider looked at him in surprise. His shirt was wrinkled, and transparent against his chest and his hair stuck to his forehead.

“Guderian get our systems back to normal.” Schneider strode away and Toyama didn’t wait, immediately leaving the room to a side office.

“Here, it’s not much but at least wipe your face off.” Schneider offered him a tissue box. 

“I’ve finally figured Tigre out. Tigre is not a dragon. He’s a hybrid. But there is something in him that is dragonkin. That is what is erasing his memories. I suspected something physically wrong with him for a long time. So I had an MRI scan done of his head. But when the scan began, a huge EMP blast exploded on campus! When I approached him, he acted like he didn’t know me. So I used my Yanling to peer in his mind and something else was there. Another thought, thoughts that weren’t his. These things were pruning his memories.”

“I dove into the mind of that thing and I saw a memory of a tree. A great tree in the fog. So big that a plane flying by looked like a bit of office paper in the wind. And at the roots of the tree I saw a dragon but it was dead.” He flipped over a piece of paper on a desk in the office and pulled the cap of a pen and held it in his mouth while he drew. I thought, Yggdrasil, but it’s not Yggdrasil. I believe this is a dragonborn thing.”

“Is it controlling him?”

“It’s erasing his memories for a purpose. It was after all memories of dragonkind in his brain. It didn’t seem… conscious. I didn’t adapt strategies, it kept going after the memories… like a zombie, mindlessly trying to eat his brain.” He finished his drawing and leaned on the desk. “I know that dragons can sense the thoughts of humans and can either attack or evade. So this sort of behavior isn’t unheard of. A dragon can manipulate the thoughts of humans. After all.. I can. I defended his mind as best I could. But as for now I’ve returned him to the quarantine area of the clinic to make sure he’s safe.”

Schneider rumbled. “An unfortunate turn of events.”

“I feel bad for him and for Chu Zihang. I know rescuing Tigre meant a lot to him.”

Schneider froze.

Toyama chuckled. “I know that boy too Schneider. He’s a kind person. He was happy to save Tigre and followed his progress because he cared. You kept Tigre alive for his benefit right?”

Schneider sighed softly.

“But we have to … face reality.” Toyama hung his head, leaning on the desk. “If that thing is in his head and it can’t be removed… it will likely kill him at some point. Even if we’re not forced to kill him.”

Schneider walked over and placed one hand on his shoulder.

[poison--ivory]

Haikyuu!! Virus Au(Random/Reader) Part 2

        Warning: Blood, gore, subtle mention of character death

                 Virus au! Part 1

                                     Tendou felt like absolute shit. 

His feet dragged across the school’s now dirty floor. A bright orange and purplish hue crystalized the walls nearly blinding his field of vision. Warm wind blew in between the nailed up boards. The glass broke a while ago from an incident a few days back involving a second year jumping from the third floor hallway. 

Ever since the outbreak his attitude regressed back to his childhood demeanor. He puts on an act for the rest of the team’s first years. But, distancing himself emotionally from the rest of the team. Ushijima could read him like a book on some days, but Semi and Reon could tell exactly what was going on in his head with each fake smile. 

The school went on lockdown a while back. Whoever was in the school stayed in the school. Which in turn left a lot of students stuck within the walls of the private school. The volleyball team stayed overtime that day and so did some other students that didn’t want to go home early and stayed cooped up in their dorm rooms. 

At the time we didn’t know about the disease. The only indication of the world changing were the warning sirens that Japan uses for missiles firing. So, we all thought another bombing was going to happen in Japan.

Coach Washijo was called down to the teachers lounge and before he went gave Ushijima instructions and a key to the bunker of the school. It wasn’t until much later that they rounded up all the students into the gymnasium. As we were guided to the gym, Tendou took quick notice of the boarded up gate. What used to be the plain metal bar gate was now being boarded up with planks of plywood.

What was even stranger was the bleak silence. Not a single sound came to Tendou ears, usually the noise of birds singing and cars driving nearby would be heard. He just chalked it up to the sirens blaring that silenced the animals and most people would already be inside if the warning sirens went off.

As we were piled in the gym our principal stood on the stage, his intense gaze loomed down over all of us. Some of the teachers were already on break until April and most stayed behind for the time being in preparation for the next year. The ones that did stay were only a few, most of them being the honors class teachers and the exception of Coach Washijo.

If Tendou didn’t already feel anxious he did now. He remembered the air getting thicker and the slow realization of his paradise falling further from his fingertips.

The door to the class 3-2 opened and a brown haired girl slumped out the doorway, her hair a matted mess and her clothes at this point are just rags. Her crestfallen face was something to be depressed about. She slumped off down the hall, leisurely being drawn over by the darkness. The next person to come out was a breath of fresh air. Goshiki popped his head out into the hallway and gave Tendou a small smile, before ushering him in. The faint smell of medical supplies and the musky smell of the half washed invaded his nasal passage.

Dread filled his body as he noticed how many of his old schoolmates layed stiff and sickly on the makeshift beds. Desks were pushed together to make new beds once the nurse's beds in the clinic ran out. He could make out some familiar faces here and there, faces all a little pale and dark under the eyes. However, some of them on closer examination had sunken in cheeks, greyish skin and a strong pungent odor emanating from specific bodies he passed. 

Stopping in his tracks Tendou glanced down at the dark haired ginger. Dark brown eyes soulless starred as they gazed at the white ceiling. Chunks of hair fell off in clumps littering the floor with red splotches and slowly gathering pools of blood underneath the lumps of torn flesh. Flies quickly gathered on the discarded meat. A brave soul walked over and tossed the lumps into a garbage bag and quickly moved on to do the same to other large heaps that lay slumped on the floor.

Tendou groaned and pulled the mask that laid on his chest up to his face, the smell only dimmed it. It was still present but not as bad now. Goshiki led him deeper into the classroom, the smell seemed to grow fainter with each step. 

Tendou knew what he was going to see however he brushed it off as he took another glance around the room. His eyes watered, the smell really is getting to him.

Goshiki slid the curtain open to reveal a certain third year student. “We’re here, Tendou. Please, don’t make too much noise, we just got him to calm down. He’s been convulsing since last night and we finally managed to tranquilize him.” 

“Tranquilize?” He questioned.

Goshiki nodded, “We had to. He bit two of the people we had come to give him medicine and he just kept screaming and kicking people.”

“Wakatoshi didn’t tell me that.”

“Coach told us not to bother you with this. That you didn’t need to be affected any further, he’s been worried about you Tendou.”

“He doesn't need to be. I’m fine.”

Goshiki gave a brisk nod back and walked out of sight. Taking his seat he stared down at the young man.

The body of Semi, Eita laid on his back. His once lively eyes are now cast over by a grey screen, kind of like a dead fish. 

He would like to think that maybe it was his fault Semi got hurt, but no he can’t really blame himself. Semi and him both decide to split up to repair the school wall. While he worked on the wreck Semi jumped on the car and over the wall. Him and a few other students pulled on the hunk of metal as Tendou and a few others pushed the car out. Apparently there was a survivor underneath the car and Semi with another student tried pulling him out. He didn’t know what happened afterward, all he heard were the others rushing Semi back over the gate.

“Hey, there Semisemi.” He tried to make a smile pull at the corner of his lips, but failed. “I really hope you’re getting better.” 

No answer.

Tendou put a shaking hand down on top of the old pinch server’s chest. The steady heartbeat of Eita softly battered against his palm.

Thump

Thump

Thump

 “I don’t know what to say. . .sorry I was never great at vocalizing my emotions.” The sunken cheeks of his friend looked surreal and Semi’s shallow breathing made him feel anxious. Dried lips, chapped from hours without moisture. “You're really green in the face, Semisemi. Did you eat today? I’m pretty sure I have some umaibo in my dorm room. It's probably stale, but still sort of edible.” 

Thump

Thump

Thump

“Maybe when all of this is over we can all go to a karaoke room together, play a couple rounds of volleyball like old times sake.” Tendou started to spout about all the good times they had together. The weeks before felt like a lifetime. He’s seen students go mad over the isolation, grow depressed from the loss of loved ones and everything in between. 

Thump

Thump

Thump

His mind aimlessly wondered to his family. His mother is probably the only family member he cares about. His father left them at a very young age. Tendou’s mom never spoke ill of the man even when she heard he was getting remarried last year. She’s a kind soul, and Tendou could clearly tell he didn’t inherit his mother’s benevolence. The patience she had could rival that of a Siberian tiger.

Soft moaning came from the bed ridden teen. Tendou’s heart skipped a beat and a soft grin formed on his lips. Low gurgles sounded from the back of his throat and Tendou panicked. He quickly moved Semi over onto his side and swiftly scooted his body away from the bile escaping his mouth. Coating the floor in a thick black paste.

. . . 

. . .

. . .

Something is very wrong.

Why is his vomit black? And when did his heart stop beating? It was fine earlier and Semi was just breathing pretty average. So, why is he still breathing if his heart stopped?

Before Tendou could yell for help, his body was violently yanked. Semi’s once feeble hand was now forcibly dragging Satori. He was pulled towards the bed and in a blur of fight or flight he chose to flee. Tendou maneuvered his right arm behind himself to grab a hold of Semi’s hand. It was cold and felt like plastic. He tried to wrestle Semi’s strong grasp off his shoulder yet to no avail couldn’t free himself. He wiggled back and forth, even placing his feet on Semi’s chest and was able to give some distance between one another. However, it was short lived as the being that used to be Semi seemed to gain a small power boost and was able to dig his fingers into Tendou’s jacket. Tendou thrusted his right leg out and pressed it against the wall. A loud thwack resonated in the classroom as he fell against the hard tile floor.

Steamy expiration landed near his neck, the smell just alone made him gag. Tears built up in his eyes and before he knew it his old friend’s mouth fell open. He’s gonna kill me.

Tendou’s mind went into a flurry of rushed thoughts. He could just feel the piercing of his flesh being torn open. Out of instinct he swung his arm back and his elbow made contact with a solid object. Semi fell off him again, his body sliding across the ground, and tearing down the heavyweight curtain.

Students slowly walked towards the disturbance happening in the back. Three students seized Semi and pinned him on his stomach before lifting him up forcibly dragging him out the room. Some of the others asked Tendou if he was alright, but all Tendou could do was stare in fixation at Semi’s now pink eyes.

[justseveralowls]

I’ve spent over 16 hours in two different ERs and I’d like to vent

CW: Doctors hospitals, chronic illness, incompetence, female hysteria, humiliation, mental health stigma,

What follows is my original post made on Thursday, there is a update as of today at the end and the news is not all bad. This is made to spread awareness talk about an issue I feel is way too often ignored and most importantly let other people feeling this they aren’t alone.

So. I have ehler danlos syndrome, celiac, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, and an (so far) otherwise specified seizure disorder. So basically I am a medical dumpster fire. Getting a or in my case several diagnosis has been a long terrifying and grueling for both me and my partner. We have enountered many doctors and nurses who were kind attentive willing to listen and knowledgeable about my Miriad of admiditally uncommon diagnosis. But today I am so incredibly hurt, frustrated, angry and scared and I want to put this out there because this is part of the many problems that chronically ill and disabled people face everytime they walk into a doctors office, emergency room or even out in public.

So I look sick, it’s obvious and it’s been obvious for a long time. I sit at around a six to seven on a pain scale most of my life, which sucks. I have chronic nausea and weight loss that makes me weak and thin in a sick way, which also sucks. But by far the hardest thing is hoe many people refuse to take my seriously. So today after three months on a waiting list I saw a gastroenterologist. I was scared, underweight, sick and tired. I wanted answers like always and let my partner drag me into a beige fluorescent room to try and make some sense. Overall the doctor was nice, but put heavy emphasis on my past of CPTSD from repeated abuse, and implied that my weight loss and severe gastrointestinal problems could be “just a side effect of my anxiety”. That was dehumanizing to say the least. Because I know I’m traumatized, I’ve sat in therapists offices and cried, I’ve pulled myself together, fought addiction and anorexia and I know that I’m healing. I know it’s his job to look between the lines but I also want to just have a chance to be understood, and not dismissed as a psych case.

Later today I had an episode of vomiting and loss of consciousness, over all not great stuff. So my partner in their amazing sense of love and compassion took me to th ER. Because that’s where you’re supposed to go when you’re scared, sick, hurt, in danger and don’t know what to do.

My experience there was by far the worst I’ve ever had. My vitals were highly abnormal (high pulse at rest, low BP, and low pulse ox). I was having neurological symptoms related to my seizure disorder and instead was given a barrage of tests that had nothing to do with why I was there, the condition I repeatedly told them I had, or the worrying vitals. So after two hours a head CT and useless blood work the ER doctor looked at me and my partner (who was forced to wait in the car in 94 degree weather) and told me I was fine and dehydrated.

I’m a nursing student, I’m new, I’m a novice at the most, and I have a lot to learn. But never could I imagine having a chronically patient, with abnormal labs and vitals with numerological involvement be given saline and discharged. My partner and I were terrified because we didn’t know what else to do. I needed help. I needed answers. I needed them to hear me. After me panicking my partner told me that we should try again. Because doctors are here to help us, and if your scared and there’s something wrong they took an oath to help.

So I called the nurse who was awesome, he went and got the doctor and I was ready to make my case. My partner at this point as well as me were terrified frustrated and close to tears. And this ER doctor after hearing our concerns, my history (with chronic illness and anorexia) proceeded to throw up her hand and as’ my partner “what they her to do”. This was shocking but sadly it doesn’t end here. The doctor proceeded to insist that I was fine and the situation was both non emergent and out of her hands. I responded in a passive way because at that point I was scared triggered and exausted. And I asked what she thought I should do”. And the words that came of her mouth hurt me and made more angry than any four syllables ever has.

“Psych referral”

Now let me something straight. I am a survivor, I am working in me healing, I am growing and changing for the better. I take my meds go to therapy and work everyday to get a little better. But this woman who obviously hadn’t read my chart which denotes not only my diagnosis, psychological history, and notEs from speacialists on the severity of my physical condition has just implied that I’m crazy. This was horrible but 8 could see how it would seem that I am overreacting but, due years of gaslighting, medication being forced on me to cover abuse and trauma, I hate being called that. It’s not a real term, nor does it help anyone, nor does it doing anything but make me remember the nights I spent wondering if that word was me.

In one visit, one person managed to dehumanize, humiliate dismiss me and maybe risk my life based on the fact that 8 wasn’t worth the time it took to read my chart.

It so incredibly weird to have to say this but I as a queer, gay, chronically ill, Latin person am in fact still a human being WHOS painand concerns deserve as much respect as anyone else. We all deserve to be helped and heard and people like this are one of the many reasons that I and so many others are scared to ge5 help, scared to tell the full story, or scared to speak up. This kills people. This is killing people. And this is why I in all my chronically glory and working so hard to advocate and move forward in medicine as a whole. Because nobody deserves that. Because I didn’t deserve to sit in an ER terrified and be told I was crazy. Because my partner doesn’t deserve to be dismissed and mocked for being scared. Because I nor anyone else have to prove I am sick enough or disabled enough to be worth someone’s time.

I hope anyone who reads this and understands even a little. Who’s been through it, whose family and partners have been through it know that this is not okay, that this not your fault, and that you are by no means crazy. That the people who make feel like burden or an annoyance are the problem. Because you deserve to be heard. I m hoping everybody’s doing okay, I’m hoping your journeys are treating you well. Because as always no matter who are, where you are and what you’re feeling you are not alone, you are worthy and I believe you.

***Update**

I later went to a larger hospital not in my home town, and through a long stay in the ER got a formal epilepsy diagnosis, given a anti convulsants drug, and overall treated like a human being. I now have contact with their epilepsy unit and have the tool and education I need to start this part of my chronic illness journey. I’m exhausted and getting used to knew meds but am highly grateful for the good doctors out there, the nurses who listen and the partner who was angelic enough to be with me through it all.

[i-am-out-of-my-vulcan-mind]

Broken Dreams

Hi guys. 

This oneshot is slightly different from the fics I usually write. It is very close to my heart and has been rather therapeutic for me. 

I’m not sure how well received this will be throughout the fandom though...

Massive trigger warning in regards to infertility. Also TW for clinical terms and vomiting. 

This is for my @badthingshappenbingo​ Square “phantom pain”. @lurkingwhump​, thank you for your help and your friendship. I glove you. 

Also special thanks to @unorthodox-oblivion​ for allowing me to ramble about this project. You’re a gem. 

“Are you alright?” Kurt asked Jane as he joined her in the kitchen. She was leaning against the counter, nursing a cup of ginger tea, her eyes closed, her face drawn. She met his gaze, shrugging at his question. “You only drink that stuff when you don’t feel good.” he continued in her silence. “Are you sick?”

Jane shook her head. “No exactly.” she breathed. Kurt frowned, moving closer and rubbing her shoulder. 

“Is everything ok?” he asked, worried now. 

“Well… I’m late.” she confessed, giving him a pointed look.  

His eyebrows shot up. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Have you taken a test?” 

Jane shook her head and sighed. 

“Not long after I took the last test… we found out I was dying… I’m just a little scared I guess.” she divulged. She looked up at him with big worried eyes. He could see every emotion swimming in the depths of her green irises. Fear, uncertainty - hope. 

They hadn’t really spoken about children again since Madeline’s take down, but he knew it was something that still held her attention often. Especially now that Tasha was due to have her baby, he would often see Jane buying various items for the baby and staring at her bump longingly. 

“Why don’t you make a doctor's appointment,” he suggested. “That takes away the fear of taking the test at home.”  

Jane bit her cheek and nodded. “Ok…” she said softly. “But will you come with me?” Kurt’s heart contracted at the vulnerability he saw on his wife’s face. He reached out and rubbed his thumb over her jawline. 

“Of course I will.” he replied softly, kissing her on the forehead. “Make an appointment in the morning, I’ll notify the NYO and tell them we are taking the morning off.” 

Jane smiled gratefully at her husband. She was so lucky she had him. She knew she could always count on him. 

She groaned softly as her stomach rebelled some more, closing her eyes and breathing through her nose. 

“Drink the tea.” Kurt said softly, noticing her distress. 

Jane nodded, bringing her mug up to her mouth and taking a few sips. The ginger soothed her belly quickly and she sighed in relief. 

“How about we go to bed.” he said softly, taking the empty mug from his wife and putting it in the sink. Jane nodded in agreement, completely spent. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

They managed to get an early morning appointment at their doctor’s office. They sat in the waiting room, Jane picking at the skin on her fingers. Her anxiety was palpable and Kurt's heart ached for her. 

Kurt reached out and took her hand, running his fingers over her now red fingertips. 

“It’s going to be ok, Jane.” he told her gently. “No matter the result.” 

“I know…” Jane mumbled. “It’s just… I never knew how much I wanted this… until the thought of it not being positive…”

Kurt raised her hand to his mouth, kissing her fingers softly. 

“So if you’re not… then we will start actively trying.” 

Jane exhaled sharply, but then forced her face to relax. 

“Ok.” she whispered quietly. 

“Ok.” Kurt repeated. 

It was another ten minutes before her name was called. 

They sat down with their family doctor, Jane feeling like she was about to explode in anticipation. 

“Now… what can I do for you today?” Doctor John asked kindly. 

Jane looked up at the doctor, suddenly unable to form words. Kurt squeezed her hand in a silent ‘it’s ok… I’ve got this.’

“We want you to do a pregnancy test.” he replied calmly. 

Doctor John nodded. “Of course. Have you taken a home test already?” he asked, grabbing a specimen jar and handing it to Jane. 

Jane shook her head. 

“No.” she croaked, finding her voice. “I wanted to do it here.”

Doctor John nodded in understanding. This wasn’t his first nervous couple who were trying to conceive. 

“The bathroom is down the hall.” he said, gesturing for her to leave the room. 

Kurt watched his wife leave, trying his best to keep his composure. 

“She’s really nervous.” Kurt admitted. 

The doctor smiled warmly. 

“I can understand that. It’s been a rough year for the both of you.”

Kurt chuckled dryly. 

“That’s certainly one way of putting it.” he replied carefully. 

