#i hope we have a lighter year ahead of us! i know its been rough for so many of us. let's get through another full year with grace!

[prinsomnia]

in her head ✷ wishing everyone a graceful 2023!

[smallraindrops-blog]

A Road To Somewhere.

For prompt: road trip

Hypnos/male!reader

Thanatos/Zagreus/Meg in the background.

5.7k total, link to part two at the end.

Warnings: some sexual stuff are talked about but the most that happens is kissing and cuddling. Jokes about cannibalism as well. Alcohol uses. No beta.

Summary: Why talk about your feelings with your childhood best friend when you can just go on a road trip?

A/N: sorry for going silent, I was dealing with some medical issues on top of helping my partner with stuff.

To the Anon who requested this, I'm sorry about the wait, I hope you like this and feel free to always hit me for another request!

At three in the morning, your phone rang. 

You groaned as you rolled across your bed. and you squinted at the brightness of your phone. 

Hypnos' photo flashed on the screen, the one where he stole your letterman jacket to nap in on the school bus that Zagreus had sent it to you. And if you kept the photo five years after high school, well that is your business and nobody else's.

You hesitated, not sure you want to talk to him right now. After that night, the only thing you and Hypnos traded was polite, almost cold texts. not your usual meme or lazy chatting about whatever. But something about the picture of Hypnos' sleeping face pushed you to respond. 

You swiped the green button.

"You are coming with me." Hypnos said, or rather slurred.

You covered your face,"Hypnos, dude. Are you drunk right now?"

"You- you said you have never seen the ocean right?" Hypnos asked, ignoring your question.

"Where are you? I am coming to get you." You turned on your lamp, looking for a pair of jeans to wear.

"No- no." Hypnos said firmly and very drunkenly. "Y/N, dude. I'm fine. I'm at my shitty apartment." Hypnos paused, "You know, the one where my brother hooked up with Meg. And Zagreus. At the same time. Which is really effing weird for me."

"I - Hypnos-" you tried to think of what to say. The said incident happened over a little month ago and Hypnos had the misfortune of walking in at the wrong time. Which of course because Hypnos got his heart broken by Meg lead up to Hypnos trying to hook up with you to get over her.

"Look, you always said you wanted to see the ocean right?" Hypnos yawned, which you took as a good sign. Hopefully it means your dumb best friend will pass out soon and not ruin his liver for rest of the day.

"Yeah, what of it?" You asked, frustrated at Hypnos for doing this to himself and to you.

"Road trip!" Hypnos dragged out the words with a laugh. "I will be picking you up tomorrow. Love you bestie."

"Hypnos wait no, we can't just leave." You said. You waited for a response, "Hypnos?" You asked worriedly.

A snore came through the phone and you sighed. You turned off the lamp and laid back down, listening to Hypnos' deep breathing.

You stared at the ceiling, and tried not to think about the last time Hypnos got this drunk. Or about that night or how Hypnos acted like nothing happened the next day.

You rolled over to face your phone and closed your eyes.

You will just stay on the line in case Hypnos wakes up.

💤

"You can't be serious, Hypnos." You said as he went through your clothes, uncaring of any boundaries you may have.

But honestly with Hypnos, you had long lost any boundaries. You knew you should actually try to enforce some but you craved just being near him.

"I am! I need to get away for a bit and you told me you were taking a week off right? And it starts today or last night technically." Hypnos held up a lime green shirt and made a face at it.

"Yes for a staycation, I don't have extra money for a motel or anything like that." You replied, and took the shirt away to place it back on its hanger.

"It's my treat, Y/N." Hypnos leaned on you, his head on your shoulder. You tried not to notice how warm he was against you or his big golden puppy dog eyes. "Come on, a free trip away with your best friend aka me aka the best thing ever with your favorite person ever-" Hypnos rambled.

"Fine, only because you said you will pay for everything." You sighed, You hated how hard it was to say no to him.

Hypnos cheered and pulled you into a bear hug. You savored the warmth despite not wanting to.

You just needed a vacation too. To clear your head. And who knows, you and Hypnos could finally get back to being normal.

