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consumedkings-archive · 4 years ago

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ancient names, pt. xxi

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt xxi: what went we

Masterlink Post

Word Count: 15.3k

Rating: Explicit: sexual content ahead.

Warnings: mentions of self-harm, some slight gore/blood (it's very mild), the aforementioned sexually explicit content.

Notes: Hi guys. I don't really know where to begin this post, because I am incredibly emotional. It feels so very fitting and special to me that I am bringing in the last chapter of Ancient Names just as 2021 rolls in, and so yes, I AM crying, yes, this WILL be an exceptionally sappy notes section, and yes, this is going to be all about you!

There are so many people that are in part responsible for this fic actually getting finished and put out where the world can see it. @empirics, whose unending support even when she doesn't even GO here and cheerleading me through writing sprints; @lilwritingraven, who is so sweet, so supportive, so incredible and just an overall gigantic sweetheart; @faithchel, whose tags are incredible and always just give me LIFE, I love that our girls be out here really feral like that; @shallow-gravy, who not only lends me her eyeballs but also lets me complain and whine, send her memes nonstop, and participates in my very elaborate fantasies of Elliot and Diana living out their lives as dog moms on a farm (and sometimes in our unholy OT3); @baeogorath, also an eyeball-lender, also incredibly sweet, ALSO lets me send them memes, and does so good in talking me down from my adrenaline anxiety pre-posting and post-posting, was the first person to welcome me into this fandom and is also just a dear, dear friend who happens to be incredibly talented. And, of course, @starcrier. As always, this would have never ever ever been possible without you, not even a little bit, not even at all. From the bottom of my heart, to every single one of you, and the people who have left kudos, have left comments: thank you thank you thank you, from the absolute bottom of my heart. Here is ALL my love, just for you!

The emotional journey of writing this fic has been an incredible one. And a taxing one. Elliot is a character near and dear to my heart for many reasons; I pour so much of my heart into her, so when I hear people say that they love her, and love this journey, and love these things that I've created and written, I mean it when I say that it makes my whole entire day. It means so much to me. Thank you.

In the essence of time, I will not go through all of the feelings that are in my brain right now because there are SO many and I am already crying lol. Please just know you have made the experience of joining a new fandom, and writing in it, so incredible!

There is going to be an epilogue following this chapter, and then I'm going to take a short break and start in on a sequel fic, tentatively titled Witching Hour. Please feel free to hang out/chat w me/plague me with your thoughts at any time of the day; I would love to visit with all of y’all!

John was lying to her.

Or, at the very least, he was withholding information from her, which was just about as bad as lying, Elliot thought. She didn’t know what exactly he wasn’t forthcoming about—but did it matter, at this point? She could tell he was lying; he’d been all kinds of ready to leave and go and get out of Hope County, and now he was scrounging up some kind of ass-pull reason for them to stay. So did it matter? Did the distinction count?

Yes, she thought absently, as John’s fingers traced slow, lazy circles along the small of her back. Yes, I have to know what he’s lying to me about.

“Good morning,” John murmured against her neck. “How did you sleep?”

It had been three days since her baptism-gone-awry, three days of Burke occupying the bunkhouse she had been in while she had wordlessly moved into John’s space, three days of avoiding eye contact with the marshal and deferring questions about him. I don’t know, I really only knew him for a day, she’d say when John asked, or does it matter if I told him? He wouldn’t get it, the unspoken words being ‘not like you do’. She hoped, anyway.

Three days of trying to figure out what it was John wasn’t telling her.

“Like shit,” she replied tiredly as his mouth trailed along the curve of her shoulderblade. The pressure of his fingers against her sternum had her rolling onto her back to look up at him; his gaze swept over the exposed skin.

“Bruising’s clearing up,” he said, his voice low and rough from sleep. But he didn’t elaborate; he didn’t say, should we reveal your sin today, my love? the way that she thought he would try. It felt as though the gears in her head were still sluggishly turning, trying to piece together the entire picture of what was going on, a picture that she felt like John didn’t want her to see.

She knew exactly how it would go if she asked. What’s the game? she’d say, and John would look at her with those eyes, and lean in to kiss her, and he’d say, no game, hellcat, and she’d have to believe him because she didn’t have any empirical evidence that he was lying to her. Just a feeling, deep in her gut, twisting and wrenching.

It made it worse to know that John was looking at her with adoration.

Trailing a lazy circle below her collarbone with his fingertips, John asked, “Do you want to do it today?” and she stifled a sigh.

“I don’t know yet, about staying,” she replied, even though she did know: she wouldn’t. She would die before she crawled into a stupid fucking bunker at the behest of Joseph Seed. “I want to wait.”

John’s eyes flickered a little at her words, but he nodded. Elliot reached up, catching her hand with his and skimming the pads of her thumbs along his palm. The words sat there on the tip of her tongue: what aren’t you telling me? Why can’t you just tell me? Haven’t we been through enough, the two of us?

“Your heartline,” Elliot said instead, forcing her voice into playfulness because she couldn’t stop thinking about how Burke had told her to carry on as she had been. “Have you ever had your palm read?”

“No,” he answered amusedly, letting her nail skim along the curve of the line on his palm. “Are you an expert in palmistry?”

“My mama used to entertain tarot cards and palm readers with her ladies,” she replied. “So I listened in a lot. I suppose it isn’t very Godly to have your palm read.”

“It isn’t.” John’s eyes glittered. “But go ahead and tell me what mine says.”

She shifted a little against the pillows. On the floor by her side of the bed, Boomer let out a long, suffering sigh—like he was tired of listening to this flirtation already. For a small second in time, that feeling of peace swept over her, and she let herself bask in it. Elliot thought that she deserved that much at least.

“Your heartline shows your personality, and your quality of love,” she explained, skimming her finger along his heartline. “Yours comes all the way over, see? All the way across your palm.”

“Is that good?”

“Very,” Elliot said somberly. “It shows you have an abundance of love, and high expectations.”

John worked his jaw a little, clearly trying not to smile like he was proud of himself—like he had any control over the lines of his palm and how they worked. “I could have told you that.”

“And it curves upward,” she continued. “Which means you have great verbal dexterity.”

“I could have also told you that.”

“Undoubtedly,” she deadpanned. “Are you going to let me finish my reading?”

He flashed his teeth at her in a grin. “Please,” he said, “continue.”

Elliot clicked her tongue, turning her attention back to his hand. Inspecting for a moment, she said, “You have a upward split here, you see? That means you’re willing to sacrifice a lot for love.”

John rumbled his agreement at the statement and leaned down, kissing her shoulder.

“And these little forks here,” she added, pressing her thumb against them, “indicates a dispute on marriage.” Her eyes lifted to his, playful. “Are you intending on marrying, John? Palm says that’s a bad idea.”

For a second, John stared at her—his eyes fluttered, and he looked like he was collecting himself. Elliot sat up a little, frowning, but when she did it seemed to trigger whatever it was that was needed for him to come back to being present. Interlacing their fingers together, he pulled her forward and kissed her; and kissed her, and kissed her, until her lungs ached and she thought she was getting dizzy from not being able to take a full breath. His free hand slid down between her legs; when her lips parted to allow her to whimper, John’s teeth caught her lower lip with bruising force.

Already, heat was pooling in the pit of her stomach. Already, she could feel those telltale signs of desire, the way that John inspired it in her with just a few simple gestures.

“Want you,” John said against her mouth, guiding her onto him, settling her on his lap. Something was wrong, something she’d said had struck a strange nerve in him; but undeniably, it felt good, that his hands were trembling whenever his grip on her lessened a little. It felt good, because it felt like he needed her.

“Reading my palm is a cute trick, but—”

“How badly?” Elliot asked, before she could stop herself. John’s eyes, dark with want, raked over her as the sheets bunched at her hips. When she rocked her hips against his inquisitively, a low, strangled noise came out of him. “How badly do you want me?”

“You’re—in a mood,” John managed out. He opened his mouth to keep talking—something insufferable, Elliot was sure—but as he did, she adjusted and sank down against him, drawing out of him a low, vicious moan. His fingers dug into her hips and he hissed, “Wicked thing.”

She slid him out of her, and he groaned, miserable.

“How badly?” she asked again, less cloying this time. There was a strange kind of satisfaction that wound up in her, hot and humid, when John let her do this—let her take, let her sink her nails and her teeth into him wherever and however she wanted. Like he knew exactly what it was she needed and didn’t mind giving it to her.

Liar, something inside of her said, he’s a fucking liar, there’s something he isn’t telling us, but then John looked at her and said, “So badly, more than anything, Elliot,” and her chest tightened.

Her fingers found his shoulder and she tugged him up into a sitting position. Her mouth found his; she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled just as their hips slotted together and she sighed his name in a hitching breath. The delicious burn was almost enough to fizz her focus out of existence—with so little sleep on her agenda, it was hard enough, but then she canted her hips wantingly and sparks of red-hot pleasure went racing up her spine.

“So. Fucking. Tight,” John ground out, burying his face against her neck. “Can’t believe you’re mine, El—can’t—after all of this—”

Elliot’s lashes fluttered at his words, the uneasy sprint of happiness making her stomach churn. Something else, though, wrenched around the cavity of her chest—those words. Can’t believe you’re mine.

“John,” she managed out, breathless, “I—”

“—and I’m yours.” John kissed her and guided her hips down against him until she was moaning unsteadily. “Fuck, yes, I’m—all yours, baby, just take w-what you—need from me, give you anything, anything—”

I’m all yours, he said, in the same breath as can’t believe you’re mine, and it shouldn’t have but it felt different: in that moment, having John buried into her up to the hilt and digging his fingers into her skin and sighing her name, it shouldn’t have felt different, but it did. It did, because they belonged to each other.

Her fingers tightened in his hair, on his shoulder. She thought, he’s a liar, and she thought, I’m so afraid of losing him, too, and she thought, we belong to each other.

“Please,” Elliot moaned, but she didn’t know what she was asking for; to finish, to hear him say it again, to hear him say more, to tell her the complete and absolute truth? Did it matter, anymore?

It does matter. The distinction matters.

So she said, “You’re mine,” and she kissed him, and she said it again, and again, like a prayer; until John was saying it back, feverish and panting the delicious words against her skin, I’m yours, I’m yours, all yours.

Wicked, and wretched, and maybe a liar, but all hers.

Later, tangled together in bed, John pulled her flush against him and said against her skin, “Don’t you want it, too?”

“I do,” Elliot murmured, knowing that he was talking about the Wrath he was going to put into her skin. “There’s just... A lot after that, to think about. And I know you’ll want an answer right away—”

“Is it that hard?” he asked. “To make a decision about staying or leaving?”

“What the fuck kind of question is that?”

John frowned. “I just—”

“You just want me to say yes to whatever it is you want,” Elliot snapped. “I’d like to remind you that you told me we’d go as soon as this was done.”

“I know,” he said quickly. “I know, Elliot. I’m just—”

And then he paused, like something wanted to come out of him that he didn’t want to say, like he’d caught himself before he’d make a fool of himself. All this time, and Elliot thought she’d never see John vulnerable, not really in the way that she wanted—he’d seen her crying and broken and grieving, and she’d seen him in intimate glimpses, but not completely.

“You’re just what?” she asked, brows pulling together.

John’s fingers traced along her sternum, spelling out WRATH, much like he had done that evening at her mother’s house.

“They’re my family,” he said after a moment. “He gave me everything.”

Something uncomfortable twisted in her chest. “I know.”

“That includes you, too.” John leaned down and kissed her shoulder. “He brought me you. I know you don’t believe, hellcat, but if nothing happens then what did we lose? Nothing. I just get to keep my family.”

Her lashes fluttered, exhaustion seeping over her bones again. It was late into the morning, but already she wanted to close her eyes.

“I told you before,” she whispered. “I told you. You can’t have both. You can’t put one foot in both worlds, John.”

His mouth pressed into a thin line. He ducked his head against her neck and kissed there, and she thought about what he’d said that night in the bar.

Outside of my loyalty to Joseph, there’s you, and I want both.

I want you too, Elliot.

We can have a place to belong.

She thought about Jerome’s voice over the radio. You don’t have to Atlas this thing, deputy.

She thought about Joey, holding her tight. I never doubted you’d be able to get me.

She thought about how, at twenty-five, she had to bury her best friend in the fucking ground.

John was lying to her about something. He wasn’t telling her everything, and maybe she had always known that it would be like this, between them: maybe, down in the marrow of her bones, she had always known they would end up at odds with each other, John trapped between two worlds that he wanted and neither side willing to budge.

Something has to be done, she thought tiredly, as John’s fingers smoothed along her hip, and I’m going to have to fucking do it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“You’ve gotta get them out of here, Rook.”

Burke’s words stayed there, lingering in the air between them. It was late in the afternoon, and John was with his brothers and Faith in the chapel, and she’d ducked into Burke’s bunkhouse between guard shifts to grab a quick word with him. As soon as she told him that John had been pushing to get her sin revealed sooner than the original week he’d told her, Burke’s frown had deepened.

“They’re planning on getting it over with and getting the fuck out,” he said, pacing the tiny bunkhouse room. “There’s no way I’m getting to that radio with them all here. They think the world’s going to end, and that they need to be in their bunkers to survive it. If they get locked in there, Elliot, then—”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to get them all out of here,” she replied irritably. “You do realize that I’m only—John’s the only—”

Burke waved his hand to stop her from elaborating. He’d made it clear that he didn’t want to discuss the nature of her relationship with John beyond what the base information: they had indulged in a physical relationship, and an emotional one, and now Elliot’s priorities included him. As best they could.

“He wants to do the… Ceremony,” Elliot continued, mouth twisting around the only word she could think to say without making it macabre, “soon. And I just think that if I push it all the way out, then it’ll stir up suspicion, after I told him I wanted to—”

“What if you didn’t?”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“What if you didn’t push it out?” Burke continued, slowly, pitching his voice quieter and more urgent when he noticed movement outside. “What if you asked for it to be done sooner? But just—somewhere else? Not here? Make up something about how you don’t have good memories here, and…”

“And ask for his family to be there,” Elliot finished, “so that they have to leave you here?”

Burke nodded. His gaze darted to the window again, and she knew that they were running out of time. “You’ll still be guarded.”

“I can handle a few of these fuckers,” he replied, waving his hand. “Most of them are scattered out, getting supplies. I hear them complaining about it outside all the time. I’ll get that radio, see if I can hear any chatter, and tell them where to find you. ”

I need more time, she thought, but she knew that she wouldn’t get it. Not now. Her deadline had been set for her—by Joseph, by John, and even a little bit by Burke. She was this close to being done, to being—

Free.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, yes, I can do that. I’ll ask them to take me to the ranch, and—I can do that.”

“I know,” Burke said, and he had never sounded more confident; he planted his hands on her shoulders and looked at her, the clarity having returned from his Bliss-induced high. He hesitated, and then said, “The ceremony—”

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

“I want you to know,” he plunged on, “it doesn’t matter, but I want you to know that you aren’t… That isn’t all of who you are.” His hands squeezed shoulders, the pressure welcoming and comforting and nauseating all at once. How strange, that kindness sickened her, now. “Wrath.”

Elliot paused, swallowing thickly. “I should go,” she said, because Burke still didn’t know what she’d done to Kian, still didn’t know the full extent of her body count or the way she’d felt when she killed a man. How it felt good, now—satisfying, an instant hit of dopamine centered around control.

“The back window,” Burke said, gesturing. “So the guards don’t wonder.”

“It’s all very exciting,” Elliot added. She tried for lightness, pushing the window up. “Subterfuge.”

“Just try not to say that where anyone can hear you.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“We’ve nearly collected the last of the supplies,” Joseph said, pacing absently back and forth. “How long do you think, Jacob?”

“A day, at most,” the redhead replied. “They’re working quickly, without all of these interruptions.” Jacob paused, and then turned his gaze at John. His mouth twisted for a moment, and John could tell his older brother was trying not to smile when he continued, “What’s your timeline, John?”

“The same,” John replied tightly.

“A day at most?”

“No, the same as before,” he clarified, even though he knew Jacob was doing it on purpose. “You gave me a timeline and that’s what I’m working with.”

“It’s just, you sounded very confident about your ability to wrangle the deputy,” his eldest brother continued, “and you’ve always been an overachiever.”

Joseph was looking at him expectantly. John knew that they wanted him to say that Elliot had insisted on doing it sooner, that she’d fully acquiesced to staying with him, that he had fully convinced her, down to every molecule of her being, that what they were doing was right and just and undeniably truthful.

But he hadn’t. Their conversation this morning only proved that more to him. You can’t have both, she’d said, like she still thought of herself as a separate entity from him, from his family. But she wasn’t; where else would she find people who would accept her, unconditionally?

Well, mostly unconditionally. There was one condition: believing. The most difficult one for her, he thought.

“I can spend more time with her,” Faith supplied, helpfully. “Maybe she’s tired of being around you boys all the time. You can be...” Her gaze flickered, and she tilted her chin a little, smiling. “A little heavy-handed. It’s possible that a lighter touch is necessary to bring the deputy around.”

“First, you should stop calling her that,” John pointed out, and he felt a little more than petulant saying it. It hadn’t escaped his attention that Elliot was naturally inclined to open up to Faith more easily, and he shouldn’t have been surprised, but it did still bother him, sitting right in the back of his mind. Always away but never forgotten. “Continuing to refer to her as “the deputy” is only going to further cement her ties to her past life.”

“Well,” Jacob demurred, “we can’t all call her baby, can we, John?”

“If you have a problem with me enjoying the marital bed,” John bit out, “then I think perhaps you spend some time reflecting inwardly on why that’s such a—”

The door to the chapel creaked as it was pushed open. Swallowing back his words quickly, he turned and glanced over his shoulder to see Elliot, hesitating in the doorway. Boomer lingered just behind her, sat at the bottom of the stairs, ever obedient.

“I can come back,” she said, sounding uncertain.

“Not at all,” Joseph replied, before John could tell her maybe that would be best. “Please, come in.”

She did, letting the door swing shut behind her, and moved tentatively toward the front. He wondered how it felt for her—coming in here, with all of them looking at her, much the same way she had the day that set the events in motion that brought her back to them.

John wondered, too, if Joseph had known this all along; if the things that he heard and saw had shown him that Elliot would always come back here, to them. Our deputy, he’d always said, without fail.

“I want to do it,” Elliot said, as she approached. “Soon. As soon as possible.”

Silence reigned supreme for a moment, before John said, “That’s great, Elliot. We can get started with—”

“But I don’t want to do it here,” she interrupted, bringing John’s mouth to a full stop.

“More fucking demands,” Jacob muttered under his breath.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Joseph said, watching her curiously. The way they had been, he was the closest to Elliot, with a table separating her from John. His fingers itched. “If you’re worried about the safety of it, I am sure John is more than equipped to—”

“This is supposed to be cleansing, isn’t it?” Elliot asked. “Regardless of how you feel, Joey’s body was put on display here. I don’t want this to be the place where I...”

Her voice trailed off, and her gaze darted elsewhere, mouth pressing into a thin line. John said, “I don’t think going somewhere else would be a problem. Where did you have in mind?”

“The ranch,” she replied, sounding relieved. “Feels fitting.”

As John stifled a smile, Joseph said, “Well, we’ll need to clear out the bodies, but I’m sure that can be done.”

“That’s manpower,” Jacob protested.

“You were just talking about how quickly they were getting things done,” John replied. “Weren’t you? Ahead of schedule. Over-achieving, I think.”

Jacob’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click and grind of his molars, and for once, John felt a sweeping thrill of victory. It was coming together, right there, in front of him—in front of his brothers, and Faith. All of the witnessing the fruits of his labor.

“Fine,” Jacob acquiesced, at last. “But it’ll take them a few hours.”

“Perfect.” John smiled, looking at Elliot across the table, Joseph’s figure nearly eclipsing her. “Then Elliot and I will head out as soon as we hear that the bodies have been properly disposed of.”

“There’s one more thing,” Elliot began, looking uncertain, and drawing all eyes back to her again even as Joseph had moved to place his hand on Faith’s shoulder. When they had watched expectantly for long enough, she continued, “I want—everyone there.”

“Everyone?” John asked, the word souring in his mouth.

“Not—of Eden’s Gate. Just… All of you,” she elaborated.

John could feel the surprise, bubbling fresh and unexpected, between his siblings as they exchanged glances.

“Even me?” Jacob asked, and John saw the grin splitting across his face.

“Even you,” Elliot replied, dryly. “Against my better judgment, I’m sure.”

“I’m touched, honey.”

Clearing his throat, John walked around the table briskly, muttering a quick excuse us as he guided Elliot away from the front of the chapel and down the walkway a little.

“You want my family there?” he asked, keeping his voice low as his siblings chatted quietly amongst themselves. Jacob was grinning wolfishly, looking very pleased with himself, which was something John didn’t necessarily like. “Normally, it’s more of a—a private affair, and that’s how I pictured it with you—”

“This is important to me,” Elliot said, watching him. “And they’re important to you. Aren’t they?”

John swallowed. “Well, yes, but…”

“John,” she murmured, her fingers loosely tangled with his, “I’ll stay, after.”

He blinked at her. “You’ll—?”

“Yes.” Her gaze flickered over his, her voice low as she struggled through the words. “I’ll stay here, with you—and your family. After it’s done. I just… Need to close the chapter.”

I fucking did it, he thought, certain that he was going to grin like a complete maniac if he didn’t keep himself in check. I fucking got her. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe they doubted me.

“Of course,” he managed out, somehow keeping his voice steady despite the rush of butterflies banging against his rib cage. “Of course, hellcat, anything you want.”

“Okay.” She paused, and then reached up and kissed him—willingly, of her own volition, in front of his siblings, she kissed him, and then sat back on her feet. “In a day, then?”

“In a day,” John promised, their noses brushing. “We’ll really belong to each other.”

Elliot’s lashes fluttered. She looked a little more tired than before, but it was hard to tell this close; and if it bothered her at all—if it was changing her mood—it didn’t show. He felt her smile against his mouth.

“Yes,” she murmured, just the way that he liked. “Completely.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jacob stopped by the bunkhouse with Joseph that evening to let him know they’d dispatched the men to clean out the ranch of any remaining corpses; they’d do it through the night, to better assist Elliot in her revelations. It seemed that the members of Eden’s Gate were just as relieved as the siblings themselves that the deputy was no longer and adversary, but joining them.

Which still left the matter of Cameron Burke.

“I say we kill him,” Jacob announced, glancing over John’s shoulder to ensure Elliot wasn’t there—and never before had John been more grateful for the blonde’s need to go on exorbitantly long walks out of the compound. “Quick and easy.”

“Well,” John said, “that is what I had thought you intended before, yet here we are, with him still on our hands.”

“We are lucky that our brother cares so much as to run our deputy through such trials,” Joseph interceded serenely, before a spat could break out. “And that she passed. With flying colors, I think.”

“That’s a little generous.”

“At any rate, that we’ve moved up this celebration for her is good,” the blonde continued. “I hear that the Family may not all be finished. Jacob mentioned that his scouts saw movement, out close to the Whitetails.”

John frowned. No good, he thought, but then—what about all of those dead couples he and Elliot had seen? Paired, holding hands, flowers blooming from wherever they could fit them? How was it determined which ones would off themselves and which ones stuck around?

“Now that we have all of the supplies we need,” Jacob said, “we don’t have to worry about getting rid of them.” He shrugged. “Let the apocalypse finish them off.”

“Well.” John clapped his hands together. “I’ve quite a day to prepare for tomorrow, I think. And when it’s all done, we’ll be ready to settle in.”

Joseph and Jacob exchanged looks, just for a moment, before Jacob said, “Night, Johnny,” and set off, leaving Joseph alone in front of the doorway to the bunkhouse. When he looked at John, his expression unreadable, something uneasy crawled and settled down at the base of his spine.

“I have something for you,” Joseph said. “Come with me to the chapel?”

Trying not to recognize that dread, lest he give it more legs than it already had, John nodded his head. “Of course. Though, you know you never have to…”

“It’s the least I could do,” his brother interjected lightly, waiting patiently as he closed the door to his temporary base of operations and then fell into step with him to the chapel. The evening was brisk and chilly, and when Joseph said, “And where is our deputy?” John stifled a rueful smile.