Jane returned a short time later with the specimen jar. She handed it to the doctor who then unwrapped one of the pregnancy tests. Using a dropper, he put a few drops of her urine onto the test strip. 

“That will just take a few minutes.” Doctor John said, sanitising his hands. 

Jane sat back in the chair, willing herself to breathe. 

“How has your health been?” the doctor asked. “I’m assuming you’ve had some symptoms?”

Jane nodded. 

“Well my period is late…. I… ah… I’ve been having stomach cramps and nausea…. fatigue.” she listed. 

The doctor nodded. They were all definitely signs of early pregnancy. “And how late is your period?” he asked, typing on his computer. 

“Five days.” Jane replied, instantly. She had noticed her period had been late straight away - she had always been regular to the day. 

The doctor noted that down. “Ok while we wait, we may as well take a few obs.” 

Jane nodded, rolling up her sleeve so the doctor could take her blood pressure. 

He peeled back the cuff, typing in the result. 

“Blood pressure is good… heart rate is a little fast, but I would expect that if you’re feeling a little anxious.”  

Jane bit her lip. She hated feeling this way. 

Doctor John stood up, looking at the pregnancy test. 

He frowned. 

“Unfortunately this is negative.” he said, looking at Jane with genuinely sad eyes. 

Jane’s heart plummeted. She looked at the floor, trying with all her might not to cry. Kurt reached out and took her trembling hand and she used his touch to ground herself. 

“I’m sorry.” Doctor John said. He sat back down so he was eye level with Jane. “I would like to send you for some bloods, just to check a few things.”

At Jane and Kurt’s questioning stare, he continued. “You’re still having some untoward symptoms, and the fact that your period is late, I just want to check that your hormone levels are where they should be.”

Jane nodded. 

“Ok.” she whispered in a small voice. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

Jane had just finished getting her blood drawn, when her phone rang. 

“Hey Tasha.” she replied, meeting Kurt back in the waiting room. “How are you feeling?”

“Huge… bored.” Tasha replied.  “Hey are you still coming over on Saturday?”she asked, getting straight to the point. 

“Of course.” Jane replied instantly. “I miss you.” 

“I miss you too.” Tasha replied. “Hey do you think you could bring those bagels from the bodega down your street?”

“Of course.” Jane chuckled. She opened the door, walking out onto the footpath. “Hey I gotta run, but I’ll see you in a few days.” 

“Ok!” Tasha replied. “Don’t forget the bagels.” she added for measure. 

“I won’t. Bye Tasha.”

“Bye Jane.” 

Jane hung up the phone, taking Kurt's hand. 

“That was Tasha.” she told him. “She wanted to know if we were still coming on Saturday, and she wants us to bring bagels.”

Kurt grinned. 

“If that woman eats any more bagels, she is going to turn into one.”

Jane smiled softly up at her husband, before sighing, her eyes falling close. 

“Hey.” Kurt said gently, stopping on the street in front of her. He placed both of his hands on her shoulders, bending down so his face was adjacent to hers. She opened her eyes and looked at him sadly. 

“I’m sorry… I guess I’m just a little disappointed.”

Kurt kissed her on the forehead. “Me too.” he murmured. “But as I said… I guess we just start actively trying now.” he winked, earning himself a soft punch to the shoulder. 

She reached up and kissed him tenderly, forever grateful that he was by her side. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

Jane woke up the next morning to a feeling of urgency. Her stomach lurched, sending her hurtling towards the bathroom. She quickly lost the contents of her stomach, her eyes streaming from the intensity of the sudden attack. 

She felt Kurt holding her hair back with one hand and start rubbing her back with the other. She whimpered uncharacteristically as her stomach cramped forcefully, gagging into the toilet bowl. 

Very slowly her stomach started to settle back down, the nausea abating to a manageable queasiness. 

She accepted the toilet paper Kurt was handing her, wiping her face and blowing her nose. She sat back on the tiles feeling wretched. 

“I don’t understand.” she whispered when she could finally use her voice. “If I’m not pregnant… then why am I vomiting?”

She looked up at Kurt, her eyes wide and unblinking. 

Kurt shrugged, kneeling down in front of her. “Maybe you have some kind of bug?” he suggested, holding the back of his hand on her forehead. “You don’t feel warm though.” he frowned. 

Jane groaned miserably, leaning her head against the vanity, closing her eyes. 

“Whatever is wrong, I think you’ll feel better in bed.” Kurt said softly. “Do you want me to call you in sick?”

Jane paused for a second. It wasn’t like her to take time off work, but the last few days had been an emotional roller coaster and her insides were still churning. She wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to keep her own body under control. The thought of vomiting at the NYO was mortifying. 

Making a decision, she nodded softly. “Please.” she croaked out, rubbing her stomach uncomfortably. 

He smiled, kissing her forehead. 

“Ok. I’ll call and then I’ll help you back to bed.” He left the room and Jane could hear him talking in the other room. 

Jane frowned as her stomach cramped again, swallowing convulsively against the building nausea. Kurt reentered the bathroom, just as she had dragged herself back to the toilet, groaning into the bowl. 

“Jane!” he exclaimed, rushing to her side. He knelt behind her, pulling her hair back off her face again. “Hmm maybe you do have a bug.” he murmured as she gagged, throwing up what little was left in her stomach. He winced in sympathy when she was down to dry heaves, rubbing her back in the only comfort he could offer. 

She retched again, before spitting into the toilet, taking deep breaths through her nose to try and calm her upset belly. 

“I’m gonna get you some water.” Kurt said softly, moving out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. He filled a glass, his concern for his wife growing. She was already struggling emotionally, and it hurt him to see her struggling physically as well. He returned to the bathroom to find her leaning against the vanity again, her hand resting on her upset stomach. 

He knelt down, handing her the glass of water. She sipped at it slowly, a look of relief crossing her face when it seemed like it wasn’t going to make a reappearance. 

“Let’s get you back to bed.” Kurt said kindly, offering his hand and helping her to her feet. He guided her back to their bedroom, tucking her under the covers. He left to get her a bucket from the cleaning cupboard and set it beside the bed. “Arla has said to take the weekend off.” he said now that he had her settled.”

“Really? It’s only Thursday?”

Kurt nodded. “She said that if you were that sick, that you should stay away from the NYO until you were feeling better.”

“Oh good.” Jane said relieved. She would be lying if she had said she didn’t want some time off to recuperate after the last few days. Her stomach chose that moment to cramp again. She frowned, curling into the fetal position. 

“Do you want me to stay with you?” he asked, worried at how pale she was. 

Jane shook her head. “No… we can’t both take the day off.” she said from under the covers. “I’ll be ok.” 

Kurt bent over, kissing her softly on the temple. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Go. Or you’ll be late.” 

“Call me if you need me.” Kurt said before walking out of the room. 

Jane snuggled back under the covers, willing her stomach to stop turning. It wasn’t long before she fell back into a fitful sleep. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

Jane was woken by the shrill ringing of her phone. Checking the time she noted she had already been asleep for half the day. 

“Jane speaking.” she answered, rubbing her hand over her face. 

“Jane, this is Doctor John. How are you doing today?”

Jane sat up in bed, suddenly more alert at hearing the doctor’s voice. 

“I’m ok.” she replied. 

“I’ve gotten your blood results back.” the doctor said, getting straight to business. “Jane, your hormone levels indicate something called pseudocyesis, or more commonly known as a phantom pregnancy.”

Jane frowned, at a loss for words. 

“What does that mean?” she asked quietly, not sure if she actually wanted to know. 

“Basically it means your body thinks that it is pregnant, but there isn’t actually a fetus.” Doctor John explained. 

“So that’s why I’ve been vomiting today?” she queried incredulously. “I’ve been having morning sickness?”

“To a degree, yes.” 

Jane sighed. This was not what she wanted to hear. 

“So what now?” 

“I’ve booked you in for an ultrasound for this afternoon. I just want to make sure there is nothing more sinister going on.” At Jane’s silence he continued. “I’ll send a text with the information.”

“Thank you.” she breathed, unable to talk anymore. 

“Let’s make another appointment for you to come and see me tomorrow to discuss what happens next. What time would suit?”

“Any time.” she said, remembering she had the next three days off. 

“Ok, I’ll see you tomorrow at four. That will give time for the results to come through to me.”

“See you then.” she rasped before hanging up the phone.

A phantom pregnancy. How could life be so cruel? To have the thing she wanted most in this world dangled in front of her face like that… it was like fate was playing a sick joke on her. 

She sat on the bed, feeling miserable, until she realised she needed to tell Kurt what was happening. 

Taking a calming breath, she called him, waiting nervously as the phone rang. He picked up on the third ring. 

“Jane? How are you feeling?” he answered, concern laced through his voice. 

“The doctor called.” Jane replied, cutting straight to the point. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little bit nervous at how Weller would take the news. She knew he wanted this as much as she did. 

“What did he say?”

“I’m… I’m having a phantom pregnancy.” Jane mumbled. “Basically my body thinks that I’m pregnant… but there’s no baby.”

“Oh Jane…” Kurt whispered gently. “So that’s why you’ve been so sick?”

“Yeah.” Jane breathed. She lay back on the pillows, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes. 

“Are you ok?” Kurt asked. “If you need me to come home then I will.”

“No… no I’m ok.” she replied in a small voice. “I have to have an ultrasound this afternoon… the doctor just wants to check a few things.”

“I can meet you there?” Kurt said, trying his best to support her through this. 

“I have a follow up appointment with the doctor tomorrow… I would rather you be there for that… I’m not sure how well Arla would react if you kept ducking in and out like that.”

After a brief moment of silence, weighing up his options Kurt replied. “You’re right. They probably won’t tell you much today anyway.” 

“Yeah I doubt it. I’m still waiting for the doctor to text with the information. I’ll let you know when I do.”

“Ok Jane.” he said softly. “I love you.”

She sighed. 

“I love you too. I’ll see you later.”

They ended the call and Jane brought her hand up to her face, trying to keep her composure. 

Her phone beeped, stating that her ultrasound would be in a couple of hours at a clinic not far from her apartment. The instructions said to show up with a full bladder.

Jane sighed, realising she hadn’t had anything to eat and only very little to drink since waking up the first time. She forced her aching body to get out of bed and made her way to the kitchen.  She fixed herself some dry toast and ginger tea, not wanting to aggravate her already delicate stomach. 

The next couple of hours went by quickly, and before she knew it, she was in the waiting room.  

“Jane Doe?” the ultrasound technician asked. 

Jane stood up, following the tech down the hallway to a small, dark room. The tech asked her to lay flat on the bed. Jane did as asked, the tissue paper rustling under her body. 

“Your bladder is full?” the tech - Julie, Jane read on her name badge - asked as she set up her equipment. 

Jane nodded, feeling quite vulnerable. She wished she had let Kurt come. She knew Arla would have gotten over it. Full of regret, she took a breath, before Julie lifted her shirt, squeezing the gel onto her skin. 

Jane watched, her heart sinking when she saw the image of what she assumed was her uterus appearing on the screen. The fact that it was empty had her willing herself not to cry. She lay there silently, letting tech run the wand over her belly. 

“Ok, I think I need to do an internal, if that’s ok with you?” Julie said, as she cleaned the gel off of Jane’s skin. 

“Ah… yeah? Is everything ok?” she asked worriedly. 

“I’d just like to get some clearer images on a few things.” Julie replied. “There’s a bathroom through there,” she pointed. “Empty your bladder while I get things set up.”

Jane complied, shuffling off of the bed and moving towards the bathroom to relieve herself. When she returned, the tech pulled the curtain, asking her to remove her pants and underwear and cover herself with the sheet provided. 

Jane winced slightly as the wand was inserted, her pelvic area feeling incredibly tender. 

She looked up at the technician, noticing the frown plastered to her face. 

“Is everything ok?” Jane asked again. Julie looked down at her with sympathy.

“You have a lot of inflammation in your fallopian tubes… this could be caused by the pseudocyesis, but I want to get some clearer images to be sure.”

Jane swallowed thickly - that would explain the stomach pains and tenderness. She lay there silently for another fifteen minutes, before Julie removed the wand, lifting the sheet back down to cover her. 

“I think we are done here. I’m going to get one of my seniors to look at these before we send the results back to your doctor.”

Jane bit her lip. She could tell there was something Julie wasn’t telling her. She wouldn’t meet her eye. 

“Ok.” she said in a small voice. She didn’t want to put the tech in an awkward position. Clearly it wasn’t her place to tell her what was going on. Jane would just have to wait until her appointment the following day. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

Jane returned home feeling shaken and dazed. Kurt wasn’t due home for another hour so she busied herself cleaning the apartment and fixing him some dinner. It was the least she could do after he had literally held her hair back for her that morning. 

He arrived home right on schedule, mildly - yet pleasantly surprised at the meal that was put in front of him the moment he sat down. 

“You not eating?” he asked, his concern palpable. 

Jane shook her head. 

“Still feeling sick?”

She sighed. 

“I don’t think the ultrasound went well.” she confessed nervously. 

Kurt put down his knife and fork, giving her a pointed look. “What makes you say that?”

Jane bit her lip, staring down at the floor. 

“Just the way the tech acted. She got me to do an internal ultrasound and then was avoiding my questions… said there was inflammation in my fallopian tubes.” 

Kurt put his plate on the kitchen bench, his meal momentarily forgotten. He walked around the breakfast bar, pulling his wife into his arms. 

“Everything is going to be ok.” he promised, murmuring into her hair. He felt her start to tremble. “Shhh it’s ok… I’ve got you.”

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

Jane barely slept that night, and was woken by another onslaught of nausea. Kurt brought her a cup of ginger tea into the bathroom, knowing it was the only thing that seemed to stem the vomiting. 

“Arla has okayed me taking the day off with you.” Kurt said, sitting on the bathroom floor beside his ailing wife. He knew that right now she needed him there with her. She was going to be an anxiety riddled mess until her appointment with the doctor that afternoon and he needed to be there to support her. 

He felt some of the tension leave her body at that knowledge. 

“I was thinking maybe we could watch a couple of movies to fill in the day?”

Jane nodded, still not quite recovered from her “morning sickness” attack to speak yet. She took a couple more sips of the tea, before Kurt helped her to her feet and led her out to the living room. He got her situated on the couch, bringing out the bucket from the bedroom from the day before. 

“Just in case.” he said softly. 

Jane managed to smile at him. There was no way she would have been able to get through the last forty eight hours without him. She would be forever grateful that he was there to help her through yet another traumatic ordeal. 

The day passed quickly and before she knew it, she was sitting in yet another waiting room, anxious out of her mind. She knew in her heart that the results she was about to get would change her life forever. 

She saw Doctor John appear in the waiting room and make eye contact with her. “Jane.” he said, indicating she should follow him. She could tell him his whole demeanour that he wasn’t looking forward to this appointment. 

They sat down in his office, Jane looking at him expectantly. 

“How are you feeling?” Doctor John asked, noting how pale she looked.  

“Not great.” Jane admitted. “The stomach symptoms are causing me some grief.” 

The doctor nodded at that. 

“I will prescribe you some hormone supplements to help with that.” he said softly. 

“What did the ultrasound say?” Kurt asked, addressing the elephant in the room. 

Doctor John sighed. 

“I’ve been doing a bit of research in regards to your ZIP poisoning last year.” he started. 

Jane looked at him with a confused expression. 

“What does my ultrasound have to do with my ZIP poisoning?” she asked, frightened of what the answer would be.

“Jane… the ultrasound showed that your fallopian tubes are incredibly inflamed… this inflammation has caused irreversible scarring… I’m so sorry.”

Jane’s chin wobbled. 

“W-what are you saying?” she stuttered.  

“From the research I’ve done in conjunction with your ultrasound results… it looks like when you were sick last year, the poisoning caused your fallopian tubes to swell…” he paused, looking sympathetically into Jane’s eyes. “You will never conceive children naturally.” 

Jane’s eyes widened and then she just went numb. The doctor’s voice faded into the background, and if it wasn’t for Kurt’s hand on her knee, she would have forgotten to breathe. 

She didn’t hear much of the rest of the appointment so she was glad that Kurt was there to retain the rest of the information. 

She remained silent the whole way back to the apartment, Kurt watching her out of the corner of his eyes. He could see her struggling - hell he was, but he knew he needed to give her a moment. 

It wasn’t until they got back into their apartment that he stopped her. 

He stepped in front of her, taking one of her hands softly. “Jane.” he whispered. When she wouldn’t even meet his eye, he cupped her chin, tilting her face up so she was forced to look at him. “Talk to me… please.”

Her eyes darted back and forth, her entire body trembling. “I…” she started, before her lip trembled and her face contorted in grief. She let out a wail before dissolving into a fit of tears. 

“Oh Jane.” Kurt murmured, pulling her into his chest. Jane sobbed into his shirt, her tears falling uncontrollably. “It’s ok baby… I’ve got you.” He felt her tremble, before her knees gave out in her grief. Kurt caught her, lifting her into his arms as she cried. Making a quick decision, he carried her to their bedroom, laying her gently on the bed, before joining her, cradling her to his chest. 

“Ssshhh.” he whispered, as he stroked her hair. “I’ve got you… everything is going to be ok…” His heart shattered for his poor wife, and the knowledge that they would more than likely never have children together. The doctor had mentioned referring them to a fertility specialist to see if they would be viable for IVF. So there was still a glimmer of hope, but Kurt knew in his heart that Jane would never go for it. He knew she wouldn’t be able to put herself through the hormonal abuse, for it potentially not to work. Her broken heart wouldn’t be able to handle it. 

He held her tighter, holding her hand to his heart in an attempt to try and help her calm down. There was nothing he could say or do to fix this, so he just opted to hold her, to let their shattered dreams die together as the both cried. 

It was sometime later before Jane started to calm down, her sobs turning into little hiccups. Kurt continued to hold her tight, swapping between rubbing her back and stroking her head. He felt her relax, her breathing evening out. He peeked down at her to find she had fallen into an exhausted sleep. 

He sighed. She was going to take this hard. Not only had they found out it was very unlikely she would be able to get pregnant - that alone was devastating - but he also knew she would be plagued with guilt. He knew she would be stewing over the fact that she had agreed to taking the ZIP… that it was just another thing that her previous life had ruined for them. He knew he was going to have a hard time convincing her that it wasn’t her fault - that she didn’t know what would happen. 

He settled against the mattress, nuzzling into her hair. All he could do was be there for her. To show her that no matter what, he wasn’t going anywhere. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

The next morning, Kurt woke to find his wife missing from their bed. Rolling out of bed, he checked the bathroom, wondering if she had gotten sick again and ended up there. Seeing that it was empty he wandered out into the kitchen. 

“Jane?” he called, when he still couldn’t find her. 

He saw a note on the counter and strode across the room to read it. 

“Gone to get bagels.” Was all it said. 

Kurt chewed on his lip. He had forgotten that they were going to visit Tasha today. He wondered how Jane would react to seeing her pregnant belly. He knew it was probably going to be hard on him, so he could only imagine what that would do to Jane. 

She entered the apartment a few minutes later, carrying a brown paper bag filled with bagels. 

“Hey.” he said softly. 

“Hey.” she replied, putting her keys in the bowl and placing the bag on the counter. 

“How are you doing?” he asked quietly, pulling her into a hug. 

“I’m ok... I guess.” she replied sadly. 

“We don’t have to go and see Tasha and the others today if you’re not up to it.” Kurt murmured against her hair. 

Jane shook her head. 

“No, I said we would be there… and I miss her.” She sighed, stepping out of his embrace. “It’s going to be hard… but I want to make the effort. I can’t hide in this apartment forever.”

Kurt cupped her cheek, bending down to kiss her softly. “You truly are remarkable.” he said sincerely, in complete awe of how brave his wife was. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

They arrived at Tasha’s mid afternoon, both of them excited to see their friend. She pulled each of them into a hug before snatching the bagels and disappearing into the kitchen. 

Jane could hear Patterson and Rich in the living room and made her way in to be with her friends. 

“Jane!” Patterson exclaimed. “How are you feeling? We’ve missed you at work.”

Jane took a seat, trying her best to school her features. 

“I’m ok.” she said in a measured voice. 

“You’ve been sick?” Tasha asked, reappearing with a plate full of bagels. 