💤

Hypnos was in the driver's seat as you closed the truck and joined him in the car. A pen dangled from his teeth as his golden eyes flicked across the map. He glanced at you as you strapped in.

"It will be a two days drive if we only stop when we need to. That gives us three days at the beach or wherever else we end up doing." Hypnos took the pen out and marked a couple spots on the map.

"Couldn't we just use our phone GPS?" You asked.

"Nope, the place I'm taking you isn't a normal public beach and we have to drive through some mountains and mountains always win over gps." Hypnos pointed the pen at you. "Always." He said in a mock doom voice.

You rolled your eyes, and with a finger pushed the pen out your face. "Alright but if we get lost in the mountains. I call first dibs on eating you."

"Ha, jokes on you, bestie. I got almost no tender fat on me. So enjoy gnawing on my worthless bones." Hypnos crackled as he started the car. He tossed the map in your lab and peeled out of the driveway.

His deft fingers quickly found some music as Tom Petty sang through the radio.

Hypnos sang along badly. You covered up your smile, it feel good just near him again even if you didn't want to admit it.

Within minutes, Hypnos had weaved into the midmorning traffic. But even with the traffic, you already feel a little lighter.

💤

The first day of the drive went surprisingly well, even with traffic for the first hour. The skies were a vivid blue with fat, lazy clouds that casted shadows across the land.

Hypnos had the windows rolled down, one arm out of the window and music blasting. His shades should have made him look like a frat boy but you actually liked how they looked with his messy white curls and dark red shirt.

You kept your mouth shut and just watched the landscape change from suburbia to the fields dotted with cows and horses.

It was the most peace you had felt in a long while even with the elephant in between you and Hypnos.

It wasn't until twilight had followed you to the motel that the problems started.

"Is that a permanently closed sign?" Hypnos asked flatly, his shades resting on his head.

You nodded, "I had a feeling the trip started a little too well."

You and Hypnos both stared at the sign, the red and white words mocked you.

"I knew google was lying to me." Hypnos murmured.

"We can just sleep in the car, Hypnos." You followed him as he turned back. "We probably shouldn't drive anymore tonight."

Hypnos shook his head, "Nope, we would get murder so fast." He snapped his fingers to make his point. He threw an arm around your shoulders and guided you back to the car. "Come on, I bet there's another place just up ahead."

"And if there is not?" You asked, noticing how easily you fit next to him.

"There will be." Hypnos said confidently.

At your doubtful look, he said cheerfully,

"Or we could just get murder in a much nicer area."

💤

It was almost an hour before you saw the faint vacancy light just peeking behind the trees.

You gasped, "There! Do you see it?"

"Yeah, I see it." Hypnos replied, perking up. The rundown motel looked like someone's idea of what an old western inn looked like without actually never seeing one before.

But after driving for an extra hour and half, it looked like heaven.

Hypnos pulled up in the first empty spot he found which was plenty of.

"Stay here, keep an eye on the car. Don't get murdered." Hypnos said as he locked the car up. He only looked back once as he entered the building.

You slumped in your seat, exhaustion overtaken you. Your phone buzzed in your hand, Zagreus's name popped up.

'Is Hypnos with you??'

You stared down at the text, why is Zagreus asking you?

'Yeah, why?' you replied.

Immediately, Zagreus responded.

'He hasn't responded to any of our texts or calls.'

In a separate text, 'Is he okay? I knew my talk with him was rough but I didn't expect this. '

You bit your lip, just realizing that you haven't heard Hypnos' phone go off all day. Normally, Hypnos' phone was glued in his hand and he was always constantly texting or playing a game.

You looked up, making sure Hypnos was still in the building.

You replied, 'I think he just needs a break. I will let you know if anything happens but maybe just give him some breathing room. Also what talk?'

Three dots appeared and disappeared a few times before Zagreus' response came.

'No, I know. We just wanted to make sure he wasn't alone. Thanks.'

You rubbed your face, unsure what to make of the texts and that Hypnos, a known phone addict, hasn't been on his phone all day. And that Zagreus didn't bother to tell you what 'talk' he had with Hypnos.

You looked back up and saw Hypnos walking back a grin on his face. When your eyes met his, he waved the roomcard and a plastic bag triumphantly.