“Taking a walk, with Faith,” John replied. “And the dog, of course.”

“Of course.” He saw a smile ticking the corner of his brother’s mouth, small and almost imperceptible. “It’s nice that they get along, don’t you think?”

“It is,” he agreed, “like she was always meant to be with us.”

Joseph paused outside the chapel’s doors, reaching up and giving John’s shoulder a squeeze. “Just like.”

They stepped inside. It was cool and quiet; nobody remained. The radio flickering through channels was the only noise, and they rang empty and static, not a peep out there. He wondered if the remaining members of the Family were just looking for a place to rest, or a way to get out; maybe they didn’t want anything, anymore.

He followed his brother to the front of the chapel. On the table was the map they’d been using, a few scribbled notes in Jacob’s hand-writing, and a manila envelope.

Joseph picked up the envelope and held it out to John. He took it, and then glanced inquisitively up at his brother.

“Is this—?”

“Her file,” Joseph confirmed. “What we gathered on her prior to the Collapse. Also in there are my notes from her confession, as well as what appears to be diary entries, recovered from where Kian had tried to hunt the two of you.”

Holy shit, John thought, because sitting in his hands was the exact thing that he’d wanted from the beginning. Everything that he wanted to know about Elliot was right there: waiting to be read, devoured, committed to memory. He would know every single part of her, every wretched thing she had ever done, every loss she had ever suffered, every—

“And,” Joseph continued, “your marriage certificate.”

John glanced up at his brother. Suddenly, the envelope felt—different. Like an ultimatum. If he learned all of this about Elliot, and she got suspicious because he suddenly knew so much about her, and she asked where he found out and he told her—and he would have to tell her—she’d want to see it and then. And then.

And then.

“I think it’s time, John,” his brother said. “I know that you haven’t told our deputy about this arrangement. She is your wife, after all, before the eyes of this congregation and God.”

“Right,” John murmured, swallowing. “Yeah, of course. I planned on it. After tomorrow. It feels fitting, to tell her then.”

Maybe it would be better to tell her in the bunker, he thought absently, and then shoved that immediately away. No, fuck, no, I have to tell her. Tomorrow, after we finish everything.

“Good.” Joseph smiled, and for the first time in a long time he smiled with teeth, and the expression on his brother’s face almost unnerved him. He reached up, and his fingers brushed the nape of John’s neck, tilting him forward so that their foreheads pressed together.

Relief, hot and overwhelming, washed straight through him. They had been so at odds that John thought he might have forgotten what it was like to be in his brother’s good graces, but here he was.

“I am so proud of all that you have done for me, for our family, for Eden’s Gate.” Joseph’s voice rang in the hollow of his bones, vibrating straight through him, spiking in him a delirious rush of pride. “You have done so well, John, despite all that God has done to test you.”

Oh, there it was: everything in him said, finally, finally, finally, someone sees me, and he was reminded of why it was he owed Joseph so much. Because he gave him this.

“I’m—” John felt the words choke and stutter on the way out of him. It was almost too much—the finish line was in sight. Elliot had said, you can’t have both, but he could. He could, and he was going to, and it was here right in front of him.

Waiting.

“Thank you,” he managed out. “Thank you, Joseph. I only ever wanted to make you proud.”

“I know.” Joseph smiled, hand pressed against the back of John’s head, holding him gently. “I know.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Leaving the chapel, John was cruising on cloud nine; he had everything. Everything. Nobody was going to take it from him. No stupid cult, no last-minute hail mary’s from the opposing team—

As he passed by a window into the bunkhouse that had been Elliot’s before Burke had made it his home, John stopped and leaned against the siding of the house, tapping on the window. Burke was sitting at the table, leaned back, eyes closed; when the sound of John’s finger against the glass rattled again, he opened one eye.

John waved, and grinned. “Hi, bud.”

Burke stared at him. He gestured for the Marshal to push his window up, and after a few exasperated gestures, he did—reluctantly.

“Seed,” he said, tiredly. “Particular reason you’re not fuckin’ off?”

“Just wanted to stop by,” John replied slyly. “See how you were holding up. The impending apocalypse must be weighing heavily on you.”

Burke stared at him for a moment. He worked a toothpick between his teeth. His hands and feet were both cuffed, and the guards standing outside of the bunkhouse seemed to be concerned with his tone when he said, “Can’t wait to beat that shit-eating grin off of your face.”

“That’s not very professional,” John drawled. “Won’t that look poorly, in front of all of your little friends?”

“They’ll avert their eyes to let me give you some extra special attention.” Burke lifted his chin, taking the toothpick out of his mouth and spitting out the window, nearly landing on John’s shoes. “Promise.”

Impudent, John thought. Burke really just couldn’t let him have a moment, could he? “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Marshal,” he said, straightening up from the window and taking a step away. “I like it rough.”

And then he paused, turning on his heel like a swivel and lifted a finger thoughtfully.

“If you want some pointers on what I like,” he added pleasantly, “you can always ask Elliot.”

Burke’s eyes narrowed. “Your little brainwashed cultist? I think I’ll pass.” he asked, and John’s smile plummeted, wiped off of his face.

“Watch your fucking mouth,” he hissed. “You’re the failing party here, Cameron Burke. You’re going to be the one suffering when the End comes for you.”

“Well, if that’s the case,” Burke replied, “better get goin’, shouldn’t you?”

John’s teeth snapped together with a click, pain shooting up through his jaw as his molars ground. Petulant and arrogant, all the way to the very end, wasn’t he? He supposed that made it a little bit better that Jacob was going to off him.

He had everything he wanted, and not even Cameron Burke was going to take that from him.

John flashed a smile, all teeth, and held his arms out. “I suppose I should,” he replied. “Have a nice ceremony tomorrow to prepare. Though, I don’t have to tell you—you’ll be there for it, won’t you? A front row seat and all.”

Even in the dark of the growing evening, he could see Burke’s jaw clench. The Marshal pulled back from the window and slammed it shut, signaling his exit from the conversation; if John had been in a worse mood, he would have stormed right in there and shown Burke exactly what the consequences were for trying to run the show.

But there wasn’t time, because just as he was debating the logistics of doing so, he heard a dog barking in the distance and the sound of familiar voices.

“Hi, John,” Faith sing-songed at him, swinging Elliot’s hand in her own as they approached. “Isn’t it a bit late? I thought you’d be asleep by now.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” John replied with a quick smile, which was not necessarily a lie.

“Too excited,” his sister agreed playfully.

As they approached, he could see the circles beneath Elliot’s eyes had darkened. She really wasn’t sleeping, was she? Reaching up with his free hand as soon as she was close enough, he brushed some loose strands of hair from her face and guided her close, his fingers tangling into her hair at the base of her skull and his mouth finding her temple. Faith giggled and waved her fingers at Elliot, breezing past him on her way to the chapel.

He asked, “Did you enjoy your walk?”

“It was dark,” Elliot replied, by way of explanation. Boomer sniffed around their feet and then cocked his head, listening while his eyes fixed on the dark treeline. “What’s that?”

“Hm?” John asked, distracted by Boomer’s sudden alertness. “Oh, the envelope?”

“No, John, this stupid fucking Hot Topic belt I’ve seen you wear all the time.” Elliot pulled back to look at him, eyes glimmering with amusement. “Yes, the envelope.”

He opened his mouth to respond, trying to decide if he wanted to be upfront with her about it or not; he was so caught up in his decision that he didn’t even have the time to be offended by her remark about his belt before he said, “We should go back to our house, don’t you think? The company here’s a little sour.”

Elliot’s gaze swept around curiously, and when she spotted Burke through the window, she said, “Ah.”

“You never did tell me how your talk went,” he added, taking her hand and beginning to pull her away. “Good? Bad?”

The blonde watched him for a moment, like he’d said something a little too suspicious. “It really bothers you when you don’t know what exactly is going on, doesn’t it?”

John feigned a pleased smile. “It’s my job to know what’s going on.”

“I thought it was your job to talk incessantly?”

“I am multi-faceted.”

They reached the door to their shared space—and that was a nice little thought, their space, like they had a place that belonged to the two of them—and as Elliot stepped inside, she said, “Burke wanted to know what had happened.”

John closed the door behind them, pausing and looking at her for a moment; he tried to glean any insight he could out of her expression, but he couldn’t. He could only see quiet exhaustion sitting on her face, just there, just within his reach.

“And?” he prompted, when she failed to elaborate. She walked into the bathroom and turned the water on, washing her face; quickly, John opened the envelope and thumbed through the documents until he found what he was looking for. He slid the paper beneath the nightstand beside the bed and shut the envelope, smoothing the metal pins out. There, he thought, like it was never opened.

“I told him the truth,” Elliot replied from the bathroom, shutting the water off. “About the Family. About—you. And your siblings.”

“Well, he did refer to you as my ‘little brainwashed cultist’, so I imagine that conversation didn’t go well.”

The blonde stepped out of the bathroom, crossing her arms over her chest and watching him for a moment. That was answer enough, he supposed—whatever friendliness had lingered between Elliot and Burke seemed to have been decimated by the reality of their situation.

“What’s in the envelope?”

“It’s your file,” John said, plainly. Elliot’s jaw tensed.

“My file,” she reiterated.

“Yes. All of the things Joseph had on you before, including your confession to him and some papers they found in Kian’s bag of belongings. Back in the woods.”

Her eyes flickered, and she exhaled, long and tired. He could tell that she didn’t like that he had it. She had so desperately tried to keep him from knowing what it was that haunted her, though he had mostly pieced it together by now—an ex-boyfriend gone bad, the resulting fallout, all wadded up into a tiny ball of trauma that sat right in her ribs. All of those times Elliot had tried to cling to those shreds of control—and everything about her had been handed to him in a manila envelope. He imagined that it was quite frustrating.

John offered, “I haven’t looked at it.”

“Why not?”

“I thought,” he began, carefully, “that you might want it. For yourself.”

Elliot looked at him warily. “You’re just going to give it to me?”

“Elliot,” he said as he closed the space between them, “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. I’ll give you anything you want.” John reached up, brushing his fingers against the slope of her neck, feeling the way her pulse jumped at the contact. “Besides, I have you. What do I need the file for?”

He wanted it. He wanted to read her file, learn every gritty detail about her, memorize them the same way she’d memorized his scars and tattoos with her fingers; to know her, inside and out, so that there wasn’t a single dark corner of her that he didn’t have completely.

“Throw it away,” Elliot murmured. “I don’t want it. I don’t want it anywhere. Please, just throw it away.”

“If that’s what you really want,” John agreed.

“It is.”

She leaned up and kissed him; her hands cradling his jaw and pulling him there, her mouth soft and compliant against his. He dropped the envelope in favor of getting both of his hands on her, walking her back against the nearest wall and sliding his fingers beneath the hem of her sweater. Elliot’s breath stuttered and hitched prettily, but she pulled back until her mouth was just out of his reach.

Still, though her head was tilted otherwise, her fingers tugged on the front of his shirt and crowded him against her, close. If he thought about it too hard—about the way they had begun, hissing and spitting, and how they were now—he’d have thought he was dreaming, how she wanted him in her space now.

“Let’s go,” the blonde said, her voice urgent. “Tonight. To the ranch.”

“You—” John paused, watching her. “You want to go tonight? Why not tomorrow?”

“I don’t want to be here,” she murmured, “in the compound. I want—”

Elliot stopped, then, worrying her lower lip between her teeth for a moment. “I want to have some time,” she continued, “with you, before... Everything. Just us.” Her mouth twisted in what John thought could only be a playful smile. “Like old times.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asked, narrowing his eyes amusedly. “Which times are those? The times where you told me to go fuck myself, or—”

“I think you liked it.”

“Your mouth is one of my favorite things about you, yes.”

“So,” she continued, “can we go tonight?”

John, propped up against the wall with her caged between his arms, studied her for a moment. It wouldn’t be bad to get some time away from the compound that wasn’t some kind of macabre venture out into Fall’s End, haunting her with all of the things she used to have and had once been.

“Sure,” he said finally, “I don’t see why not. Just a little time for us.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Though he had been less than thrilled about the idea of Elliot being outside of the compound, Jacob had confirmed that the ranch was cleaned out of bodies and ready for them. When they swept past Burke in the bunkhouse, watching them through the window, John’s eyes went to Elliot—trying to see if there was anything in her expression, trying to see if there was a blink of affection or recognition.

There wasn’t. Elliot walked past without looking at the U.S. Marshal and swung into the driver’s side of the truck, and when John reached across the console to drop the keys in her hand, her gaze and expression were clear of any cloudiness.

When they got to the ranch, it was quiet; the lights had been left on, and while John knew that the bodies were gone and cleaned out, he still braced himself for impact when they walked in. The bookshelf had been righted again, and the strong smell of cleaning solution lingered in the air, but for the most part, everything was exactly where he’d left it.

It was a shame, then, that soon they’d be slipping underground.

“Bleach,” Elliot said, walking up the stairs after him. “How romantic.”

“It’s your mess they were cleaning,” John replied dryly, flashing her a grin over his shoulder. “In case you forgot.”

“I didn’t.”

He pushed the door open to the master bedroom, taking in a little breath and turning to look at Elliot. She was inspecting the room, and for a second, John almost felt self-conscious—that she was here, now, with him. In his home. Touching his things. Looking at him.

It was almost unnerving to think about; that some time ago, she had been viciously looking for any way out. But of course, she had come around. She was always going to come around, one way or another. He thought about the way she’d spit Go fuck yourself, John, the way she’d tried her hardest to be as obtuse and unhelpful as possible, how she’d said in the bar you can’t have both but here he was.

Here she was.

There was only one thing left standing in the way, and it was something he had all the power in the world to change if he wanted to.

“What are you thinking about?” the blonde asked, arching a brow at him loftily.

“You,” John said, and it wasn’t a lie. Her lashes fluttered and she almost looked shy, for a moment; when he reached out and tugged her close by the belt loop of her jeans, he added, “What do you think about getting married?”

With her hands steadying herself on his chest, she barked out a laugh. “In general? Or us getting married?”

“Primarily the latter.”

“I—” Elliot blinked, and shook her head. “I don’t... What do you mean, what do I think about us getting married?”

“Do you like the idea?” John prompted. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the slope of her jaw.

“We’ve barely been together,” she murmured. “And—you still piss me off.”

“That’s amore.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Elliot groaned, and John grinned, sliding his arms around her to pull her closer still. He hoisted her up into his arms and carried her to the bed; when he’d settled her there, on her back and with her legs looped loosely around his waist, she watched him for a moment. “I don’t know. I’ve never wanted to get married.”

John cocked his head. “Not even once?”

“Not even once.”

“And why not?”

“Why would I?” she retorted. “The only marriage I ever saw was my dad dragging my mama’s credit through the dirt and then fucking off the second he got tired of playing house. Giving up my last name to someone? Letting someone take that away from me?”

John leaned down, pushing her sweater up and pressing his mouth to the curve of her hip cutting up and over her jeans. Her breath stuttered for a moment, and she squirmed when he let his tongue slide along one of her scars.

“I know this is going to sound crazy,” he said, “but marriage isn’t all about giving. It’s about receiving, too.”

He watched the heat crawl into her cheeks, undoing the button of her jeans and sliding them down until they pooled on the floor with a whisper. She said she’d never wanted to get married, but he thought after tomorrow—after she saw how beautiful it would be, to have her sin revealed and in the open—she would change her mind. For him, she would.

Elliot let out a sharp, stuttering breath. “Come here,” she said, tugging on him a little to guide him back up to her. He obliged, and she tangled her fingers into his hair and kissed him; long and patient, lips parting beneath his and her tongue flickering playfully against his mouth. She skimmed her fingers along his chest, down until she could undo his belt and pull it from the loops, discarding it on the floor.

“Miss Honeysett,” John murmured.

“John,” she replied, as her fingers deftly undid his jeans.

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

“You did take my pants off.”

He laughed, the sound sweeping out of him just before Elliot pulled him down into another kiss. She shifted and squirmed against him, pushing and working with her fingers until they were skin on skin. There was a second, a heartbeat of time, where Elliot paused, her gaze flickering over him.

“I want—a home,” she said, her voice quiet, “with you. I don’t have one anymore, and I...”

John dragged his fingers along the exposed skin of her sternum, down and down and down, and she sucked in a sharp little breath the second he found exactly he was looking for.

“You have it,” he replied against her mouth, and a spike of heat sprinted up his spine when he beckoned his fingers against her and she whimpered. “You have it, El, I told you—”

Elliot’s nails dug into his shoulder and she said, “John,” and her voice plunged a little when she did, pitching high and sweet and just the way that he liked it; he mouthed a spot on her neck, sighing against her skin.

“Love those sounds you make,” he murmured. “So good for me.”

“Yes,” Elliot said breathlessly, turning her head so that their noses could brush, “yes, I am, for you—so, please—”

So, please, she said, so sweetly, wanting and hurting and needy as she clutched him, as her breath hitched in anticipation when John pressed up against her, slow and without urgency.

“Is this what you wanted to come here for?” John rumbled against her mouth, breathing unsteady. “So I could f—fuck you in peace and quiet?”

The blonde moaned her agreement as she kissed him. Her body arched up against his, impatient, and when he finally pressed into her all the way, she let out a sigh, her fingers twisting in his hair.

It was too good; too tight, too hot, and the way Elliot held him close, like she thought she was going to disappear if she didn’t keep her grip on him, made the trickle of heat turn into a wildfire splitting through his body. He groaned, the pace excruciating and delicious as he made sure to take each drag as slow as possible.

“F-Fucking—faster,” Elliot whimpered against his mouth, “John—”

“No,” he ground out, slotting his hips against hers tightly before drawing back out again. “You have to—I want you just like this, hellcat—”

She made a sweet keening noise and rocked her hips up, impatient; each time she did sent another sharp jolt of desire sprinting through him, and he bit out a low swear and gripped her hip with one hand.

“Brat,” he moaned. “Wants everything her way but can’t—f-fucking—behave.”

“Fuck you,” Elliot replied, but there was no real heat in her words; she said it in a broken, stuttering breath. “What if I want you faster? What if I want you to fuck me until you just can’t stand it—”

“Stop.” John gritted the words out between his teeth; if there was one thing that sent him to his undoing, it was Elliot and her filthy mouth. “God, you—fucking—”

Elliot dragged him in for a kiss, open-mouthed and slick and wanting, and she begged, “John, I want you so badly—I need—”

And her words stuttered for a moment, like she was catching herself before she could say something that she thought might be embarrassing. John’s hand came up and pressed to her jaw, tilting her face back to him so that he could see her; gazing at him through her lashes, flushed and lips kiss-reddened and eyes dreamy and dazed.

“Tell me,” he managed out, through the haze of his own pleasure. “Tell me what you need.”

“You,” Elliot moaned, “I need you, John.”

“Fuck,” John ground out. He was powerless to go against her wishes when she was looking at him like that, and saying I need you, and twisting her fingers in his hair and—

And when he snapped into her, she sighed his name like a prayer, like he was holy, and he thought that it would have been a crime not to give her what she wanted. It was almost as good as taking it slow; hearing Elliot whimper yes yes yes into their liplock as he fucked her, rough and a little unforgiving, nearly sent him spiraling.

When he slipped a hand between them, dragging the pad of his thumb across the neediest part of her, he felt her tighten; closecloseclose, it said, and Elliot made a wrecked, desperate sound and kissed him just as she came unraveled, panting his name.

His followed close behind—it hit hard, a strange, empty moment just before the ricocheting pleasure rattled around in his skeleton. John buried his face into Elliot’s neck and moaned, gripping her tight to him, and she arched up a little into him and made him hiss.

“You,” he said breathlessly into her neck, “are getting too comfortable using that filthy mouth of yours to get what you want.”

She laughed, raking her fingers through his hair. “You like it.”

“I’ve said that I do.”

“How much?” Elliot idled, and he felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

“Wicked thing, aren’t you?” he asked, instead of answering her question. Her lashes fluttered, and when John leaned down and dragged his teeth against her pulse point, she made a soft, sweet sound, squirming in his arms.

“I’m going to sleep,” she announced. Having disentangled themselves and slipped under the covers, she settled back against the pillows and he was reminded, once again, of the dark circles lingering under her eyes. “Feels like I have slept a fucking wink in the compound.”

“Fine,” John agreed, kissing her temple. “You’ll need your rest for tomorrow, anyway.”

It took some time for them to fall asleep; Elliot slept more fitfully than he, and each time she shifted or sighed or rolled it woke him up, too. Eventually, the blonde settled with her face tucked against John’s chest, her fingers absently tracing over the shape of his scar until her breathing slowed and she drifted back off.

Sometime around three in the morning, she stirred, sliding out of bed and making her way to the bathroom. John reached over to the nightstand and picked up his watch to squint at it in the dark. He heard the sink running, and the door to the bathroom was slightly ajar.

“Can’t believe it’s almost the end of November,” he said, out loud and to no one in particular, though Elliot’s head peeked out of the bathroom. She’d wrapped herself in his robe, cinching it tight around her waist.

“It is?” she asked, tiredly. “What’s the date?”

“The twenty-first.”

Elliot stilled for a moment. A strange emotion swept over her face; he thought that it was almost sadness. “It’s my birthday tomorrow.”

John set the watch back down on the nightstand. “Well, perfect timing then. I just gave you an incredible birthday present. How old are you turning? And why do you look so terribly distressed?”

“Fuck off,” she muttered when he grinned at her. “Twenty-six, asshole.” And then, like an afterthought: “It’s just that normally by now, I’m—”

The blonde cut herself off, and then shook her head, rubbing her eyes tiredly and walking back into the bathroom to turn the water off.

“Elliot?” he called. “What is it?”

“Just weird,” she replied after a minute, “being... Having a birthday. Here. Like this.”

He settled back against the pillow. “Come back to bed.”

She did as he asked, obliging him as she slid back under the blankets and covers. The robe was still on, and he pulled at the hem of it playfully. Elliot somehow looked more tired than before; and her eyes didn’t quite meet his, like she was somewhere very far away from him.

“Looks good on you,” he murmured. “Blue’s your color.”

Elliot’s attention snapped to him. “Faith said the same thing.”

“Great minds.”

She rolled her eyes, shifting to the other side in bed so that John could tug her back against his chest, burying his face into her neck. When her breathing finally slowed a little, and regulated, John felt himself finally start to relax.

I can have both, he thought, as he began to drift back off. I can, and I will.

｡☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆｡

When Elliot awoke the next morning, the first thing that she thought was, I’m late.

It hit her differently in the cold light of day, to think her period was delayed. That’s probably what it was, anyway—a delay. Lots of things could fuck around with the timing of a period, right?

The second thing she thought was, today’s the day.

Things did seem oddly calm, as they went about their morning; they showered, and John kissed her smelling like expensive soap, and his hands went to the places he loved the most—her hips, her hair, her jaw. It was like they’d fallen into a routine with each other, in just this short period of time; but then, she supposed, that was very natural to have happened, considering that they spent so much time with each other now.

“We should do it downstairs,” Elliot said as John busied himself with some coffee. Boomer had sprinted outside at the first opportunity, taking off into the treeline to burn some of his energy off.

“Downstairs?” he asked, glancing at her. “In the room?”

“Seems fitting.”

He shrugged, sliding a cup of coffee her way and leaning across the counter. “Whatever you want, baby.”

The sound of car doors closing and voices outside stirred her attention away from John’s mouth—a wholly distracting thing—but when she turned to see the Seeds walking through the front door of the ranch, she felt her stomach plummet.

“Brought a plus one,” Jacob announced, shoving Burke forward. “Hope you don’t mind.” He fixed Elliot with his gaze. “Caught him snooping around the chapel. Isn’t that weird?”

“I—” Elliot’s brain fuzzed viciously, static biting through all other noise. Burke’s lip was split and he had a nasty black eye forming. Oh, no, she thought, oh, no, no, no, no. This is so fucking bad.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I couldn’t trust anyone to keep an eye on him, so unfortunately, that is now my job.”

“No,” Elliot said abruptly, drawing all eyes on her. “I’m—I don’t want him here.”

“Elliot,” John murmured.

“Then what do you propose I do with him?” Jacob demanded.

“I don’t know, that isn’t my fucking job,” she snapped. With the siblings all looking at her, Burke took a second and very gently, very resolutely, shook his head no.