“Not exactly…” Jane started, looking up at Tasha’s giant belly.  At the silence that followed, she looked around at her family, the expectant expressions on their faces. “I… I’ve…” she looked at Tasha’s bump again, her heart rate picking up. “I’m sorry…” she muttered, jumping to her feet. “I thought I could do this…” She raced past Kurt, slamming the door behind her. 

“What was all that about?” she heard Rich say as she ran down the street to a nearby alley. She leaned against the brick wall, trying to stop herself from hyperventilating. 

She closed her eyes, tears leaking out from behind her lashes. 

“Jane… hey.” 

And there it was… the voice that would get her through everything. 

She forced her eyes open, drinking in the sight of him greedily. 

“Hey…” she mumbled. “Sorry about that…”

Kurt took her in his arms. 

“Sshh it’s ok Jane. I get it… I really do. It was hard for me to be in there too.”

Jane looked up at him, guilt clouding her eyes. 

“I feel like I’ve let you down.” she whispered. 

“Hey… hey none of that.” Kurt murmured, staring deeply into her eyes. “None of this is your fault Jane.”

Jane sniffed, swallowing thickly. “If I hadn’t have…”

“Jane… stop. This isn’t your fault.” he exclaimed more forcefully. 

Jane sighed. “It’s just something we both wanted… as I said… I just feel like I’m letting you down.”

Kurt sighed. 

“Jane there are other ways to have children… we still have the option of going through the fertility specialist… if that’s what you want.”

Jane bit her lip. 

“I’m not sure what I want.” she confessed. “The thought of going through all of that… for it to fail…” 

“I know baby… I know.” Kurt said wrapping his arms around her. “We don’t have to decide anything right now.”

They stayed like that for a moment, before Jane pulled away. 

“We’re going to have to go back in there, aren’t we?” she asked, looking back in the direction of Tasha’s apartment. 

Kurt nodded. 

“I think we should tell them.” he said quietly. 

Jane nodded, but was stuck to the spot. 

“I don’t know if I can…” she whispered. 

“It’s ok…” he soothed. “Why don’t you go and wait in the car… I’ll go back in.”

Jane looked gratefully up at her husband. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Kurt made his way back up the street to his friend’s apartment. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t dreading telling the rest of the team what was going on… especially Tasha. She had enough going on with the impending arrival of her and Reade’s baby. He didn’t want to add the extra stress - but he also knew that they all deserved to know what was happening. 

He entered the apartment, Patterson jumping to her feet at his arrival. 

“Is Jane ok?” she asked with wide eyes. 

Kurt sighed. 

“No… but she will be.” With that he explained everything that had happened in the last few days. When he finished, he was enveloped in a very awkward hug, Tasha’s belly getting in the way. 

“Kurt… I’m so sorry.” she said softly. 

Patterson and Rich followed suit, hugging him in turn and offering their condolences.

“Anyway… I should get back to Jane… I just thought you guys deserved to know.”

“Please… tell us if you need anything.” Patterson urged, walking him to the door. 

“Thank you.” he replied softly. He looked up, catching Tasha’s eye. They nodded to each other in a silent understanding. 

Kurt found his wife waiting in the car, her head leaning back against the headrest in exhaustion. 

“Hey.” he said softly, getting into the driver's seat. 

“How did that go?” Jane asked, her eyes wide. 

Kurt just nodded in reply, sniffing. He swallowed before looking back at his wife. 

“Are you ok?” he asked again. 

Jane took a deep breath. 

“I will be.” she said softly. “As you said… we don’t have to make a decision right now… but when we do… whatever happens, happens.”

Kurt reached out and took her hand, bringing it up to her lips and kissing the back of it.  

“Agreed.”

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

One week later. 

Jane was busy cleaning the kitchen when her phone rang. Looking at the caller ID she answered straight away. 

“Rich?”

“It’s a boy!” he shouted in joy. Jane couldn’t help but smile. 

“Oh my god! How are they?” she exclaimed, motioning to her husband. ‘It’s a boy!’ she mouthed to him. Kurt’s face lit up. 

“They’re doing great!” Rich replied, and Jane grinned at the proud tone of his voice. “Tasha wants to see you… if you’re feeling up to it.”

“Of course!” she replied almost instantly. “We will be there soon.” She hung up the phone.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Kurt asked her carefully. 

“There is no way I’m missing this.” 

Kurt cupped her jaw, kissing her softly. “Let’s go meet our nephew.”

Jane nodded. “Our nephew.” she repeated. 

0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°0°

They crept into the hospital room quietly, Jane holding a bunch of flowers, while Kurt carried in a teddy and a blue balloon. 

Jane took one look at Tasha holding her baby and burst into tears. 

“Oh Tasha.” she wept. “He’s beautiful.” She placed the flowers on the table. 

Tasha started crying the moment she saw Jane crying and pulled her in for a hug. 

“What’s his name?” Jane asked, peeking at the baby. 

Tasha smiled softly with watery eyes. “Eddy… after his daddy.” 

Jane leant forward and kissed her friend on the forehead. “That’s perfect… he’s perfect.”

“Would you like to hold him?” Tasha asked softly. She didn’t want to set Jane off again, but she also wanted to give her the choice.

Jane nodded softly.

Tasha handed the baby over gently, Jane holding him close to her chest. 

“Hello beautiful boy.” she cooed. “I’m so glad to finally meet you.” she whispered, a tear escaping and rolling down her face. 

“Jane I wanted to ask if you and Kurt would be his godparents?” Tasha asked, looking and Jane and Kurt. 

Jane’s head shot up, meeting Tasha’s gaze. 

“Are you sure?” she squeaked. 

Tasha nodded. 

“It would be an honor.” Kurt answered. And it truly was. His best friend had died, and what better way to honor his memory, than to look after his family. 

Jane sat on one of the chairs. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the precious bundle in her arms. When the baby started to fuss, she started humming ‘hush little baby’ to him and he settled almost instantly. 

“That’s a good boy.” she murmured softly. “You are so loved. I’ll never let anything bad ever happen to you. I’ll always be there for you.”

Kurt watched his wife, pride filling his chest. They had some tough decisions to make in the near future, but until then, at least they had this little guy to fill their lives with joy. 

They would get through this, just as they got through everything else, as a family. 

[rhodanum]

COVID-19 roller-coaster

Despite its personal nature, I'm making this entry public, since it may be of aid to others as well, in these circumstances. Particularly for people who might end up having highly atypical symptoms like I did.

Long story short, I've been scarce from most forms of social-media for over a month because I caught COVID-19 some time before my country instituted lockdown measures. I was in hospital from the start to the middle of April (roughly two weeks) and started showing symptoms as early as March 18 (runny nose, sneezing, that I ascribed to a common cold, since at that time they weren't considered something that could present in the case of COVID-19). It took me well over a week and a half of battling symptoms at home and calling four ambulances in that time-frame, always getting dismissed on account of my symptoms not matching up with the standards presentation (aside for the runny nose and sneezing, the vast majority of my symptoms have been gastrointestinal, neurological and renal in nature, not pulmonary) before I was finally tested (on April 1st) and admitted to hospital the following day, when the test came back positive.

My timeline of events has been the following (and I'm still currently symptomatic + showed one new COVID-specific symptom even after two negative tests and discharge from hospital):

March 18 - March 23 -- constantly runny nose, post-nasal drip, sneezing all the time, a light cough. Nothing too bothersome, I dismissed it as a seasonal cold. At this point I started burping heavily, out of nowhere, for seemingly no reason.

March 24 -- woke up with a terrible back-pain, roughly in the area of both kidneys. The pain lessened as the day went on. In the evening, I had my first very clear neurological symptom -- my eyesight filled with a sort of black static (like a TV without cable signal), to the point where I could no longer read letters, discern my own features in the mirror or tell how many fingers my father was holding up. Thinking I was having a stroke or hell knows what else, I called an ambulance. The static-like effect lasted around 20 minutes and was completely gone by the time an ambulance crew arrived. They checked my blood-pressure and it was high due to the panic (174/109), so they dismissed the static as a result of the high BP and gave me an ACE-inhibitor pill to lower it.

March 25 -- started feeling kind of grotty around lunch-time. At around five in the afternoon, I vomited up all of my lunch completely undigested. An hour later, the true wave arrived. I went to the toilet with explosive, orange-colored, watery diarrhea, massive urination (wasn't drinking more fluids than usual) and vomiting, all at the exact same time. I'm not joking in the slightest when I say that I had my head in the sink, to puke and my ass in the toilet, to pee and shit out orange water, all three at the same time. The puking subsided, but the diarrhea and the urination kept up and, for the next two hours, I went to the toilet to shit and pee every fifteen minutes. By this point I was getting dangerously dehydrated, so we called our GP. She, suspecting it might be Norovirus, told me that the diarrhea needs to be stopped ASAP and my father went to buy me the necessary medicine.

March 26 -- the diarrhea was relatively under control due to the medication, but I was still pissing buckets and having to constantly drink tea to stay hydrated, with how fast my kidneys were clearing fluids. The light cough that started on March 18 got a bit worse, but not by much. I had no appetite whatsoever and attempted to eat a little at lunch, but only ended up puking again. I was worried enough about the whole thing that I called an ambulance again. The doctors claimed it couldn't be COVID-19 (by this point I was reading reports of diarrhea as a common early symptom). He listened to my lungs and said they're clear. Then he gave me an anti-emetic shot in the bum (so I wouldn't keep throwing up) and tapped my kidneys a few times. When I flinched, he said it might be a urinary tract infection and prescribed me a list of medication, with the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin at the front of it (keep this one in mind, it's very relevant for what happened next). I didn't actually have any pain when I urinated and the urine itself wasn't dark, but rather almost as colorless as water. I was just peeing far too much and the area round my kidneys was tender.

March 27 -- woke up with a persistent cough early in the morning and a sensation of  tickling in the throat, which made the cough worse. This morphed into a  very specific kind of migraine, starting from the very back of the skull  and radiating to the front, to the point where the backs of my eyes  hurt terribly as well. Still peeing a ton and drinking tea and water to stay hydrated. General state of malaise, as if there was something terribly toxic in my body, leeching all the strength and vitality out of it. Started taking the UTI antibiotic (Ciprofloxacin). My eyelids were twitching involuntarily and I had an up-and-down sensation, with some parts of the day being slightly better (able to sit at my desk and watch an episode of a show) and others, just one or two hours later, making me feel so horrid that all I could do was lie motionless in bed. Still had no appetite and force myself to eat a bit of vegetable broth Dad made for me.

March 28 -- horrendous night between the 27th and the 28th. A sensation like a knot developed in my throat and got worse and worse. To the point where, at around three in the morning, I could no longer swallow my own saliva. I could still breathe perfectly fine, no shortness of breath of anything else like that, but the feeling was as if my esophagus went and swelled shut. I had to gather up a large quantity of saliva in my mouth, tip my head back and struggle for several dozen seconds, to be able to swallow. I very nearly choked when trying to take my medication in the morning, after a sleepless night. The inability to swallow subsided, but the sensation of a knot in the throat remained. Feeling of malaise and weakness grew worse. A sensation of brain-fog came on and I could no longer focus on anything. I attempted to read fic on my phone and just ended up reading the same chapter three dozen times, because my brain could no longer process the words. Difficulty speaking and articulating my thoughts. I could still think well enough, but translating said thoughts to words or writing was incredibly difficult. I spent a whole minute just trying to get the word 'insulin' out through my mouth. I knew it, I remembered it, I just couldn't transform it from a thought into a word without a great deal of effort.

March 29 -- another nightmarish night. Not due to problems swallowing, but inability to actually fall asleep. All attempts went the exact same way:

closed eyes and attempted to fall asleep

started hearing a loud, constant and almost nonsensical monologue in my head, in my own voice, often jumping from one language to the other (English, Romanian, Italian, etc all languages I knew). It's difficult for me to describe the contents now, since they barely made any sense, but they were almost everything from a recitation of a shopping list all the way to narratives that didn't make any sense ("and then, get this, the clock bashed his face in!")

started seeing images behind my eyelids, almost as nonsensical as the words -- parades of wild color, me falling through Salvador Dali-like landscapes, images shifting hundreds of times per minute

None of these were dreams, everything was happening while I was still awake and struggling to fall asleep. I'd close my eyes, struggle mightily to empty my head and go the fuck to sleep... and within seconds, the cavalcade of words and disjointed images would erupt again, with me having almost no control over it. After a few minutes I always found the strength to jerk up and open my eyes, which silenced the voice and ended the images... but then I'd have to try closing my eyes again and the circus would repeat again. This happened hundreds of times over the entire night, before I was finally able to fall asleep for a few hours, at six on the morning.

Woke up absolutely soaked in incredibly foul-smelling sweat. So much of it that my bedsheets were wet as well, not just my pajamas.Used what little strength I had to strip the bed, take a shower and change my pajamas. By lunch I was feeling the worst I'd ever felt, shaking convulsively without having any kind of fever and begging 112 (our emergency number) for help. Several friends were worried I might be going into some kind of shock. Our ambulance service was swamped and Dad used his connections to get a hazmat-equipped team to come home and test me for COVID-19. The hazmat team claimed, like the previous ambulance crew, that I couldn't have COVID-19 since I didn't have a fever and wasn't coughing my head off. I pressed to get taken to the hospital and tested, but between them berating me for taking the risk and Dad looking petrified at the idea of me going to a hospital (and getting exposed, at this time he was still convinced I just had a strange flu), I caved and remained home. They said I was probably having an anxiety attack and left.

March 30 -- yet another sleepless night with visual and auditory hallucinations whenever I attempted to fall asleep. Utterly desperate and frantic, I spent the night scouring the Internet for links between COVID-19 and other viral illnesses and hallucinations. In the end, while reading the prospects for all the pills I was taking, I found the culprit -- the goddamn Ciprofloxacin, the antibiotic for the presumed UTI (the area around my kidneys still kept hurting, but the urination continued to be painless, clear and frequent). Hallucinations and psychotic episodes were listed as one of its 'rare side-effects'. Not so rare in my case and other researchers are now taking a hard look at it and other antibiotics in its family, since the numbers of people who end up hallucinating while on the things is apparently larger than previously suspected.  

I immediately contacted my GP, who was shocked at what reaction my body ended up having to Cipro. Nevertheless, she immediately switched me over to another antibiotic we had in the house -- Augmentin, a more broad-spectrum one, but one I'd taken in the past for bacterial infections and responded well to. Urinating slightly less and able to eat a bit more, but the pain in the kidney area was getting worse.  

March 31 -- night hallucinations continued, but at a slightly reduced intensity, once off Cipro. Woke up completely covered in horrible-smelling sweat once again. Left arm numb and then painful, a reaction I was left with after a long bout of the monster-flu two years ago left me with peripheral nerve-damage due to the immune system going completely bonkers and attacking the nerves. This symptom appearing again made it clear that I was experiencing autoimmune issues once again, as a result of my immune system fighting against the SARS-CoV2 virus.

The pain in the kidney-area was growing worse and worse, even with the Augmentin treatment. By evening, I'd called a fourth ambulance in roughly seven days. The paramedics were even more dismissive than the last crew, said I just had some sand or maybe a small kidney-stone and to wait it out at home. They completely refused to take me to the hospital, claiming that I ran the risk of a COVID-19 infection over a small issue.

April 1 -- a slightly better night of sleep, the hallucinations reduced to 10% of their previous intensity, so clearly an effect of the Cipro. The brain-fog was still presence and further research pointed to it as a possible effect of COVID-19, rather than the antibiotic. Woke up drenched in sweat once again, with my cervical area hurting horribly, my kidneys in pain as well and my left arm numb once more. Completely furious and utterly fed-up, I said "fuck the ambulance service!" and begged Dad to take me to the nearest ER by car. By this point I was fearing for my kidneys and feeling so horrid that I was 100% willing to take the chance of COVID-19 infection, if I didn't have it, just to figure out what the bleeding fuck what happening to my body. He refused initially, fearing I would be infected, but was left with no choice in the matter when I threatened to walk to the hospital by myself if he wasn't willing to help.

At the ER closest to our apartment, a hazmat-equipped doctor working triage had me sit down and fill up a questionnaire of symptoms. Even without fever or difficulty breathing or persistent cough (my cough came only in the morning and lasted just a few minutes each day), everything else was enough to make him note "possible COVID-19" and give me a paper to present to our national institute of infectious diseases, so I could get tested. So Dad and me left the ER and drove to Matei Bals Institute, where the doctors were rather puzzled by me, coming in without a fever  and not coughing my lungs out. The chest x-ray turning out perfect (nothing in the lungs) only seemed to increase their skepticism, but they nevertheless tested me, before sending me home and telling me I'd receive the result in 24 hours. Their only recommendation was to talk to a nephrologist on the phone, re: the kidneys.

April 2 -- felt slightly better, though still under heavy malaise and the kidneys were more painful than ever. At about nine in the evening I got a phone call from our local public health authorities, who told me that my RT-PCR test for COVID-19 was positive. Honestly? Instead of being frightened, I was relieved. After almost two weeks of the strangest collection of symptoms I'd ever had, I finally had an explanation as to what on earth was causing them and was vindicated re: the four ambulance crews that dismissed me. The authorities sent an ambulance that picked me up, right along with Dad (quite unwillingly in his case, he only had some sniffles and a minor indigestion, despite having nursed me for well over a week). We got taken back to Matei Bals Institute, where Dad was tested and sent back home (since he didn't have much in the way of symptoms and they had no reason to keep him) and I was admitted into one of the wards. The time was roughly two in the morning.

April 3 -- barely slept due to the noise and light in the ward. Had blood drawn, for blood-work. Malaise as terrible as ever. Started treatment with HCQ (Plaquenil), the anti-malaria drug. The rest of my ward-mates were absolute sweethearts, but I was much too weak to do much other than get out of bed to trudge to the communal bathroom down the hall. Urination (which had slowly reduced in frequency from March 25) still a bit more frequent than usual. Begged the doctor for something to let me sleep and was given a few metallic-tasting, oily drops to drink in the evening. Had the first good night of sleep in well over a week.  

April 4 -- at this point, the kidney pain got so bad that I could barely walk to the bathroom and would grit my teeth in pain whenever I sat down in the bed. Asked one of the nurses for help, with no visible result. The pain was getting worse and I could no longer get out of bed, just lying there in a listless lump. Several of the other people in the beds next to me went to pound on the door separating the 'red zone' from the 'green zone' and demanded that the nurses or doctor see to me. In the end, a young nurse came and struggled for almost thirty minutes to get an IV in me. She was inexperienced and, coupled with having to wear three pairs of gloves and a visor on her face, she could barely see or feel my veins. The result was that she ended up blowing thee of my veins (two on the right hand, one on the left) before she finally managed to get the IV needle in and secured it. Then I got put on a heavy-duty regimen of IV Ceftriaxone (antibiotic), hydration fluids and painkillers, for the next few days.

April 5 - 7 -- slowly got better on the IV regimen. Gained a bit more strength, the pain in the kidney area subsided and I could walk again. Gave urine samples twice and they came back clean (no bacterial infection in the kidneys or urinary tract). On April 6 we were told that the whole lot of us (the seven of us crowded in that ward and everyone else in the same wing of the Institute) would be transferred the next day to Colentina Hospital, just a stone's throw away, which had been officially designated as a COVID-19 support unit. The reasoning was that we'd be placed in smaller wards and the Matei Bals Institute could focus on the critical and very difficult cases, that required everything from oxygen support to full intubation. My IV needle was removed on April 7 and we, dragging our luggage after us, walked from our wing at Matei Bals to the entrance to Colentina, just two hundred meters away. We were dispersed all over the Internal Medicine wing and I got lucky enough to be placed in a room with just two beds, sharing with a lovely 81 year-old lady, who was COVID-19 positive, but utterly asymptomatic. Got blood drawn again and also had an EKG done (no cardiac abnormalities). Also had another x-ray, lungs still entirely clear. Got tested for COVID-19 once again, but the result came back 'inconclusive' the next day. The treatment with Plaquenil was ceased and I received no further medication, save for what I requested to handle inconsistent stools.  