You pushed your worries aside for now, Hypnos will talk to you when he is ready.

💤

"Uhh, dude. There is only one bed." You said blankly when Hypnos turned the lights on. All the room had was a single hotel bed and a little table with two chairs. The whole area looked like it never left the seventies.

"And a sofa." Hypnos pointed out as he flopped down on it. The sofa creaked loudly as if threatening to snap in half. "I can sleep on anything, remember?"

"If you are sure." You grabbed the plastic bag from the floor as you sat down on the bed.

You dumped the goods on the bed. There was a healthy mix of spicy ramen bowls, candy bars and cans of soda.

You picked out the one you knew Hypnos liked and set on making dinner.

The sofa kept creeking each time Hypnos twitched or even breath. Hypnos' eyes were close but there was a tension to his body that kept him looking truly relaxed.

You debated on telling him that Zagreus had reached out to you but the tight frown on his face kept you from saying anything.

The microwave gave a high pitch beep and you quickly pulled out the ramen and placed the hot bowl on the table. "Hey, Hypnos. Soup on." You told him as you got your bowl ready.

"Oh. Thanks. Wanna have a soda?" Hypnos asked.

You thanked him as you dug into your own dinner and honestly the cheap ramen was the best thing you tasted after not getting lunch during the drive.

Hypnos was unusually quiet during dinner and while getting ready for bed. You couldn't help noticing that Hypnos never once picked up his phone.

Hypnos yawned and sat on the sofa much more carefully yet the beast still creaked in warning.

You sighed, there was no way you or him would sleep with all that creaking.

"Hypnos, just come to bed. I think it's a queen so we got plenty of room." You told him as you got under the covers. You met his gaze, his eyes bright even with the dark circles under them.

"Okay." He agreed softly. He gave you a look that you ignored as he joined you. He turned off the lights. "Good night, Y/N."

You rolled on your side, back facing Hypnos. "Good night." You yawned widely, already halfway to sleep.

💤

You didn't quite wake up all the way, not at first. You blinked at the wall, small cracks in the blinds allowed for small rays of sunlight to break though. It made the motel room feel cozy even with the ugly decor.

There was an arm loosely wrapped around your shoulders and you sank into its hold with a sigh.

Your eyes closed before your brain realized that you could feel another body pressed against your back, legs tangled together.

You snapped awake, your body went rigid and you heard Hypnos grumbled against your nape.

You relaxed, letting out a breath when you remembered Hypnos was in bed with you. Hypnos, during sleepovers when you were children, always ended up clinging on to you.

It was almost nice, a return to a simpler time. Almost.

It was a very different experience when you both were adults. You flushed when Hypnos pressed a little harder against your body, a pleased, sleepy hum rumbled in his chest.

You could feel him pressed against your lower back and damnit, your traitor of a body was responding. You squeezed your eyes shut, flushed from shame and want.

Your mind flashed back to the last time you allowed Hypnos this close.

You could still remember how he pushed you into his dark bedroom and kissed you again and again. How it felt being under him on his bed. How you almost let him have more.

And you knew you wouldn't survive if Hypnos acted just like he did the morning after.

With the small strength you were able to find, you pulled out of his hold or rather you tried to.

His arm went tight and kept you in the bed, "Where are you going so early?" His sleep rough voice mumbled against your skin.

You ignored the goosebumps he caused and you sighed annoyed. "Come on, you're being a jerk. I need to go get ready for the trip."

"Hmm, we drove more than we planned. We still have some time." Hypnos murmured, clearly going back to sleep. You grabbed the blanket with your free arm and yanked it off the both of you.

Hypnos yelped at the sudden cold and let you go. You darted out the bed and grinned at the scowl Hypnos had. You tossed the blanket over his face and walked away. "Early birds get the worm Hypnos!" You called out as you headed to the bathroom.

You bit back a laugh at the loud groan Hypnos made.

💤

After a quick stop for coffee and pancakes with bacon which Hypnos immediately drowned in syrup much to your disgust of the sheer amount of sugar, you were back on the road.

After an hour of staring out the window at patches of woods between the farmlands, you turned to look at Hypnos.