Her mind went frantic. What does that mean? Does that mean stop kicking up a fuss? Does that mean he got to the radio? Or that he didn’t? What the fuck is the plan, now?

Joseph said, gentle, “I’m afraid we just can’t afford to lose track of him, Elliot.”

She felt fingers brushing hers. John had come around the kitchen island, and now their fingers were interlaced. It felt like she was on some kind of precipice, some great, plunging cliff into a void, and all she could do was stand by hopelessly as everything pushed her towards the edge.

She didn’t want Burke to watch. She didn’t want him to see her let John carve WRATH into her skin, but most of all—most of all, she didn’t want Burke to see that maybe it would feel good, for her, a catharsis.

“Fine,” she managed out after a moment, watching Burke’s eyes flutter shut in what might have been relief. Or suffering. “Fine, whatever.”

“Well,” Joseph murmured, “shall we get started? There’s a full day ahead of us.”

As they moved down the stairs, Elliot swallowed thickly and tried to clear and compose her brain. Everything did feel just a little bit like it was too much. Joseph there, his shoulder brushing hers; Faith and John, chatting like it was nothing to have her sit down in a chair in the middle of the room where she had been kept captive; Jacob, shoving Burke into the room and on his knees.

It was too much. She would just have to pray that Burke had gotten a chance with the radio before Jacob found him.

“We’re going to have to take your shirt off,” John said, moving into her vision, and didn’t sound like he regretted that in the least. A little rush of relief coursed through her when she realized she’d be able to focus on someone familiar—none of Joseph’s prying eyes or Faith’s sweet smiles to unsettle and unseat her. Just her, and John.

“How long is this going to take?” Burke asked, his voice bordering on vicious. Jacob gave him a little jostle.

“Why? You got somewhere to be, friend?”

Elliot barely heard them. Her eyes, her thoughts, were on John; when her shirt was discarded to the side, he skimmed his fingers along her sternum, eyes bright.

“It’s going to look so good,” he murmured, and she knew that he wasn’t paying attention to them, either. He’d seemed disappointed when she asked someone else to be there, but now, it didn’t seem like it mattered at all. “Ready?”

She nodded, feeling a little swoon of adrenaline kick through her body when John left the room and returned with a knife. John looked at her expectantly. The physical acquiescence wasn’t enough.

“Yes,” Elliot said, and John’s eyes fluttered closed just for a moment before he leaned forward and kissed her—hard and open-mouthed, his fingers bruising where they gripped her shoulder.

“Fucking Christ,” Burke ground out, and John pulled away with a wicked grin.

“You and me,” he murmured against her lips, and she nodded.

John sat down. Over his shoulder she could see Burke, sitting on his knees, his face resolutely turned to the side. She turned her gaze away, too, because she didn’t want to see—didn’t want to see Burke sitting there, biting his tongue and trying not to look at her, look at her scars and the one John was going to give her and—

The sting of the first cut barely registered through the fog of her brain. It didn’t quite hit, and then her eyes flickered down and she saw the first stream of red, and it really hit, immediately slicing through the fog of adrenaline to hit sharper, harder, nastier.

Elliot exhaled a stuttering breath. It felt exactly the same as she remembered; it wasn’t so soft, on her chest like this, but it wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation to her either. Something in her brain tripped at the pain, neurons firing rapidly; we know you, they said, as John meticulously carved the W into her skin, we know you, pain, we missed you, missed you missed you missed you.

“John,” she said, because there was a burst of panic going off in her brain like fireworks. The two parts of her—the one that self-preserved, and the one that craved this exact sting and bite—wrestled with the reality of her situation: that she was both doing and not doing the thing she had tried to deprogram out of herself.

“So good, hellcat,” John murmured, his eyes fixed on his work as he started on the R. He was fixated; he was somewhere far away from her, even as close as he was. “It’s going to look so good on you.”

And behind him, Jacob said, “C’mon, Burke, don’t you want to see what your little deputy asked for?”

“Fuck. You,” Burke bit out.

The sting, the bite; the push and pull. Elliot breathed her way through each excruciating moment, and they were excruciating, these moments, because John was utilizing every second that he had her here, like this.

And that was fine. She needed him to; both for her sake, and for Burke’s.

Something sounded like thundering up ahead, distant but out of place. It gave her a little jolt of panic. If that was what she thought it was, then—

Elliot saw Jacob’s eyes flicker up to the ceiling, narrowing; she managed out, “Slow down,” just as John paused too, to draw his attention back to her.

“Slower?” John asked, and the way he said it felt intimate, with his eyes fixed on her and his fingers red with her blood.

“Please,” Elliot breathed. Jacob looked at her for a moment, long and hard, but she didn’t meet his eyes; only looked at John, only waited patiently for him to begin.

After a moment, John said, his voice pitched low, “Anything you want.”

“I’ll be back,” Jacob said. He dropped his hand from Burke’s shoulder; John made a non-committal uh-huh sound, finishing off the unsteady cross of the T. She hissed, squirming in her seat at the pain, drawing Jacob’s attention for just a second long before he made his way out of the room.

The H followed next. As soon as he finished, John pulled back to admire his work; there was still a bit of bruising, but most of it was up on her shoulder, not her chest, which was now doused in crimson. Wiping his hands off with a towel, he beamed at her; all teeth and bright eyes.

“What a relief, don’t you think?” Joseph asked, his voice idle and distracted as he glanced up at the ceiling inquisitively. “To have it all out there.”

John flashed a smile at his brother, clearly pleased. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said to Elliot, coming to a stand. “We’ll have to let it heal for a while to see how it’s going to scar, and then we can go back in and—”

Before John could finish his sentence, Elliot heard the sound of car doors slamming outside, and Jacob’s voice, asking something in a demand, and then a volley of responses: it was hard to hear, a floor down, but she thought they were saying get down, get down.

“What is going on?” Joseph asked, his voice verging on something other than cool and calm, and the sound of it filled Elliot with a bright spark of joy: yes, she thought viciously, coming to a stand and feeling around for her shirt while her eyes stayed on the Seeds, yes, you fucking cockroach, squirm.

“I don’t know,” John said, stepping toward the door. “Stay here.”

He only took two more steps before the sound of Jacob shouting something above them, followed by a gunshot, and then a loud cacophony of footsteps above them.

“Jacob,” Faith breathed, her eyes wide and panicked. “Something’s happened, Father, we have to—”

“Stay,” John barked out, suddenly all business as he was hauling Burke up to his feet. “I think our friend the Marshal would like to take a look first, make sure nothing is dangerous.”

But Burke was grinning when his feet righted themselves on the ground. He sucked his teeth, looked directly at Joseph, and said, “Time’s up, fuckhead.”

Burke’s words send her stomach somersaulting. So he had gotten to the radio. He had, just in time, which meant he’d been caught just after, and now—

Now he was here, and so were all of the Seeds, too.

I fucking did it, she thought hazily, bracing herself on the chair. Holy shit. I fucking did it.

The sound of footsteps storming down the stairs made John’s eyes flicker to the doorway, and he let go of Burke, gripping the bloodied towel loosely in his hands.

Her heart was thundering in her chest. It was hard to think through the haze of pain, the stinging and burning of the cuts on her chest, but it was there, if she tried hard enough to look: hope.

But Joseph wasn’t looking at John. He was looking at Elliot.

“You,” the Father hissed, as Elliot pulled the shirt away from her chest, sticky-wet with blood. “You did this. I know you did, you fucking locust, I knew it the second you stepped foot in my chapel—brought us all here, rounded us up like lambs for the slaughter—”

“What do you mean?” John demanded. “Elliot has been with me since this whole—”

Things moved very quickly, then: through the fog of pain, Elliot heard one, two, three heavy thuds against the door before wood splintered and came crashing down, the instant array of green sights set on them—all of them, her included—and the sound of voices demanding their hands go up.

Elliot watched Joseph, hands at his sides.

“What. Did. You. Do?” Joseph ground out, his voice vicious, the rage splitting across his face almost as delicious as the fear. Faith was crying, and saying something through her tears, as John lifted his hands obediently.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see one of the SWAT members hauling Burke out of the room first. She looked at Joseph and arched a brow at him, lifting her hands obediently when the order was shouted again.

“Oh, Father,” she sighed, her voice cloying and sweet and just between the two of them, “did God not tell you about this part?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Things were going poorly.

That is to say, Jacob had a gunshot to the shoulder that was currently being patched while he was in handcuffs—“Can’t have you bleeding out on us, can we?” the medic said, a little too gleefully, until Jacob said something along the lines of I’m gonna rip your fucking face off—and Faith was crying, and Joseph was seething, furiously whispering to himself and held in place by one of the other U.S. Marshals.

Elliot was in cuffs, too, but Burke seemed to be talking furiously with the man who had cuffed her, occasionally interrupted when Elliot would try and draw his attention back to John.

This won’t do, he thought, as panic pounded through his body, as his heart hammered against his chest. All of his siblings, in handcuffs, and Elliot too; she was, too, but she looked—

Fine.

She looked fine, and he thought about what she’d said. You can’t have both, and then she’d immediately gone back on that. Of course she had. Of course, because she was wretched and wicked and clever, and she had never truly let go of her hatred for Joseph, but they were married. They were married, and the U.S. government was going to know about it before they stuck her on a stand to testify against any of his siblings.

“I need to speak to her,” John said to the officer holding him. “The woman, there. That’s my—”

“You don’t need to do anything,” the man replied sharply, “except shut your mouth and wait patiently for us to load you and the rest of your fucking brood into the van.”

“She’s my wife,” John bit out viciously. “And she’s in cuffs, I would like to speak with my wife—”

“What did you just say?”

It was Elliot’s voice, sharp and clear and splitting through the distance between them. In the chilly Autumn afternoon, John felt the spike of pure adrenaline race through him at her tone, at the way her head snapped to him and she shouldered her way past Burke. The officer had taken her cuffs off.

Burke said, “Rookie,” in warning, but it didn’t matter, John knew; they had never been able to ignore each other, in love or in war.

“I said,” John reiterated, “you’re my wife.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Elliot demanded.

“That night,” he began urgently, “that night that you were feeling unwell after your walk with Faith, and we talked about leaving—”

Elliot started, her voice hitching, “John, what did you do—”

“—we talked about other things, too,” he plunged on. “I didn’t tell you, Elliot. I didn’t tell you because I wanted it to be the right time. I was going to tell you today, after we were done—I was going to tell you that we talked about it and I asked you if you wanted to marry me, and you told me yes—”

“Stop,” she moaned, agonized. “Stop—fucking—talking—you didn’t, John, you fucking didn’t lie to me again about this thing that you know I hate—”

“And you signed the certificate. It’s back at the compound,” John finished, trying to lean around the officer. “We’re married. You and me, hellcat, just like we say, you and—”

He saw the slap coming before it hit, but it definitely took a few seconds for the pain to actually register in his brain. And oh, then it hit; Elliot had swung her hand with the same amount of force she might have if she were close-fist punching him, but her palm connected with this side of his face and sent a sharp, red-hot shot of pain blooming and blurring behind his eyes.

Dazed, John blinked and tried to focus his attention again as the officer jostled him out of her reach. He was vaguely aware of Burke moving toward them as Elliot gritted out between her teeth, “How fucking dare you.”

“Ell,” John said, and there was blood in his mouth, his lip split from the impact of her hand. “Listen to me—”

Burke, louder and closer: “Elliot.”

“No, you listen to me, you fucking rat!” Elliot’s voice was pitching higher in volume, and higher in frequency and hysteria. “What the fuck is wrong with you?! I told you, I fucking told you what was going to happen if you lied to me again—you fucking—I’m going to fucking kill you—”

John saw Burke sling an arm around Elliot’s waist just as she lunged again, seething and furious, holding her tight against his chest as she clawed at his arms to get free. His mouth against her hair, he said, “Rookie, take a breath.”

“You take a fucking breath!”

He hauled her, all five feet and four inches of her, turning her away from John, like breaking her eyesight with him would save him the trouble of having to cuff her.

“Elliot,” John called, trying to lean past the officer, “I forgive you—”

“Fuck! You!”

“—marriage is hard work, but I know,” he continued, grinning when she finally pulled herself out of Burke’s grip, “that you’re just the woman for the job.”

She stared at him for a long moment. Every line in her expression was pulled tight with fury, and yes—John thought he should have told her sooner, maybe, but if she was going to find out, what better time to find out than in front of the very men who wanted to put her on the stand?

“Don’t you remember what you said last night? You need me,” he tried again, and he could tell the officer holding his shoulders was getting tired of him leaning around all the time. “I love you, Elliot, through sickness and in health, no matter how many—”

“Oh, John,” Elliot breathed out, like she almost couldn’t get a full lungful of air, she was so out of breath. She swayed on her feet exhaustedly, her mouth twisting around the next sentence that came out of her mouth: “I want a fucking divorce.”

The words plunged John straight into a panic, the kind that made it feel like there was a feeding frenzy going on under his skin. This was not how things were supposed to unfold. This was not how it was supposed to go. Elliot was going to be upset, sure—but he had taken great pains to make sure that she knew he was the only thing left for her, after it all. She was supposed to upset, and then see that it had been for her, it was always for her, for them. Everything he’d done, every step he’d taken, every—

She’s mine, he thought, his face still stinging, dull and hot, from her slap. Burke was saying something to her. That’s my fucking wife, whether she likes it or not.

No one was going to take her from him. Not Joseph or Jacob, not Cameron Burke, not even her. No one was going to put a serial murderer and the wife of a religious group’s lawyer on the stand. He’d make fucking sure of that.

“You think you’re gonna move on from this, El?” he demanded, managing to shoulder around the officer to make eye contact with her. His voice came out tight, sharp—slowly and purposefully careening, but he hated the strike of strange hysteria that wormed its way in there, too. “I watched you slaughter at least a hundred people in the name of “justice”—you beat a man to death with a blunt object, and you liked it—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Elliot ground out. She made to move at him, nails digging into her palms, but Burke hooked his arm around her waist and hauled her back again, much like before.

“You think you’re gonna move on and meet some nice little country boy who’s gonna love you even with all that fucking red in your ledger?” Oh, he was careening—all of the control slipping out from between his fingers, like sand. “No fucking way, baby, I’m it for you!”

“Rook,” Burke said, but there was no follow-up which made it worse; Burke said one word—one tiny little pet name—and Elliot’s attention immediately snapped to him.

John had never been made to feel like he was nothing; not like this.

“Look at me,” he snapped, and Elliot’s eyes turned to him; but he saw the fury split across her face, the absolute indignant rage. “You’re going to spend one day back in polite society and come unglued, Elliot Honeysett, and when you fucking do—you’ll be begging for me to take you back, and I guarantee you I fucking won’t.”

“That’s enough,” Burke said, but he was speaking to Elliot, looking at her.

“Maybe,” she hissed, pushing at Burke’s arm as blood seeped through the wound on her chest “you should have considered how I would react to you being a pathological liar before you fucking came inside me, you cunt.”

Her words sent a strange, uncomfortable sensation sprinting down his spine. She couldn’t be, John thought, alluding to—

But she had been surprised when he told her it was her birthday, like she hadn’t realized what day it was, and had said something like, normally by now I’m, and just hadn’t finished her thought.

“Okay.” Burke pulled her back a few more steps, his voice strained. Pulled her away from him. “We’re taking a walk. You and me, Rookie.”

“What the fuck do you mean?” John called after her, panic rising in his voice. “Elliot? Tell me what you—”

“I mean I’m late, fuckhead,” Elliot spit at him over Burke’s shoulder.

The officer pulled him back towards the truck, dragging him by his arm as Burke took Elliot around the corner of the ranch house. His stomach was lurching nauseatingly, trying to piece it together. Had it been long enough? Of course, it had—it had been over a month, probably, maybe even more because he didn’t know how to keep track of time when he’d been drugged and kidnapped and dragged around.

If she is, he thought, frantic; if she does have my child, if she’s—

“John,” Joseph said, his voice eerily quiet as he was pushed into a sitting position across from his brother. He seemed to have recovered from his outburst earlier; there was an odd grimness about his expression. “We must remain focused.”

“She—” John blinked rapidly, trying to gather his fraying, desperate thoughts. “Joseph, she might—”

Joseph lifted a finger to his lips to signal silence. Jacob’s breathing was labored but controlled, and Faith’s gentle crying had been snuffed out. She’d only been the damsel for a few minutes before she tried to storm her way out of their grip.

“The task at hand,” Joseph cautioned him. “Then, we will figure out what to do for your son.”

My son. The words echoed hazily in his brain as the van doors slammed shut, eclipsing them.

“How do you know?” John demanded. “You know? You know that she’s—with my—”

“Of course,” his brother replied, still keeping his voice soft.

“God told me.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Take a breath.”

“No.”

“Rookie.” Burke’s voice was hard. “Look at me and take breath.”

She couldn’t. Every inch of her body was screaming—desperate for a reprieve, but there was none to be had because she was still nursing her WRATH wound, because she was heaving out great, panicked breaths between ragged cries.

“I can’t,” Elliot moaned, her hands shaking, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—”

Burke snagged her hand and pressed it to his neck, just like before, but this time it didn’t do anything; this time, she just felt the spiral hit harder, the overwhelming sensation of touching and being touched sending her brain sprinting in panic.

She yanked her hand out of his grip and clutched her knees to her chest, ignoring the warm seep of blood even against the bandages the medic had patched her with and the sting of the pressure of her bones pressed up against the wound.

Burke stayed, and she noticed. He stayed, and he didn’t have to—he was done, free, could leave and go home—but he stayed sitting there with her, against the side of the Seed ranch, wherein many ways, things for her had began.

So, she cried; she sobbed into her jeans until she thought she was going to be dizzy from gasping for air, and Burke stayed, and waited until her hand fumbled for his blindly before he touched her again. His fingers gripped hers, firm and soothing.

“Is it true?” he asked, when she had stopped her crying, when she had breathed so much there was too much oxygen in her brain. His gaze flickered over her. “That you’re… With that fucker’s…”

“I don’t know,” Elliot replied, exhausted. “I’m—fuck, I’m late, and I didn’t realize until yesterday, because it’s been so fucking—”

Burke passed his free hand over his face. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’m sorry,” and the words came out of her agonized; because she could hear the disappointment in his voice, or what she thought was disappointment. “I thought—I thought he—Burke, I—”

“I know, Rook,” Burke murmured, not unkindly. “Just focus on breathing. I know.”

A few more moments of silence passed between them, filled only with the sound of voices and out and the kick of an engine starting and pulling out from the ranch. After her breathing had evened out again, Burke said, “They’re going to be retrieving Kian’s body.”

Elliot stared at the ground, feeling numb. He didn’t have to say; she knew what that meant. Government officials were going to see what she’d done to Kian. They were going to see it, and see that she was legally married to one of them, and see that she was carrying the child of one of them, and see her history, and all of these things were going to add up.

The picture was not going to be a good one.

“I’ve gotta take you in, Rook,” Burke said quietly. “At the very least, to a therapist.”

She sniffed. I love you, John had said, after he’d lied. Lied, and lied, and lied, and used her, and lied, and if he loved her, he didn’t love her in any way that she understood.

“Okay,” she whispered.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

“Yeah.”

“I know what you’ve been through, and you know I’ll vouch for you. I saw firsthand the kind of—the shit that was going on,” he insisted. “I just—want you to have a realistic picture of what it’s gonna look like, when we get back. They’re gonna autopsy Kian’s body, and—”

She took in a long, suffering breath. “I’m really tired,” Elliot said, her voice breaking a little. “Can we—are we going straight there, or?”

Burke paused, his expression softening, and shook his head. “We’ll hit a motel or two along the way.”

Elliot nodded, closing her eyes and pressing her face back into her knees. She stayed like that for a while; it was hard to tell how much time passed, but eventually, someone came around the corner and said something to Burke, and he tugged her to her feet and walked her to the car.

The sensation of Burke’s hand slipping out of hers sent another burst of panic flooding through her; her body was so tired, so very fucking tired of managing the adrenaline, but the more she tried to calm down the more tired she got.

“I want to stay with you,” she said, feeling hazy and tightening her hand around Burke’s. The Marshal looked at her for a long moment and then nodded.

“Alright, kid,” he murmured, reaching up and squeezing her shoulder. “We’ll stick together.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Time passed differently, after that. Elliot couldn’t have said how long it took them to get to the first motel; it couldn’t have been seconds, or minutes, or months for all that she knew. She was numb when they set her up in a motel room with two beds, she was numb when they checked her scar and redressed it.

“Fucking Christ,” the medic said under his breath when he saw the WRATH wound, still hot and trying its best to scab over. “You poor thing.”

It’s not me, Elliot thought miserably, opening her mouth; but no words would come. All she could think was, I asked for this, I’m not the poor thing, please don’t.

“Hey,” Burke barked out, his voice sharp as he took in Elliot’s crumpling expression. “Let’s get it cleaned and let her sleep, buddy.”

The medic nodded, thoroughly scolded, and worked quickly after that. When he’d finished and she had swallowed two Tylenol dutifully, Burke watched her climb under the covers of the bed and said, “I’ve gotta make a call. You okay in here?”

She swallowed thickly. He was looking at her like he was wary of her. The same way Whitehorse had looked at her.

“Yeah,” Elliot murmured. “I’m fine.”

He gave her a tight, tired smile and then stepped out of the motel room, closing the door behind him. Silence lingered there for a little while; Elliot tried to close her eyes and sleep, her fingers brushing through Boomer’s fur as he dozed, but the low, murmuring sound of Burke talking just outside stirred her anxiety, and each time she closed her eyes she just saw John’s face.

John, holding her face and kissing her, You and me. John, burying his face into her neck, I love you.

John, their noses brushing, We can have a place to belong, Elliot.

John, vicious and unyielding, I’m it for you.

She lurched out of the bed, pushing her way into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her just in time to lean over the toilet and throw up whatever was left in her stomach—which wasn’t much, if the amount of dry-heaving were any indication. Bile burned at the back of her throat, and she thought if she didn’t get a breath of air she was going to fucking die.

Elliot pushed the window open and tried to steady her breathing. Rinsing her mouth out in the sink, she shut the water off and paused, looking at herself in the mirror.

The person that looked back at her was unfamiliar. A stranger. She blinked rapidly, trying to steady herself, but each time she did, she felt less and less familiar with the gaunt, sharp-faced, dark-eyed stranger gazing back at her from the mirror. Some bruises along her neck and shoulders still remained.

Who are you? She thought, tiredly. The one that killed all of those peggies? The one that killed Kian? Why don’t I recognize you?

“... understand that, sir, it’s just—if you saw what was going on...”

Burke’s voice drifted in through the window. He must have been pacing, because the volume of his words drifted and moved, as though he were walking around the corner and then back again.

His footsteps paused. “No, I have not read the autopsy report yet. I didn’t think it pertinent at this time, considering we only just—”

She heard Burke’s words cut abruptly, the sound of his breath leaving him in a sharp exhale, and then he said, “Jesus Christ. No, I didn’t know.”

Oh, she thought hazily, oh, he knows. He knows what I did.

Her body moved automatically. Something inside of her kicked—we’re not done yet, it said, ferocious and furious, sinking its teeth into her and operating her body outside of her own executive function. We’re not fucking done yet.

Elliot pulled her sweater and her shoes on. The late autumn chill drifting through the open window made her mind feel sharp, and clear, and she thought, somthing has to be done, and I’ll fucking do it.

She stuffed a couple of things that felt essential into a bag—painkillers, bottles of water from the fridge, Burke’s gun he’d left on the nightstand closest to the door—and then waited until she heard his footsteps pacing around the corner again before she ducked out of the window.

When she looked back, Boomer had already leapt through the window after her. His eyes were on her, bright, ready.

And then she ran.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

She’s twenty-six, and she’s in a bar.

Or that’s how it would go, anyway, if she was asleep. If she were dreaming, or remembering. But she wasn’t. Elliot was twenty-six, and she was in a bar, and she wasn’t waiting for her best friend to come back with a different drink, and she wasn’t making eyes at a handsome blue-eyed stranger from across the bar. He wouldn’t come over and call her beautiful, and he wouldn’t make her want to be kissed by someone whose face looked a little sharp, and she wouldn’t one day think that maybe she was in love with him.