April 8 - 9 -- kept getting stronger and stronger, able to sit out of bed and walk for extensive periods of time. Bowels still somewhat disturbed and shifting between constipation and diarrhea and then back again,with the stool always being a bright, sun-yellow. Otherwise no pains or other malaise present. Got tested for COVID-19 once more on April 9.  

April 10 -- some of the first ever symptoms I had, in middle March (runny nose, sneezing, stomach constantly full of air and always burping) came back at this point, along with noticeable muscle soreness in my upper arms and shoulders, even though I'd never made any great physical effort. The test taken on April 9 came back 'negative', so the doctors ignored me when I told them that I was having old symptoms come in for an encore. Tested once again.

April 11 -- the burping and stomach-distention due to air grew worse. The 'knot in throat' symptom returned. The test from April 10 came back 'negative' as well and since I fulfilled the criteria of two negatives in 24 hours, I was discharged and had Dad come and pick me up. The Colentina doctors, completely inexperienced re: COVID-19, claimed that my gastro symptoms were likely caused by something else.

April 12 - 16 -- uncertain period, with the typical 'up and down' pattern making a return. One day I was feeling fine and had energy, the other way I was wiped out and could barely get out of bed. Frequent urination (once every twenty minutes) decided to make a return as well and I broke down in tears. Also got a brand-new symptom -- pink-eye straight out of nowhere, which has also been associated with COVID-19 infection.

April 17 -- worst day since the first ones in hospital. Completely exhausted and dealing with a horrible pain at the base of my skull, that was pulsing slowly, radiating down the spinal column and up into the skull. Doesn't respond to Paracetamol and I didn't want to risk taking Ibuprofen. Getting dehydrated due to the constant urination once more, so I started drinking water with electrolytes whenever I could. Fell down on my way to the bathroom, when a veil of darkness passed over my eyes for a few seconds. Everything was spinning and I felt as if I was disassociating and floating away from my own body. Felt better only after more water with electrolytes.

April 18 - 20 -- still felt crappy, but marginally better than on the 17th. Pumped myself full of vitamin C, vitamin D (have a long-standing deficiency there), magnesium and potassium from bananas, kale, spinach, probiotics from yogurt with live cultures in it, to re-balance my likely ravaged gut flora. My appetite, decent in the hospital and shot to pieces again on the 17th, was slowly making a comeback once more. Still burping and full of air no matter what I ate, still pissing frequently. One of the things with COVID-19 was that it made my GERD flare up about ten times worse than usual. Started treating it with a proton-pump inhibitor (Omez) which handled the extra acidity and the heartburn, but not the burping and trapped air. Kidney region started hurting again and at this point I didn't know if it even was the kidneys themselves (both urine samples and blood-work in the hospital showed no problem whatsoever with the kidney function, in spite of the weird symptoms) or just nerve-pain in the area of the kidneys.

April 21 - 23 -- slowly gained strength once more, able to get out of bed and work at my PC. Pain in the kidney region came and went, urination slowly started to reduce in frequency once again. Still drinking water with electrolytes, taking vitamins, eating as varied as I can.

April 24 -- best day so far today (hope I don't bloody jinx it). Energy levels almost back to my baseline, though still left with burping, constant air in stomach and general laziness in digestion. Stool of normal frequency, color and texture after the probiotic regimen. Left with lingering nerve-pain in the cervical area, the shoulders, the lower left ribs in the front and the lower back. Urination frequency reducing to more normal levels once again, feeling less like a constantly dehydrated prune.

It's been... almost five weeks since the first symptoms. A long and exhausting ride and I still don't know what might pop up again. But still far preferable to those poor souls who end up unable to breathe and in full-blown ARDS, needing to be sent straight into the ICU.

Why did I have another flare-up, after two negative tests? Your guess is as good as mine, right now. I have a few theories:

consistent with those articles coming out of South Korea, false negative results might be more widespread than we suspect, in some cases. Either because the virus might be able to hide in the central nervous system and pop back up again for another tangle with one's immunity or because the immune response can lower viral concentration in the body enough for a test to come back negative, without the virus actually being defeated for good.

the test results are correct, the virus is gone from my body and all of what I'm still dealing with are a the result of post-viral systemic inflammation. Not an unlikely thing, since I have a short history of dealing with autoimmune bullshit after that flu two years ago left me with enough nerve-damage that I was unable to walk for a whole month and took six months to recover fully + still wake up with the left side of the body temporarily numb and huge pain in the spinal column if I ever sleep on a shitty mattress, that doesn't offer decent back support.

I want to do more blood-work, see if markers for autoimmune activity show up, but unfortunately, that's pretty difficult to do now, with most hospitals up to their eyeballs in COVID-19 and private clinics charging an eye-watering price for such tests. Dad is almost broke until pay-day, due to how much money he spent in the last month on medicine for me, so it will have to wait or we'll figure something out if my situation worsens again and it becomes imperative to get treatment against autoimmune response. Taking this thing one day at a time.

An overview of my COVID-19 symptoms, good to keep an eye out for:

Gastrointestinal:

explosive, orange, foul-smelling diarrhea

excessive flatulence

vomiting

aggressive flare-up of GERD

excessive burping

swollen, painful stomach due to constantly trapped air

difficulty swallowing

feeling of knot stuck in throat

lack of appetite

Neurological:

temporarily failing vision due to static-like images over the eye's perception

twitching eyelids

nerve-pain in the cervical area

migraine starting at the back of the head and radiating to the backs of the eyes

nerve-pain in all sorts of odd places, coming and going (the left ankle, the left front rib, the right back rib, the kidney area)

dizziness

brain-fog and temporary difficulty with focusing / with coherent speech

Renal:

very frequent urination, though blood-work indicated no disfunctionality with the kidneys

Upper respiratory:

runny nose, post-nasal drip

sneezing

light cough, early in the morning, accompanied by a ticking in the throat sensation that set it off

Unsure how to categorize:

foul-smelling night-sweats, intense enough to soak through clothes and sheets

pink-eye

No shortness of breath, no fever, no lung involvement in my case. This is a virus that the human body responds to in ridiculously varied ways, from that cute little old lady at Colentina, who was totally asymptomatic, to me, where it manifested almost like bloody cholera (the violent diarrhea, vomiting and pissing at the same time, like something was trying to squeeze all of the water out of my body), to one of my ward-mates at Matei Bals, who had developed pneumonia and required moderate oxygen support and was well on the mend when we got dispersed, to the unfortunate souls who end up in ICU with ARDS.

Take care of yourselves, be vigilant and stay safe.

[achtung-attitude]

CHAPTER 27: She’s Trying to Make a Devil Out of Me

Shizuka emerges from her blanket of darkness, waking with a jolt. The first thing she sees is Moya staring down at her, a worried expression melting into relief. “Moya?” she mutters, looking around.

She is lying on a narrow bed in an enclosed space with white walls. Equipment of various purposes line the walls. It takes her a moment to remember first what an ambulance is, and another to realize she’s in one.

“Hey, Shizuka,” Moya groans, falling painfully into the seat next to the gurney, rubbing her side. Her right arm is in a sling, and she is covered all over in hastily applied bandages.

“... Ph-Phantasma, where--!? Where is she--?!”

She sits up to receive a flash of red and blue light in her face. From beyond the doors at the back of the ambulance, she can see the exterior of the gym. Gathered in front of the entrance is another ambulance, a police squad car and an imposing steel paddywagon, LAPD emblazoned on its side.

And there, despite towering over the officers, Phantasma appears incredibly small. Her head hung low, her ankles and wrists cuffed together. Her mask is gone, and the face that hid beneath is that of a middle aged woman, lined and framed by a surprising amount of dark flowing hair, streaked with grey.

“Whu--?

“You can relax. She’s done. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but you saved us…” Moya says, calming her. Shizuka sinks into the bed, her head suddenly light as air. She barely hears her friend speaking. “You kicked the fight right out of her. They say a fight’s only done when one opponent’s lost the will to win, and I never thought I’d see that happen to Phantasma. She lost everything… even this.” Moya raises her still-functioning left hand, and in it is a silver disc.

Shizuka peers at it, taking a moment to register its shape and form. Squinting, she sees the vague outline of a humanoid figure reflected in the silver material. But it is not her reflection, nor anyone else’s.

The figure moves slightly, as if alive within the reflection. In that instant she recognizes what it is, despite never seeing one before, and snatches it from Moya’s hand. She stares. “Where did this come from!?”

“... Phantasma’s head,” Moya says, puzzled, “Like I said, you knocked it right out of her. Her Stand ability’s in this thing, apparently. ABRAXAS is gone for good now.”

“Then this really is…! Do you know what this is!?”

“Do I know what…?” she paused, then taps her forehead with her finger, “Sure I know. I’ve got one too.”

“What!!? But where did…! How?” She springs up, sitting straight on the stretcher, clutching the disc.

“Whoa, easy. You’re still injured…!”

“Moya, you have to tell me! It’s important!”

“... Brother Dust. He gives these to everyone he deems worthy. I don’t know where he found them, but they’ve been the key to his power since the beginning… I assumed you got your Stand the same way, just from a different source. Your family, I’m guessing…?”

She shakes her head. “I was born with my abilities, I’ve never even seen one of these discs in person before. But my nephew told me about them. There was a man, years ago, who used these to give people power and sent them to kill the Joestars. But he’s dead! He’s been dead for almost six years now… Where did he get these?” she says, looking up at her friend. Moya has no answer other than a scowl directed at Phantasma.

A paramedic appears and hops in the back of the ambulance. Before he can say anything, Moya steps out, taking the disc away from Shizuka as she goes. “Moya…?” she says, but gets no answer. The ambulance doors shut and the vehicle drives off, blaring its siren.

Moya, her body damaged all over, limps with purpose towards the squad cars. The officers are pushing Phantasma into the paddy-wagon. “Wait!” Moya calls, and the officers turn.

“You’re injured, Detective,” says one of the officers, raising a hand, “Let us take care--”

“Shut up! You… What is this? Where did you get it from? Where’s Dust keeping them!?” she demands, shoving the disc in Phantasma’s face. The masked woman says nothing. “Nothing to say? What’s the matter? You had so much to say before! Where are your grand fucking declarations now!?”

Receiving no answer, Moya presses harder. She steps closer and gets into her face, which remains impassive. Humbled, but still with a hint of dignity. “What was it all for? What the fuck did you do it for!?” Moya shouts, before the ache in her body catches up with her and she sways on her feet.

“Easy, Pezzente!” calls the officer. “You know the procedure! We’ll get her back to the station, then we can start asking questions! You’ve done your part for the day, Detective. Let us do ours.” Moya steadies herself, still waiting on an answer from her former mentor.

“...For you,” Phantasma says softly. Moya freezes in place and grits her teeth. Almost doubled over, she does not turn around as the luchadora is stuffed into the back of the paddy-wagon. The paramedics pull Moya back to the ambulance, as the wagon rumbles to life, and drives away.

                                                       ***

Her story was not a special one, she had grown up poor in Tijuana, worshiping luchadores on an old television set with bunny ear antennae, dreaming of standing among them. She was simply one of the few who achieved that dream.

Phantasma stares at the wall of the paddywagon. Her escorts are divided from her by a thick metal grate. She makes no attempt to speak to them, and they do not address her.

The masks drew her in, originally. Luchadores hid their faces, their true names. In doing so, they became more than simple athletes. To her, the mask was a talisman, crafted from transcendent material. Like the shamans of ancient times, in wearing the visages of the gods, became those gods, made flesh and blood. Gateways, through which she could abandon weakness. Abandon humanity.

But it was false. The masks she wore were polyester and spandex things. The matches were little more than games, entertainment for children. She was not a clown. She was extraordinary, forced to dally with the ordinary. She would not be held back by weaklings. And so she was not.

In her first title match, she hit her opponent just a bit too hard. A single palm shot to the chest. The challenger coughed, then sputtered. She kicked her legs and choked. And then she died. It mattered little. There was a place for her among the cartel, and before long, that place was at the very top. Mexico City became too small, so she extended her hand north, to San Diego, San José, and Los Angeles.

But Brother Dust, at last, shattered her illusion. She was no superhuman, no demigod. Just a foolish woman in a mask. There was power in the world beyond her comprehension. But he promised. By his hand, she would be granted that power. She would finally achieve that which she had pretended to have for so long.

Phantasma feels her face. Her flesh and bone, her human face. The one she had tried to escape from, but never had. It had been lurking underneath the entire time. She cannot remember what it looks like.

“Hey, Burnley, what's the matter?” Says the cop in the driver’s seat, breaking Phantasma from her trance. She can hear them from behind the partition. The cop glances away from the road to pat his partner on the shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Burnley groans, hunched over, clutching his guts, “I just got this cramp out of nowhere.”

“Nnh, now that you mention it, my head kinda hurts all of a sudden,” the driver rubs his temple, squinting at the road, “Ah, shit, it’s bad…! I don’t think I can drive like this. You think you can take over?”

“No way, man! Feels like my guts are tearing themselves up! God damn you, Rick, I told you we should’ve gone to Taco Bell, but you just had to try the local cuisine, didn’t you!? Oughh, Jesus, it hurts…”

Burnley leans forward, pressing his forehead on the dashboard and groans. A gurgling noise comes from his gut, so loud Phantasma can hear from. The cop starts belching. She grimaces, and turns to the wall again. She turns back sharply at the sound of Burnley belching, followed by a loud splattering.

The dash in front of Officer Burnley is soiled by a frightening quantity of blood and chunks of flesh. All of it vomited by the officer, who stares at it with dumbfounded horror. His partner, Rick, shouts at him.

“Burnley!? Burnley, what was that!? What happened?!!” The driver cries, his face similarly covered in blood, flowing from every orifice on his head. His eyes are all white and flecked with red. “I can’t see! Burnley, what’s happening?! I can’t fucking see anything!”

She listens hard, trying to discern what is happening, when a trickle of blood pours from her nostril. She dabs at it with her fingers and stares at the blood, only then noticing her hand shaking. “What? What is this?”

It is not just her hand. Everything loose in the paddy-wagon is shaking violently, as if caught in an earthquake. Burnley succumbs first, his whole body convulsing as though he was possessed. Then the driver succumbs, shaking so hard he can't even speak, let alone drive.

The wagon swerves off the road, the driver's foot stuck on the accelerator, Phantasma notices only now the convulsions in her body. Like her insides have acquired minds of their own, she feels her insides writhe, her blood vessels bursting.

As the paddy-wagon picks up speed, she slides to the back and kicks at the bolted door, again and again. For all her titanic strength, the door does not give. Dull pangs of pain run up her leg.

“No!! NO!!!” she shouts, kicking desperately, “I CANNOT DIE THIS WAY!!!”

The paddy-wagon mounts the curb and swerves, flying off balance and flipping in the air. The pedestrians have barely enough time to duck before it crash-lands upside down, halfway through the window of a fashion store.

Yet the wagon remains suffers no damage, inside or out. It remains intact, even as its occupants continue to convulse. Lying on her back, Phantasma's eyes roll into the back of her head as even her brain shakes itself into mush. This is the way she dies.

[snowfall-fanfictions]

Beware the Frozen Heart Chapter 10- The Poisoning-Part 2

Previous Chapter

Ao3 link

FFN link

We see the results of Eryn’s sabotage

WARNING: someone does throw up in this chapter. Also someone dies.

The evening couldn’t have gone any smoother for Elsa. She’d been charming the French dignitary, Jacques Arnot, ever since he came off the boat. The elderly gentleman was quite easy to please, to the relief of Elsa, as he recounted his many exploits during the reign of Napoleon. Elsa was only partially paying attention to him as the day went by and his stories continued to drag on and on. This is for Arendelle, she reminded herself as they eventually made their way to the Great Hall for dinner.

Normally the hall was used as the throne room for citizens to express their grievances to the crown during the day. During important events and meals, however, the space was either completely empty or, in the case of that night, had a large banquet table running through the middle. 

Elsa spent most of the night sipping wine as she discussed important details with her guest.

“Thank you again for coming, Monsieur Arnot,” Elsa said, “I hope everything is to your liking.”

Ah, Your Majesty,” Arnot chortled, “Everything is absolutely magnifique! You and the princess are simply wonderful!”

Looking over to where Anna was sitting, the diplomat couldn’t have picked a worse time to bring the princess up, as she was shoveling heaps of potatoes and duck into her mouth.

“Um, t-thank you, Monsieur,” Elsa said, trying to change the subject. “Now, uh if you don’t mind me asking, has the king taken my proposal into consideration yet?”

The old man let out a sigh, “He has, and he has yet to make a decision. Terribly sorry, Your Majesty, but our country is still trying to rebuild even after thirty years since Napoleon, so most of our focus still lies inwards.”

Elsa took another small sip of wine, trying to mask her dissapointment. “Tell him I appreciate his consideration and I eagerly await whatever decision he makes.”

“Many in Parliament have expressed interest in your kingdom, Your Majesty. They see your power, both literally and figuratively, as something that could benefit both our countries.”

Elsa smiled into her glass. After years of fearing about her powers, she finally found a use for them in her duties. As it turned out, with the growing hostilities in Europe, people were quick to warm up to the one woman in the whole continent who could freeze a small country with a simple flick of her wrist.

“Speaking of which, I have heard that you don’t actually use your ice magic to attack, just for simple parlour tricks. How do you plan on defending yourself?”

“That’s what Derrik’s for!” Olaf chirped, “He’s great! And he taught me a new word, wanna hear it?”

“NO!” Elsa shouted, “That- that won’t be necessary Olaf.”

Jaques stroked his beard at the snowman’s declaration. “Hmmm, who is this Derrik the snowman speaks of?”

XXXXXX

“She’s asking for what?” Eryn said, nearly shouting over the commotion of the kitchen. It had died down since the royal dinner started over half an hour ago, but there were still a great number of people prepping the desserts and other food items.

“You, Mr. Ormeister,” the servant said, “Though I’m not sure why that is.”

Eryn wasn’t sure either. His mind immediately went to the worst case scenarios. Had he finally been discovered? Did that fat oaf squeal? A chill ran up his spine.

“Er… v-very well then,” he said reluctantly. He maneuvered his way through the bustling kitchens through the servant’s corridor. The corridor was incredibly thin, only allowing two people at most. The walls were eerily lit with the occasional torch that was bolted to the stone every few feet. This didn’t ease the tension in Eryn’s body. He quickly reached down and unlatched the dagger. He needed to be ready for whatever came next.

As he exited the corridor, he was greeted by the sound of light chatter. Before him sat a great table, filled with various platters and plates filled with food. Anna, Olaf, and Kristoff were scattered across the table, each enjoying the heaps of food before them. Anna in particular had sauces dribbling down her blouse as she wolfed down a heaping of roasted duck. Elsa sat at the head of the table, poised and proper looking, conversing with a lanky man with a pencil thin beard and moustache sporting a light blue uniform. Eryn let out a slight cough and said, “You wished to see me, Your Majesty?”

Elsa looked up at Eryn. “Oh, hello Derrik!” she said. She turned to the man beside her and announced, “Monsieur Arnot, I would like to introduce you to Mr. Derrik Ormeister, the man who saved mine and Anna’s lives.”

Eryn wandered over to the table as the man in blue rose from his seat. The two of them grasped hands as the man said, “Ah, the queen has been singing your praises. You should be proud of yourself!”

Eryn chuckled at the compliment. “It’s not that big of a deal really,” he said, “I’m sure anyone in town would have done the same.”

“Don’t be so humble, Derrik,” Elsa said, “Especially for someone with your kind of background.”

“Ah, oui. My sincere condolences for your father. Weselton is truly an unforgiving place, is it not?”

“Indeed… Is there anything else you need from me, Ma’am?”

Elsa gestured to an empty seat beside the Frenchman. "Please, have a seat.”

Eryn was incredibly confused. “I’m sorry, what?”

“There’s no need for you down there anymore, so I’d like you to join us.”

No danger, huh? Eryn thought, Just you wait… 

 He slid into the seat beside the man as quickly as possible. Out of the corner of his eye, Eryn could see Kristoff glaring at him, almost as if he read his mind.

“So, Derrik,” Elsa said, “I don’t think I’ve ever asked you this, but what did you do after you fled Weselton?”