"What is it about this place that made you pick it? I looked at the map, we could get to the ocean quicker if we went along the other route. " You thought for a moment, "And you know, not to have to drive past the mountains."

"Yeah, if you want to see what everyone else sees and deal with the crowds." Hypnos scoffed. He pulled his shades down a bit to look at you, his windblown curls bounced with the movement.

You prayed he didn't notice your blush.

"Also my mom told me about this place a million times. Trust me, it is going to be worth the wait." And with that, Hypnos focused back on driving.

You turned back to the open window, silently hating yourself for still being attracted to him.

"Hey- is that a cow?" Hypnos asked, already slowing down. You looked down the road and saw the animal. You couldn't help the laugh that came out. "Yeah it is."

The stray cow stared down at the car. It was apparently unconcerned about being hit as it chewed on the grass in its mouth.

Hypnos pressed down on the horn repeatedly and long. The cow kept chewing on its bit of grass, blinking slowly.

"Dumb cow. It knows what it is doing." Hypnos muttered.

You laughed again, "I think that is an oxymoron."

Hypnos scowled and waved his hands at the cow whose tongue had found its nose.

"Well, what bright ideas do you have, Y/N?"

You looked into the bag of snacks down by the footrest. And pulled out a bag of barbecue chips.

"I'm going to lure it out of the road, first chance you get, drive past."

Hypnos pulled his shade down, an eyebrow crocked.

You shook the bag at his doubtful look.

Hypnos' eyes narrowed, eyes sharp and calculating. "That won't work."

"Oh?" You raised a brow. "And why not?"

"Those are barbecue chips, I'm pretty sure even that dumb thing know that smell. And when it smells the barbecue, it will just run you over enraged about the chips."

You leaned toward him, "Wanna make a bet?"

He matched your lean, a bright glint in his eyes. "Sure. If I win, you have to agree to everything I say until we get to the hotel."

"Fine." You agreed. "And if I get the cow out of the way, you can only speak in moos until we get to the hotel."

"Deal." He leaned back into his seat. "Easiest win ever."

You scoffed at him as you got out. "Gee, thanks for believing in me."

You stared down the cow who merely blinked at you.

Hypnos poked his head out the window, laughing "Hey Y/N, when it's moving, start running!"

You shushed him and crinkled the bag at the cow. It took a wary step forward and you opened the bag and it took a sniff.

The cow immediately tried to bite the bag but you took several steps and it followed you. You couldn't stop your smirk at Hypnos' outraged face. "Good cow." You cooed. "Good cow."

You took several steps back into the tall grass and dumped the chips on the ground.

The moment the cow started eating the chips on the ground, you took off like a shot and almost fell into your seat. You barely had a chance to close the door before Hypnos drove off.

You pulled your seatbelt on and waited, a huge grin on your face.

When Hypnos refused to say anything or even look at you, you poked him in his cheek.

"Hypnos." You called his name in a sing-songy tone. "I won the bet. Hypnos. Hypnos." You poked him with each word. There was an evil, childish part of you enjoying this too much.

Hypnos batted your hand away. "Moo fucking moo." He replied sourly.

You playfully frowned, "I don't think cows can say fucking."

"Oh my god."

"They don't say that either."

Part Two

[diaryofabeautyfiend]

Warnings: unprotected sex (m/f), adultery, divorce, a little fluff, a little angst

Plain Gold Ring Part III

For All We Know

“For all we know

We may never meet again

Before we go

Make this moment live again

We won't say goodbye

Until the last minute

I'll hold out my hand

And my heart will be in it” -Nina Simone

———————————————————

One month. One month before you moved to Chicago. One month until you start your new life. One month for Andy Barber to convince you that you belong together.

The night you retuned was a whirlwind of emotions. In the four days you were gone Andy had moved out and filed for divorce. You didn’t know what happened in that house and you didn’t dare ask. All Andy offered was, “She doesn’t know about you.” That gave you little solace. Made you feel no less guilty. And yet, here he was in your apartment.

He knew her routine and promised they wouldn’t cross paths. Though, it wouldn’t be unheard of if he was at your place considering the mountain of work you had to clear. He could explain it away.