I’m just a girl, she thought tiredly, staring at the water glass on the counter in front of her. This wasn’t supposed to be my life.

But it was. It was her life. Here she was, sitting in a seedy bar halfway to Georgia, with a U.S. Marshal’s gun she’d lifted sitting in her bag. She’d hitch-hiked a ride back into Fall’s End, grabbed what remained of her things—her ID, what little cash she still had on her, a debit card she was too paranoid to use, dog food—and then she’d taken the jeep parked out behind the Keller’s old place and drove.

And drove. And drove. And drove.

Now, she was twenty-six, sitting in a bar, and there is no Joey coming to rescue her, and there is no John to be a monster that she needed rescuing from.

I’m just a girl. This wasn’t supposed to be my life.

She left the cash for her water on the bar top, hauling herself out of the stool and back out into the parking lot. It was late; the sky was speckled with stars; if she thought hard enough, if she really thought about, Elliot thought maybe, somewhere inside of her, she was going to be okay.

As she climbed into the driver’s seat of the jeep, Elliot turned the key into the ignition and reached into a grocery store bag on the passenger seat, fumbling around for the cigarettes she’d purchased. Her fingers hit hard plastic and she glanced over.

The two little tiny lines on the pregnancy test stared back at her. Her stomach lurched, nausea welling up inside of her, and she tossed the hard plastic back into the bag and left the cigarettes untouched. Boomer, dozing in the back seat, pricked his ears forward and looked at her inquisitively.

She was just a girl. This wasn’t supposed to be her life. But it was—and there was only one place left to go from here.

Home.

#my writing #fic: ancient names #far cry 5 fic #fc5 fic #john seed/deputy #ch: elliot honeysett #ch: john seed #otp: death keep off; i am your enemy #not gonna melt down in the tags even though i wanna #just. thank you all so so so much. this has been incredible to write and enjoy and make so many friends #yes i am crying do not LOOK at me

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ms31x129 · 6 years ago

Text

Time for Chapter 5! Posting a little early & I had to make a another DJ! I felt compelled! I hope I have ideas for 2 more! @cultureisdarkbeer @monikafilefan @today-in-fic

Chapter 1 - Courage to Jump Tumblr LINK AO3 it is HERE.

Chapter 2: Luck of the Irish Tumblr LINK or AO3 it is HERE.

Chapter 3: Graffiti of the Heart Tumblr LINK or AO3 HERE.

Chapter 4: Leave Your Demons At The Door Tumblr LINK or AO3 HERE.

Chapter 5: Truth Is the Pain Inside Our Hearts (Click on the name for AO3) or if you like Tumblr just clickity-click on the Keep Reading link below.

{Summary:

Grab your Kleenex, because the forecast calls for angst with a few passing heartfelt admissions.

Jackson has left the bar and returned to the motel where his mind dares to tread back into the memories of Dana Scully at one of the most vulnerable times of her and Fox Mulder's life.}

“The greatest sacrifice is when you sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of someone else.” -Unknown

Jackson found himself stumbling back into his motel room what seemed like hours later. With his head already pounding, he peeled his soaked jeans off and nearly lost his balance as he tripped his way into the bathroom. His stomach tumbled with the jolt and he quickly felt around for the location of the toilet bowl in case he lost the rest of his liquor.

Jackson winced. “Ugh, shit!” Flicking on the lights was a bad idea. He groaned as he turned the shower on and watched the steam billow up around him. He hadn’t even realized he was crying until small droplets of hot tears crept down the swell of his cheeks. His veil of stoicism had finally fallen and everything he’d been holding back rushed to the surface.

The fact that he’d just scared the living hell out of several people in a bar—including a little kid—was not lost to him. In fact, for the first time in a long time, Jackson felt found.

He swiped away his tears of relief and realized that weight of resentment and anger had lifted. He’d been dealt a complicated hand in life, yes, but he had recently come to understand that his birth mother and adoptive parents had stacked the deck for him; not against. All he had to do was lay down his cards and play his final hand—to finish the journey he’d started when he ran away from the last two people who cared about him.

He stripped the rest of his clothes and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water pour down his face in rivulets as he finally broke down and mourned the life he left behind.

After the water ran cold, Jackson draped his soiled clothing over the shower to dry and donned a clean pair of pants. It was then that he remembered the letter tucked away in his jeans.

Frantic at the thought of losing the last tangible piece of his past, he rushed to carefully unfold the fragile paper. It was damp along the edges and a few of the more exaggerated letters at the end were bleeding into one another. Otherwise, the rest of the words written by Dana Katherine Scully were still perfectly legible and staring him in the face.

“I’m tired of not knowing,” he admitted, ready to accept what the past showed him. “I need to know more.”

Jackson sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows resting on his thighs as he stared intently at the next sentence written for him. He ran his tongue along his top lip while the letter shook between his fingers as one knee vigorously bounced up and down. “A nervous habit,” his mom would have to explain during every parent teacher conference at each new school as his teacher’s studied him from across the table.

He readied himself for another vision that he now expected to receive, embracing it. This time he read aloud…

“Chance embarking with this other on the greatest of journeys—a search for truths fugitive and imponderable.”

He felt it instantly: the burn and sting of his mind connecting to the past, delving into the memories of his birth mother as he was once again sucked into a world lived without him.

December 1st, 2012

Jackson paced the wooden floor within his mother’s body. She stared at herself clad in powder blue scrubs within the floor length mirror of a bedroom, playing with her Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital ID card that dangled from her lanyard. One slim finger traced along the address of 227700 Wallis Road, Farrs Corner, VA as Mulder’s shirtless figure loomed behind in the background.

“The timetable on something as radical as this, Mulder, is imponderable. Not only that, it’s improbable,” she spoke to the mirror in a tiresome tone resembling one she might use if she were debating on whether or not it would storm that night, or what to have for dinner.

She was resigned at the notion that Mulder would never hear her out and accept the fact that the pending alien invasion would in all likelihood, not happen at all. They were in a good place together—happily “married” while living life without darkness. Jackson felt a pang in her chest grow as she thought about the possibility of the man she loved so desperately falling off the edge if the invasion actually occurred and he could do nothing to stop it.

She watched in the reflection as Mulder ran a frustrated hand through his hair and scoffed. He took two purposeful steps forward and locked his driven gaze onto hers through the glass.

“Scully, It’s happening. It WILL happen. Why can’t you just believe it?”

Her patience fled instantly and Jackson felt her defensive walls fly up. He recognized the reaction and realized it was to protect herself from what she’s been hiding deep within her heart: guilt. Guilt surrounding his adoption flashed like fireworks in her mind and he could feel it eating her alive from the inside out.

She spun around and shook her head up at him. Her little body trembled with caged emotion.

“I don’t WANT to believe it, Mulder!” she cried and wrapped her arms around herself, as if that could soothe the shared pain they equally felt. “I… We sacrificed our son for a better, safer life and now you still want to believe in this?” She pointed to a calendar hanging on the wall with a red X through the number twelve. “Don’t you see goddammit? I can’t believe it!”

“Christ, Scully! I don’t want to believe this shit either,” he growled and grasped her hand gently. “Don’t you remember me not wanting to speak the words aloud to you in that hellhole of a jail cell? Fuck! My son—our little boy, Scully…” he choked.

“Don’t!” She jerked her hand out of his and sidestepped around him. Jackson could barely hold onto the vision with the powerful waves of anger, grief, and guilt that washed over her. “I fell in love with you because you never give up, Mulder, but please don’t say things we can’t change.”

His chin quivered as he shook his head. “We never talk about him… My son is living his life with another father, another family,” he rasped and followed her movements around the bed as she kicked off her shoes. “But he’s safe and loved and unharmed by the men who have harmed us!”

Tears burned down her cheeks and the lump in her throat threatened to choke her. “Mulder…”

Suddenly he was there, standing in front of her with his arms embracing her tightly as silent sobs wracked through her body. She melted into him and nuzzled her face into his warm chest. The love she felt for him was as fierce as the ache in her heart.

“You did the right thing, Dana,” he whispered into her hair and she whimpered, squeezing him closer. “But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

The intense moment overwhelmed Jackson too much, jarring him out of his mother’s mind and sending his back bouncing off the mattress.

“Jesus Christ!” he groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He didn’t understand this feeling—the same feeling his mother had felt so fiercely. The same one that had slowly been rebuilding in his heart over the last year.

But asking the age old question to which he was sure no one held the answer to, was the only thing that he could think to say in response to witnessing something so powerful.

“Why does love hurt so much?”

Hours flew by in a blur for Jackson. The images from Dana Scully and the memories from his childhood that he’d witnessed tumbled through his mind on an endless loop. Seeing something once usually left a permanent imprint on his brain, like a fingerprint pressed into glass. The image may fade but it still left its mark on him forever. He recalled reading that same fact about Mulder in his dossier when he hacked into the FBI’s personnel records after seeing he was partnered with the woman who birthed, and raised him for almost a year. An eidetic memory and an IQ worthy of much more than a man labeled as a spooky ex-fugitive. Maybe he and Mulder had much more in common than he thought.

He held the letter in front of him. The things he’d seen and felt from just reading simple words scrawled onto a piece of paper would brand Jackson for life. Yet, his mother’s words weren’t simple at all. They held great meaning—possibly even a power to set in motion what fate had preordained for them all before he was even born.

With a shake of his head at his aptitude for physics, he couldn’t help but think of how Isaac Newton’s universal law of gravitation pertained to his life. The law states: every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force that is directed along a line joining them. What if the force directing him was the letter and the objects being slowly pulled together by the powerful connection they shared were he and his birth mother?

He tossed a pillow across the room in frustration as new questions arose. Was it all fate? Was his existence created through the laws of science, the experiments through Project Crossroads meant to be? Was he a miracle child born of a love so strong it withstood life’s ultimate tests like his mother had written? Were these people that he’s come to understand so deeply meant to suffer while living a life without him?

“How fucked up is that?” Jackson sighed and sat up to grab the bag of peanuts he had stored in his bag. The salt cravings that always seemed to strike during times of stress required him to carry a bag of peanuts or salt-laced seeds with him on his travels. As he popped a couple into his mouth, he continued his philosophical reflection.

Everything he had witnessed through his visions while flexing his pineal gland enlightened him as to the true sacrifice that was made by everyone. It burned and blistered beneath his own skin. Strangers that he knew only by looking within and now he couldn’t bear to live without. If he held the key to destruction and annihilation, perhaps they held the key to his redemption.

He wanted to know them now, in the flesh, as if his own DNA screamed for it. Maybe it wasn’t as much about who he was or why he was, but who he chose to be. After reading the lines of the letter, immersing himself within the emotions, possessing the suffering endured for their cause in his own soul, he now understood so much more.

It was time. Time to take that leap. To fight alongside the one that bore him and loved him in the beginning even knowing the possibilities. There might be a war raging, but it didn’t have to originate from him. He had to step from behind the shadows and free himself from the prison of his own mind.

Jackson thought of the words of his idol, Malcolm X: “ Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.” He needed to take back his heritage, embrace it, and allow it to set him free. It was time to stand for something and stand against the ones that meant to use him to feed the monster. Before, he had been asleep under others control; now it was for himself. There was no more avoiding, no more ignoring of the signs written out for him in ink.

He would claim the life he lost with the people who love him and understand. Most of all he would stop running and avoiding what was no longer calling, but screaming out into the world. If fear held him back, then their love could cast it away. Just maybe he needed that, too.

#xf fanfic #thexfiles #msr fanfic #msrfanfic #txf fanfic #the xf fanfic #the xfiles fanfic #xfiles fanfic #xf chimera #xffanfic

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cottontail20 · 6 years ago

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Children Of Iron, Chapter 6: Wild Card

Summary:Wanda and Vision are not sure what kind of reception to expect from Nick Fury

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20323687/chapters/49807538

"Should we borrow a boat to follow them?" Harley whispered, returning the Iron Legion droid to it's case.

"No.. they'll spot us too easily that way" said Vision.

"Right" Wanda agreed. "We'll follow from the sky."

"Does it really matter if they spot us?" Harley questioned. "I mean.. Nick Fury's like top of the pile when it comes to the good guys."

Wanda and Vision shared an uncertain look. While what Harley said was true, that Fury was basically everybody's boss since he had created the Avengers.. For various complicated reasons, neither Vision nor Wanda had ever met him. At least not properly. Vision had a vague recollection of being introduced to him in the post-Sokovia chaos. Wanda may have too, although she was too grief-stricken over Pietro to remember much else from that time.

They both knew that you didn't usually get to meet Nick Fury unless he wanted you to meet him, especially after his faked death, and they weren't entirely sure how he would react to their showing up unexpectedly in the middle of one of his operations.

"I still think it best that we fly for now.." Vision finally replied, and Wanda nodded in agreement.

"You're the boss" Harley shrugged. --

So, they hovered what they thought was a safe distance from the boat as they followed, with Vision holding onto Wanda and Harley, phasing them all to limit their chances of being seen. They watched as Fury handed Peter a gift from Tony.

"Do you think Tony left anything for me?" Harley whispered hopefully.

"I'm not sure.. Probably" Vision replied. "We're still finding things he had tucked away.."

"Like this.." Wanda replied quietly, smiling as she wiggled her ring finger.

Vision smiled back at her.

They continued to follow the boat until it reached the mouth of a tunnel. Then, Nick Fury turned, looking straight up at them, aimed a rifle, and fired. Peter, at the realization they were being followed, but not knowing by who, hurriedly pulled on his mask in the brief chaos that followed.

"Ah!"Harley yelped, almost dropping the Iron Legion case.

Though the shot would have passed harmlessly through them in their phased state, Vision twisted in the air to dodge it. Wanda raised a hand to halt the bullet, quickly realizing that it was not a bullet at all.

"Vizh, it's just a tranquilizer.."

"You're damn lucky it's just a tranquilizer!" Fury yelled up to them. "Let this be a lesson, no-one follows Nicholas J. Fury without him knowing about it! Now all of you idiots get in the damn boat before you set off the rest of our security."

Wanda and Vision shared a slightly sheepish look, then headed down to land in the boat. Harley, now clinging to Vision's back like a monkey, quickly got down, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. This was not how he'd wanted to meet more of his heroes.

"Well.. Hello" Vision managed a smile.

"Uh.. Hi, Vision.." Even beneath his mask, Peter's confusion was clear.

"I suppose we have some explaining to do.." Wanda chuckled nervously.

"You bet you do, Maximoff.." Fury's eye flickered to Harley. "Who's the kid?"

"Oh, I'm Harley, Harley Keener.." Harley thrust out a hand, which Peter took. "I'm, uh.. the new Stark Industries intern.."

"New Intern?" The eyes of the Spider-Man mask narrowed.

Vision grew nervous as he watched them, detecting a hint of jealousy in Peter's voice.

"Yeah" Harley continued excitedly, oblivious to the slight change in the other boy's demeanor. "Tony talked with me about it before the blip. Never got a chance to follow through, but now Vision's hired me.. It's nice to meet you, Spider-Man, I'm a really big fan.."

"Nice to meet you too, I guess.."

"Stark and kids.." Fury shook his head as he started up the boat once more, "Who would have thought?"

"Harley has a lot of very useful tiny robots" said Vision.

"...Good to know." --

"You really thought I wouldn't notice you?" Fury continued to scold Wanda and Vision as the boat moved down the tunnel. "I've been keeping my eye on you for a while, Maximoff, and Vision, well.. Let's just say that I keep better tabs on Stark's super-bots than he ever did..Congrats on the engagement, by the way.."

"Thank you, Sir" Vision blushed. "We really are sorry for any trouble we might have caused."

"We just saw the news, and we were concerned about.." Wanda began.

"Your concern is noted, and appreciated" Fury cut her off. "But next time, let someone know so we can claim your little mission as legit, okay? None of the remaining Avengers can go running around half-cocked, a repeat of the Sokovia Accords is the last thing we need right now.."

Wanda's cheeks reddened at the mention of the accords, but Vision nodded.

"Understood, sir.."

"Good.." As Fury stopped the boat, and everyone piled out for it to head for what they assumed was a temporary Mission Control Center, he turned his attention back to Peter. "You can lose the mask, everyone here's seen you without it.."

"He hasn't.." Peter pointed to Harley.

"Yeah, but I know you're Peter Parker though" Harley shrugged.

Peter removed his mask, looking a little annoyed.

Vision grew nervous.. his brotherly bonding expedition seemed to have taken an awkward turn.

"That's better.." Fury continued. "You don't need to be feigning anonymity and breathing through spandex for no good reason.." --

As they headed into the control center, they were introduced to a rather imposing agent named Dimitri whom didn't react when Harley smiled at him.

Maria Hill, whose gaze Wanda avoided.. She had at one time, spoken as a joke, heard Hill's abridged assessment of her and her twin (He's fast. She's weird.), and the words had upset her more than she wanted to admit.

And finally, the armored 'hero' from the news who had sparked Vision and Wanda's whole trip.

".. This is Mr. Beck..

"You're the guy from the news!" Harley cried.

"Mysterio.." Peter gasped.

"What?" The man looked confused.

"Oh, it's just what my friends were.." As Peter stumbled his way through an explanation, Beck shook Harley's hand, Vision's, and Wanda's, but then zeroed back in on Peter just a little too fast for Wanda's liking.

"I saw what you did with the tower. We could have used someone like you on my world."

"Your world?" Peter was confused.

"What do you mean 'Your' world?" Wanda frowned.

"Well.." --

Of all the things Vision had expected to uncover when they set out on this trip, the existence of multiple Universes, and a series of attacks on the Earth from Elemental Monsters was not high on the list.

The news that the last and most dangerous of these monsters, the Fire Elemental, was set to attack Prague in two days, and that Fury planned to take Peter along to help defeat it was an extra level of shock. Vision was about to object to his brother's participation, but Peter was providing a rather good argument himself for why he couldn't go to Prague. That Aunt May would be worried, the danger of his classmates discovering his identity..

"...Then the whole world will work out who I am, and then I'm done."

"He's got a point, you know" Harley cut in. "If my Mom knew what this Internship really involved.. well, she'd be pissed, even if she did know about my Iron Legion."

Peter gave Harley a thankful look, but still seemed somewhat unsettled by the other boy's presence.

"Alright" Fury surprisingly replied. "I understand.."

To Peter's great surprise and relief, Fury instructed Dimitri to return Peter to his Hotel. Vision smiled at Wanda, pleased with the new development. It seemed they had succeeded in keeping Peter safe. Wanda smiled back at him, but was slightly distracted. She had been subtly keeping one eye on Beck as everything unfolded. Something about the man just didn't feel right.

After Peter was safely out of earshot, however, everything changed.

"Hill" Fury instructed, "Have Parker's school trip redirected to Prague."

"Yes, Sir" Hill nodded.

"What?" Vision frowned.

"He's an Avenger now. He can't shirk his responsibilities."

"He doesn't" Vision argued. "He does so much for his neighborhood, foiling crimes. This trip is his first break, and he needs it. He's still just a boy."

"Besides, you have Vision and I now" said Wanda.

"And me" Harley cut in.

"Exactly" Wanda continued. "Harley's Iron Legion can fight from a distance. There's no reason for us to put children in danger."

"No offense" Beck interrupted, "I'm sure you guys are great, but we made our plan with Parker in mind.."

"I don't believe anyone asked you, Mr. Beck" Wanda snapped. "And any plan that requires a child to be successful seems like a pretty de pularie plan to me!"

"Peter Parker stopped being a child the second he put on that suit Stark made him" Fury cut in. "He's doing this job whether he likes it or not."

"But.."

"Don't take this the wrong way" Fury turned to Wanda, ignoring her interruption. "I'm glad you and Vision and little Iron Lad are here. We need all the help we can get.. But you're a wild card, Maximoff, Vision's been out of action, and Keener's untested."

"No I'm not!" Harley argued. "My Iron Legion.."

"Quiet, kid.. Parker has real field experience, you don't. Parker has a mostly clean on the field record.." Fury turned back to Wanda. "You definitely don't. I'll be damned if I'm going to leave the fate of the world up to a wild card, a partially broken android and Tony Stark's plan B!"

Wanda's eyes flashed scarlet. She wasn't sure what she felt more, hurt, or angry. She turned and stormed out of the control room. A deflated Harley followed not too far behind her.

Vision felt something flare in his synthetic gut. For the first time since his resurrection, maybe the first time in his whole life, he was angry.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Sir.." He glared at Fury, "I respect you.. but I do not think I like you very much."

With that, he followed his fiance' and his brother back outside.

Watching the scene unfold, Quentin Beck smirked.

Notes:

Translation:

de pularie: shitty

#scarlet vision #ScarletVision #Scarlet Witch #wanda maximoff #The Vision #peter parker #harley keener #wanda x vision #vision x wanda #Nick Fury #spider man #spider man far from home #Avengers #MCU #far from home fix it

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lupinscorner · 6 years ago

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we belong together pt. 3 (teddy lupin)

pairing: teddy lupin x reader

request: “another could be they stay at Teddy’s house for the first time as a couple during the summer. Maybe they could have a sass battle bc we all now Remus is a sassy cinnamon roll”

original request (part 1): “could you a teddy lupin x reader were marauders AND LILLY AND TONKS are alive and teddy and the reader are best friends and she’s like a mini version of James AND Sirius and they are walking through the hallways and boys flirt w/ the readers so teddy gets PROTECTIVE and the reader puts him aside and doesn’t really that the marauders and moms are RIGHT THERE and the reader asks teddy we he’s so jealous and he FLIPS and tells the reader he loves her and they become a couple. super fluffy”

takes place: teddy’s seventh year

part 1

part 2

part 4

part 5

a/n: so I know that the request was for over the summer, but I didn’t feel that it fit in with the timeline of the imagines well, so I just changed it to spring break. Also, I wasn’t quite sure how to orchestrate a ‘sass battle’ but I tried my best, so hopefully it wasn’t shit. Enjoy!

The train compartment was littered with sweets wrappers. Chocoloate frogs cards had tucked their way into the space between the leather set cushions, and an Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans carton on the floor.

The train ride had mostly consisted of you and Teddy goofing off in your compartment together, which, luckily enough, you two had been able to find without having to share it with a random student you barely knew. Halfway through, you remembered groggily falling asleep on Tedd’s shoulder, and you had just woken up.

Teddy looked down at you, and began to speak.

“We’re almost here, love. Just about to arrive at the station.”

Attempting to put your thoughts in order, it took you a few seconds to fully awaken and realize where you were and where you were heading.

“Right, right, I’m staying with you for break,” you said tiredly, stretching your arms out and yawning. Teddy grinned.

“Yep. First time as a couple. ”

You started to pick up the stray wrappers on the floor, collecting them into a pile on the seat beside you.“But I’ve been to your house for break plenty of times before.”

“Anyway, I still think it’s fun. Though it sucks that the break is only five days long.” Teddy picked up the Every Flavour Beans carton, flattening it out into a rectangle before placing in the pile you had created. “Besides, my parents might have to tell us not to do any ‘fooling around’.”

You stifled a laugh as Teddy gave you a confident wink. “You're such a dork.”

From the window, you saw the flashes of greens and blues turn to the grey of concrete and slow, allowing you to make out King’s Cross Station. Finally, the train came to a halt, and the sound of compartment doors opening filled your ears.

“Guess that’s our queue to go,” you said, standing up and grabbing your bags with one hand. Teddy nodded, taking his own backs and following you down the narrow hallway of the train.

Outside, you saw Remus and Tonks, waiting of you and Teddy. You and Teddy headed towards them, waving.

“Hey, its to good to see you guys!” Teddy greeted, giving both of his parents a hug. Feeling a little awkward you stood to the side, but then you were engulfed in a hug from both of your boyfriend’s parents.

“And y/n! Oh its so good to see you again! I’m so happy you could stay with us,” Tonks gushed.

You smiled gratefully, hugging them tightly. “Its so good to see you too!”

“Well, we should head back to the house, then. Teddy, y/n, you both passed your apparition tests, though I’m not quite sure how Teddy did it,” Remus said cheekily, raising an eyebrow at his son who just smiled triumphantly. “We’ll just apparate back to our house, alright?”

You nodded. And with a pop! you were there.

After being shown to the guest room, you and Teddy plopped down on his bed together, laying with your head in the crook of his neck and his arm casually around your side.