“Well… I used what money I could salvage from my estate and bought passage to New York, where I worked as a shoe shiner for a few months. It was a hard life, but I couldn’t complain.”

“Oh, you’ve been to America?” Anna asked, cheeks still puffed full of food. Elsa shot her a scowl as the princess meekly swallowed before continuing, “Kristoff and I were thinking about going to America for our honeymoon.”

“Well, if I can give you some advice, avoid the Lower South Side. Everyone there will try to rob you, even the rats.”

Anna, Elsa and the dignitary began laughing as Kristoff continued to scowl at Eryn. What was his deal?

“How did you get to Arendelle, then? This seems out of the way from America, no?” The Frenchman said. Eryn quickly thought up a good enough excuse.

“Well, I got into… a bit of a disagreement with one of the locals. Smuggled myself on a ship bound for Arendelle, and now here I am!”

Out of the corner of his eye, the contact had appeared beside the queen with another bottle of wine. The exact bottle Eryn had slipped the nightshade in earlier. He could feel the excitement inside him rising as the contact poured the red liquid out into the queen’s glass.

“That sounds awful, Derrik,” the queen said, smiling warmly, “But we should count ourselves lucky that you showed up when you did.”

“Indeed,” Eryn returned the smile as he watched the contact fill the others glasses as well. The queen raised her glass high as she said, “I’d like to propose a toast. To both Monsieur Arnot and to Derrik!”

“Here, here!” Anna shouted through another mouthful of food. Kristoff followed suit, raising his glass in the air almost reluctantly. Elsa brought the glass up to her mouth as she took a large sip from it. A part of Eryn began to ache as he watched the red liquid pass her lips, knowing what was about to happen. Almost immediately, she hunched over as she let the glass fall from her hand onto the floor, scattering shards all across the floor. Anna, Kristoff, Olaf and the dignitary looked on in horror as Elsa groaned in apparent pain. Eryn soon joined the concerned looks, a part of him recoiling in guilt. The queen leaned over to the side of the table and ,with a loud *HURK*, vomited an interesting mix of red and brown across the floor.

“ELSA!” Anna cried, rushing over to her sister’s side. Kristoff and the Frenchman shot up out of their seats as the ice harvester ran for help. Eryn could only sit there in sheer disbelief.

She was supposed to be convulsing on the floor, gasping for air, not vomiting. He saw that the poisoned bottle was left on the table and grabbed it. Bringing it to his nose, Eryn took a quick sniff and felt his rage grow. ELDERBERRY! Eryn thought. He  jumped out of his seat as he scowled at the contact, who began to flee for his life. Wasting no time, Eryn dashed after him, unsheathing the dagger and gripping it in his hand. The chase only lasted a few moments before Eryn tackled the contact to the ground, rage filling his eyes as he flipped the fat bastard over.

“‘Freshly picked Nightshade berries, just like you asked.’ Was that not what you said?!” Eryn growled, pinning the man to the floor with the knife. The contact started trembling as he began sweating bullets.

“I-I’m sorry boss! The guy said they was Nightshade, fresh from the area-”

“NIGHTSHADE DOESN’T GROW THIS FAR NORTH, YOU FAT DIPSHIT!”

“I didn’t know! The black market around here-”

“So either you’re stupid, or the people you deal with are!”

“It-it’s just that the berries looked the sa-”

“I’ve had ENOUGH of your STUPID excuses!” Eryn brought the dagger to the man’s jaw.

“Please! Don’t, I- I won’t let it happen again!”

“Damn right it won’t happen again!” Eryn took the knife and, with as much force as he could muster, jammed it right under the man’s chin. The contact let out a few gurgles as his arms flailed around, blood flowing from his mouth as the color left his eyes. In a few short seconds, the contact’s arms stopped flailing as they fell to his sides. Eryn pulled the knife out of the fool’s skull, still visibly furious at what had transpired. A part of him did feel relief, however, knowing that she wouldn’t immediately die. It was at that point when Eryn felt a familiar numbness.

Now what have we learned today, Odrikson?

Eryn brought the dagger up to his face. The blade was still soaked in blood, yet the runes still shined through like lanterns in the fog.

Oh, so now you decide to chime in? Not when you could CLEARLY see that they were elderberries?

I had much more pressing matters than botany, boy. Like teaching ingrates like you a lesson.

I was close to killing her.

Were you? Or were your human feelings getting in the way like they always do? I sensed your grief when you poisoned the wine, your relief when you found out it wasn’t nightshade. You’re secretly hoping this fails, I can sense it!

Had this oaf not fucked up, she’d be dead and we’d be halfway to Karnisvarne by now! This was entirely out of my control!

 The dagger growled at Eryn’s words. Heed my warnings next time, Odrikson, or you will share in his fate...

“Mr. Ormeister! Is everything alright?”

Eryn snapped his head to see who was talking. One of the guards stood there, grasping his polearm with aggression.

“Y-yes,” Eryn said, “This… waste of skin tried poisoning the wine. Didn’t mean to kill him though. But that’s neither here nor there, is the queen alright?”

“Yes, sir. She’s currently being looked at by medical professionals. They’re saying it was elderberries that were slipped into the wine.”

“I see. Is she able to speak?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Take me to her then, and get someone to clean this mess up!”

With that, Eryn and the guard made their way to the queen’s chambers with due haste.

[bobbichoicesfeedback]

Choices: Stories You Play, by Pixelberry Studios

Bloodbound (Spoilers up to Book 3 Chapter 6)

MC (Bobbi) x Lily

Again, this is a stand-alone response to the latest chapter. Now we’ve been un-alive for a month, I had feelings about how we’d adjust. This is pretty much where I think we’d go. Julia is a random name I gave to the woman who volunteers to feed you in chapter 1.

_______

Julia rubbed my back, comfortingly as the dry heaves she had got used to subsided. I curled up and rested my head in her lap while she did her shirt back up.

“It’s been a month,” I said, despondently, closing my eyes as she traced her fingers through my curly hair, “Why aren’t I over this yet?”

 

Julia didn’t say anything, although her gentle caresses became stronger. She had never blamed me for nearly losing control, when she gave me my first true meal since… I died. It was merciful that vampires don’t need to eat as often as humans do. The next time I started craving blood and went to the volunteer clinic, Jax in tow to keep an eye on me, in the basement of the Raines’ building, she had sought me out and offered her neck to me.

Just like the first time I’d fed, immediately afterwards I’d dropped to the floor, hacking and coughing. My stomach had convulsed as though I was going to vomit, but thankfully nothing came up. Despite maintaining control this time and only drinking as much as my body plainly needed, guilt and shame were the only things I could feel.

I’d fed maybe a dozen times since then. All but one had been with Julia. The other had been a young man who Julia insisted I… taste… just in case there was some unusual issue – can vampires be allergic to a particular type of blood?

Every time ended the same way. I felt sick, physically and mentally, every time.

 

“Sweetie,” Julia said, stroking my cheek, “Don’t expect too much. I’m here for you and I know that it’s not because of me that you’re feeling like this.”

I smiled vaguely. Julia was reclining on the old sofa in the apartment I’d used to share with Lily, and I was laying in the foetal position with my head on her lap. Over the past month, she’d become the person I was most comfortable confiding in. The others – the people who had become my family over the past year – had all been so overjoyed to see me back after my violent death that I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting them with the truth.

“Lily came to speak to me yesterday,” Julia said, in the tones of someone cradling a bombshell, “She wasn’t aggressive, but she was clearly a little annoyed with me.”

I frowned, knowing that there was no way I was getting away from the conversation this time, and sat up, rubbing my forehead wearily.

“I understand why you haven’t told them,” Julia said, putting her arm around my shoulder; I hugged her back, “Especially Lily. But they’re all starting to notice something is odd about you. Lily was subtly accusing me of trying to steal her girlfriend…”

“Her girlfriend?” I snorted, pouring a lot of disdain into the noise, “She’s always believed in open relationships anyway.”

“She said as much,” Julia whispered, still trying to keep me calm. The fact that she needed to fear me losing my temper felt as bad as the one time I’d caught a beam of sunlight, “But she pointed out that you and she haven’t been alone together since you Turned.”

“I’ve spent time with her and put up a show of being close,” I lied. I had tried to relax myself around her and accepted her shows of affection when we were in public, but I’d very carefully orchestrated things so that we never managed to get a moment alone. It was easiest when we were around Rheya, since the council had been disbanded. The First’s affect on all vampires – myself included, although I seemed not to be as enamoured as all my friends were – meant that Lily could be distracted from the obvious relationship problems I was hiding, “What am I supposed to do? Tell her that I hate her for turning me into a vampire. I did it to her first, and she did it because she loves me…”

“You don’t think keeping it a secret from her will hurt more?” Julia said, quite sensibly, finally letting me go and standing up. She was very pretty and every nerve in my hyper-sensitive vampire body wanted more. She saw my expression and smiled again.

“I’m sorry, Julia,” I winced as I stood, “I know – believe me, all too well – that one of the best things about volunteering to provide food for… one of us… is the affection.”

“I don’t need that, Bobbi,” she insisted, kissing me on the cheek and going to collect her coat, “I know you don’t want to give in to that and I know why. It’s fine. I’m just trying to help you deal with this.”

“You’re too good to me,” I replied, kissing her chastely on her soft, tasty lips. I managed to resist the temptation to extend my fangs again and walked her to the door, “Make sure you go and get someone else to make up for my deficiencies. I don’t want you to miss out on it…”

 

As I opened the door Lily yelped. She’d been stood on the far side, hand raised as though to knock. She was wearing a long trench coat and a curious expression. Knowing how well her… our senses worked, I suspected she’d caught at least the end of the conversation.

“Oh, Bobbi,” she said, unconvincingly trying to look casual, “I was passing and thought I’d see if you were awake. I didn’t know you had company over.”

She made as though to leave, but Julia pushed past her quickly and walked towards the lift.

“I was just going, Lily,” she said, looking pointedly at me over her shoulder, “Don’t worry about it.”

 

We stood there, either side of the threshold of the apartment we’d once both called home. The moment dragged on, each second more awkward than the last. Eventually, I relented and stepped back, nodding inside. Lily walked in, her usual confidence apparently gone, and stood in the middle of the corridor. I realised that she could see into my bedroom and shut both doors rapidly.

“You’ve only got a single bed, now?” she asked, as we walked through to the lounge, “What happened to your old one?”

“I couldn’t keep it out of morning sunlight easily,” I lied, “Adrien wasn’t able to get the UV filters on my windows in all the mess, so I got the single so I could stay out of the sun.”

“Oh… okay…” she looked at me uncertainly. Neither of us sat, and the moment was still painfully awkward, “It must be a little uncomfortable when your little snack stays overnight?”

I winced, still not used to Lily’s jokes from this perspective, and walked into the half-kitchen to disguise my discomfort.

“Would you like a drink?” I asked, trying to shift the mood.

“I had some in the volunteer basement before I came over,” she said, casually and suddenly falling silent as I slammed a bottle of wine on the counter, “Didn’t you just?”

“I meant wine, Lily!” I snapped, not turning to face her. She hadn’t moved, I could tell from the way air buffeted the bare skin of my shoulders, “Like we used to do, sit up with a bottle of wine and chat.”

“Okay,” her voice was hesitant, and she started walking towards the door, “Clearly we have a problem and you don’t want to talk about it…”

“I know you overheard Julia and me talking,” I said, taking a glass and accidentally shattering it in my grip. I growled at myself and gave up, storming back into the lounge and sitting on one of the single chairs, “How much did you hear?”

 

“Not much,” she admitted, knowing better than to lie about this. She sat in the sofa opposite me, her eyes running over my face in a mix of worry and curiosity, “Only you saying… you hadn’t… y’know. I was surprised. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I had been disappointed because I wanted to be your first time since Turning…”

She stopped instantly. I guess I couldn’t hide my facial expression when she mentioned it. After a pause, when it was clear I still wasn’t going to speak my mind, she continued the sentence.

“Yeah, your first time… I can’t believe you haven’t slept with anyone for the whole month?”

“How about you?” I asked, plastering on a smile even I didn’t believe, “Managed to talk Rheya into bed yet?”

 

Mentioning the Vampire Queen nearly had the effect I wanted. Lily’s eyes went hazy and she smiled as though in heaven.

“No,” she admitted, smirking shyly, “I’d love to, but I don’t think she’s up for it yet. And I didn’t… I mean…”

She fixed me with the powerful stare I’d fallen in love with six months ago, smiling but with a worried cast to her eyes, “I was waiting for you.”

“You don’t need to do that, Lil,” I said, looking away, embarrassed.

“I wanted to,” she said, earnestly. I sensed she wanted to close the gap between us, but the coffee table was making a subtle barrier, “I worried every time you slipped away. It was like you didn’t want to see me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” I looked out of the window, mentally cursing the fact that yet another lie had been that Adrien hadn’t applied the UV filter to the glass yet. Sunrise wasn’t far off, “I’ve just been so busy helping out as the council was dissolved and getting New York back on its feet.”

“That excuse might have worked for a couple of weeks, sweetheart,” she said, an edge coming to her voice, “But the others have noticed it too. I thought you might be getting a thing for that girl – I confess, I was feeling jealous – but now I find out you haven’t slept with her? What about Kamilah? Jax or Adrien?”

I looked at her, suddenly feeling like we were back before either of us had ever heard of the Vampire Council. She grinned at my sarcastic expression.

“You’ve slept with some men, it might have happened,” she giggled, “You’ve only ever been mostly gay… Wait, are you seriously telling me that you’ve been a vampire for more than a month and you’re still an afterlife virgin?”

She looked incredulous and amused, openly laughing when my expression must have given the truth away instantly. She stood up and dropped her trench coat, revealing her almost-naked, lingerie-clad body to me. It was calculated to hit my libido like a sledgehammer. A black silk basque tightly hugged her ebony waist and a leather bra/thong combo accentuated her curves. I couldn’t stop my eyebrows and heart rate suddenly raising.

“I’d come over here because I finally wanted to get our relationship back on track,” she said, cocking a hip and beckoning me forward with a seductive finger, “I didn’t think that it would be such a big deal.”

“I’m sorry, Lil,” I said, turning my head away with difficulty, “I’m not in the mood, tonight.”

“You know that doesn’t work anymore?” she asked, tones of incredulity in her voice, “I can hear your heartbeat and I know you can hear mine…”

She wasn’t wrong; her pulse raced every time she looked in my direction. Once upon a time I would have found that flattering, but in that same ‘once upon a time’ I wouldn’t have been able to tell.

“So, what is the issue?” she asked, dropping back onto the sofa, but hooking one leg over the arm in an aggressively seductive pose, “I thought you might be having a thing with… her… but you’re not. I thought you might have been with one of the other gorgeous women we know, but you haven’t. I can’t work out what’s going on, Bobbi. I was terrified I had lost you, then it turned out I hadn’t but… I may as well have. What is wrong?”

“Every time I…” I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘feed’ or ‘drink’ out loud, it made things too real, “Every time I get hungry, Julia is there to help out. She doesn’t expect anything of me and she listens to me.”

“You’ve only fed on her?” Lily asked, still with undertones of incredulity, but clearly trying to ask casually, “You’re missing out. Everyone tastes different. Of course, no-one tastes as good as you do…”

“Every time I… do…” I felt my stomach heave at the memory, “I feel like I’m going to throw up. Not just subtly, I’m forced to the floor, dry-heaving and everything.”

“That’s odd…” Lily said, looking at me with wide eyes, “I’ve never had anything like that. It probably is just something incompatible between you and her-“

“It’s not just her,” I snapped. I was worried, we were getting dangerously close to me saying things I couldn’t take back, “I’ve tried someone else and the same thing happens. I’m sorry Lily, maybe you should head home.”

“Well, the sun’s coming up,” she said, defiantly, “so that would be difficult. You’re obviously hiding something, Bobbi. Please, tell me what’s wrong?”

“It’s guilt,” I snapped again, then threw a hand over my mouth. But despite my desire to bite back the word, I knew now I had to continue. Slowly I lowered my hand, “I feel guilty drinking blood. Even when it’s freely offered. I drink it and it’s the best flavour I’ve ever experienced-“

“It’s great, isn’t it?” Lily, failing to read the room, chimed in.

“But, immediately afterwards I feel guilt and shame at having to drink it,” I finished. I paused, waiting to see if Lily would pick up on the implications. She remained silent, but shifted so that she was sat in a more appropriate pose, “I don’t let myself enjoy it, or anything. Because I hate having to drink blood. I hate being a vampire. Every time I look at you, I can’t see anything except the woman who did this to me.”

I breathed heavily once or twice, holding my hand up to delay the obvious and justified response, until I could finish the train of thought.

“And that makes the guilt worse, Lily,” I continued, looking at her frowning, wounded expression, “Because I know I have no right to resent you for the choice you made. I made the choice for you, in this very room. You were forced to become a vampire because Gaius wanted to manipulate me, and I couldn’t live without you. Why should I fault you for doing the same thing, especially considering how we’d grown closer since?”

“You said you forgave me,” she said, her voice hollow, and her eyes averted. It was worryingly subdued.

“I was still in shock, I was panicking,” I admitted, glancing up as a ray of filtered sunlight brushed over my cheek, “I said what I thought you needed to hear. I hadn’t even thought about what I really felt yet. Then there was the chaos of New York, and then Rheya turned up…”

“Surely that made things better?” Lily’s voice did the familiar up-turn at the mention of the First’s name, “She seems to be able to fix everything…”

“I don’t like her,” I admitted, drawing a shocked, almost horrified gasp, “Oh, obviously when I’m around her, everything is perfect. But… it’s not right…”

“Well, you’re clearly losing your mind,” Lily said, only half joking, “She’s the goddess we need, Bobbi. Maybe if you open yourself up to her, you can accept your new place in the world?”

“You can see I lied, Lily?” I said, holding my hand up in the dawn’s light. “I got rid of the double bed about a week ago. It was the first night that Julia came to see me here instead of me going down to the volunteer basement.”

“I thought you said you didn’t sleep together?” Lily, now Rheya wasn’t the topic, shifted back to her slightly hurt, slightly worried tones.

“I’d made an appointment to meet her in the basement that night,” I continued, ignoring the interruption, “But I didn’t turn up. She checked in with Adrien, who gave her my address, and she came to see me here. She found me, hunched in the bedroom, covered in stab wounds. I’d shattered the bed and had been trying to stake myself. Turns out, it’s hard to do it yourself.

“She made me drink, the wounds healed, and I told her exactly why I’d been trying to kill myself,” I said, standing and walking towards the bedroom. Lily reached out to take my wrist, but my enhanced reflexes let me avoid her hand, “I bought the single bed, so that I wouldn’t be as tempted to sleep with someone. Before that, I’d tried to go out onto the roof at noon, but the pain stopped me before I could even burn.”

“Bobbi,” there was a catch in her voice that broke my heart to hear. I still cared for her, I knew I did, but as I’d said, I couldn’t look at her without resentment, “I agonised about Turning you. I didn’t know what you wanted, but I thought that you would welcome the opportunity. If anyone deserved a chance to live, it’s the woman who saved the city from Gaius. I thought you were okay with everything, everyone did.”

“I’m going to head to bed, Lily,” I said, in final tones, “You can stay as long as you need, but you should probably call Adrien. He can send a shielded limo to collect you.”

 

When I got to my bedroom door, I turned back. I was surprised to see her crying heavily, but maybe this band-aid needed to be torn off now.

“I don’t think we can trust Rheya,” I said, hesitantly, knowing the hero-worship I’d be intruding on, “But, if I’m wrong, I think you should go and be with her. She can give you what I can’t, any more.”

“Bobbi,” Lily fixed me with a pained look, “I held you in my arms while you were dying. I tried to tell you that I lo-“

“Don’t say it,” I interrupted, holding up my hand, “Please Lily, I don’t want to hurt you. But if you say those words to me now, any response I give would be as bad as sunlight…”

I closed the door behind me, threw open my bedroom curtains, dragged the bed into the sunlight, and fell into it. I silently cursed my heightened senses, hearing Lily weeping in the other room no matter how hard I tried to ignore it. Eventually she left. About an hour later my ‘phone rang constantly. First Jax was trying to call, then Adrien and Kamilah. They all tried two or three times before giving me peace. I just hoped that none of them would tell Rheya what had happened. I don’t think I could deal with the emotional manipulation I feared would happen if she tried to… fix… my problems. I sent a text message to Julia; telling her I’d confessed to Lily. I didn’t want to talk about it yet, but I’d let her know when we could.