You said no physical contact but you couldn’t help stroking the dented skin on his left ring finger. The little void of lighter skin a spectral reminder of his former life. That was the only conscious touching you did that night.

You kept the conversation light. You spoke about the new firm with an excitement in your voice that even shocked you. He agreed your offer was far too good to pass up. He had been to Chicago a couple of times. It was bitterly cold there for far too long. Though, if all of this worked out, he would just have to get used to it.

It was getting late. Neither of you wanted to say goodbye. “Can I stay the night?” he whispered.

He had no malicious intent whatsoever. He just wanted to be next to you. Your stupid brain was now deferring all decision making to your heart. That bitch was more easily swayed than your pussy. Of course you said yes.

He wanted so badly to hold you against his body and drown in your warmth but he promised. He stayed as far away from you on the bed as possible. In the night, out of habit, your body had made its way to the middle of your California king. And, purely out of habit, Andy draped an arm over your side.

——————————————————————

You let Andy sleep in the next morning. You went to the gym, showered and made breakfast. When he found you in the kitchen he was freshly showered and wearing some well loved pajama pants. The no touching rule did not apply to morning in the kitchen.

He padded in on bare feet unintentionally sneaking up on you. When he kissed the back of your neck you jumped.

“Did I scare you?” he chuckled.

“I’m not used to having someone here.”

He poured himself a cup of coffee and refilled your cup. “I’ll make more noise next time.”

“Did you sleep ok?”

“Very well. Thank you.” Neither of you mentioned that you wound up tangled around each other.

You got out your laptop and set yourself up on the dining table. You tapped away while Andy read the paper. He eyed you suspiciously over a folded corner. “What are you doing over there?

“Working. Between you and Stan I have about 500 emails in my inbox.”

“It’s Saturday.” he said in disbelief. “Who works on a Saturday?”

“A single girl who lives alone and doesn’t participate in home improvement couples projects. Be honest. How many Saturdays have you and Lori spent in Home Depot?”

He really though about it and laughed to himself, “Too many.”

“Fucking suburban breeders.”

“Suburban breeders. Wow.” He continued to read the paper feigning outrage. “We don’t have to go to Home Depot but I would like to do something nice with you today. Although, I did see a few lightbulbs that needed to be changed.”

“That’s what the super is for. I don’t even own a ladder and I’m not about to buy one. Why don’t you find us a movie? It’ll be like a date.”

Andy’s heart fluttered. He hadn’t been on a date in sixteen years. He wanted to get it just right. While you toiled away he planned your evening.

First, he would make you dinner. Keep it simple and light to make way for popcorn and candy. An art house cinema was playing “Anatomy of a Murder” on actual film. It’s arguably one of the best written courtroom dramas ever. After the movie there was a little coffee shop within walking distance. Then, he hoped, it would be back to his new place. He thought if you were at his place and not in your building that it would take your mind off of Lori and Jacob.

It actually warmed his heart that you cared so much for their feelings. He couldn’t help but think you would make a great stepmom for Jacob. He was getting ahead of himself. But it didn’t hurt to daydream.

Andy tried his hardest to be lazy for the day but he was crap at it. He had to occupy himself. He offered you a hand which you readily accepted. It was such a shame you were leaving the firm. The two of you worked so well together. Given your circumstances he would have encouraged you to tender your resignation immediately after being passed over.

While Andy was getting dinner together you popped off to get changed. So far he had only seen you in workout gear and work attire. It would be nice to be a little bit more casual.

When you appeared in the kitchen he let out a sharp whistle in appreciation. “You look beautiful. Since we are on a date is the touching ban still in effect?”

You kissed him tenderly on the lips, “I think we can make an exception.”

“Well in that case…” He placed his hands on either side of your face and gave you a deep panty ruining kiss. “I’ve been wanting to do that for days now.”

You gripped the edge of the counter to catch your breath. “Something smells good.”

His whole face lit up when he told you about the salmon he made. He dipped the tip of his finger in the glaze and held it to your lips. You slowly sucked at the very tip of his finger. “Yum” you said looking up at him through your lashes.

“If you keep that up, baby, we won’t leave this apartment.”