Tonks opened the door, glancing in. “Now that you two are a couple, the door stays open. You hear me?” You nodded and laughed, partially out of embarrassment.

You turned to Teddy, who was smirking.

“I told you so.” You just, shook your head while laughing and kissed him lightly. Looking at your watch, you attempted to stand up, but found Teddy’s arms keeping you in.

“Listen, it’s been a long day for the both of us, and its already ten. I’m just gonna change into my pajamas, and then I’ll come back, alright?” You consoled, finally standing up.

Teddy crossed his arms, disappointed. “Fine.” You just chuckled.

After chaning into your pajamas, brushing your teeth, and doing everything you needed to do to get ready for bet (and after a lot convincing to get Teddy to do the same), you finally were ready for bed. But, knowing your boyfirend, he obviously made you stay and lay with him. He stroked your hair lightly as you fell asleep in his arms.

---

Putting another spoonful of cereal in your mouth, you admired the quaintness of Teddy’s family. Everyone was seated at an adorable table, in a rustically decorated house that for sure was done by Remus, but whose walls were adorned with quidditch posters and bright paintings, most likely the work of Tonks.

“Oh, hey dad, can y/n and I got to George’s joke shop today?” Teddy asked, taking a sip from his water.

Remus considered. “I don't know, didn’t you say that you and y/n both have a couple of tests to study for over break?”

“Well maybe, but I’ll study for them later. I promise I’ll get a good grade.”

“Sure, Ted,” Remus said, chuckling.

“Okay, okay, so maybe in the past I haven’t gotten great marks, but this time-”

“Remember when you said that last test? And then you got a Troll,” Remus sassed, stirring his tea nonchalantly. You couldn’t help but laugh at the father-son relationship, and the entire nature of the whole conversation.

Teddy got out his puppy dog eyes. “You wouldn’t want to take away a fun experience from y/n, would you?”

You cut in. “You know, I’ve really been to the joke shop multiple times-”

“Shh, darling, I’m taking care of it.” You rolled your eyes and giggled at your boyfriends silly nature.

“Alright, alright you can go, but I better be seeing a passing grade on your test.”

“Yes!” Teddy exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. “Y/n, we gotta go get ready!” And with that, Teddy had grabbed your arm, pulling you up the stairs.

---

After a fun visit to the joke shop, where you got a personal discount from George (who was one of your favorite people in the whole world) on a couple pranking products, you and Teddy were cuddling on his bed. He was playing with his wand, using a simple charm to lift a quill threw the air.

“So, umm, hey Teddy?” You asked, nervously.

He looked at you, confused. “What’s wrong, babe?”

You tried to find the words to explain. “Well, I sort of got this offer to do this internship at Illvermony. You know how I really want to be a professor? It would be for the rest of the school year, and half of the summer. And...I think I might take it.”

“What?”

masterlist

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therandomfics · 7 years ago

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DISTANCE: 3

Sonny,

I’m sorry that it came to this, that your last contact from me will be in the form of this letter. Truthfully, I have no idea when you’ll read this, or if you’ll read it, but I want to cover my bases and let you know a few things. We’ve been together for how long now? Two and a half years? I’ve barely seen you for the last 8 months. I respect your line of work and appreciate your commitment to serve and protect, but at what point were you going to protect our relationship? When we first met, I couldn’t believe how wonderful you were. Do you remember? You interviewed me, and then Mr. Barba prepped me for trial. I was so thankful I was able to save that woman’s life, so thankful that I made a difference, and so thankful to have met you. My Knight in Shining Armor. The first handful of dates we went on left me reeling - I felt manic if I’m being honest. I just couldn’t believe that someone like you wanted someone like me. Even after we moved in together, or rather I moved in with you, it still felt like pure magic. I never wanted that feeling to end. Yes, I’ve lied awake at night, wishing that I’d never met you, wishing that you’d turn in your shield and take up law, or anything other than leaving me for as long as you did. But you know, I was patient, and forgiving. I trusted you to be the one that would never betray me. I know you know why it’s so important to me that I give my all and get the same in return. You know my parents were together nearly 30 years when my Mom left my Dad for some random man she met online and destroyed my concept of trust. You know the horrors of dating I experienced - it’s not easy being a woman, especially in a big city. You know the absolute nightmare my mother has become and how she tried to pit me against you so many times just to feed her own sick, sad little mind... and I never let it happen. Sonny, you were number one in everything. Nothing came before you, but I will not promise that nothing comes after you, because I deserve something more. You’ve left me lonely for too long. You didn’t check in, you didn’t have anyone check in on your behalf, nothing. If I hadn’t seen you with her.. I would have thought you were dead. You told me you were going back to find out what was going on, why someone would be trying to contact me, and then you’d be back. I understood - I was angry, but I fucking understood. Then, after I’ve been missing you for so long, I see you on the platform kissing that woman like you’ve loved her longer than you pretended to love me. What did I do to deserve this? Amanda said you’re deep under and you’re trying to make friends with someone who know what’s really going on in hopes that you can bust a ring. A ring of what? Pedophiles? Rapists? Traffickers? Who cares? I don’t? I’m so sorry it ends like this, darling. Please know that I will forever think of you as the man who taught me how to love and simultaneously want to kill myself at the same time. What a delight - what a SKILL SET you must have to make me feel so wildly unstable. I’d say I’m proud of you, but only if that translated to burn in Hell.

Wishing you the best...

Y/N

You sealed the letter in an envelope and left it lying on Sonny’s pillow for his long awaited return. A return, of course, for which you would not be present. It took no time at all to reach out to a friend in Brighton Beach and ask if you could stay with her for a bit, as things had gotten murky with your boyfriend. The neighborhood was a bit further from work, but you didn’t mind. After all, you’d no longer be in any rush to come home in the hopes that you’d find Sonny. You’d just be going home to Kristin and her childish but sometimes amusing boyfriend. Plus, it was only temporary, you reminded yourself.

You changed your number, deleted your Facebook and Instagram, and created a new e-mail account in hopes of moving on and getting things together again. Sonny’s name had stayed on the lease and rent was drafted monthly from his account, so you weren’t too terribly concerned with that portion, either. Even more, you had started taking a new route to work just in case he tried to find you. For all you knew, though, he was still undercover, playing house with his new girlfriend. It occurred to you in a painful fashion that it was possible that his charade had been going on for quite some time - but, you weren’t worried about any communicable diseases, as you hadn’t been intimate with him in almost 9 months. It had been so long since you’d seen him, you had to admit you’d felt single but betrothed for so long, that you didn’t know how to act anymore.

“Alex is gonna invite some friends over tonight, cool?” Kristin asked you before you headed to work. It was too early for conversation but she was doing you a huge favor by letting you stay there, leaving you no option but to be polite.

“Yeah, no problem, you know that. I’m not gonna be home until like 8 or 9 tonight. The kids have their poetry reading tonight and I promised I’d supervise,” you explained as you slung your bag over your shoulder. “But yeah, definitely fine with me. See you tonight.”

When you finally arrived back home that night, you were surprised to see that Kristin hadn’t been lying. Usually her some people meant at least fifteen people crowded into the apartment, but this time it really was only Kristin, Alex, and three of their friends. Two females and one male, whose names you didn’t catch as you went to your room and secluded yourself from the festivities in the living room. They were playing cards and drinking, which was a fairly common way to pass the time for them, you’d noticed.

Even though you’d been staying with Kristin for about two months and had grown comfortable there, you wished you had your own place again. Before you met Sonny, you’d scored a loft for a steal and had stayed there for two years. But, along came Carisi and your life was flipped on its head. He changed so much of your day to day, you wondered how you’d ever move on without him.

There was a knock at your door as you were changing into more comfortable clothes. You grumbled and opened it to find the mysterious man in the hall. It was a welcomed interruption. Human interaction normally meant not thinking about Sonny, and when he was a 6′1″ linebacker build with brown eyes and a mess of brunette curls, you were obliged to interact.

“Hi?” you asked, brow arched.

“Hey. Sorry to bother you. Alex said that you might have a phone charger?” he asked and held up his dying phone.

“I do. Yeah, I’ll grab it,” you offered and walked over to your desk to unplug the cord. “When you’re done with it you can just leave it in the living room, I’ll grab it in the morning.”

“Uh.. I was actually hoping I could hide out for a while,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Kristin and Alex are about five minutes away from being pornographic and Jennifer and Rachelle are.. not far behind. I’m the DD so I can’t exactly leave them. But, if not it’s totally fine!”

You shrugged and handed him the charger. “You’re welcome to hang out here. I was just gonna watch TV for a while.”

“Thanks. I’m Ryan by the way.” He plugged the charger into an outlet and plugged his phone in, setting it down on the floor. He pulled the chair out by your desk and sat down, considerate enough not to assume he could sit on your bed with you.

“Y/N. Nice to meet you, Ryan.” You sat down and turned on the TV in your room, scanning until you found a B-Rated horror movie on Netflix and settled in. Your bed was against the wall, acting as a massive couch lined with pillows and blankets. It was comfortable, and you felt slightly selfish for making Ryan sit at the desk. “You’re welcome to sit over here, by the way. I know that’s an uncomfortable angle and a hard chair.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he confessed and stood up, finding a spot as far away from you as he could. “You haven’t been living here long have you? I feel like I’ve only seen you once.”

You nodded absently and pulled your knees to your chest. “Just like, a couple months. I had a failed relationship and exiled myself to Brighton,” you explained with a small laugh.

“Me too, actually. That’s why I hadn’t been hanging out with Kris and Alex as much. My girl - ex girl - wasn’t a fan of their company, said they were too wild. I dunno, they seem alright to me. It’s good to be free again.”

You looked over at him and smiled. “You might be onto something. It is nice to know that I don’t have to expect anything. Things just are the way that they are.”

“You’re really gorgeous though. I doubt you’ll be on the market too long - unless you want to be,” he added quickly. Compliments and common sense.

“I dunno about that one, Ryan. I thought I had a good one last time - you know, being so pretty and all - but he wasn’t really around much. Left me pretty lonely, especially the last almost year of the relationship.” You sighed, and then kicked yourself mentally. You didn’t want to appear vulnerable but there you were, admitting freely that you hadn’t been intimate in almost a year. “It’s fine though, you know, I’m tough and everything.”

The blush that flashed across his cheeks meant that he knew what you’d accidentally confessed. “I’m sorry that you had to experience that. I hope that when you’re ready, you’ll find someone who gives you the attention that you definitely deserve.”

Embarrassed, you averted your eyes to the television in time to see a poorly made up zombie trudging through the woods outside of an unsuspecting family’s home. You suddenly felt awkward, your face burning and your heart racing. The freedom of knowing that you could lean over at any given point and touch this new friend of yours left your head spinning. You’d forgotten what it felt to be with anyone but Sonny, and truth be told you’d almost forgotten what that was like, too. You spent the next half hour staring at the screen without understanding what was happening; anything to avoid looking at him.

“Why do women wear heels when they’re staying at a cabin?” he asked after a while, watching a woman run through a dense forest in stilettos.

“Because they’re sexy.”

“You don’t need heels to be sexy, you know. A woman can look great in shorts and a hoodie,” he explained glancing over at you, pointedly, as you were wearing his described clothing combination.

“But stereotypical sexy means cleavage, heels, and an air of damsel in distress,” you countered, trying to ignore his compliment.

“That’s not really my thing, I guess.”

“Yeah, mine either. I mean the stereotypical man - the whole Harvard or Hudson look.. I hate it,” you confessed with a laugh. “Give me some flaws, some rough edges, something else.”

“You’re in luck. I am flawed, and very rough,” he replied, then laughed. “Not like that. I mean. No, no, nevermind.”

Pressing pause on the movie, you looked at the time and sighed. “Ryan, it is my bed time as of twenty minutes ago. I’m sorry to interrupt your internal conflict but I really have to tell you goodnight.” You scooted to the end of the bed and stood up, walking to the door.

He followed suit and grabbed his phone, pausing as he stood in between you and the door. The world moved slowly around you as he leaned down and placed his hand on the back of your neck, pulling you closer to his face. When he finally kissed you, he pressed his body to yours and pushed you back against the door frame. It was aggressive and sexy, but it wasn’t right. You pulled away a few moments later and stared up at him in confusion. Yes, you had enjoyed it, but it just wasn’t right.

“I.. uh..” you stammered, taking a step back. “I really need to sleep. I’ll see you around?”

“Goodnight,” he said with a smile, and headed back down the hall. He turned around a few seconds later and stopped. “Hey, also? Next week Jennifer is hosting a Halloween at her place in Queens. Go with me. You’ll have a good time. I was thinking about being a Priest but I’m not sure yet. I’ll pick you up.”

Once Ryan left, you shut and locked the door, fighting back the need to sob uncontrollably as you washed your face and brushed your teeth. You slept like absolute hell that night, dreaming of Sonny everytime you closed your eyes. Had you made the right decision? Who knew if he’d even read your letter yet.

#sonny carisi x reader #detective carisi x reader #carisi x reader #svu fanfiction #dominick carisi #sonny carisi

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hela-avenger · 7 years ago

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Fix You

Author: hela-avenger

Word Count: 3441

Request contd @words-from-the-heart26: maybe loki helping the reader , she was hurt in battle and is having trouble controlling her powers , she feels tired , angry , etc and loki wants to help her

Maybe something about loki thinking about his mom frigga and the reader help him about it.

A/N: This is super late and I am sorry but here it is! SEQUEL TO FEEL MY LOVE! If you’ll like to be tagged on my Loki Tag List or All Work Tag list, send me a comment/message/ask...

Feel My Love

Hela-Masterlist

Loki always feared the day that Code Green would be called. His experience with the Hulk was one that haunted him even to this day. It restrained his relationship with Banner though either of them wasn’t really bothered by this.

The day that Code Green was called in the compound would be the day that Loki would seal himself in his room. Except, the same couldn’t be applied to you as much as he begged you to stay within the safety of his sealed doors.

FRIDAY had warned them of Code Green even though the flashing lights around the compound had beat her to the news.

At the sight of them, you were quick to change into your uniform.

“You are not needed,” Loki tried to convince you. “You will only get in the way. Romanoff can handle this.”

“The Hulk appearing in the compound will leave a mess emotionally for Banner,” you tell him. “I have to be there for him.”

Loki reaches to pull you back into bed, but you slip out of his arms.

“I’ll be back soon,” you assure him. “I promise we can go back to cuddling once I’m done.”

Before Loki could refute that, you are out of the door without another word.

He wished he could go back in time and change your mind. Tell you that you were not a field agent like the rest of them. Tell you that the Hulk was uncontrollable in his rage. Tell you that he loved you and for the sake of his heart to please listen to him.

It was concerning how many reasons he came up with ever since you’ve been bed bound and unconscious. It was the only way he could pass the time as you laid unmoving.

Loki recalled how the alarms had stopped that day and relief had flooded over him. He waited for you to come back soon and you didn’t. This forced him out of the safe haven of his room and towards the wreck of Tony’s laboratory. Before he could even reach the lab, Thor came to find him and explain what had occurred.

Natasha had been injured early on in the Hulk predicament and so when you stepped in, trying to sing the beast into submission, it did not end well.

All you had tried to do was help and it had gotten you hurt.

Severely hurt.

He took a deep breath and continued to sit patiently by your side as he waited for you to wake. It should be soon, Dr. Cho had assured him this, but his patience was running thin and the worry was overwhelming him.

By chance, your eyes flutter open but close immediately at the harshness of the lights in the room. Loki’s quick to lower them and you let out a sigh of relief.

“How are you doing, love?” Loki asks you as he returns to your side, his hand tightly holding yours.

You open your mouth to speak, but no words come out. Your hands reach your throat and you wince at the bruising around the skin. You look at Loki awaiting an explanation but his eyes don’t meet your stare.

Loki can feel anxiety run through him and he fails to realize that it is not his own. His own nerves were wracking at what he had to tell her.

“You have a few bruised ribs and a fractured femur,” Loki explained to you. “Major bruising on your abdomen and legs, a small concussion, but you’ll be fine in a few weeks.”

Your eyes desperately search his as you frantically pointed at your throat. Loki sighs at this and looks down at his hands in defeat.

“You started to sing,” Loki reminds you sadly. “The Hulk didn’t appreciate this so he strangled you before throwing you around.”

Your hands grab his tightly waiting to hear more about the state of her throat.

“Your vocal cords were severely damaged in the altercation,” Loki tells you. “Dr. Cho is unsure when your vocal cords will recover if they recover. I’m sorry, Y/N. Your voice is gone indefinitely…”

Tears burned in your eyes as you heard this. Without your voice, your powers were void. You would no longer be able to help your new friends. You would be forced to leave now and where would you go. What would you do then?

Loki’s quick to embrace you as the tears escape your eyes and don’t cease to stop. If your voice had been present, the whole compound would be able to hear you scream in agony and pain, but all that left your throat was silence, deafening silence.

You were finally released out of the medical wing of the compound and were free to return to your shared suite with Loki. He aids you in rolling your wheelchair back to your room as you inspect the Stark tablet that was given to you in your release.

With your damaged vocal chords, you were unable to speak and Tony thought it best to give you some kind of a voice until you recovered.

If you recovered.

You shook the thought away and merely hoped for the best as you returned to the comfort of your room.

You shouldn’t have been surprised to find the room covered with a bouquet of flowers, stuffed animals, and get well cards. The team had overwhelmed you once more and the anxiety of your lost voice returned full force.

A vase of flowers falls to the ground creating a mess which Loki is quick to clean.

“That’s odd,” he comments as he throws the fragments away. He returns to your side and helps you to settle in bed.

“Do you need anything?” Loki asked you after he helped you settle into bed.

You type out a response which FRIDAY relays to Loki.

“Water, please.”

“Of course, love,” he answers. “It’s best if you take your pain medicine as well and get that over with.”

You nod at this and merely stared at the blank tablet before throwing it aside. You let out a silent sigh before settling into the nest of pillows and allowing it to swallow you whole.

“Need anything else?” Loki asked you as he handed you the glass.

My voice, you thought.

You shake your head and tried to finish the glass of water even though your throat protested the movement.

Loki had picked up a novel from your shelf and laid next to you. His arm pulled you over to him, tucking you into his side, as he read with his smooth voice. You tried to pay attention, but find your mind straying back to your current predicament.

You wished you could speak.

Talk about how frustrated and afraid you are.

You wished you could sing.

Just sing…

The emotions inside you were overflowing and growing as time went on. You were drowning in them and barely keeping afloat.

You were too distracted by these thoughts that you failed to notice Loki’s silence.

You failed to notice how his silence was soon replaced with gasps that attempted to regain air.

He was suffocating.

You turn to him in concern and watch as he pulled at his chest. His eyes find yours in shock and he’s released by the sudden spell.

You motion to him in confusion for what occurred, but he seems equally confused.

“I was…” he swallows nervously before continuing, “I was overwhelmed by emotion. I couldn’t breathe...”

Loki turns to you connecting the odd occurrence back to you.

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

You stare at him unsure of what he meant before it hits you. Without your song or your voice, your emotions have no anchor. They were free to do as they please and the immensity of your fears and anxieties decided to spread to the one around you.

“Y/N,” Loki states as he pulls your face towards him. “Look at me, love. I think you’re having a panic attack. Look at me.”

Your eyes peer into his as you try to reel back the emotions that were exploding within you. Loki continues to call out your name and caresses your cheek.

“Breath with me, love,” he whispers as his chest rises visually for you to follow. “Just breathe.”

You do as he instructs and took a long and deep breath. Your emotions simmer down and the room around you stops shaking.

“There we go,” Loki whispers as he pulls you into his arms for comfort. “There we go.”

The panic attacks appeared every once and a while and occasionally in moments of complete solitude in which your mind recalled the situation you were in. FRIDAY would announce your attack and Loki would soon appear to calm you down. The panic attacks finally stopped soon after that, but not for a good reason.

Loki had aided you in every way he could, but at this moment he had no clue as to what to do. He watched as you sat in the corner of your room staring blankly at the bare wall. Your wounds had healed and you were free to go anywhere you pleased, but you remained locked in your room with no desire for anyone’s company.

Yes, the panic attacks were gone and that should have been a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t. Loki feared that the lack of the panic attacks were due to your feelings depleting over time. Your voice had not returned and so your emotions hadn’t either.

Loki shared his concerns and the team, considering you as one of their own, wanted to aid you in the same way you aided them.

They all had tried to coax you out but you could manipulate emotions like weapons and you brought out their insecurities with every visit.

It wasn’t your intention. You didn’t mean to push everyone away, but your remaining fears were spreading to them and so you isolated yourself to protect the fragile harmony that you had built over the past months.

By now, Loki was immune to the influences of your powers and so he remained behind to watch over you. You remained unmoved from that corner as you watched the world around you continue on with their lives.

He wished you would communicate with him, but your voice was still gone and you refused to use the tablet anymore. Your emotions no longer created tension in the air, but your eternal silence did. Loki wanted to know what was occurring inside the hidden depths of your mind which you no longer shared with him and so he did the only thing he could think of. He called out for external help.

A knock on your door causes you to tilt your head curiously at the incoming visitor. Loki lets out a sigh of relief and opens the door to let them in.

You can feel your fear rise within you but a soft touch on your shoulder eases you into a calm state. You look up in surprise to find your mother staring down at you with a small smile.

“Hey there, sweetie,” she greets you.

You give her a tearful smile before lunging into her waiting arms that exhaled serenity and security.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Loki states as he watches the scene unfold in front of him. Neither of you responds, too involved with catching up with one another, to not notice his departure.

You were happy to see your mother here and having the bursts of your emotions controlled by her presence put you at ease.

“Your boyfriend called me,” your mother explains as she took a seat next to you. “Which really, Y/N? Loki? The man who attempted to take over New York? We’re going to discuss that detail later.”

You let out a silent chuckle at this already imagining how that conversation would be like.

“He told me you’ve been having trouble with your gift,” she tells you. “Is that true, sweetheart?”

You nod at her and your mother smiles kindly at you. Her hand reaches for the fading bruises on your throat and massages the skin lightly.

“Loki explained what occurred,” she states. “I think I know what’s going on with you.”

You look up at her waiting to hear the solution to this problem.

“You lost yourself, didn’t you?” she asks you. “The moment your voice was gone, you lost who you were.”

You look away from your mother’s gaze and she lets out a heavy sigh.

“You are more than this gift we possess and you know that,” she tells you. “It’s not because of your powers that you found yourself here.”

You shake your head at this causing your mother to let out another sigh.

“Before you found that song was your access to our gift, you were always so sweet and kind to everyone you came across with. You would put others before yourself and here you are doing it again. You knew of the dangers of aiding the Hulk and yet you still took them because you cared to help others before taking care of yourself.”

Your mother took a deep breath and tilted your chin so you could look at her.

“It is your greatest strength and your most debilitating weakness,” she tells you. “But it what makes you, you.”

Your mother smiles at you and you can feel her happiness spread from the touch of her hand.

“That is who you are. A healer,” she tells you. “And you are more than your voice.”

Loki watched as Dr. Cho flashed a light through your open mouth. She clicks the flashlight off and you close your mouth while you waited for her to finish transcribing her notes on the tablet. You look nervous, but your mother takes a hold of your hand and you offer her a thankful smile.

Loki was pleased to see you out of the room and to see a smile grace your lips once more. He watches as your mother and Dr. Cho discuss for a minute before a smile grows on your lips and remains there.

He could feel happiness emit from the room and wondered if that was your powers again or his own emotions getting the best of him.

Your eyes find him and you beckon him into the room. Loki’s nervous and rightfully so because everyone is staring at him as he makes his way inside. Your smile keeps him steady and he stands in front of you waiting for the good news to be shared.

“Is everything ok?” he asks Dr. Cho before his eyes land on you. The smile on your lips grows wider at the answer you could now provide for him..

“Yes,” you whisper, your voice cracking a bit due to its disuse. “Everything’s perfect.”

Loki can’t help but smile as he hears your voice for the first time in months.

“You can…” Loki starts to say before your laughter interrupts him. He smiles at the sound coming from your mouth and he’s quick to embrace you.

“I got my voice back,” you tell him. “Singing will take awhile, but my voice… I got it back.”