Then I lay in the filtered sun, remembering what I’d lost. I wished I’d died on the end of that blade.

[lilacmoon83]

Finding You Always

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 205: High Hopes

Emma sighed, as she looked out over the water and became lost in thought, absorbing everything that had happened. Despite knowing that everything her father did was for them, she was relieved to know that he had not really killed anyone. She knew him, both halves of him. She knew his lighter half would be horrified and would have struggled to live with such, even with her mother's love. And his darker half...she could see the strain was weighing on him heavily as well. Her father's darker half wasn't really evil, though he was much more willing to commit evil acts in the name of protecting those he loved.

Seth, however, was the real deal. He was a rare occurrence that had literally been born evil. He was without empathy completely and found delight in carnage on a daily basis. Her father had capitalized on that by using the chalice to give him spectacular fights and flashy executions to entertain him. But she wondered how much longer that would sustain a monster like him. If he demanded to see real blood and carnage, she wondered if even the so called evil half of her father had it in him to slaughter innocents. But she knew Arthur had no such conscience anymore and neither did Gawain. They could please the dark Lord with their savagery and if her father fell out of favor, she feared what Mephisto might try to do to her parents.

"We'll find them, love," Killian called from the wheel and she sighed, as she joined him there. She leaned her head against his arm and he kissed her hair.

"I know...we just need to find a way to interject ourselves into their lives in a plausible way. I mean...just showing up at their door isn't going to be the best strategy," she mentioned.

"Well...you have a law enforcement background," he said. She winced.

"In Storybrooke...that isn't exactly going to work out here. Plus, I mention Storybrooke, Maine and they run it through a government database and the debacle in Seattle will probably come up," she replied. He looked confused.

"It will?" he asked. He was still foggy about how all that worked, thanks to not waking up until the curse was broken and they had been in a rush to get through the portal. He remembered the National guard trying to get through Summer's shield, but had never given it much thought.

"Oh yeah...and the only reason I know this is because Doc and Happy are fascinated with all the conspiracy stuff. They listen to all those crazy podcasts and YouTube videos that people have made about that day. Apparently, the government has pretty much classified all the information about that day," she said.

"Yeah...I'm still not sure I know what that means," he replied.

"It means basically that they know more about that day than they're willing to tell the public and the official story they released is mostly crap," she explained.

"But...the public saw a lot of barking mad stuff that day," he said.

"Which is why there is so many people out there fascinated by it and the conspiracies are rampant," she replied, as she got an odd thought.

"Come to think of it...it's kind of weird that no one has recognized my parents from that day," she mentioned. He nodded.

"Yeah...they were in the tabloids a lot leading right up to that day and at the center of the whole thing. I'm sure the videos are still out there," he said.

"Yeah...but my Dad is working for the FBI now, according to Gold," she replied.

"So...you think they know?" he asked.

"They would have to," she replied.

"Then that would mean they are letting him work for them for a reason and they would have to be aware that he has no memory of Seattle," he deduced.

"Which means someone high up thinks they can use him for something," Emma said.

"Do you think they might try to use your Dad to get to Storybrooke?" he asked.

"Storybrooke...the United Realms...the God damn chalice...who knows," she exclaimed with worry.

"My Dad could be in some real danger...I don't trust those government creeps at all," she said.

"We'll find them, love," he assured.

"Yeah...there might be a couple people in the FBI we can trust though. They might know something or they could at least do some digging for us," Emma said.

"Angela and Nick?" he recalled the two agents that had been drawn into their world for a brief time.

"It's worth a shot," Emma said, as she dialed a number and hoped the agents had not changed their phone numbers in the last few years.

~*~

The girl fidgeted uncomfortably and tried to conceal her shaking hands, as she met the professor behind her dorm. This one was well on her way into withdraws and was easy to tempt when he promised her a hit.

"So...what kind of drug is this?" she asked nervously, as she kept looking around in paranoia.

"It's something new...but I guarantee you'll get the high you seek," Dr. Jenkins stated. If the girl had been in her right mind, she might have questioned the motives of a professor that was giving drugs to students, but for her, all she could think about was satiated her habit.

"A needle? I like pills," she mentioned.

"I don't have pills, but this will go into your system almost immediately. The effects are almost instantaneous," he promised and smirked knowingly when she offered her arm. He shot her up with his concoction and stepped back, praying that this was the right formula.

The thoughts in his head were so loud now that he hadn't slept a wink. He couldn't get her out of his head and all the things he wanted to do with her. He was convinced that she belonged at his side and he fantasized about her husband meeting some horrible end almost as much as he was thinking about being in bed with her. If he could just reign in his dark thoughts with this drug, he knew he'd be more stable and could finally tell her how he felt and convince her that they belonged together.

The poor girl began to convulse and scream at the top of her lungs, as she held her head in agony.

"What...what's happening to me?!" she cried out. He looked hopeful, as she seemingly started to phase, but as good as it seemed to be going, it quickly dissolved into horror, as the poor young woman began to convulse and vomit blood. She collapsed into her own pool of blood and began seizing, until her heart gave out and she expired.

The doctor angrily kicked the wall. He had been very careful and thanks to the chill in the fall air, he was wearing gloves. He concealed the dirty syringe in his pocket and quickly left the area. He was careful to make sure they were in an area just outside campus cameras. Another failure and another body. He was fairly certain that he could stay ahead of the cops, but the darkness in his mind was growing stronger and making him more erratic. He needed to find where he was going wrong with his serum, so it was back to his lab. He couldn't sleep anyway, so he would once again work through the night.

~*~

As he kissed her deeply, as per usual, she lost herself in him and only him. His fear for her and them all was tangible and that had translated to the impassioned and insatiable lovemaking that they had been engaged in now for hours into the night. Winter was beside herself in pleasure, as her husband made love to her with desperate passion. Finally, after hours of pursuing completeness and satiating their hunger for each other, they lay entwined beneath the bedclothes in their chambers, with Winter idly tracing the lines of definition on his torso

"My love…" she finally said.

"He put his hands on you…" he growled.

"But I am fine...thanks to you," she reminded him. But he shook his head.

"I should have immediately sensed you were in danger," he lamented.

"You have been preoccupied and your duties weigh heavily on you. I know this," she said.

"I didn't feel the danger to you right away...that's never happened," he admitted.

"My love...the incredible pressure you are under is crushing and you felt it the moment you stepped through the portal. You found me before he could truly hurt me," she insisted.

"Not before he struck you...I cannot live with that if it happens again. Next time...he could hurt you badly and I would rather die than let that happen," he said fiercely.

"You are being much too hard on yourself," she chided, as she kissed his lips tenderly. He sighed and pressed his forehead against hers, taking solace in her kiss and her touch.

"You are everything to me, my darling...I cannot lose you," he said.

"And you will not. I fear for you too, my love. I fear what Seth may do to you if we are discovered," she replied.

"Then we must prepare for the worst. If Emma does not return before he does, then you must promise me you will take Hope through the portal at a moment's notice," he said.

"Not without you," she replied.

"You must, my darling…" he insisted and she closed her eyes, hating everything about this.

"I promise...but I will not need to. Emma and Killian will soon return and then we will end that monster," she said, as he held her close. He could only hope she was right.

~*~

"Wow...that's some story and a bit out there. And that's coming from someone that runs one of the most trafficked conspiracy podcasts on the net," the man said, as he had coffee with the young FBI analyst at a coffee kiosk just outside the Boston FBI headquarters.

"I know what it sounds like, but I'm telling you that it's him," Trevor insisted, as he showed the man that was behind the Conspiracies Unearthed podcast on the Internet.

"That does look like him though...but he hasn't changed at all," the podcaster said.

"Doesn't that play into all the theories out there?" Trevor asked.

"Sure does...and you said he acts like he has no memory of living in Seattle?" he questioned.

"Yeah, but it's a pretty good act. I really don't think he remembers," Trevor said. But the man looked skeptical.

"He's an FBI agent...he's trained to lie his way out of anything," he said.

"Fair point...but this is a pic of his desk. Zoom in on the family photo," Trevor replied, as he showed him.

"Damn...that's her too and the kids. They actually look older too," he said, as he compared the photo to the video from Seattle seven years ago.

"It's definitely compelling...and I can use it, but more proof would be nice. Can you get anything else? Like a file or something?" the pseudo journalist asked.

"I'll try...but I can't get you his file. I'd get fired for that," Trevor replied.

"Listen kid...do you want to work for the system that hides this stuff from us forever or do you want to blow the coverup wide open on this thing?" the man asked. Trevor was silent for a moment.

"I'll see what I can get," he said, making no promises, before hurrying into work.

~*~

David stepped off the elevator that morning, with coffee in hand, ready for another day of painstakingly going through files of their potential suspect pool. It was frustrating, because he knew that if their unknown subject was devolving that it would not be long until they had another body.

"Hey...it's super agent," one of his co-workers called out. He sighed, but took the razzing in stride. He knew it was in good humor, but he was well aware that he didn't exactly fit in with some of the other agents his age in this division. A lot of them hung out after work together, despite some of them having families. But he always declined. Not because he didn't like them, but he just never had the desire to spend even more time away from his own family.

"Are you ever not going to call me that?" David asked.

"Maybe when you don't solve a case. Seriously...your case record is either pure luck or you've got powers or something," agent Ethan Chavez replied. He sighed.

"Probably luck then, because I definitely don't have powers," David said.

"Yeah...wanna test that luck? We're playing poker after work," agent Brian Dorsey asked.

"Ah...no thanks. I already spend eight to ten hours away from my wife as it is. I'd rather not spend even more time away from her," he replied. Dorsey shook his head.

"You're an odd one, Nolan. Most guys would jump at the chance for a night away from the ball and chain," he commented. David had to bite his tongue to keep from responding too harshly. Dorsey had quite the reputation around the office. He was married, but it was a poorly kept secret that he could often be found at the nearby cop bars and had little respect for any vows he had once taken to his spouse. He liked most of the other guys, but there was always that one and in this group, it was definitely Dorsey.

"I really hope you're not referring to my wife as a ball and chain," David warned, though he kept any malice from his voice. As expected, Dorsey wisely backtracked.

"Uh, course not...nothing but respect for the ladies," he said.

"You're such a douche canoe, Dorsey. You wouldn't know how to respect a woman even if your life depended upon doing so," Agent Danielle Harding commented derisively. David smirked at that, as he entered the conference room with his coffee.

"Agent Harding will be joining us today for an extra pair of eyes," Pat said, as she and Trevor entered the room. David noticed the analyst giving him more odd glances, but tried to ignore the quirky tech.

"I think I'm up to speed...but this seems like a lot of violence for a female perpetrator," Danielle mentioned.

"We thought so too, but we didn't want to narrow our field too much since these aren't your ordinary serial killings," David said. She nodded in understanding.

"Okay...let's get to it," she said, as her phone rang and she answered it.

"Donovan," she said and then sighed.

"Where?" she asked and David knew that meant they had another victim.

"We'll be right there," she said, as she hung up.

"Scratch that...we have another body. Boston College again this time," she replied.

"Harding...stay behind and narrow our list down to anyone that has access to the Boston College campus. Our suspect may have just narrowed our pool without knowing it," Pat said. Danielle nodded, as David followed his boss out.

"Summer's school again…" he said worriedly.

"He's escalating, which hopefully means he'll get sloppy and we'll catch a break," Pat replied, as they boarded the elevator.

"We'll get him," she assured.

~*~

"I really hope so, my angel, but I'm not sure this is possible," Fandral said, as they walked hand in hand to the library that morning.

"But Emma and Killian were able to get through whatever barrier the curse has put up," Rose protested.

"With a powerful spell and an added magical fog to conceal their escape. I'm not sure getting a message to another sector of realms will be plausible," he said.

"Except...I think it might," she replied, as they reached the library. But they were unpleasantly surprised to see that they had unwelcome company.

"Why are you here, demon?" Fandral hissed, as he drew his sword and guarded his wife.

"You weren't kidding...they're nearly identical to the Charmings," Arthur spat distastefully.

"We have come to return a book...a curious book we found in the Dark One's shop," Mephisto leered, as he dropped the large tome at their feet.

"You mean after you burned his shop to the ground?" Rose accused.

"Mind your tongue, pretty one or it might get snapped off," Gawain threatened, but that was a mistake, as her Asgardian husband moved with lightning quickness and lifted the demon off his feet by his neck.

"Threaten my beloved again and you will suffer the full wrath of my Asgardian might," Fandral warned, but the demon only chuckled evilly, as the warrior tossed him to the floor.

"Yes...we found it in the shop and curiously nothing else of real value. It is quite strange that all the Dark One's items of any value or magical importance have mysteriously disappeared, don't you think?" Mephisto questioned.

"We know nothing of the inventory the Dark One chooses to keep," Fandral refuted.

"No...but this book is definitely not his and came from here. A book on...ancient beings and star gems," he said in accusation. A shiver of fear slithered through them both and Fandral felt his dark presence, as he appeared behind them.

"It was me...I am responsible for that book leaving this library. Rose had nothing to do with it," Fandral confessed, as she clutched his arm.

"I expressly banned books like these and ordered they be stored away since, as even I was not able to burn this insufferable library to the ground," Seth growled.

"And the slip was mine, My Lord…" Fandral interjected, as the monster glowered at Rose.

"Silence…" he hissed, as he brought the Asgardian warrior to his knees with his mind meld.

"Fandral…" Rose cried, as she knelt beside him, just as Charming and Winter arrived.

"My Lord...allow me to deliver their executions as punishment," Charming said, as he shared a nervous look with his counterpart.

"No…" Seth refuted and fear rippled through them all. Mephisto smirked deviously.

"My Lord?" Charming asked.

"I have decided on a different form of punishment. Your execution would be far too swift for a grievance like this," Seth said, as he looked around in disgust.

"It pains me that not even I have the power to burn this library out of existence, but since it was created by the powers of many universes combined, it is beyond even my power. I do not like that," Seth continued.

"But I can install a new proprietor for the library. One that will do as I asked and store banned texts away from the masses," he growled, as he looked at the rulers of Andresia and Rose's uncle came into the room.

"I assure you...you shall not regret giving my Kingdom back to me, my Lord," John said, as he and Sir Hiss bowed deeply to him.

"You…" Fandral growled, but Seth's power kept him on his knees and John enjoyed the warrior's pain greatly.

"You and the lovely Rose Red have been a thorn in my side far too long. Finally...you both are about to get what you deserve," he hissed evilly.

"Yes...and the time has come to deliver that punishment," Seth declared. Rose cried out and buried her face in her husband's shoulder.

"My Lord…" Charming started to say.

"You will be silent!" Seth bellowed and he dropped to his knees, holding his head in pain. Winter fell beside him and her eyes met Rose's, astonished by how utterly broken she looked. She knew what was coming and her eyes were pleading with Winter's.

"The children…" Charming whispered. They would have to find a way to slip them out, but once Seth left, it would be easy to do so under John's nose.

"I hereby banish you both from the United Realms and cast you out into the All World River as I once was," Seth announced.

"And we know that you will likely survive such, Fandral of Asgard, but your wife will not," he hissed.

"And therein, you'll be delivered the ultimate punishment as you survive, while she dies in your arms and you are forced to hold her lifeless corpse and pray for a death you'll probably only receive after years of wandering the nothingness of the volatile river," he said with an evil gleam.

"Please...spare Rose. Kill me...but do not punish the mother of my children," Fandral begged.

"It is done…" Seth declared, as a portal was ripped open before them and the two were sucked away. Charming and Winter could only stare in horror, as their friends were gone and he turned to them.

"You will find me the Dark One dagger, my right hand or I will allow Mephisto's demons to rip your darling Winter apart however they please," he threatened, as Gawain ripped her away from him.

"Nooo!" Charming cried, but then he was holding his head in agony.

"Tell me where it is…" Seth demanded.

"I do not know what the imp did with it," he lied and Seth was not satisfied with that answer, before nodding to the demonic Gawain.

"Oh...this will be fun, pretty one," he hissed, as he grabbed her around the waist. Charming growled and tried to get to his feet, but the pain in his head wouldn't allow it. But a blast of orange magic hit him and sent the dark Lord smashing into a bookcase nearby.

"Impossible...you're dead," Mephisto hissed, as Aphrodite and James stood there, having come to their rescue. They had Fandral and Rose's crying children with them as well.

"Nothing is what it seems, demon...and your time will soon be up," the Goddess said, as Seth, now fully enraged, pulled himself from the rubble.

"You...you will pay for that, Goddess," he promised.

"Not today," Elsa said, as she froze all of them in place, as she and Leo arrived.

"That won't hold them long," she said, as Leo helped his father up.

"I knew it...I knew you were manipulating the great Seth and I will make sure you pay for your deception, Prince Charming," Mephisto growled. James threw a bean down and they all escaped through a portal. The entirety of the United Realms shook, as Seth roared in anger.

~*~

Summer walked onto campus that morning with a friend. Usually her dad dropped her off, but he had been called in on a case really early so she called a friend since the campus was in the opposite direction of Bobby and her mom's school.

"Thanks for the ride," she said.

"No worries...and looks like we have time to spare to grab coffee. You up for it?" her friend asked, as they saw the crime scene tape just ahead of them.

"Whoa...wonder what's going on there," her friend commented. Summer sighed.

"The reason my dad couldn't give me a ride. I'll catch up to you in a bit," she said, as she approached the scene.

"No trespassing from the public," the uniformed officer at the scene said.

"Relax Officer...she's the daughter of one of my agents," Patricia admonished, as she motioned the girl forward.

"Someone else died?" she asked.

"I'm afraid so, sweetheart...do you know this girl?" Patricia asked, as she showed her a picture from a file. They already had the gruesome sight covered with a tarp or she would have never let Summer near the scene.

"She kind of looks familiar so I've probably seen her around campus. But I'm sorry, I didn't know her personally," Summer said, as David came over and hugged his little girl.

"That's okay...I didn't think you would. She didn't exactly strike me as someone who would hang out with the same people you do," Patricia said.

"Daddy...are the students in danger?" Summer asked. David looked at his boss and she cocked her head to the side.

"To be honest, I'm not sure, peanut. But we'll be here most of the day, so for now, just go to your classes and then I'll be here to take you home. But it would make me feel better if you didn't go anywhere alone on campus," he said. She smiled.

"I have friends in most of my classes. I'll walk with them," she promised.

"That's my girl...I'll see you later," he said.

"Love you daddy," she replied.

"Love you too, peanut," he said, as he watched her go.

"We have to find who is doing this. Right now it's drug addicts, but what happens if this guy decides to try a larger victim pool?" David fretted.

"The profile would suggest that his desperation will increase, especially since he's back to not caring if it's students. Having more subjects would be appealing. So far though, it would seem that this serum has to be injected into the blood and there is one thing that struck me about our latest victim," Patricia said, as she opened the file.

"You found a friend of hers?" David asked. She nodded.

"I just got off the phone with her just before Summer came over. She didn't want to meet in person, but was surprised when I told her that her friend died from a needle drug. She said her friend was a pill popper. She never used needles...ever. She hated them," Patricia replied.

"Wow...so our perp had to be pretty convincing and she had to be pretty desperate to do a needle," David surmised.

"That's what I'm thinking, which plays more into our theory that this person is someone highly educated and in a position that naturally gives them trust and respect," she added. He sighed.

"Like a Professor," he said, as he became deeply worried.

"We'll get him. Now that he's back to students again...there is no more keeping this quiet. I'm going to deliver the profile. Then it's only a matter of time before our suspect goes for broke," she said, as he saw the reporters gathering outside the crime scene tape.

"Okay...what about her parents? Someone needs to talk to them," he said and she looked at him sadly.

"I'm afraid there's no father in her file and her mother is worse off than she is," she said, as she showed him the rap sheet on the mother.