You gave him your most innocent smile, “Sorry, boss. I’ll be a good girl.”

“Fuck. Save that for later. Speaking of later, I thought we could go to my condo tonight. It’s closer to the theater and I’d like to show it to you.”

“Big ol’ thumbs up for me. I’m famished.”

Your date went incredibly well. How could it not? You two were already idiots for each other. You talked for hours and about everything that night. No topic was off limits. You really had a lot in common. You both got into law for similar reasons. Though, you had more altruistic intentions like joining the ACLU as part of their legal team. Now you work for a firm who represents massive corporations. You weren’t proud of the turn you took. That was another reason the Chicago firm was such a great fit for you. They did a little bit of everything but, you would be going after these big corporations instead. He loved your unbridled enthusiasm for your work.

After all the wine was gone and the conversation died the two of you were cuddled on the couch. He rubbed his hands up your arms and massaged your shoulders, “Are you falling asleep on me?” he asked against your ear.

“No. Just relaxed.” He deepened his touch bringing his hands to your décolleté skimming the top swell of your breasts. His hand dipped into the v of your tshirt to make contact with your skin.

“Is this ok?” Lord he’s perfect.

“I declare the no touching ban officially lifted.”

He waisted no time taking full advantage. He massaged your breast under your shirt teasing you over your bra. His other hand held your face to his while he kissed you. You let out a soft moan to which he responded in kind. You turned around to straddle him. He ground his cock into your denim covered cunt to relieve the ache. You went slow savoring the weight of his body. The scruff of his beard. The rough callused fingers that seemed to be everywhere. With Andy, kissing was your favorite thing. The act made your insides liquid and warm.

He broke away to lift your shirt over your head. He sucked your nipple through the thin material of your bra. Your breath hitched in your throat. You ran your fingers through his hair grasping it hard. He undid the fly of your jeans and slipped his hand in. Your juices ran over his fingers while he fucked into you. You met your peak and cried out when you tumbled over the edge.

When he released you, you stood up and undressed. You pulled his shirt over his head. He kissed your belly while you shimmied out of your panties. He kicked off his pants and lowered you onto his dick. The stretch nearly toppled you over but you held on. You pressed your clit into his pelvic bone and he fucked into you hard. He could feel you were close. Your pussy fluttered around him bringing him close to his end. “You ready, baby?” You answered with a whimper. “Cum with me.” With a few final thrusts you both exploded.

There was an imperceptible shift in you that night. You were ready to meet Andy where he was. For the next few weeks, you were going to be his. Entirely and completely his in every conceivable way.

——————————————————————

You didn’t say no when he asked you to spend the night. You spent a lot of nights there. So many that he gently suggested moving in with him until it was time to ship out. His reasons were entirely practical. You were over staying your lease which meant you were paying more a month in rent. Your big stuff and winter clothes were packed and in storage. You were basically down to your bed and a few other essentials. At least you could put everything in storage to make it easier for the moving company. So you guessed now you were living together.

You wished it bothered you more but honestly he was a delightful roommate. He was clean. He cooked. You both had an annoying habit of bringing work home with you. At least you were doing it together. And, it goes without saying, you fucked like horny teenagers. You were adventurous and that thrilled him to his very core.

He had a large terrace looking over the city. That was officially your favorite spot. You were sure your neighbors heard you.

——————————————————————

You only had a week left. You successfully handed off your entire case load. Andy took a few days off to help you get settled in Chicago. You tendered your resignation the week prior.

Stan tried and failed to hold onto you. You let him know your mind was set. The only thing left on your work calendar was the charity event the firm held annually. You were on the board this year. Problem was, no one could know about you and Andy. You had to go alone. Andy was bringing Lori.

Your heart gave up her post as she was no longer emotionally equipped to handle decision making. Your brain was petty as fuck. You gave Andy the silent treatment for a whole day. He had no idea you weren’t speaking until he asked you a third time what you wanted for dinner.

“Y/n, I’m speaking to you. Do you want Thai tonight?” Nothing. You sulked around the kitchen never making eye contact. “I’m sorry are you mad at me?” He grabbed your wrist and forced you to face him. “Being a brat isn’t going to fix this. Look at me and use your words like a big girl.”