Loki presses a kiss on any open skin he could reach. He peppered kisses on the side of your face, your jaw, and your neck. You giggled at the sensation and allowed him to have this. This was as much as a relief to him as it was to you.

“Thank you for everything, Loki,” you tell him. “Thank you for not giving up on me. I love you so much.”

Loki smiles at those words and presses a kiss on your lips.

“I love you too,” he tells you.

You walk your mother back to the helicarrier that brought her here in the first place. Loki had opted to remain behind in your room while you wished goodbye to your mother. She hadn’t attempted to hide her distaste for Loki and he picked up on it easily.

“Thanks for coming here and setting me straight,” you tell her.

Your mother smiles at this and pressed a kiss on the top of your head.

“You just needed your mom, that’s all,” she tells you. “I’m glad that Loki called me.”

“Oh,” you say in mock surprise. “Did you just admit to my boyfriend actually doing some good?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” your mom exclaims. “He’s not… completely bad. I can see that he loves you… can sense it too.”

You smile at this and nod.

“Yeah, Loki… he never fails to show me how much he loves me,” you tell her fondly as you recalled that night when he confessed his emotions for you. “He went through all of this with me and patiently waited beside me as I lost myself. He never gave up on me and he called you so he knows me well enough by now. I love him. I truly do.”

“Then I guess I can accept this relationship of yours,” your mother chuckles out. “Wait till your father hears about this though.”

You let out a groan and your mother let out another laugh.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

You bid your mother goodbye and watch her get on board into the helicarrier. Clint is kind enough to pilot her journey home and you watch them fly off into the distance.

It didn’t take long for Loki to find you after your mother’s departure. He embraces you from behind as you stood on the platform that looked over the long winding road of the compound. His perfect timing told you that he was waiting until your mother left to rejoin you. You wondered if he was afraid to confront her or if his emotions laid elsewhere.

“She likes you, you know?” you offered to him. “I think you should be concerned more with my father especially after my mom tells him we’re dating.”

Loki lets out a dramatic sigh and digs his head deeper into the crook of your neck. He presses a soft kiss there and you smile at the small act.

“I don’t care about what your parents think of me,” Loki states before quickly retracting his thought. “I mean I do care because they brought you into this world and raised you to be who you are now, the person I love, but…”

“But what?” you ask him.

“It’s nothing,” Loki responds. “Forget about it.”

“No, tell me,” you prompt him. “It sounds important.”

Loki remains silent and you tilt your head to look at him. He ignores your gaze but you can see that he was trying desperately to hide his emotions from you.

“You’re sad,” you pinpoint easily which causes Loki to let out a sigh. “Why?”

There’s a brief pause of silence but Loki makes up his mind and offers you a response.

“Your mother reminded me of my own,” Loki states. “Wise, caring, and headstrong.”

“Loki…”

“I’m fine,” he whispers before he cleared his throat. “Just I thought I was over her...”

“I understand,” you tell him. “Those kind of emotions are permanent. They’re defining.”

“The ones you can’t sing away,” Loki recalls.

“Yeah,” you whisper. “It makes you who you are and I’m sorry that something so deep and sorrowful has that effect on you but you have to focus on the positive.”

“And what is that?”

“Because this emotion, this mourning, as horrible as it feels having it return time and time again is a reminder, a tribute, to someone you once loved and impacted you,” you explain to him. “And your mother, who rests in Valhalla, senses when you think of her and she sends your love.”

Loki sadly smiles at this and presses another kiss on the bare skin of your neck.

“She would have loved you,” Loki whispers. “I love you.”

“I know,” you whisper in return a warmth spreading at hearing those word once again. “I love you too.”

Loki takes a deep breath and you smile as he rests his chin on your neck. From were you both stood at the edge of the helicarrier pad the world looked so small, but in his arms, you felt anchored and steady.

Wounds that were physical and emotional would heal if Loki was with you and if you were with him. He will fix you and you will fix him because you loved him and he loved you.

So for the first time in weeks, you started to sing,

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you.

Tags: @unicorniorosacomefrutillas @what-didido @thesilentbluesparrow @oddly-drawn-muse @josiehosiedaninja @hp-hogwartsexpress @jmb959 @astudyoftimeywimeystuff @hellocookiecutter @teresaoliva20 @steve-rogers-personal-hell

#loki x reader #prince loki x reader #loki odinson x reader #loki laufeyson x reader #loki fanfic #loki marvel #loki (marvel)#feel my love #fix you #reader fic #reader insert #fluff #angst #empath!reader #loki x enhanced!reader #marvel au #thor au

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allenmendezsr · 5 years ago

Text

500 Scrapbooking Sketches

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/500-scrapbooking-sketches/

500 Scrapbooking Sketches

Buy Now

“Amazing Scrapbooking Secrets Brings Special Family Moments Back To Life . . . Transforming a Mountain of Photos into Raw Teary-Eyed Emotion.”

Now you can stop fussing over blank pages and start producing magazine quality pages, even long time scrapbookers will be envious of…even if you have never scrapped before.

“500 Scrapbooking Sketches – affectionately known as my Bible”

“I am one of those scrapbookers who can never seem to get started on a layout. I push paper and embellishments around for hours and still have no success, but since I got my copy of 500 Scrapbooking Sketches (affectionately known as my Bible) I have been completing pages in no time! I’ve even had to buy a new album because I’ve filled my other albums! Thank you so much!”

– Jaine Collins, Australia

Sunday, August 16th, 2020

From: Jennifer Gormly

Dear Friend and Scrapbook Lover,

When you’ve ever wanted to easily create jaw-dropping scrapbook pages in less time than it takes to brew a cup of tea (transforming all those precious photos and recording your treasured memories)…while saving time and expressing your personality…then this will be the most important message you ever read.

Here’s Why . . .

My name is Jennifer Gormly and until 2004, I was your basic scrapbook novice.

I was an emotional basket case.

One day I would have Van Gogh inspirations and creativity. And the next I couldn’t decide which box of photos to start on. I swear I have sat many heart-wrenching hours swearing to myself . . . “I was going to finish ‘at least’ one page before hubby gets home”.

Doesn’t it drive you nuts? I had nothing to show for all my efforts, even after months of working regularly. There was no way to know how each session would end. And it wasn’t for trying, lord knows I tried, I just didn’t know where to start. I had too many options and nothing ever seemed to fit right.

Fortunately I’m The Kind of Woman Who Never Gives Up . . . Just Ask My Husband!

This is when I discovered the ‘real-life’ secrets to producing eye-popping designs. And my scrapbooking life changed forever after just a few short days of trying these new secrets. . .

I had eliminated ‘scrappers block’, creating higher quality pages more often than I ever had before (it was as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders)

I noticed myself drawn easily into my scrapbooking . . . as it no longer felt like a chore. (It became fun again and you should have seen the look on my mother’s face when I showed her my new pages.)

Plus – incredibly…

Many of My Friends and Family Members Started Begging Me to Show Them “How I Did It”!

And it just keeps getting better and better! My endless trail of pictures has become manageable…and I became “super woman like” to my fellow scrapbookers as if I have special creative powers.

It’s not magic at all!

What I discovered had nothing to do with my ability to be creative or knowing where to start. . . and everything to do with these little insider scrapbooking secrets I discovered. These secrets involved using “Scrapbooking Sketches” I luckily uncovered this shortly after I got started back in 2004. Back then, I was looking to socialize with other family-oriented women who wanted to share their every day stories with supportive friends, swap ideas and have some fun.

Trust me I know what it feels like to stare aimlessly at a blank page for hours. In fact, I used to get so frustrated and upset when I would go scrapbooking with my sister-in-law, because by the time I would get one page almost finished (if I was lucky to get one completed) she would already have 5 or even 6 beautiful pages put together. I keep wondering how this was possible. Maybe I lacked the creativity gene needed to produce work you would be proud to show your family.

Imagine how this felt – showing up week after week – with only half-finished pages. I think my family was starting to feel sorry for me. I’m sure they thought I was wasting my time and should throw in the towel and quit.

Lucky for you I didn’t. In fact, I began producing awe-inspiring pages during the commercials of my favourite tv show…and in a flash of insight, I had found the truth:

This Was A Huge Advantage Over Normal Scrappers!

I have to confess to you – I was no longer a slave to the creativity “monster” – I will explain how all this works later – how I was able to come up with stunning page designs, while expressing my unique personality. Yet it was never stressful…easy to get started and so much more enjoyable.

The overlooked and often forgotten technique of using Scrapbooking Sketches is so simple, yet so effective, that anyone – anyone — can use it to instantly transform dull-blank pages into fabulous masterpieces exploding with colour, gorgeous patterns, stunning embellishments and what ever else your imagination can dream of. Using only your precious photos and your favourite scrapbooking supplies. . .you’ll have all the other women drooling over your latest creations.

How can this simple secret do all this for you? Easy. . . because this secret. . .

Eliminates the Need To Be A Creative Genius, So You Know Where To Start Each And Every Time YOU Sit Down to Start Scrapbooking!

Anyway, there’s a good reason I’m telling you all this. You see, since 2004 the only way to begin using these amazing Scrapbooking Sketches was if you were to somehow stumble upon the free sketches I had been publishing online. These designs were small and hard to see, let alone figure out how to use them properly. Plus nothing was organized, meaning if you wanted to create a page with more than one photo, you had to search through the entire archive . . . basically eating up your entire scrapbooking time.

That was up until recently when I decided to put my nose to the grind stone and transform 500 of the best sketches into easy-to-find organized sections which include:

500 sketches total in the entire collection

127 sketches for one photo

132 sketches for two photos

108 sketches for three photos

56 sketches for four photos

35 sketches for five photos

21 sketches for six photos

21 sketches for six or more photos

Here’s how a sketch works: A sketch is basically a plan or outline to help you get started and give you an overview of your entire project. It allows you to see how your photos will be arranged and how the different elements of your page mesh together before you even start scrapping.

By using sketches you will be able to “test drive” your design deciding whether you like it before you crop a single photo allowing you to . . .

Discover the Secrets to Overcoming Procrastination and Indecision

As you more than likely already know, the biggest time wasters for scrappers includes indecision and procrastination. However, the minute you apply a sketch, you’ve already passed up these two monsters and your battle is half way over.

With a quick glance you’ll know exactly how everything will look and flow so you just “fill-in-the-blanks”.

Now you can begin to see how much time these “Scrapbooking Sketches” can save you. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Let me show you what else you can achieve:

500 pre-made single page layout sketches. (Quickly create pages while letting your imagination run wild.)

Discover how to sift through the sketch collection and find just the right sketch for each and every project.

Discover how to transform any sketch using only your personal style and flair into a creation leaving a statement about you.

Spend more time expressing yourself, rather than wasting your creative energy deciding where to start putting each element on the page.

Easily get ideas and inspiration whenever you need it and start creating page after page without procrastination.

Stop searching for a design that inspired you last week. Every sketch is organized allowing you to find it any time you need it.

Discover how to easily change and personalize a sketch to suit you.

Discover how the same sketch can be used over and over by simply changing your photos and the scrapbooking supplies you use. (No two pages will be alike).

Begin right away preserving your family’s precious moments, because you will get instant access to the entire collection. (I did this with busy moms in mind!)

No matter whether you are a traditional or a digital scrapbooker, you can start using these designs straight away.

These scrapbooking sketches were made for square layouts of any size including 12 x12, 8 x 8 and 6 x 6, giving you the flexibility to use them for any project you want.

Attention: No special skills are required to begin using these sketches properly. Even if you are a complete newcomer to scrapbooking you can produce the same quality of pages as women with many years of experience.

Anyone can start using these sketches immediately, even if you have never created a page before.

Plus: With a special segment of “Secret Instructions”, you’ll get to see how experienced scrapper’s take any single-page layout and morph it into a killer double page format. . . and how you can easily do the same.

And there’s more: You get my personal guide on how to make the most of your scrapbooking time so that you get more done more quickly and enrich your life through the joys of scrapbooking.

Plus You also get a Free downloadable book to crank up your creativity and guide you along to creating memorable gift cards. This snippet from my “Card Making Classroom” contains 7 easy-to-follow recipes for creating impressive cards. Just follow along, add a splash of your personality if you like, and let your inner child come out to play.

And you get a collection of 60 Christmas quotes specially collated and chosen with scrapbookers in mind. They include everything from the reflective tones of Charles Dickens to the playful silliness of Dr. Seuss so you will have something suitable for any Christmas project.

Can a simple sketch like this make that kind of difference in your scrapbooking?

You bet it can! I used it to create this layout:

Just read what other happy scrappers are saying:

“I’m whizzing through my photo’s . . .”

“Hi, I have enjoyed my scrapbooking sketches so much, I have completed so many pages over the weekend I astounded myself. It has been the best tool that I have bought since taking up scrapping.

I could never get started, never knew how to start, but with the sketches I am wizzing through my photo’s. I have altered, changed and rearranged the sketches to suit my style and photo’s but to have a basic starting point is great………………..Thankyou so much for the inspiration that I needed…………………..A very happy scrapper.”

– Tina Owen, Australia

“I printed them out and placed them in a book . . . extra inspiration!”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been printing and using your sketches for a little while now and I just love them. I have them all printed out and placed in a book. I have a scrapbooking night with a couple of my friends on Monday nights and the book comes out every week. So keep up the great work. We are really happy for the extra inspiration.”

– Elaine Powell, Australia

“I was in a major slump and some of your sketches just spoke to me!”

“I just wanted to say THANK YOU for sharing your sketches. I was in a major slump and some of your sketches just spoke to me!!! Off to finally scrapbooking for the first time in months!”

– Lindsay, USA

“My creative juices are back and flowing . . .”

“I’m writing to congratulate you on 500 Scrapbooking Sketches. I would class myself as an experienced scrapbooker having done it for over 10 years. I ran my own successful scrapbooking business, but since selling it have lost the passion to get back into scrapping and have only done a handful of pages over the last couple of years. I’m pleased to say thanks to your “500 Scrapbooking Sketches” that my creative juices are back and flowing and I’m starting to prioritise my scrapbooking again.”

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“YOU took the work out for me.”

“I love to scrapbook and do cards, but I also love to make handmade gifts for people. I absolutely hate the time it takes for ME to figure out the placement of pictures, journaling, and embellishments to put on a project. YOU took the work out for me! Now I can enjoy being creative and using all the techniques I’ve learned. And I love being able to adapt some of your ideas into other projects. Satisfied Customer.”

– Karen, Texas, USA

“We are having so much fun and creating the best pages …ever.”

“My apologies for not taking the time to thank you for the best book I have ever purchased – but I have been busy scrapping thanks to your sketches.

My girlfriend and I now set a challenge each week – for example we choose a sketch, colour, bling & one item tool that must be used eg. circle cutter and one item you cannot use eg. no rub ons. Oh and by the way we are not allowed to purchase any new items for our challenge page we must use what we have – which is nearly our own scrap book shop anyway. At the end of the week we get together to compare – it is amazing how your one sketch can be created differently and look perfect every time. We are having so much fun and creating the best pages we have ever done and completing more pages than we have ever done. We only have another 497 sketches to go. Thanks for assisting us in our challenge to be more creative”

– Di Ebert, Australia

“I’d be lost without it!!!”

“I am a sketch junkie…and this book was just the fix I needed!! I’d be lost without it!!! Thank you sooooo much.”

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“Great inspiration to me.”

“Thank you I can’t express enough thanks for 500 Scrapbooking Sketches. As a very busy working mum your scrapbooking sketches come as a great inspiration to me. They keep the scrapbooking dream alive!”

– Tracey Whitehill, Australia

Are these scrapper’s any different than you?

No they’re not.

They represent women from all walks of life who share the same passion for scrapbooking as you do.

The only the difference between them and you . . . they put their doubt aside . . . and gave these sketches a try. For them this book was worth it’s weight in gold—and was worth every penny.

If you too can put your doubt aside for a short time, you can see for yourself just what its like to create page after page without wanting to stop . . . get compliments on your work . . . and preserve every one of your family’s precious moments so fast . . . you will have time left over to pamper yourself!

Even Better, You’ll Eliminate “Scrapper’s Block” Without Even Thinking About It!

A lot of women all over the world are going to be furious with me for sharing this “secret weapon” with you…especially after wondering why they can’t create pages like yours.

This will be our little secret.

Oh – it won’t take long for you to start using these simple ideas. What an impact you will have on others. Most women are set in their ways, with too much how they “think” you and I should be scrapbooking. YOU are not such a person.

Besides – if you have stayed with me this far, you aren’t like other scrappers anyway.

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NOTE: This special may not last past the next few days. Once the introductory special price period is over (which could be in a few days, a week or even today) I may raise your investment to $49.77 – which is still an absolute bargain, however I do not want you to miss out on the introductory special.

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(a $29 Value)

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(a $27 Value)

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(an $18 Value)

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Grab all your materials and create a few magical pages. Take note of how fast you get the first two pages finished and lookin’ good.

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The ball is in your court, if you want to double fault and continue struggling to produce pages you are proud of . . . then do not invest.

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Warmly,

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P.S. HURRY! This is the special introductory price for Scrapbooking Sketches. Once the introductory special price period is over (which could be in a few days, a week or even today) I may raise your investment to $49.77 . . . which is still an absolute bargain, however I do not want you to miss out on the introductory price OR the 3 FREE Special Scrapbooking Bonus Gifts valued at $74.

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P.P.S. Don’t forget you have a full 60-days to evaluate every one of the 500 sketches inside this manual. You could be a long way towards catching up with your photos before the end of the guarantee. When you do . . . I would love to hear how they turned out! Click here to invest in the Scrapbooking Secrets!

0 notes

madminniefics · 8 years ago

Photo

still life

it all started in the stairwell. an art school au ft. skipped classes, wet paint, and finding art in the everyday.

The air whistled through the leaves on the branches above Mirella Santos’ head as she laid under the largest tree on campus. With eyes closed and a hand on the sliver of tan skin peeking from between her tiny pink crop top and even tinier black shorts, she listened to the sound of birds chirping and leaves rustling. It was her routine: wake up, drink a glass of coffee spiked with rum, and lay under her tree for an hour before painting. It was reinvigorating and it gave her time to relax while her type-A roommate, Billie Thomas, shuffled papers or switched outfits six times or paced back and forth or whatever else she did before she went to her business classes.

Rey leaned up on her elbows, pressed the home button on her phone, and smiled. It was nine: time to go back to her apartment and work on her newest landscape painting, which was just of the view outside her window. She had ten canvasses stacked in one corner of her room with matching landscapes in different color schemes. Everything from neon to greyscale as she searched for her signature style.

Tossing her tan backpack over her shoulder, Rey walked away, raking a hand through her black hair to dislodge the dry pieces of grass that she knew were stuck in her strands. She took slow, small steps towards her shared apartment ducking through classmates heading in the opposite direction towards campus. She caught a glance of herself in the window of her favorite boutique and smiled. Getting out of that tiny town in Pennsylvania had been the best thing that ever happened to her. Rey had never been as happy as she was since moving to Oxford. Even if her family called at all hours of the night.

Rey’s phone buzzed in her back pocket as she walked up the stairs to her apartment. With keys in hand, she swiped across the screen with the other before placing the phone up to her ear.

“Hi Mami,” she said, smiling as Mami’s voice rang through the speaker. They didn’t talk much due to the time difference and Mami’s busy schedule at the hardware store. That week alone she’d closed, opened, closed, and was opening again that morning. “You getting ready for work?”

“Yeah,” Mami sighed. The sound came in far away, as if Mami had put her on speaker. “I have to go in early today because the fucking alarm went off and you know i’m the only manager they can call.”

Rey could feel Mami roll her eyes from across the Atlantic. Four managers and yet Mami was still the one who ended up with most of the responsibilities on her shoulders. It was unfair but Mami would do anything to help Rey make ends meet. She listened to Mami go off about how shitty her fellow managers were as she walked onto the tiny landing just as one of her new neighbors' guests did, causing her to fall back against the wall and drop her phone as his shoulder clipped hers.

“I’m so sorry,” He huffed as he scrambled to keep his laptop from falling on the floor. Rey swiped her phone off the tile and let out a relieved breath when she saw the screen was intact. She could hear Mami asking what was wrong but couldn’t take her eyes away from the man in front of her. His eyes were the same color as her favorite green tea. She thought of the paint she had upstairs and whether she could replicate his eye color for the pastel landscape she was creating.

“It’s fine.” She smiled, pocketing her phone as she waited for him to move so she could start her day.

“I’m Harry,” He stood on the step below her. She couldn’t help but notice that he was still taller than her. But then again, at just over five feet, everyone seemed to be taller than Rey. Even her baby cousin Edgardo had passed her and he was barely thirteen.

“Nice to meet you, I'm Rey,”

He reached his hand out for her to shake. Rey hid the shiver that raced up her back at the feel of his ice-cold hand in hers. She clasped her hands together in front of her but still felt his hand around hers.

"See you around, Rey," Harry smirked and sent her a mock-salute as he walked down the stairs and out the door. Rey swallowed hard as she watched him leave before reaching into her pocket and placing her phone back up to her ear.

"Mami?" Rey waited for Mami to make a noise before continuing. "Perdon, es que..."

Her voice trailed off as she wracked her brain trying to formulate an excuse for what just happened. If she so much as mentioned a man she knew Mami would go off. Whether she would encourage it or tell Rey to focus on school all depended on Mami's mood. And Rey didn't feel like hearing it either way.

"Tenias alguien en tu apartamento?" Mami said casually. Rey knew better than to take the bait. She could almost see Mami smirking as the gears worked in her mind. She knew damn well Rey had been talking to a man.

"No, I bumped into someone on the stairs again,"

Rey stuck the key in the door as Mami sighed. Pushing the door open, Rey would bet a million dollars that Mami was about to tell her she needed to be careful. It wasn't the first time they'd had the conversation and it wouldn't be the last. Rey had always been clumsy. She'd always blamed it on her inability to focus on more than one thing at a time.

"Tienes que tener cuidado,"

"Si, Mami, yo se,"

"I'm just saying. If you break something Mami can't fly over to take care of you," Mami laughed but her voice was tinged with sadness. Rey frowned at her easel. She hadn't seen her mom in almost a year. Before moving away to university, she saw Mami everyday. She'd drive Rey to and from school whenever she could. On weekends they would go shopping together. When Rey had braces in tenth grade Mami would keep her out of school all day whenever she had orthodontic appointments. They would go to her appointment in the morning and in the afternoon they would see a movie.

They were more like sisters than mother and daughter.

"I'll let you go, baby, so you can work on homework or something. I'll call you tomorrow, it's my day off, finally," Mami laughed, this time more up beat, and Rey smiled. They said their goodbyes quickly before one of them cried. When Rey first left for school, they cried everytime they spoke on the phone. Now? Every once in a while.

Rey fought a yawn as she walked into her room to get her box of paints. Time to work on her eleventh landscape of the month.

•

Ever since running into Harry in the stairwell, Rey could do little other than think of his eyes. Instead of the landscapes that she'd painted almost obsessively for months, she'd taken to painting eyes. Everything she'd painted in the past month was colored in an assortment of greens as she tried, in vain, to recreate the not-quite-mint green color that haunted her every waking moment.

She had to see him again.

Yes. Yes! That was it. Harry was her muse and, without him, she would never be able to release herself from this funk. All she had to do was find him. That would be easy enough.

Right?

•

Turned out that knocking on her neighbors doors' on the weekend of a big midterm—yet another pro to being a visual arts major and not something deathly boring like English or math—was not something her neighbors were particularly into. Most were engaged in their study groups, wearing pajamas that were so dirty they looked like they could stand up by themselves, and sharing flash cards or quizzing each other. Things Billie would do with her fellow business majors. The types that, with no hesitation or provocation, would happily "explain" to Rey why visual arts is a "trash" major and that in "give or take six months after graduation you'll be working for us."

Rey couldn't handle business major ego. They truly believed they were the greatest thing to grace the Earth since...since...since Selena. And, bitch, nobody could touch Selena, Rey's idol, the reason she was following her passion. Even as it took her across an ocean to a country where she was alone.

Snatching the canvas from the easel, she threw the still wet work against the wall. The tear ducts were all wrong. The eyelashes? Even more so. Things that had worked before were suddenly no longer working and Rey didn't know what to do.