"She's pretty strung out and probably doesn't even remember she has a daughter," Patricia said, as she went to make a statement with the press. He sighed, as the medical examiner van arrived and he supervised the scene, as they prepared to take the body away.

~*~

When they arrived through the portal, Eva rushed to her parents and they hugged her.

"Eva...you're okay," Winter said. She nodded.

"Paul and Hope are here too," she assured.

"And Henry?" Charming asked.

"We're fine too...gramps," Henry said, as he Ella, and Lucy were safe as well.

"Uncle James has been busy rounding everyone up," Leo said, as he hugged them too.

"Thank Rumple...he saw that Seth was on the warpath and headed for Andresia," James said.

"Unfortunately, we couldn't save Rose and Fandral," Aphrodite said sadly.

"Oh Charming…" Winter cried, as he took her in his arms.

"Then...our mama and papa are really gone?" Ben asked brokenly. None of them could find a voice to tell them.

"There may be hope, young ones," Hermes said, as she appeared and they ran to her, as she was like an Aunt to them.

"I was able to send a message in a bottle into the All World River earlier. I used an enchantment that gave it coordinates for New Asgard. There is a chance that Lady Sif will find it and send Thor to save them. The bi-frost will be their only chance now," Hermes informed them.

"Then...there is a chance they are still alive?" Carina asked.

"I cannot be certain, sweetheart, but we must not lose hope," she told her.

"Like my charges...yours are very strong as well. We must hope Thor will come to their aid and help them return to us," Hermes said.

"Does he know? About this place?" Rumple asked, as he and Belle arrived.

"Not specifically, but now he knows of our betrayal. We need to evacuate as many innocents here as we can," Charming said, as he looked to Anton.

"What is our bean supply like?" he asked.

"Fortunately, we have hundreds on hand. As long as he does not find us here," Anton answered.

"He can't access Bald Mountain without the dagger," Rumple said.

"Which he's soon going to realize isn't here in the United Realms," Regina feared.

"Which means he'll figure out we sent it with Snow and David," Robin deduced.

"You think he'll send one of his minions to Boston?" Belle asked.

"Most likely, which means we need to warn Emma. But firstly, we have to gather as many innocents as possible," Winter replied.

"As soon as he knows what we're doing...it will be difficult to evade him and his minions. And I don't think I have to tell you if he gets through one of our portals to this place...it's over," Rumple warned.

"Then we have to be very smart and quick," Charming said.

"We could create some weather issues...the three of us," Eva said, as she motioned to her twin and Elsa.

"She's right. A nice little snowstorm over Olympus, a tornado smashing through Nephilim, and a lightning event in Storybrooke could provide some cover," Leo suggested.

"I have more fog spells like I used on the Harbor to conceal Emma and Killian's escape. If I combine them, we could have a large enough blanket of fog to conceal us for a short time," Rumple said. Charming nodded.

"Mom...the reserve. He might attack it in retaliation," Leo feared.

"Your father and I will use the chalice to seal it off. Only someone of our bloodline will be able to get in," she promised.

"Everyone has their mission. Let's go," Charming said, as they all became very busy.

~*~

Seth's eyes bled yellow with rage, as he stomped around his Throne room atop Mount Olympus.

"They will pay...they will all pay…" he growled, as the structure of his palace trembled in his wake.

"I knew they had betrayed you, my Lord...I just couldn't prove it until now," Mephisto said, but he withered under the God's glower.

"Silence…" he snapped, as he continued to seethe.

"I want the dagger!" he roared.

"My Lord...if I may, the Dark One is crafty and it is possible that the dagger is not within this realm," Arthur said.

"What do you mean?" Seth asked.

"The brats...it would be just like that imp to send it with a child. He'd never trust another family with it," Gawain agreed.

"Then you two will go to the Land Without Magic. You will find the dagger for me and you will kill Snow White, Prince David, and their snotty brats! Without magic...they shall be no match for your demonic powers," Seth shouted. Arthur smirked.

"It would be our incredible honor to grind their bones to powder, my Lord," the former King said.

"And you're sure they have no magic?" Gawain questioned. Seth smirked.

"The foolish Winter and Charming were greedy and kept the chalice between them," he said.

"Excellent...we shall leave at once, my Lord...that is if you can provide us a way," Arthur said. Seth raised his hand and tore a hole in into the Maine woods that surrounded the concealment of the United Realms.

"It will be up to the two of you to find your way to them in a place called Boston. Make the mortals out there help you if you must," he said. The two nodded and walked through the portal, before it closed.

"And you...do not return to my sight until you have Charming's head in your hand! Kill them all!" Seth demanded. Mephisto smirked and bowed to him.

"It will be my pleasure to deliver his corpse to you and get justice for you, My Lord," he said, as he disappeared in a poof of smoke. Seth continued to seethe.

"This is my Kingdom! And they will all pay!" he growled, as he continued to stomp around his Throne room in a fit.

~*~

Fandral had never been so terrified in his very long life as he was in this moment. He held Rose tightly in his arms, as the All World River whipped them around violently.

"My angel...you must stay with me," he pleaded, as he breathed into her mouth again. He was the only thing keeping her alive and his air was not enough. She was fading fast and tears slipped down his face, as he realized that he was going to lose her. If he did, then he would beg the river for death.

"It's...it's all right, my love," she said, as tears slipped down her cheeks.

"You...can let me go. I'll always be with you," she rasped.

"You must save your breath...you must, my angel," he pleaded, as she weakly raised a hand to his handsome face.

"You must go on...for our children," she pleaded to him.

"I...I cannot lose you. I cannot survive that," he sobbed.

"You must...kiss me one last time, my love…" she requested and he could not deny her, as he crushed his lips against hers in the most passionate kiss ever.

"Rose...Rose please!" he cried almost uncontrollably, as she slowly slipped away in his arms. He had fought some of the worst scurges to ever exist and had faced battles that should have ended him without fear. None of that had ever fazed him, but losing her brought this warrior to the brink of insanity and he cried over her like he never had before.

"Please...all mighty Odin please!" he pleaded.

"I know you can hear me, Odin! I beg you to take me if you are going to take her!" he sobbed, as he buried his face in her chest and cried harder when he realized it was no longer rising and falling.

As if to answer him, a light suddenly was shining upon him. But it was not the long dead Odin that had come to put him out of his misery. He looked up through his tears and found his friend there, still with saddened eyes and a bit haggard, but he was there.

"She will not die today, my friend and neither will you. I will lose no more friends," Thor declared, as the bi-frost snapped them up and deposited them back in New Asgard.

Fandral gently lay Rose on the ground and a man that he recognized as Eric Selvig knelt down beside them.

"Please...I have medical training," he said. He nodded and he started pumping Rose's chest.

"I want you to breathe for her now," Eric instructed and he did so. After a few breaths, Rose took a strangled one of her own and her green eyes, those green eyes he feared he would never see again, opened.

"Rose…" he uttered brokenly and then looked up at them.

"I can never repay this debt I owe to you all," he said, as he cradled his beloved in his arms and she took starved breaths of air.

"Happy to help," Eric assured.

"He's right...we received the message from Hermes and not too soon at all it would seem," Sif said.

"Yes...what has happened in your realm to cause this?" Thor questioned.

"It is quite a story, but we will tell you everything. Perhaps there is somewhere more comfortable though?" Fandral asked. They nodded and rose to their feet. Fandral did as well and scooped Rose into his arms.

"Come...we'll get you substance and you can tell us of the calamity that caused all this," Thor said, as they moved toward his home.

~*~

Margaret smiled, as she watched all the students proudly display their projects and parents milled through the exhibits. So far, the science fair was off to a rousing start.

"Mrs. Nolan...look what I won!" one of her freshman students called, as they hurried up to the table she was at.

"Oh...that's wonderful Heather. I'm so happy for you," she said, congratulating the girl on her blue ribbon. She was a bit of an introverted girl and Margaret had hoped to make a difference with her by pushing her to apply herself and it had definitely paid off. The girl had more confidence in herself and her grades were up. It was the very reason Margaret had always wanted to go into teaching. She had always longed to make a difference in young lives and it truly felt rewarding to be a part of something like this.

"Well...it's not hard to see why that young student is a fan of yours. The science fair is a huge success and leaps and bounds over any previous event," Dr. Jenkins praised. Margaret looked shy under the praise though.

"There are a lot of moving parts here. I am just a small part of a lot of people working together," Margaret said.

"If you say so...but I think you are far too modest, Margaret," he said and she noticed the gleam in his eyes, not for the first time. She wasn't oblivious, but had hoped there was nothing behind the doctor's praise. She was a happily married woman, after all, but he seemed reluctant to remember such.

"Wow Mom...this is great," Bobby said, as he arrived from practice.

"Thanks sweetie," she replied, as she hugged him.

"I think things are winding down though and the projects have been judged, so I'm going to go grab my things from my classroom and then we'll head home. Your dad and Summer should be home by then too," she said.

"Okay...I'm going to go say hi to some friends while I wait," he said. Dr. Jenkins watched her leave the gym to return to her classroom and the voices in his head were too much. He tried to ignore his urges, but he couldn't and was soon following her.

~*~

Killian brought the Jolly Roger into port that afternoon. They had already attracted a lot of attention and the Coastguard clearly remembered their very distinctive ship escaping their custody years ago.

Fortunately, calling Angela and Nick helped and they agreed to help them when she explained the situation and met them at the docks. They used their badges and bypassed the Coastguard authority, which didn't make them happy, and led Emma and Killian to a nearby coffee kiosk.

"Thanks for flying in from New York on such short notice," Emma said, as she sipped at her coffee.

"Thank my recent promotion, though I'm a little miffed that I had no idea your father was working for the FBI," Angela replied.

"Yeah...that's what surprises me. I mean...someone higher up has to know he's the same person from Seattle," Emma replied.

"Yeah...and her name might be Major Patricia Donovan, though I agree that there has to be someone else even above her aware of all of this. Just no idea who," Nick said, as he put the file in front of them.

"That's her," Killian said, recognizing the woman.

"Yeah...this is the woman that told us she was going to be a handler for my parents before the curse took them. She also said she killed Cecily Clayton and took over her father's operation," Emma said.

"Yes...then our memories were taken and we've been under the curse for two years until yesterday," Killian added. Angela sighed.

"Your lives are insane," she commented. Emma snorted.

"Believe me...I know. So this Major Donovan...what do you know about her?" Emma asked.

"Not a lot...she's former military and seven years ago, after the whole Seattle debacle, she forced us to release all the information about that day over to her, including the Nolan files that the FBI has on your family," Nick replied.

"Yeah and they classified it all. You have to be seriously high up to get the clearance to look at their files or anything about Seattle. The FBI has done its best to bury information about that day and the official story explains it away as a severe electrical weather event," she explained. Emma looked at her skeptically.

"And people buy that load of crap?" she asked. Nick snorted.

"I think it's easier for most. But yeah...there is a lot of conspiracy stuff out there about that day and your family too," he replied.

"Yeah...we're actually aware of some of that. My sister actually keeps up on it just to keep us informed of what they're saying and stuff. And Happy and Doc get their kicks from it," Emma commented.

"Then you know that some of those crazy conspiracy guys are pretty damn close on some of it," he said. She sighed.

"Yeah...way too damn close," she replied.

"So...my dad is working for this Major Donovan on a task force?" Emma asked.

"Apparently so...in fact, Major Donovan just made a statement about some serial type deaths at major Universities in the Boston area," she answered.

"Serial type deaths?" Killian asked.

"Your Dad is investigating drug related deaths. From what information I could glean, there's a new drug that has the FBI lab baffled. It's not like anything we know. It causes wild hallucinations and causes the victims to lose their minds in seconds. Some of the victims were even screaming about hearing voices telling them to do bad things before they died," she explained.

"Yeah...total personality change," Nick commented.

"Jekyll and Hyde," Killian muttered, as he looked at her. She sighed.

"Yeah...we know who is doing this and he probably doesn't have his memories yet, but that doesn't mean my mom isn't in serious danger," Emma said.

"That's great...but if we just walk into the Boston office with this information, Major Donovan is never going to let us in on the investigation," Angela replied.

"Then I need to find my Mom...do you know where she's working?" Emma asked.

"We ran her name. She's teaching at a high school across town. I think your brother goes there too," Nick replied.

"That's where Jekyll is then. We need to get there and if I know my dad, it won't be long until he figures him out," Emma said, as they stood up.

"You think? I mean...I heard they still have dozens of suspects," Nick replied.

"Trust me...the minute my Dad sees Jekyll or whatever name he is going by here is on that suspect list, which I assure you that he is...he'll know it's him. He'll just know," Emma assured.

"For now, let's get to that school. Snow and even Bobby could be in serious danger," Killian said.

"We'll drive you," Angela offered, as they hurried to her car...

[sailorsolar12]

A Ball??? - Kol Mikaelson x OC

Hey guys. I am so sorry for vanishing. I have just been so busy with work, going to the gym, and trying to lose weight so I am able to take my ASVAB for the Air Force. Yes, I am in the process of trying to get into the military. Don’t worry I won’t forget about you guys. BTW I am going to be posting quite a few things tonight......just fyi be ready for word vomit from me.

A Ball?? Taglist:

@princesslexxi1 @deamlanderwynter @deafeningdreamlandmonger

Permanent Taglist:

@silvermoonfox @lolabean1998

Previous Parts:

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5

Warnings: Cursing, Elena bashing, Some violence

Kol gazed at her for a moment. “Would you like to play?” he asked motioning to the empty pool table not too far behind Lili.

Lili glanced at the table and smirked confidently. “Be prepared to lose,” she stated as she went to the table and began to set up the game. She grabbed some chalk and chalked the tip of her pool stick before handing the chalk to Kol. “Do you wanna break or shall I?”

Kol rose an eyebrow and smirked at her. “Ladies first.”

She smiled. “Such a gentleman,” she answered and walked around the table bending down slightly lining up her pool stick and shot the cue ball. The cue ball sped forward and dispersed the others two stripes balls pocketing almost immediately. She glanced up at Kol and rose an eyebrow showing she wasn’t done. Lili walked around the table again to where the cue ball had stopped and lined up another shot for the stripes. Just before she took her shot, she felt Kol right behind her. The brunette tried her best to ignore just how close he was, but Lili knew it was a losing battle. She took a deep breath and took her shot, but instead of making her own in…she made a solid one. The 16-year-old narrowed her eyes as she turned to face Kol who was playing innocent. “Don’t pull that look with-“ She went wide eyed seeing Alaric behind them and pushed Kol out of the way just as Alaric pushed the dagger forward. Instead of going into Kol’s chest, the dagger landed in Lili’s causing a loud gasp of pain to come from her and a scream of rage to come from Kol. Lili looked at Alaric as a couple of tears escaped while her skin turned grey just like Kol’s. “Why?” she whispered softly before collapsing dead in Alaric’s arms.

Kol watched in horror as Lili collapsed in Alaric’s arms dessicated and dead from the dagger. He tried to speak as he himself collapsed onto the ground as his vision went dark.

Alaric cursed and looked up paling seeing Klaus storm into the Grill. He did not anticipate for Lili to be linked to the Originals. However, if she was linked to the Originals, then that meant most likely Rebekah wasn’t linked to them. Therefore, Elena was still in danger. Alaric grunted in pain as he was thrown back from Lili and Kol. The high school teacher watched as Klaus removed the dagger from Lili’s chest. Kol quickly started to come back to life, but Alaric knew that Lili would take longer as she hadn’t been killed that way before.

Kol growled in rage as he sped with Alaric outside pinning the history teacher against the wall by his throat. The Original wanted to do more than just rip the man apart. He wanted to slaughter everyone in this town, hell this entire damn state. He leaned close to Alaric and smirked darkly. “Tell me, do you take joy in now knowing that if you kill us...you kill Lili,” he murmured lowly to Alaric as black veins became visible on Kol’s face. He looked at his older brother as Elijah pulled Kol away from Alaric. “What?!” he snapped at the suit wearing Original.

“Take Lili home. Make sure she is comfortable. Rebekah is still with the Doppelgänger, and Lili would want you there when she awakens. Niklaus and I will handle Mother and Finn,” Elijah ordered.

Kol froze feeling his heart clench for the first time in 1000 years. He was feeling something for the first time in 1000 years. He had spent centuries with his switch flipped, but now, because of one human girl, his emotions were surfacing in a way he had never thought would happen. There was no possible way he could feel anything for anyone. “Kill them both. I no longer care what happens to them,” he said darkly and took Lili from Klaus’ arms vanishing to the mansion to make sure she was comfortable when she awoke. He gently laid her onto her bed and slowly began to take off her jacket and her clothes putting her into something more comfortable. He knew he would probably get hit when she woke up, but he didn’t care right now. All he wanted to do was make sure she was safe. He inhaled deeply still feeling rather angry. The original knew deep down that Klaus would probably harm him if he drank a few of the maids, but he needed to kill something. He smirked darkly and compelled three of the maids that were inside the house while taking his time draining and disposing of their bodies.

He wasn’t too far into the trees when he heard Lili’s heartbeat start up again followed by a loud gasp not too long later. He wiped most of the blood off of his chin and sped inside and into her room. He looked at her in relief and took her into his arms. “I was so worried about you Lili,” he murmured softly as he held her.

Lili blinked rapidly and suddenly blushed at the contact. She slowly wrapped her arms around Kol’s torso and returned the hug. She was rather shocked he was here with her. That was when she noticed she wasn’t in her outfit from before. The 16-year-old narrowed her eyes and pulled away from the Original. “Kol Mikaelson….your life depends on your answer….did you or did you not change my clothes?” She watched as Kol tensed and got a snarky look on his face that made him look all the more guilty. “Kol!!!” Lili yelled embarrassed. Lili looked away curling up slightly rather flustered that the object of her growing affections was the one to change her clothes.

She shook her head and felt around for her phone before seeing it on the nightstand right next to her bed. She gave a heavy sigh as she turned on the device dreading what she was going to see. She went wide and lightly tossed her phone on the bed as it vibrated rapidly from the sheer amount of messages that she had gotten during the time her phone was off. She gave a playful glare as Kol chuckled at her reaction. “Oh shut up.” She swallowed thickly unlocking her phone and looking at Elena’s messages first.

Then she went to look at Bonnie’s and smiled softly at the fact Bonnie was able to save her mom.

She made a face seeing a rather angry text from her twin….to which she responded to.

One thing that she also did not understand was why Kol had willingly stayed behind and not confront his eldest brother and mother just to make sure she was fine. She furrowed her brow looking at the Original. “Kol, can I ask you something?” she murmured softly looking back down at her hands. “Why did you stay with me? I mean why me? Why not just leave me and go with Nik and Elijah to confront Finn and Esther? How did you even know I would wake up from getting daggered? I am not really anything special. I’m just the younger sister of the Doppelgänger. I’m not very pretty or popular for that matter. Rebekah told me about how you typically prefer witches, but I am simply human. I-” Her eyes widened as she Kol lifted her head and she felt pressure on her lips. Her mind went blank, and her body froze. Kol Mikaelson was kissing her. The bloodiest and most violent of the Originals was kissing her a simple human. After a moment she felt him start to pull away, but Lili kissed him back as she brought up her hands to cradle his face while her eyes fluttered shut.

Kol gave a smile as he pulled away from Lili as he took her hands in his. His brown eyes held emotion...true emotion for the first time in 1000 years, as he gazed at the human beauty before him. Her makeup was slightly smudged and her hair was a mess, but he honestly didn’t care. He needed to get to know her. He needed to be around her. He furrowed his brow as a sudden memory from 600 years ago surfaced in his mind.

*Flashback*

Kol narrowed his eyes dangerously as he watched the witch before him perform a tracking spell before her eyes rolled back and she began to have a vision of some kind. The witch was thrashing and slightly convulsing as magic surrounded them in the small cottage. He hadn’t felt magic like this before, but he was curious at the same time as to why the witch was suddenly having a vision. He sped in front of the witch as she caught herself on the table before she fell to the floor. “What was that?” Kol demanded. He could see that that witch was wide eyed in both fear and confusion. “Well?! What was your vision about!?”

The witch looked up at him and spoke almost as if she was in a trance. “In time, your family will reunite. Esther will plot against you. SHE will stand between your destruction and your life. The fate of the Mikaelsons are sealed….they will not perish as long as SHE is alive.”