Her support system was an ocean away. They were busy with their lives 3,516 miles away from her. She promised them she was going to create a life from scratch in England. That they didn't have to worry about her because she was outgoing, friendly, and brave.

It was easy to say those things with the comfort of your family surrounding you, encouraging you, urging you to follow your dreams so they could live through you.

Didn't you know Titi Milta always wanted to live in England? She’s too old to do so herself, but she would love a postcard or two. Maybe even a letter! She would love a letter. Send Titi letters, Reysita.

Your Abuela Mirella, your namesake, loved to draw. She drew whenever she had a free moment between raising seven kids in a shack in the mountains of Puerto Rico and taking care of your Abuelo Josue when he deigned to show his face after running off with another woman in town until she kicked him out, learning what Abuela Mirella already knew: he was a piece of shit. But he was a piece of shit with a pension, and her children wouldn't starve just because she fell out of love with her husband. Drawing was the only thing that Abuela truly enjoyed doing. Estas cargando un gran legado, Reysita. Do it because Abuela couldn't.

But, perhaps what hurt Rey the most, were the reasons why her own Mami encouraged her.

No quiero que termines como yo, mis ojitos de oro. I want you to be someone. I want you to achieve more than I did. Be more than the girl who became pregnant at seventeen after a five minute, unremarkable, hook up in the back of a car with the captain of the baseball team. The girl who was forced to marry that boy because of the pregnancy. You know all the shit I go through at work, Rey. I don't want that for you. If you want to study in some other country, if that's what will make you happy, I promise I will make it happen.

And Mami never broke her promises.

Rey slumped to the floor in front of the easel. But what if that was too much pressure? What if she didn't want to write letters or draw because it was some legacy passed down from her favorite Abuela or do better because her Mami didn't want her to hate her life?

Scrubbing her face, Rey groaned and plopped on her side in the fetal position. She'd been in university for three years. For three years she'd been keeping up pretenses with her family.

Yes, Titi Milta, I have enough to eat.

Yes, Papi, I'll call you if I need anything.

No, Tio Padrino, you don't need to take time from your busy schedule to visit. Save the money for my prima Adriana's quinceañera. She had big hopes and you'd need that money to fulfill them.

Yes, Mami, I'm happy.

When would Rey do something for herself? Because it made her happy, not because her family expected her to do it so they could live through stories she told during Christmastime.

Pushing herself up with one shaky hand, Rey wiped her brow where beads of sweat had accumulated during her anxiety attack. She was breathing hard and unsure of what to do next. On any other day, she would call Mami. No matter that it was the middle of the night and Mami had closed the store the day before and it was her first day off in two weeks. Rey knew that Mami would answer.

And that's why she didn't call.

She scrambled up instead and retrieved the thrown canvas. Setting it back up on the easel, Rey tilted her head and squinted at the lonely eye. Closing her own, she conjured up Harry's face in her mind and smiled as she picked up a piece of kohl. With eyes closed, she drew what she saw behind them.

When she opened them thirty minutes later, she smiled. She'd actually created something she wouldn't be ashamed to display.

A black and white portrait of Harry, as seen through Rey's perspective.

On the canvas he was all bright, blinding smile and enchanting eyes that, somehow, you knew were heart-stoppingly green in person.

•

The next time she saw Harry it was in her beloved art supply store. The one on the outskirts of campus, where first years and students taking art classes for elective credits rarely ventured, that Rey had discovered her third week on campus when she got lost trying to find her psychology class.

(A required class, otherwise Rey would not be caught dead in a class where you might be made to take a test on a scantron sheet.)

Harry was standing in between the marker and paint aisles as if he couldn't decide which medium to use. A man after Rey's own heart. She'd convinced herself to stop looking for him because, as Mami always said, when you stop looking for something that's when it shows up.

Except.

Except she ducked into the canvas aisle to avoid him. Instead of facing the object of her daydreams, and one really weird dream about talking tootsie rolls, she ran away. The canvasses blurred together in front of her eyes as she took deep breaths. Closing her eyes tight, she breathed through her mouth as she hoped that Harry wouldn't walk down her aisle.

After she heard the ding of the front door three times, she decided it was safe to move to another aisle. Her walk was bouncy, her ponytail swung behind her, as she repeated her mission in her head: paint, and lots of it, in shades of green and peach.

•

Another day, another failed canvas.

This one, at least, had somewhat resembled Harry. It was the coloring that was all wrong. He'd come out looking like a vampire and that just would not do. Where were his rosy cheeks and matching lips? The minty green of his eyes? His skin bronzed from his holiday to the south of Spain (thanks, Billie, for that info)? It was all missing and those were the details that brought a piece, and a person, to life.

Instead of throwing the canvas across the room like she'd wanted, she turned on her reggaeton spotify playlist. Songs that she'd grown up listening to, songs that she remembered Papi rapping along to while they waited for the light to change, songs that Mami had taught her to dance to. The raunchy, not safe for work songs of her childhood that spoke casually and explicitly about sex, drugs, and other illicit things with women moaning in the background all while keeping up a perfect rhyme.

Rey had always wondered if those women were paid well.

The songs, with their strong bass beats, boomed from the speakers attached to Rey's laptop as she stood and began to dance along to the music. It began with her hips. She'd learned at a young age—some would say too young—how to mimic the beat of a song in the swing of her hips. The song began slow, giving Rey a chance to get into the rhythm, before dropping the beat thirty seconds into the song. She shook her hips and tilted her head back, hair dangling past her mid back, with a grin on her face.

When was the last time she'd felt that carefree?

Murmuring the lyrics under her breath, it was all too loud for her to hear the front door open or Billie announcing herself and her guest. It wasn't until a few minutes later, near the end of the song, when Rey turned around and opened her eyes that she realized she had an audience.

And not just any audience. The eyes she'd been trying to perfect for a month, the eyes that were doodled on every scrap of paper and most of the canvasses lining the perimeter of the room, were suddenly right in front of her. There, in her living room, stood her Harry. The man that she swore she would never see again after the failed encounter at the art supply store.

Rey cleared her throat and simultaneously pulled her grey tank top up and the hem of her soft, blue, sleep shorts down. Her cheeks burned as if she'd accidentally fallen asleep on the beach. Billie had one hand over her mouth, like she was trying her hardest not to laugh, while Harry was looking down at his feet. His cheeks matched Rey's.

She scrambled over to her laptop to turn off the music. Without it, the silence echoed in the quiet room until Harry cleared his throat.

"Nice to see you again," He smiled and scratched the back of his neck.

Rocking on the balls of her feet, Rey bit her lips and nodded. Billie looked between the two with furrowed brows.

"I'm missing something," She said. "Why are y'all being weird?"

You could always count on good, old, Southern Billie to be as blunt as possible in any and every situation. If you wanted someone to be subtle, you didn't want Billie. Nothing about the girl was subtle. Not the corkscrew curls in her afro, not her neon colored clothes, and especially not her personality. Billie was trying to keep her 4.0 gpa. She didn't have time to beat around the bush. Rey closed her eyes tight and squeezed the bridge of her nose. Harry laughed. Rey wished she could bottle up the deep hum that was his laugh so she could open it and use it whenever she needed inspiration.

Billie looked from Harry to Rey before shaking her head and walking into the kitchen. When she walked back in, with a glass of water and bag of chips in hand, Rey and Harry were still looking at each other awkwardly. Billie set her snack down on the battered coffee table before clapping her hands together.

"Ready to study finance?"

Harry's eyes dimmed as he nodded and sat beside Billie on the couch. Rey deflated. Finance? So he was a business major?

"I'm done for the day so take your time," Rey smiled and sneakily grabbed at the canvas on the easel. As if it wasn't already awkward, Harry didn't need to spend however long while he studied with his own face staring at him.

"It's only noon," Billie squinted her blue eyes at Rey. "Didn't you say you had a huge project due soon?"

Rey's eyes widened and she almost dropped the canvas in her hand. Shit. The massive, half-of-her-overall-grade project for her photography class that she'd forgotten about was due in two days. She somehow needed to find a subject for her portraits, take pictures, and edit them all in two days.

Slumping down into the bean bag chair on the opposite side of the room, Rey hugged the canvas to her chest. She could feel the wet paint sticking to the front of her already paint splattered pink tee shirt. When she looked up, Billie was looking at her with something nearing pity in her eyes. She knew how much this meant to Rey. Billie was also the first in her family to go to university. She knew, better than anyone, the pressure that Rey was under.

Billie set her notebook on the coffee table and scooted to the edge of the couch. Harry was looking at Rey with a small smile on his face. As if he didn't notice that, at that moment, Rey was going through all the reasons why she would fail out that semester.

"Harry's test isn't for another week. Do you mind if I help Rey with her crisis today instead?" Billie turned slightly towards Harry with a hesitant look on her face.

Harry shook his head. "Let's help Rey. Finance can wait."

Rey perked up at the sound of her name passing his lips. The canvas slipped from her arms as they loosened and slipped to the floor face up. Billie looked down and her eyes widened. Launching herself from the couch, she snatched the canvas from the floor and leaned it against the wall, facing inwards so that Harry wouldn't see. A true friend.

"Ok, so what do you need help with?” He asked.Rey cleared her throat. “I need a model and at least twenty good, useable portraits.”

"Harry can you model? My hair's not done." Billie said with a straight face. Her hair was, in fact, done and looking amazing that morning but nobody would dare argue with Billie. She was a future business lawyer. She had the whole 'I'm-Lying-But-I-Dare-You-To-Say-Otherwise' face down. It was better to stay on Billie's good side.

Without hesitation, Harry agreed. Rey grinned and ran into her room to change into a pair of light wash skinny jeans, a white tank top, and pink cropped bomber jacket. After running a brush through her hair, she grabbed the camera bag from it's place on the floor next to her nightstand and walked out the room.

•

They spent the majority of the afternoon walking from one side of campus to the other trying to find the perfect lighting. Billie kept checking the time on her watch and on her phone, as if the time would be radically different from one medium to the other. Rey was kneeling a few feet away from Harry, camera pointed upwards, as he looked up at a tree stoically when Billie cleared her throat.

"This has been super fun," Billie snorted. "But I have marketing in like twenty minutes. Toodles!"

Harry moved from the position he was in to stretch his neck. Rey bit her lip and looked back through the pictures they’d taken. She needed to submit twenty of her best photos. She’d taken nearly one hundred, so she was sure that she had enough. But she didn’t want the afternoon to end. Billie felt more like a babysitter than a friend that afternoon, in the way that she’d rushed Rey and gave her “pep talks” (which were just Billie reminding Rey that she had no time to be “lollygagging around”). Having some time alone with Harry was exactly what Rey needed.

“Have fun in class!” Rey called as Billie walked off. Turning to face Harry, she bit her lip. “Do you think you could spare another hour?”

He grinned and she felt her world spin. That feeling you get in your stomach when there’s turbulence on an airplane? That’s how Rey felt whenever Harry smiled. It was unsafe but she loved it.

His eyes were especially bright that day. Maybe it was the sun that seemed to come out just for Rey or maybe he was happier that day or maybe…maybe that’s what he looked like and she just didn’t remember. It was plausible. She barely remembered what he looked like that day in the stairwell when they met. She liked to think he just walked around with bright eyes and smile every day. She liked to think of him as happy.

“I’m all yours, Rey,”

If only.

•

By the time the pair finished, it was dark. The streets were full of students getting out of night classes, going to and from dinner, and enjoying the mild temperatures. In a few weeks it would be cold and nobody, not even Rey, would want to lay outside. It was a shame, though, because campus looked beautiful in the winter.

Rey held onto the strap of her camera bag tightly as the crowd jostled her. Harry placed his hands on Rey’s shoulders. She could feel the goosebumps erupt on her arms beneath her jacket. Swallowing hard, she looked up to find him already looking at her with a smirk on his face. He winked and looked forward, guiding her through the crowd so that nobody else would try to take her shoulder with them.

“You don’t have to walk me home,” Rey said when they walked past the crowd. “I’m sure you’ve got other things to do.”

“I really don’t,” He laughed and shook his head as he fell into step beside Rey. He looked down at her and the wide smile on his face caused his dimples to form. She stuffed her free hand in her pocket to keep from reaching up and poking the one closest to her. “Besides, I had fun today.”

She smiled and nodded. “Thanks again for helping. Not sure what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been there.”

“You would’ve had to do a series of selfies or rope Billie into agreeing to model,”

They laughed at just how absurd those suggestions were. Billie? Model? She would never. Rey was certain of that. Shit, she’d asked her many, many times over the past three years and the answer had always been an overwhelming ’NO.’ Eventually Rey stopped asking. She valued her friendship with Billie more than the pictures she knew she would be able to get. When Billie’s afro hit the light? Perfection.

But, Harry had been a good alternative.

Rey stuck her key into the door as Harry waited behind her. She opened the door, took a step inside, and turned to smile at Harry.

“Thanks, again, for today.”

“No problem,” He shrugged. “Anytime you need a model, let me know. I loved it.”

Rey’s eyes sparkled in the low light as she grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Is there any way I can see the finished product?”

“Of course! Here,” Rey handed him her cell phone after unlocking it. “Put your number in and I’ll text you when I finish editing so you can see them.”

“Perfect,” He tapped the screen quickly before calling himself. He handed the phone back. “Now I can send you my horrible iPhone pictures.”

Rey laughed. “I can’t wait to see them.”

“You say that now,” He laughed before backing up. “See you tomorrow.”

“See ya,” Rey waved as she closed the door and walked up to her apartment where Billie would, no doubt, be waiting for her in the living room to continue their latest binge watch.

•

No, that wasn’t right. The lighting was all off. The layer made Harry’s skin glow but darkened his eyes. Rey rubbed her eyes and deleted the layer. She’d been working on the pictures since that morning—forgoing her usual morning under the tree to get a head start on her project—and it was now nearing ten at night and she was still at it. At least she could see the finish line, now, as she worked on the last picture. The rest were stacked neatly in a folder, printed and ready to go. It was just this last one, Rey’s favorite, that was giving her trouble.

Her phone buzzed on the table in the computer lab. Without looking, she knew it was Harry. He’d been texting her all day beginning with a picture of his yogurt, blueberry, and granola smoothie bowl that morning. Rey still couldn’t figure out why they called it a smoothie if it was really just a parfait, right? She’d sent that thought to Harry, who’d apparently enjoyed a nice laugh, according to all the cry-laughing emoji’s he’d sent back.

Tearing her eyes from the computer screen, she snorted at the message on her phone screen. It was a selfie. Harry’s chin was resting on his fist, his eyes closed tight, with a pouty frown on his face. The text that accompanied it read, ‘when Rey refuses to let you see her pictures even tho you’re the star.’ She shook her head with a grin on her face before snapping her own selfie—a picture of her and the computer, with a tired look on her face that she didn’t have to try too hard on—and replying with a ‘when Rey is a perfectionist and spends all day sitting in a computer chair.’

Barely two seconds passed before her phone buzzed. Harry’s face—courtesy of one of the selfies he’d sent that morning, with his eyes crossed and a smile on his lips—showed up on her screen. She swiped to answer and held the phone between her ear and her shoulder.

“Are you in the lab still?” His voice was strained like he was walking up a hill and couldn’t catch his breath.

“Yeah…”

“Peachy. Byee.” He hung up, leaving Rey staring at her phone screen with an incredulous look on her face. Shaking her head, she placed her phone back on the table before leaning back in her chair to look at the portrait on the screen. Harry was laying in the grass beneath Rey’s favorite tree. His eyes were closed and he had a huge smile on his face, all teeth, that showed off his dimples to full effect. His skin was golden and glowing, his hair windswept, and his clothes perfect for the occasion. You’d be hard pressed to find an occasion on campus where black skinny jeans and a white tee shirt were unacceptable.

Plus, if you looked close enough, you could see Harry’s nipples straining against the threadbare fabric of his shirt. Those were the details that Rey lived for.

Exactly twenty minutes later, as Rey added a layer that accentuated the pink of Harry’s lips, the door swung open hitting the wall behind it and making Rey jump from her seat. Hand on her heart, she turned with a pencil in hand, held in a defensive position as if she was really about to stab someone with it. Rey wasn’t about that life. Unlike Mami, who had once pressed a knife against a stalkers’ throat when he tried to follow her home from work one night. Rey wished she was that badass.

“I come baring food.” Harry grinned and lifted a white plastic bag as if he hadn’t scared Rey half to death.

“Knock next time, bud,” Rey laughed and stood to stretch.

“But then I would’ve missed that cute jump thing you did,” He winked and set the food on an empty table before grabbing Rey by the hand and walking her over. He sat her in one of the chairs before pushing it in towards the table and sitting in the seat across from her. “I made a little something.”

“You didn’t have to do this,” Rey said. Her mouth watered as Harry brought two Tupperware bins from the bag. One was filled with white rice and the other with homemade sesame chicken and broccoli. Rey’s stomach rumbled.

“Have you eaten?”

Harry took two plates and two forks from the bag and placed one of each in front of Rey. She shook her head, hoping he wouldn’t notice, but he crossed his arms and raised a brow.

“Really.” He blinked, unamused. “How can you art at the highest level without eating?”

Rey laughed. “You can’t. That’s why I’ve been working on this one picture for almost four hours.”

She nodded her head towards the computer screen and Harry cut his eyes towards the screen for a moment before giving it a second glance. His mouth opened, jaw dropping slightly, before looking at Rey with raised eyebrows.

“That’s amazing.”

She scrunched her nose. “You think so? I can’t get the eyes right.”

“No, it’s perfect,” He said, breathless. “I don’t think I’ve ever looked that good in real life.”

“You looked that good yesterday,” Rey giggled. “How else would I have gotten the picture?”

He joined in her laughter. The melodic sound was sweeter than any other Rey had ever heard. If she were only allowed to listen to one sound for the rest of her life, she would choose his laugh. Every time.

“You could have drawn it,” He winked and she knew that he knew. That he’d seen the canvas the day before, somehow, before she and Billie had gotten a chance to hide it.

Rey looked away and cringed. “About that…”

“It’s flattering,” He shrugged one shoulder. “Draw me like one of your French girls and all that.”

She couldn’t keep her laugh from bubbling out. She was glad that she hadn’t taken that moment to sip from the bottle of water that he’d brought her. Could you imagine? Accidentally spitting water on Harry because he knew that she had at least one canvas with his face drawn on it. That would have been the most embarrassing moment of her life. And she lived through her parents chaperoning senior prom.

“Best movie reference ever.” She said through laughter.

“I aim to please,” He winked before tucking into his portion of rice and chicken. They ate in silence for a while, trading glances when the other thought they weren’t looking, and blushing whenever their eyes met. Rey had a permanent smile on her face. By the time they finished eating, she was itching to get back to work on the last portrait. "Can I stay until you finish or do you want me to go so you can focus?"

"No, stay! I'm almost done," She pointed at the bulging folder with the stack of other pictures. "You can look at the other pictures while I finish if you want."

Harry sat in the chair next to Rey and snatched the folder from the desk before leaning back and opening the folder. As she put a few finishing touches on the last picture—which, honestly, looked better than it had before she ate—Harry carefully looked through the fragile prints. Every so often he'd stop and stare at one or gasp when he shuffled to the next one. It made Rey's heart burst.

She clicked print and leaned back in her chair. Exhaling, she turned her head to smile at Harry. He was looking at her incredulously.

"This is amazing," He lifted the folder in the air, careful not to bend the pictures. "You're so good at this."

"Thank you," Rey said softly. She looked away and debated whether she should say what she wanted to or keep it to herself. Before she could overthink it, she looked back at Harry. "This isn't even my preferred medium. I'm more of a canvas and paint kinda gal."

"I'd like to see you work your magic with a paintbrush,"

Rey blushed. "If you're lucky."

"Oh, I hope to be very lucky," He murmured. Leaning into Rey, he smirked as his eyes shifted between her eyes and lips. She licked her lips and all of his attention focused there. "Can I kiss you?"

"Yes," Rey breathed shakily as Harry leaned closer and closer until their lips barely touched. His were soft, unlike other boys' lips she'd kissed during her time in university, and she was glad for it. Nothing was worse than kissing chapped lips.

He grazed her bottom lip with his teeth and she leaned into him. The feel of his lips on hers was unlike any other. There was a deeper connection there, something bubbling just under the surface, that Rey was eager to discover. She placed her hands on his shoulders and scooted as close as the chair allowed.

Harry sensed that she wanted to be closer and scooped her up into his lap. She maneuvered her legs to straddle his lap as he placed his hands on either side of her face. The kiss had gone from innocent, soft, unsure to rough, primal, passionate. Hands roamed from cheeks to waist to hips to the curves of their backs. Harry held Rey's ass in one hand and her neck in the other. Rey moved closer as if there were any empty space between them.

The only sound in the room were their loud, labored breathing. Harry's lips moved down Rey's jaw to her neck. She squealed when he licked just beneath her ear. She was ticklish.

The doorknob jiggled but the couple couldn't hear it through the haze of lust. Someone cleared their throat and knocked on the door loudly until Harry leaned back from Rey. There was a student worker in the doorway. He didn't look as if he'd just walked in on two people making out.

"Lab's closing," The student worker said in a bored tone before closing the door behind them.

Rey placed her forehead on Harry's as they laughed before gathering up their things and heading home.

•

Rey and Harry walk down the street hand-in-hand as the sun set behind the buildings between them and Harry’s apartment. A month had passed since their first pseudo-date in the computer lab and they’d been inseparable ever since. Sleepovers at each others’ apartments, making out all night, skipping classes to lay tangled in bed talking about everything under the sun. Billie gave them a lecture about responsibility whenever she caught them laying in a makeshift tent in the living room watching movies and sharing sweet, sugary, Reeses’ flavored kisses.

“Billie has people over this weekend,” She murmured.

“Say no more,” He pressed a kiss to her temple as they cut through an alley towards Harry’s apartment. One that he didn’t have to share with any roommates, thanks to his very rich parents. That was the one topic that Rey and Harry hadn’t touched on: her family. She knew that, as soon as he found out that she was struggling, he would try to help her. He would start leaving money around her room or in her backpack or things like that and Rey wasn’t the type of person to accept charity easily. She didn’t want to feel like someone was pitying her.

Especially not if that someone was Harry. He was her boyfriend, not her sugar daddy.

His apartment was bigger than the one she shared with Billie. It was better for creating pillow forts, better for making dinner, and better for painting thanks to the large bay windows in the living room. The appliances were all stainless steel, the cabinets were dark (real) wood, and the countertops were marble. The bathroom matched the kitchen. It also had a rain showered and a bidet, which reminded Rey of her Tia Madrina Norma’s house back in Puerto Rico. The bedroom looked like every minimalistic bedroom picture online. White sheets, white duvet, one picture above the bed (Rey would change that real quick), a leafy, green plant towering in the corner, two silver nightstands, and a matching desk. The warmest room was the living room. A grey couch, dark blue pillows, cream throw blanket, dark wood coffee table sitting atop a dark blue shag carpet, the same silver nightstands from Harry’s room acted as side tables in the living room. Plus, there was a giant tv/video game/sound system on one wall.

Basically it was Rey’s dream apartment, minus the lack of art.

“Pick a movie,” Harry called as he walked into the kitchen.

Rey unzipped her boots and placed them by the front door before taking off her leather jacket and hanging it up on a hook next to the door. Harry’s apartment looked like a Real Adult’s house and it made Rey laugh whenever she thought about it. The first time he brought her over he’d told her that his mom decorated it. It showed. Tucking back into the couch, she tucked the throw blanket around her lap and turned Netflix on.

Their tastes in movies and tv were similar so Rey felt no hesitance in searching for a Nicholas Sparks movie. By the time Harry plopped next to Rey she had the movie on the tv ready for her to press play. He placed a bowl of popcorn in her lap and ripped open a bag of M&M’s before tossing them in with the popcorn.

They’d gone on their fourth date earlier that night. He bought tickets for a local theater performance and then they’d had dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant. All of it felt more like two kids playing house than anything else. But maybe that’s what life was. Everyone just going through, pretending like they knew what they were doing, when in reality nobody knew what was next. What Rey wouldn’t give for a roadmap.

Rey blinked to focus her eyes back on the movie. Twenty minutes had passed, somehow, as she’d thought about the state of her life. Harry placed an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into his body. It was strong next to her own and she suddenly felt grounded. More alive than she’d felt in months, since her last visit home.

He turned his head suddenly and caught her staring. A cute blush colored his cheeks as he smiled sweetly. She kneeled on the couch and placed a hand behind his head. With the barest amount of pressure from her fingers, he leaned forward and captured her lips with his. Rey leaned back on the couch slowly all the while making sure their lips were connected. He licked her bottom lip and she opened her mouth, her tongue stroking his.

She pressed down on his ass and he laid down on her with most of his weight being supported by one of his arms holding onto the side of the couch. The feel of his hard dick against her thigh made her bite his bottom lip. He grunted against her lips and trailed his other hand over her stomach. That’s when she broke the kiss. Not because she wanted to, but because she was ticklish and he touched one of her weak points.

Harry’s eyes were molten when she looked back up at him. They were darker than she’d ever seen them; nearing the color of the ocean on a stormy day. He flexed his hand and wrapped it around her hip before dragging her body against his. She ground her hips up against his and wrapped her arms around his neck. She felt like she was sixteen again dry humping with her crush in a dark corner of the gym during the Homecoming dance.

“Is this okay?” He murmured against her lips. His hands were on the buttons of her blouse. Rey nodded scared to speak just in case a moan would escape. God. All they were doing was dry humping and she was already gone.

His long fingers grazed her skin as he slowly unbuttoned her shirt. She squirmed beneath him wishing he would just hurry up and take her clothes off. There was no need to take three minutes to take someone’s shirt off like, no.

As soon as her shirt was unbuttoned, she sat up and reached her hands underneath Harry’s white tee-shirt to whip it up over his body and toss to the side. Biting her lip, she grazed her fingers down his torso. Leaning closer, she reached her tongue out to lick the planes of his stomach. He shuddered and unbuttoned his jeans so fast. While he stood to remove them, Rey did the same. Within moments they were tangled on the couch again hands and lips roaming.

“Oh,” She groaned, feeling him lick his way from her neck up to her ear. She gripped onto his side before pushing him away. “Condom.”

Without so much as a reply, Harry hopped off the couch and ran back into his room. When he walked back into the living room, in all his naked splendor, he had a fist full of condoms and a cocky smile on his face.

“Are we doing a sex marathon?” Rey nodded at his hand and laughed.

“That’s up to you,” He winked, opened one of the packages, and rolled the condom over his hard dick. Rey’s mouth watered but there would be time for blowjobs later.

Harry laid on top of Rey and they continued their make out session. Before long, it was all biting and licking and touching. When he placed his fingers against her clit for the first time, Rey gasped. She’d been so distracted by his tongue licking around her nipples that she hadn’t thought to pay attention to what his hands were doing.

Reaching out to return the favor, Rey pumped his dick in her hand and felt as his body shuddered. He reached down and moved her hand away from his dick to position it in front of her entrance. Neither of them could wait any longer.

The first feeling of his dick against her pussy was like nothing she’d ever felt. With her past boyfriends, sex had just been something for their benefit. With Harry, he already had her careening towards orgasm and they’d barely gotten started. He held onto her hips as he slid slowly inside her. Rey’s head tipped back as Harry’s dick filled her up perfectly.

It was when he licked his fingers and rubbed them against her clit that she lost it. Completely. Lost. It. She moaned without a care or thought to Harry’s neighbors—a lovely older lady next door and a family of four upstairs. The only thing Rey cared about was the way his fingers felt against her skin.

He pulled out slightly before pushing back in a little rougher. With each thrust he began going faster and faster. It drove Rey wild. She pulled on his neck because she needed to feel his lips on hers. The combination of the kisses, his fingers on her clit, and his dick inside her took her over the edge. She screamed out loud before Harry could cover her mouth with his to stifle the noise. Moments later, his head tilted back and he grunted as he came.

“Let me take a nap before round two,” Rey said through a yawn. Harry giggled as Rey pressed her back to his front. He held her close to his body and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. Rey couldn’t believe Harry was still half-hard, poking against the back of her thigh. She tingled between her legs and, without thinking, turned in his arms and stole a kiss. Harry’s hands reached down to her ass and brought her as close as possible to his body. His dick twitched against her pussy as Harry kissed down the column of her neck.

They did, in fact, use all of those condoms that night.

•

If Billie thought Harry and Rey were inseparable before, after that day? Well, they may as well have been conjoined twins. Harry waited outside of Rey’s classes with her favorite coffee. Rey sat outside Harry’s lectures as she completed the homework that didn’t require extensive supplies. And that was on days where they even went to class.

At the moment, Rey was taking advantage of Harry sleeping in her bed to continue her final project for her visual arts class. It was, unsurprisingly, a portrait of Harry. She was barely beginning the work, she’d just finished drawing it on the canvas, but she already knew it would be her favorite of the Harry Series, as the man himself had taken to calling them. Rey smiled. She couldn’t have asked for someone better to enter her life. He understood her completely and encouraged her. It’s what she needed.

She sat with a canvas atop a tarp on the floor. After opening the paints, she took her time mixing the greens to the perfect color. She knew that green by heart, now. She decided to start with the base color of the eyes and work her way out.

By the time Harry woke, she’d been working for nearly thirty minutes. The base of his face was complete but she’d stopped since she couldn’t decide if she wanted him to be clothed or naked. Should she share the intimate knowledge she had of his tattoos with the world (ok, it was just her class but) or should she keep it to herself? He yawned drawing her from her thoughts.

“That’s one good looking dude.” He laughed.

Rey joined in on his laughter before looking from the canvas to Harry.

"Wanna help?" She smirked as she dragged her eyes over the exposed skin of his torso that peeked out from under the thin blanket on her bed. Just knowing that he was naked underneath made her mouth water. Knowing how perfectly her lips fit around his dick…the thought seemed to go straight from her mind to between her legs.

He stood, in all his naked glory, and his dick ended up nearly in Rey’s face. Biting her lip, she sat up on her knees and licked up the underside.

“Fuck,” The word was ripped from his throat as he almost fell backwards onto the mattress. She pressed a hand to his thigh, squeezing it to feel the muscle beneath, and sucked the tip of his dick before sitting back on her feet. He looked down, dazed, before leaning the canvas against the wall. When he came back, he grabbed Rey’s hand and led her to lay on the tarp. The leftover paint was cold against her skin but she didn’t care.

All she knew was she needed him, now.

•

When Rey woke that cold, foggy morning in November it was to Harry sliding a finger up and down her spine. Goosebumps erupted on her arms as she registered the feeling. The clock read eleven thirty nine am. She’d missed an art history lecture and Harry missed a finance lecture. But both knew the powerpoint information was already on the class’ website. She stretched and nuzzled towards Harry’s shoulder. The freezing tip of her nose pressed against the warm skin of Harry’s shoulder made him shiver.

“Morning, beautiful,” Harry whispered. He pressed a kiss to the top of Rey’s head. She wondered how she’d gotten so lucky. Everything about the past few months since they started dating felt like a dream. With Harry by her side Rey no longer struggled to paint. In fact, she was knocking out between three and five large canvas paintings a week, depending on how busy she and Harry were in their extracurricular activities.

“Morning,” She said. Rey lifted her head to press a kiss to Harry’s chin. He ducked his head down to graze her lips with his. Before long Rey was straddling his hips with her hands in his hair. He brushed his lips across her cheek, on her jaw, and down her neck making her giggle. The sound disappeared as soon as he pressed an open mouthed kiss to the spot directly below her ear. She leaned her head back in pleasure as he sucked on her neck. He enjoyed giving hickeys and she enjoyed receiving them.

A moan burst from her throat as one of Harry’s hands snuck back to grip her ass while he nibbled on her ear. That was Rey’s new routine. Wake up beside Harry, have sex, and then paint. Sometimes she’d even make it to her afternoon classes. She placed her hands on the back of his neck and tangled her fingers in his hair. It was silky and she couldn’t get enough of running her hands through it.

Harry set a foot on the bed and rolled so that he was on top of Rey. She bit her lip and looked at him with a smirk. Before she could register what was going on, he was pressing kisses down her body. Her breath left her body in an abnormal rhythm as she arched her back and moaned. Harry got to her thighs and paused. She leaned up on her elbows after registering the loss of contact.

He was looking at her pussy like it was the last morsel of food on Earth and he was starving. Like it held all the answers in the universe. Like it was the only thing keeping Harry afloat. Rey watched as he lowered his head to blow on her clit. The air on her slick skin made her shiver with anticipation. He pressed a hand to her lower stomach, knowing that she was more than just a little ticklish, before lowering his mouth to press a kiss just above where she wanted it most.

A whine sounded from Rey’s throat and Harry chuckled. His laugh sounded rough, gravelly, and it only made her want him more. She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.

“You’re taking too lon…” Rey’s voice trailed off as Harry pressed his mouth to her clit. Her arms gave out a moment later and she plopped back down into the pillows. “Oh, God.”

Harry laughed against her sensitive skin, the vibrations giving another dimension to the sensation, and Rey gasped. She felt like she was wound too tight, like all she needed was for Harry to stick a finger inside her, to fill her so she could come undone.

As if he could read her mind, he thrust one finger, and then a second, inside her as he sucked harder on her clit. Squealing, Rey squirmed beneath the hand that was holding her against the bed. If it wasn’t there she may have twisted and turned until she fell off the bed. The sensation was too strong and she couldn’t handle it for much longer.

“Fuck me,” She whispered. Grabbing Harry’s shoulder, she tried to pull him up her body but he resisted. He pumped his fingers inside her faster and faster and sucked on her clit until she screamed. Her orgasm came as a full body reaction. Toes curled, head thrown back against the pillows, eyes screwed shut, hand covering her mouth to muffle the moans, back arched.

When she opened her eyes again a few moments later, stars floated on the ceiling as she struggled to catch her breath.

Harry’s arrogant smirk was the first thing she saw when she ripped her eyes away from the ceiling. She glared.

“Don’t be like that,” He caressed down her cheek. She could smell herself on his hand. Reaching a hand up, she gripped the back of his neck and brought his face to hers. The kiss was rough. Rey bit Harry’s bottom lip and dragged it with her as she leaned back. He retaliated by licking in her mouth, making sure she could taste herself on his tongue, before sucking on her bottom lip. When she had enough of the teasing, she reached back and handed him a condom from the nightstand. After quickly rolling it on, he tossed the package somewhere behind him.

They looked at the apex of her thighs, the space Harry kneeled between, his dick just inches from the place they both desperately wanted it to be. Rey licked her lips and reached a hand up to her chest. Tweaking one of her nipples, she moaned to urge Harry on. He placed his hands on her hips and dragged the tip of his dick up and down her folds. The warmth encouraging him to enter.

Tired of the games, Rey placed a hand on Harry’s ass and squeezed. His hips jerked forward unintentionally and Rey gasped as he slowly entered her. So that’s how he wanted to play. He wanted slow, Rey could do slow.

Reaching a hand up to his face, she smiled and pressed a kiss to his temple. Once he was fully sheathed inside her, he laid his head on her shoulder and took a long, shuddering breath before moving his hips again. Slowly, a rhythm slower than they’d ever attempted during sex before, and it hit Rey as she stared into Harry’s beautiful, bright green eyes.

This was love.

When people spoke about making love, this is what they meant. Feeling like you could spend all day, all night—the rest of your life, even—stuck in this embrace. Knowing that the person you were sharing that moment with could be the person you would share the rest of your life with. Realizing that everyone that had come before Harry had just been practice for this. Trial and error that led her to the love of her life.

A tortured gasp wrenched itself from deep in Rey’s throat. Harry leaned forward to press his lips to hers in the softest kiss they’d shared. His breath was erratic against her lips. She ran a hand through his hair, pulling at the shorter pieces at the bottom, and pressed a kiss to his chin. Harry growled and started thrusting faster.

“Yes,” The word passed Rey’s lips without her even realizing it. She grit her teeth and reached a hand out to grip the sheets. Harry hitched one of her legs over his hip to reach deeper within her. The noise Rey made next couldn’t be described. It was a moan, but it was also a scream. It was a growl, but it was also a whine. It was something altogether new that neither had ever heard before.

The sound of skin meeting skin echoed throughout Harry’s apartment.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Harry chanted as he tried to angle Rey’s hips in the perfect way. He was close. She could see the glint in his eye and feel his dick twitching inside her. She wanted them to come together. A symbolic gesture of their love.

She wasn’t ready, but she would be. Reaching a hand down to her clit, she quickly brought herself to the edge. When Harry noticed what she was doing, he replaced her hand with his. His steady rhythm turned erratic as his hips and hand struggled to continue while he held off his orgasm until he heard her first gasp. Her head shook from side to side as the feeling took over her entire body. It was like a wave crashing. The beginning, as the wave grew tall, was the build up: the tingling, kisses in unexpected places, and soft moans. The wave racing towards the shoreline was the middle: erratic, loud, impatient. And the end, when the wave finally crashed against your feet, was the best part: the back arching, screaming, tingles that gave way to pulsing sensations deep in Rey’s core. It was those sensations that finally brought Harry over the edge, too, as he came with a roar before his elbow gave out and he fell half on Rey’s body, half on the bed.

They stared in each others’ eyes for a long time. Rey debated whether it was the right time to confess her feelings. Should she tell Harry that she loved him after only four months? Was she in love with him? It could have been a heat of the moment feeling. Was it love or did he just give good dick?

But then he smiled and she knew. She loved him.

•

They stayed in bed all day talking. They’d covered favorite superheroes, movies, childhood cartoons, and books before falling into a comfortable silence. Rey had a leg hiked over Harry’s torso while he kept one arm around her back the other on his stomach, lazily running his fingers up and down her arm.

“Tell me about your family,” He whispered.

Rey hid her face in his chest and shook her head. He leaned back to look in her eyes.

“I want to know everything about you,”

She took a moment to consider what to do. She thought about what they’d just shared, the knowledge that she loved him already, and knew that telling him about her baggage was the least she could do. Even if she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide bitterness that came when she spoke about her family.

“My family isn’t…like yours,” Rey sighed and sat up. The blanket slid down her torso exposing her bare breasts. She ran a hand through her hair before turning slightly to face Harry. “We don’t vacation in the south of Spain or buy three hundred dollar jeans or go out for dinner every day. We struggle. We’ve struggled as far as I can remember.”

Harry placed a hand on Rey’s knee but stayed silent. She was glad. For so long she’d ignored the realities of her family and the situation they have been in for decades—centuries, even—and it felt cathartic to just let it all out. To talk to someone who wasn’t family or Billie, who was technically family at this point, because they would just tell Rey that things would get better. Don’t worry, Rey, once you’re a big time artist we’ll be fine. Don’t worry, amor, we’re hard workers and we’ll make it.

But what if they didn’t? What if, despite how hard they worked, it didn’t get better? Nothing was promised. And that whole ‘pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps’ mentality was bullshit. Mami had worked three jobs until getting a full time position when Rey was ten and they were still poor. So fuck your bootstraps.

“My mom works nearly sixty hours a week. She goes two weeks without a day off, sometimes more, just so that I can be here.” Rey took a deep, shuddering breath. Her voice broke and chin wobbled as she fought the tears. “This isn’t just the beginning of the rest of my life. It’s the beginning of the rest of my families’ lives.”

“I can’t imagine the pressure you’re under.”

She sniffled and turned to face him head on, her legs crossed and hands in her lap, she never thought she’d be comfortable sitting naked with someone. But there Harry was. And not only was she comfortable with him, he knew exactly what to say to comfort her. Like he’d been built especially for her.

Looking down at her lap, she smiled. Harry sat up and mimicked her position.

“I wouldn’t trade them for the world, though. Despite the pressure, and the expectations, I wouldn’t be who I am without them.”

He leaned forward, placed a hand behind her neck, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She closed her eyes and exhaled. With it left all of the tension from her body.

“Tell me more about them. What is your mum like?”

“Mami is a loose cannon. Sometimes she’ll say things that are kind of…off the wall but she’s the most loyal person I know. She’s so friendly, too. She can walk into an elevator and walk out two minutes later with three new friends.” Rey grinned. “She’s my best friend.”

From there, the pair spent hours talking about Rey’s family members. She told Harry about Titi Milta’s glass eye, playing dominos with her Tio Luis, and all about the food that her family came together to make during the holidays. Rey nuzzled Harry’s shoulder while he ran a hand over her hair before laying it on the small of her back.

“You should visit for Christmas,” Rey yawned. “I can get you drunk off coquito and we can watch my cousins light fireworks and…”

Harry looked down at Rey when she didn’t continue speaking only to find that she’d fallen asleep. Silly girl. She was always falling asleep on him. He pressed a long kiss to her temple before looking down at her.

“I love you, Rey,” He whispered.

#1dff #one direction fanfiction #harry styles fanfction #this is like 90% smut but #i love it lmao it was so much fun to write #something something art school au

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tharacecard · 8 years ago

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Trayvon

This is a speech I’m giving for Hoodies Up Day 2017 at Portland’s Roosevelt High School and also a super personal account of what brought me into Black Lives Matter and how I began to organize.

Trayvon Martin woke me up.

I learned the same story about African history in the United States that every public school kid does: slavery, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, no more slavery but then oh no, up came old Jim Crow to keep Africans separate and unequal again. A few decades of that and Africans rose up in what we now call the Civil Rights movement. To win our freedom we took decades of beatings that would be memorialized in history books our children would read for generations.

Somewhere in all that marching and suffering, Martin Luther King JR. showed up, gave some speeches, led some marches, talked about little African and white kids holding hands, and then was killed in Little Rock, Arkansas. It’s very sad. But then! Somehow, suddenly, everything was fine. He had saved us. Lawsuits were won, laws were passed, schools were desegregated, a few rights every human being should be granted at birth were finally recognized, MLK was put on a stamp, and then little African and white kids were playing and holding hands. The dream was realized. Justice was won. That’s the story.

Yes, there were some old racists here and there. Yes, some of those old racists were cops, judges, prison guards, CEOs, senators, teachers, and presidents. Yes, we were still being killed for no reason but that was only happening to the bad Africans that deserved it - the ones that wouldn’t obey. The dangerous ones that wore hoodies. The gangsters. The good Africans stayed in line, smiled politely, kept their heads down and their voices low. The good Africans realized that the world really is free and just, racism really is over, and everything that was owed to us has been received. A dream had been realized. We had a Black president. That’s the story.

I believed the story for the most part growing up, even through the dark spots, the things that didn’t quite fit: the time a kid called me Blackie in the lunch line, the way my mother and my sister and I would get followed around supermarkets and K-Marts, the way our next-door neighbors called the cops on my sister and I when we were kids. Not just once. A good half dozen times: for things like playing too loud, being too close to their car, being outside too long after the sun went down. They never tried calling our mom, just the police.

I saw and lived these things, I took them in and understood them to be wrong, to be unjust - but I still believed the story. That I Have A Dream Story - little African and white kids holding hands. Yes there were still racists, I thought, but they were old and just in the South really, and they’d die eventually, and everyone would be free, and the world was still basically just. I lived believing this for much of my youth and became an adult believing it. The first year I was able to vote for president, I voted for Barack Obama and it felt like another dream fulfilled. My boyfriend and I sat on my bed and cried when he won. A president for US.

And then Trayvon.

The thing that hurts the most to think about is how young he was. How young he *looked*. I saw a picture of his body on the news - because the news trots out footage and pictures of African death with instant replay like it’s nothing, like we feel nothing - and it took my breath away. It made my heart stop and my stomach hurt. He was just a boy - wearing skinny jeans and a hoodie, looking up into the sky with eyes that would never see again. Just a boy who wanted to be an astronaut. A boy who was walking home in his own neighborhood, carrying ice tea, skittles, a cell phone, and nothing else, just minding his own business before he was shot dead by an unrepentant racist who knew the moment the cops let him go home that same night that he would get away with it. We all watched him get away with it.

Trayvon was my cousins. Trayvon was my uncles. Trayvon was the father I never knew as a carefree African boy. Trayvon had dreams. Trayvon had people who loved him. Trayvon was a whole person. In the moment of his death and in the days, and months, and years that followed he became first a monster in the eyes of a system and an entire nation that had to make him one to explain itself, and then later a symbol of pain, anger, and resistance for an entire movement.

There would be no Black Lives Matter without Trayvon. There would be no me as an organizer without Trayvon. Trayvon woke me up. Trayvon woke a lot of us up.

I think for a lot of organizers in Black Lives Matter, the story of how we began our work in this movement is the same: we took to the streets. We shut it down. Ferguson showed us how. When Mike Brown was shot with his hands up, we poured into the street by the hundreds of thousands: all kinds of people from all over the country, united in resistance. That first fall it seemed like there was a protest or a march every day: stopping traffic, shutting down highways, blocking bridges, and blockading airports.

With each new action, we became cleverer, quicker, and more creative. Where first we were just throwing our bodies into the streets, stopping cars by just standing in front of them, later we began to identify choke points and ways to hold our positions for longer. We built complex lock boxes and barricades. We started to talk about locations and targets that would be more strategic, more visible, and make more of an impact. We started organizing ways to take care of each other, to bail out folks who were arrested, to make sure folks were fed and hydrated and checked up on during and after direct actions. We started building networks of trust, safety, and solidarity. We started building organizations. We started making demands.

From that first mass of action in the streets, came an entire universe of organizations: Black Youth Project, the Black Lives Matter Network, YGB, We are the Ones, Million Hoodies, the Dream Defenders. Dozens of organizations, all over the country, overwhelmingly led by African women, queer and non-binary folks, and youth. Many of us were completely new to the movement and to organizing in general. We were making things up as we went. We didn’t know what we were doing but we knew we had to do something. We knew that we couldn’t stand how things were anymore. We felt somehow instinctually that we had the power to stop it together, that we just had to find our way to that power. We began to organize and we learned as we grew.

I had never organized a day in my life before Black Lives Matter. The extent of my activism was going to Occupy for a few hours like one time. I had no idea what I was doing. I realized quickly that organizing - mass-based revolutionary organizing - doesn’t require a special skill set. It doesn’t require grants or funding. It doesn’t require a college degree or thousands of dollars in special training and business cards and badges. It requires people who are willing to contribute in any way they can to the overall goal of working together to liberate their people. If you want African people to be free and you are motivated to give your labor, knowledge, and time to a collective working to see that happen, you can organize. Anyone can be an organizer.

We’re not really taught to understand our own power and capacity to contribute to a movement and to an organization working for liberation. We’re taught the value of individualism and standing alone, valuing ourselves above all else. In many ways learning to organize is a process of unlearning individualism and learning the value of collective struggle. Revolutionary organizing helps you understand that isn’t individual people who are the heroes in history, it’s the masses of people, conscious and awake, organized and working together, who are the real heroes. It’s the masses of people who have the power. It’s the masses of people who create change. The masses of people united and focused on a goal can achieve anything. The masses of people once conscious and set on a course to change their circumstances will change those circumstances. The entire history of African people shows this. The entire history of humanity shows this. And Black Lives Matter in this moment shows this. Once enough people wake up, there’s no way to put them back to sleep. Trayvon Martin set us on a course to change the future for African people in this country. And we will.

Trayvon, more than anything, has become a symbol for the overwhelming injustice that defines the African experience in the United States today. We, as a people, are expected to accept a reality where at any moment we may be struck down and killed for any reason and in death the people who killed us will say we deserved it and the nation where we live will stand by them. We live in a country where cops can pull up on a 12-year-old boy playing with a toy gun, shoot him down within 30 seconds, and people will passionately explain why it was his fault. We live in a country where a little girl can get blown up in her sleep by a flash grenade, and the person who threw it will never face charges. We live in a country where an African woman arrested for a traffic violation can die overnight in a prison cell without outrage or even investigation. We live in a country where we are forced to bleed to show our pain and to explain why we deserve to live again and again and again.

African existence is pain and rage. African existence is resistance, resilience, creativity, brilliance, and magic.

Every single African person still living today, still surviving this, still fighting this is a testament to the strength and humanity of our people and of our ancestors. Everything we are today and everything we will be tomorrow is made possible by the people who bled, and fought, and struggled, and won so we could be here. There’s a saying that goes, “the life you live today does not belong to you, it belongs to the people who will come after you.” This is true. For us and for everyone: this is true.

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allenmendezsr · 5 years ago

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500 Scrapbooking Sketches

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