Kol took the witch by her throat. “Who is SHE?” the Original demanded from the witch.

“SHE is the key to your heart. The one thing you will truly love. The very thing that will make the Mikaelsons a family again,” the witch gasped out trying to breathe. “She is a Gilbert and a twin. Look for the Doppelgänger, and SHE will be there.” The witch began to cough as Kol dropped her onto the ground. She stopped him just as he turned to leave. “There is a warning with this vision!” she exclaimed causing the Original to pause. “The potency will make her dangerous if any are to cross her. Even you.” The witch let out a strangled cry as Kol sped back to her and ripped out her heart.

*End Flashback*

Kol sat back wide eyed in shock. He stared at Lili and tried to wrap his head around the last and final sentence the witch had spoken before he had killed her. His brown eyes seemed to brighten as he mentally went over what the witch said before leaning closer to Lili and placing a quick kiss on her lips causing the middle Gilbert’s heart to race and her cheeks to flush.

Lili blushed heavily and covered her flushed cheeks. “What was that for? You looked lost in a memory for a minute there.” She bit her lip slightly worried as she began to playing some of her loose hair.

Kol sat next to her on the large bed and leaned back against the headboard. “There was a witch….oh about 600 or so years ago. She was tracking down my brothers and Rebekah as I had left and gone off on my own for a while. In the middle of the spell, she had a vision….that spoke of you. Her exact words were, ‘SHE is the key to your heart. The one thing you will truly love. The very thing that will make the Mikaelsons a family again. She is a Gilbert and a twin. Look for the Doppelgänger, and SHE will be there.’ I didn’t understand what exactly she meant at the time, but now I do. However, the last words she spoke are the words that still confuse me.”

“What were the last words that she spoke of?” Lili asked curiously.

“‘The potency will make her dangerous if any are to cross her. Even you.’ I have asked multiple witches over the years, but even they don’t know.” Kol looked at Lili again and reached over taking her hand. “Lili, that witch….I don’t know how she knew, but I don’t want to stay away from you….for the first time in 1000 years someone is breaking down my walls. The very walls that I had been forced to build because of Nik and Rebekah and even Elijah, but it is also because of the fact that I felt very empty when I became a vampire. I had been a very powerful warlock, and when I was turned, I lost that connection to nature. It hurt to not be able to do any sort of magic-”

Lili gave Kol’s hand a squeeze as she turned to face him. She winced in slight pain. Her body hurt from when she was stabbed. The middle Gilbert held up her hand to stop Kol from speaking. “You do not need to explain yourself to me, Kol. Truth be told….you and your family and Jeremy are the only people who even remotely care. You guys are my family, and I don’t need anyone else in my life. However, I am now curious about what that witch had said. What the hell did she mean by ‘the potency’?”

Kol frowned as he tried to think about the words. “I have absolutely no clue,” he responded confused by the witch’s words.

[crue-sixx]

Title: Oracle

Fandom: The Dirt (CastxMadison)

Summary: Madison is a soldier with psychic powers.  She and another woman, Katie escape the Compound that they were forced to live in since childhood to find help for the younger prisoners, and split up.  Madison stumbles to New Orleans where the Dirt is currently being filmed.  There she meets a male with psychic powers-a rarity.

Note: All caps are telepathic messages

A/N: Happy birthday @crue-sixx!  Used her name with permission for this imagine!  (Katie is me)

Throughout history, there have been people with psychic abilities that vary in occurrence and strength.  Most people who have them don't even know they do and go their whole lives without so much as a peep from their abilities but others have used them to their advantage.  For a time they were called witches and hunted down and slaughtered in the name of various gods.  Some were seen as gods themselves, and they used their power to dominate the masses into unquestioned obedience.

However, when the witch hunts came around most of those with psychic abilities had died out-some cases entire bloodlines were snuffed out.  In the present day, roughly about 20% of the population  have psychic abilities, the most common among them being telekinesis or telepathic.  98% of those with abilities are women.  Some of the more uncommon abilities are an elemental power-fire. water, earth and air.  The rarest of abilities was precognition, those who possess this kind of power were once revered and called oracles.

In today's world, those with abilities are captured and exploited for the personal gain of people in power.  Madison and Katie were such psychic soldiers, Madison having telepathic powers and Katie with telekinesis.  They were sisters, biologically and mentally.  Katie was the older one, and after her birth the Ghost Division (a top secret organization that pulls off assassinations and influence the decisions made by politicians) kept a close eye on the family to see if they would produce another person with an ability.

When they did, baby Madison was whisked away in the night.  The retrieval unit left a trail of corpses in their wake, as was expected the mother and father put up a valiant effort to protect the child. From birth, Madison and Katie were pumped full of drugs in an attempt to make their abilities stronger, or even able to wield dual abilities.  They were separated for most of the day, having been put with other prisoners who shared their abilities.  The only time they were allowed contact was during mealtimes.

The Ghost Compound was a refurbished prison, with 24/7 audio/visual surveillance and everything automatic.  Like a smart house, everything could be remotely controlled from an outside source.  Even the rings on their fingers could be triggered at anytime.  The rings were more like shackles, if they were to try to take them off, then an electric shock would go off.  It was during lunch one day that it was found out what would happen if someone were to cut off their finger.

A young girl of about 12 had taken her steak knife and started to chop off the finger, but right before the blade hit the skin the ring let out a piercing scream and a second later the poor girl was convulsing on the floor with a pink foamy mixture of blood and saliva oozing from her mouth.  When she stopped convulsing, an announcement went over the intercom "That is what happens when you defy my authority.  Defiance equals death.  Remember that, my Beauties, and we'll get on just fine".  Madison and Katie just stared at the dead girl, who was now being taken away to the incinerator to be disposed of.

Of course the younger inmates were terrified and kept eating as if nothing happened.  Madison locked eyes with Katie and sent a telepathic message- CANT KEEP LIVING LIKE THIS.  Katie nodded, her being unable to send a message back.  She then extended her fingers on the hand the ring was on and with her other hand she motioned to a knife.  Madison gulped, knowing full well what her sister meant.

They were planning an escape for sometime now, and the events at lunch just made them more aware as to the importance of their situation.  Madison would send telepathic messages to Katie, and she'd just shake or nod her head- the walls had eyes and ears.  Any spoken or written word would be their downfall.  Katie had made the camera in her cell burst so recording couldn't be completed.  They had to act fast, since that would surely sound the alarm.

They met in the recreation yard, Madison able to get away with the pretense of getting sick in the bathroom-the only places in the whole compound that didn't have audio or visual recording.  She had gotten a tape recorder and set it on play, the sounds of vomiting echoing through the cells.  They each had an axe that used by a fireman to cut through burning wood to save people's lives.

Katie held out the hand that had a ring on it and with only a moment of hesitation,  Madison swung the axe and the thing came off.  Katie let out a scream of pain, and Madison held out her own hand, and Katie cut it off as well.  Blood was getting everywhere, so Katie tore her shirt to make temporary bandages for the both of them. 

"I'm going to lift us over the wall" Katie said, the blood loss already getting to her.  She pulled Madison close to her and they lifted up and over, landing on their knees.

"Katie" Madison said "stick to the plan...you go one way and I'll go another..." she helped her older sister up and touched their foreheads together.  WE HAVE TO GET HELP FOR THE OTHERS.  GOOD LUCK, SIS.  LOVE YOU.

"I love you too" Katie kissed Madison's forehead and ran off in one direction.  Madison wasn't worried about Katie at all-she was a tough woman who knew how to use her abilities to protect herself.

Madison went off in the opposite direction, the alarms from the compound could be heard for miles.  She had to slow down, her loss of blood  getting to her.  She was able to make it to New Orleans when she just couldn't keep moving anymore.  She plopped down next to a dumpster in an alley and drifted off to sleep, her mind opening and sending psychic SOS signals in hopes that someone would be able to hear them.

Filming had wrapped up for the day, and they all were dog tired.  Daniel and Douglas were leading the way to the bar that was next door to where they lived for the duration of filming when Daniel felt a tickle in his head.  He ignored it at first, but soon became more invested when the tickle turned into words.

HELP ME.

He looked around confused, Coleson and Iwan giving him funny looks.  "Did you lose somethin'?" Coleson asked.

"I don't think so..." Daniel said, but as he walked nearer to the source he heard the voice in his head louder.

DANGER.  HELP ME.

He turned into the alley and was surprised to see a young woman covered in dirt and leaves slumped against the wall, her hand wrapped up in a bloody bandage. The others followed him and Douglas exclaimed "Bloody Hell!  Is she alive?!"

Daniel reached down and felt a very weak pulse and without hesitation he lifted her up and said "Yeah, but just barely..." the hospital was a five minute walk, but he made it there in less than three minutes, shouting that he needed help for his friend.  A nurse quickly got her into an operating room, while the recording technician talked to Daniel.

"Sir how is this woman related to you?"

"She's not" he answered "I just found her like that" he suddenly had so much nervous energy that he tapped his foot while sitting.

"So you don't even know her name?"

MADISON L/N.  His head twitched.

"Madison L/N" he said confidently, but surprised at himself.

"Right, and how about her medical history?"

He said all the relevant information as you were subconsciously feeding it to him directly in his mind.  When the tech asked about insurance policies for you, you sent a message to her. 

INSURANCE IS NOT NEEDED.

"Insurance is not needed" the tech repeated out loud, and shook her head.  She suddenly felt tired and excused herself to get a cup of coffee.  He was directed to her room and she had been cleaned up and a proper bandage had been applied to her stump.

"Madison" he brushed her hair from her eyes "How do I know so much about you?"  you couldn't even send a telepathic message to him, the drugs the hospital had given you had completely blocked your ability to reach into people's minds had kicked in, sending you into a dreamless sleep.

Over the next few days, he'd called every few hours or so while he was filming to check on her, and was dismayed when the staff had told him she hadn't woken up yet. They had replaced the blood she lost, and her body naturally helped the healing process.  It was the middle of the next week that she finally woke up, the first person she saw was a rather strapping young man with a stubbly beard.  "Madison?" he asked in a thick Australian accent.

"Yeah" she responded and sat up "Who're you?" she was still groggy from the drugs so she couldn't just pull his name from his memory, not that she wanted to do that anyway.  She used her ability sparingly and when she had to.

"I'm Daniel Webber" he said as he sat himself closer to her "I'm an actor from Australia in New Orleans for a film I'm working on" he put a gentle hand on her good one and asked "How do I know so much about you?  I've never even met you before..."

She contemplated telling him the truth, but it sounded so farfetched that she'd probably end up in the psych ward. and the Ghost Division could easily find and recapture her there.  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you" she looked up at him, those big doe eyes catching him off guard and making his heart skip a beat.  In that same moment, it seemed that he had left his body and was in a totally different scene-he was on a beach and a small gathering of his friends and as he turned to face a person coming up to him, he was back in his body at the hospital.

"Daniel?" she asked "Are you okay?" she was shaking him lightly, him being cold to the touch.

He blinked and color came back to his skin "What the fuck was that?"

"What was what?" she asked him confused "You went catatonic for a full minute there!"

"It felt like an out of body experience" his whole body shook, as if his mind was getting re-acclimated to the physical shell.

Her eyes widened as she said "You're a pre-cog..."  a person with the precognition ability was a very rare sight.  A male pre-cog was rarer still.  These were among the beings that people in ancient times thought of as gods.

"A what?" he asked dumbfounded.

"Erm" she started "We can go into that a different time" you looked up into the hallway and saw two guards from the Compound ask the charge nurse something at the desk.  She could tell they were from the Compound by the caged bird tattoos on their hands.  "We gotta get out of here..." she jumped from the bed and looked them right in the eye.

She grabbed Daniel's hand and bolted from the room, the rest of the patients and staff in a panic when the guards drew their weapons and began firing.  She threw him behind a desk for cover as she tried to reach into their minds and have them shoot each other, but the drugs were still in her system.  "What the Hell is happening, Madison?!" he shouted over the bullets hitting the wall behind them.

"I'm a psychic with telepathic abilities that ra.n away from a government facility and these men are here to take me back" she said quickly, he didn't believe her at the time but accepted the explanation for the time being.  Just then, the elevator pinged, and Douglas, Coleson and Iwan stepped out into the hallway.  They had heard Madison had been showing signs of waking up, so they bought her a bouquet of flowers.  They walked right into a war zone and the vase that Iwan was carrying had dropped to the floor, shattering.

They all ducked for cover, they all demanding an explanation.  She rolled her eyes and relayed what she had just said, them not believing her either but accepting it just like Daniel.  The adrenaline had purged the drugs from her body and she sent a message to each guard simultaneously.

SHOOT EACH OTHER.

The gaurds turned and shot each other in the leg.  Madison went over to one of them and asked "Where's my sister?"

He spat in her face and snarled "I'm not talking!"

She sighed and invaded his thoughts.  He gasped as he felt her pull the memory from his mind.  He didn't know where Katie was, she looked over to the other guard and did the same to him-nobody knew where she was.  She were both relieved and concerned.  She couldn't let the higher command know where she was so she completely wiped their minds, leaving them living vegetables.

The four men stared at you in shocked amazement.  "Time to go" she said as she left the battlefield.  "You could stay if you want, but I'm calling deuces" you turned to run, but Daniel grabbed her arm.

"Please don't run off!" the other three looked at him like he had just committed a murder.

"Since they know I'm in the city, they'll keep coming after me, and that puts you and your loved ones in danger" she took her arm back "I am NOT willing to risk innocent lives..."

"Then please stay with-" he was about to say 'me' but quickly changed it to "us".  The others protested that it was dangerous to let such a person like her live with them, her even joining in.  He pleaded "Please..." he felt like he had to protect her.

They all threw up their hands in defeat and she not so graciously accepted his offer.  She would have to stay cooped up in his room with him.  "So I basically traded one prison for another" she pouted, to which his heart skipped another beat.

"Very well" he sighed contentedly "You can sleep in my bed, while I take the floor..."

"We can share the bed" she said "It must be uncomfortable on the floor" Coleson, Iwan and Douglas giggled while seeing Daniel blush.

"It would be ungentlemanly of me to share a bed with a lady that I'm not in a romantic relationship with..."

She didn't want to displace him from his sleeping area but he was insistant so she reluctantly agreed with "So long as you don't try anything funny..."

A few more peaceful weeks passed, without so much as a word from or about Katie, and Madison was getting worried.  One day after filming, Daniel came into his room and she felt a somber air about him.  "You okay?" she asked, gently touching his shoulder.

"Yeah" he gave a sad smile "Just filmed the Skylar bits today..." she had known about the little girl who had died from various publications, and from what Daniel had told her about the actress portraying her she dominated that role.

"I see" she touched her forehead with his and sent a calming message to him.  YOU DID GOOD, SLEEP NOW.  His eyes grew tired and he laid down on the bed.  She turned to sleep on the floor when he objected.

"Come sleep in the bed with me" he asked her "Just until I get a sound sleep going?" he sounded like a frightened child and in some ways he was.  He had had more visions of the future, and she had slowly been teaching him how to make them stop so they wouldn't interrupt anything important.

She awkwardly cuddled into his arm, her stump brushing the skin on his chest. After a moment of silence he sleepily asked "Hey Mads?"

"Yes?" she answered

"Wanna date me?"

She looked at him "Date?  Like romantically?" she had never had such experience with dating or relationships.  She didn't know the first thing about dating.

"Yea you goof" he laughed "I want to take you out sometime.  Can't keep you locked up here like Rapunzel forever" he closed the gap between them and she could smell his cologne- a smokey wood scent.  She loved it.

"Where do you want to take me?" she asked, but he was softly snoring.  She smiled and kissed his cheek "Sweet dreams, Daniel" she settled into the crook of his arm and fell asleep as well.

Over the next few weeks, she had tried to reach out to Katie, but she got no response still.  Her and Daniel were now officially boyfriend/girlfriend and they were taking things slow.  It was on a Tuesday that Katie showed up from out of nowhere.  "Katie!" she flung her arms around her sister and sent WERE YOU ABLE TO FIND HELP?

"No" Katie replied "I tried the local authorities in Baton Rouge, but they thought I was crazy and locked me up in a mental ward.  Some guards from the Compound came and tried to take me back, but they ended up with various sharp objects in their bodies" she smiled at Madison.

Daniel was excited to meet Madison's sister, she had told him so much about her with so much regard.  "Hello!  I'm Daneil, Mads' boyfriend!"

Katie raised an eyebrow at Madison "Boyfriend?  Has he been treating you well?"

"More than well" she answered "he's a pre-cog" Katie stared at him and had so many questions it wasn't even funny.

"So hearing your voice in his head triggered his ability?" she asked.

"Yes" Daniel answered "Madison's been teaching me how to control it.  She has me imagine a lockbox, and if I keep it closed I can't see what the future holds" he squeezed her hand for reassurance, her returning the gesture.

"So you guys were attacked here too?" Katie asked, not being able to resist the chance to hear the story.  After the story was told, Daniel pulled Katie aside and asked.

"Are they going to keep coming after Madison?  And you?"

"Until they have us back" she answered honestly "or we're dead."

He was almost about to cry at that, he took a moment to collect himself and asked "Is there anything I can do to help you two?"

"Since you're a pre-cog, you can stick close to her and can see an attack before it happens" Katie suggested "Your visions are only POSSIBLE outcomes,  they can be changed" he thought a moment and asked a very important question.

"Hey, ask my sister" Katie smiled at him.

Madison came in their bedroom later that evening, rose petals making a path to the bed.  She giggled, her loving that sensation that she never got to experience as a child.  "Daniel?  What is all this?"

"Mads" he gulped, he was nervous and down on one knee "I've loved you since the first time I heard you in my head...and since I know you better I want to keep you safe...will you be my wife?" he showed a silver band with a diamond on it.  She looked at the thing with awe.

"Are you sure?  I've explained that with me around it'll be dangerous..." he stood up and shushed her with a finger. 

"I know what the dangers are" he softly kissed her, his stubble tickling her "I accept them, just as I accept you and your sister.  I want to keep you safe, and if it means that I have to give my own life to save you...so be it..."

Madison was breath taken, only her sister had shown this much concern when they were growing up.  On more than one occasion, Katie had taken punishments at the Compound for the stupid things  she did.  "Yes, Daniel" she finally said "I'll marry you..."

It was a small beach affair, Katie helping Madison into a bridal gown.  The men managed to get some rental tuxes last minute and they had raided the bar of all their booze.  They had "borrowed" a priest to officiate, despite not having filling out the forms needed to make the marriage legal.  Jeff Tremaine had walked Madison down the aisle, while Katie stayed in the back on alert.  Thankfully nothing out of the ordinary happened.

The vows were said, the rings placed on the fingers and the new Mr. and Mrs. Webber were introduced.  The reception almost everyone got hammered, save for the bride and groom.  Even Katie eased up and was using her telekinesis to make people fly.  The newlyweds stayed sober because they wanted to be able to be in control of their love making later.

When they finally had some alone time, he pulled his new wife into the honeymoon suite of the hotel they booked.  He kissed her gently at first, but grew hungrier with his kisses.  He undid the dress in the back and she let it fall to the ground.  She was totally nude in front of him, this being their first time together.  "Fuck..." he sighed, his erection growing at the mere sight of her.

After their love making they were sticky and glistening with sweat.  They both were panting when he asked "What the fuck was that?"

"What?" she groaned into his clavicle, planting a soft kiss on it.

"I've had sex before, great sex but what we just did I've never felt anything like that before.  It was like I was feeling your pleasure as well as my own..."

She giggled "Sorry, that was me.  I can't control my ability when I can't concentrate.  You made me feel so good, that I just let go" he played with her hair out of affection.

"Does that mean its always going to be like that when we make love?" he looked down at her.

"Only if you want me to" she answered.

"If it brings me closer to you, then I want it like that all the time" he cuddled with her "I love you, Madison" and interlocked his fingers with hers.

"I love you too, Daniel" she returned the feeling.

"What about them trying to take you and Katie?" he turned serious.

"Bring 'em on" she said boldly "We can take 'em" with that they turned out the light and slipped into a peaceful sleep.