“Don’t treat me like a child.” Your voice was low and emotionless. You planted your feet and stared him down.

“Then don’t act like a child. Talk to me.” He smoothed the hair out of your face and rested his hands on your shoulders. “Please. We only have a few more days together. I don’t want to spend them fighting.”

You took a deep breath and blew it out. You didn’t trust yourself not to cry so you just let loose. “If I quit already, why can’t we go together? Further more, if you filed for divorce, why are you taking Lori? Also, you didn’t talk to me. You told me. End of story.”

“I still work there. I don’t want anyone to think you quit because of me. I didn’t tell anyone that Lori and I have split. She agreed to go while you were still in Chicago. I apologize for not talking to you about all of this. I honestly didn’t know how you would react. I wanted our last week together to be happy. I won’t see you for a while. It’s just one night. You can have me forever if you want.”

You softened a little, “But we’ll be all dressed up and dancing and stuff. I know this seems ridiculous but I don’t want to watch you dance with someone else even if, technically, she is your wife.” You pouted a little. He kissed your bottom lip and pulled you into his arms.

“You wanna dance with me, baby? Let’s dance. Alexa…play my Y/N playlist.” The speaker sprang to life filling the air with a sweeping piano and Nina Simone’s velvety voice. You swayed to the music while Andy sang softly in your ear “…..So baby love me, love me tonight……”

You stared up at him, tears shimmering in your eyes, “I’m sorry I was a bitch. I guess I’m a little on edge.”

“Don’t apologize. I’d be offended if you weren’t a little jealous. I’m on edge too. Every time I think about being here alone I can’t breathe.”

“So come with me.” It’s not that the thought hasn’t crossed his mind. He didn’t want to be that far away from Jacob. He just started this job. You both knew it was a ridiculous request.

“Give me some time.” You spent the rest of the night swaying in each other’s arms. Fucking hell. You fell in love.

[stopeatingwhales]

about a girl (pt.2) x kurt cobain

hi guys :) so sorry for my inactivity, but i’m here finally lmaoo, this is a part two to my kurt fic that i wrote about a month ago, due to school its been much harder for me to keep up writing as usual, but i will absolutely try my best to finish your guys’ requests soon! anyways, hope you enjoy this <3 Pairing: pre-bleach era kurt x reader

Warnings: nothing :)

Word count: 2.167

Requested by anon (the second part was my idea, but i felt like i should still credit the anon for giving me the idea for this x) 

༉‧₊˚✧

The wind exhales short, breezy waves as you lay there, engulfed in your dreams. From the night succeeding to your outstanding performance, you were requited to a favourable hibernation which by admiring you, was needed for not only the sum of a few hours. Your solemn features are painted still, the only movement stimulating from your body is heavy breaths accompanied by a light snore from time to time. I question whether it's righteous of me to allow my eyes to adorn themselves in your serene features, yet I simply cannot stop myself. I find it surreal to witness you in such fragility; for all the pain and sorrow you’ve had to experience in your life, it’s almost like you shouldn’t be sleeping in such a tranquillic state. I wonder if you prefer sleeping than being awake, I wonder if you think it’s a chore to get out of bed. Does the world haunt you? Every click, flash, snap of a camera, does it devastate you? The image you portray to the world is magnificent, yet flawed. It’s almost as if you’re hiding something, yet you don’t care what others think of you, so you do whatever you please. My heart skips a beat every time you shift slightly, cradling your body in the duvet. I advert my stare to your arms, sculpted perfectly in God’s chamber, the lankiness of your bones withering an appearance of discrepancy. You’re not like the rest of them. Your steady breaths softly ease in and out of your flawless torso, your hair so impeccable it looks untouched even when you’re shifting around in your slumber - the hair you willingly dyed and strained with a flavoured drink mix. As I admire you, sleeping beauty, it reminds me of how lucky I am to have you in my life - regardless of where we stand. When you’re awake, you’re the only thing keeping me sane during the day; spending even just a day without you would feel as if I had lost my legs, lost what’s kept me steady for all these draining years. In all my time of knowing and understanding you, have you never not known what to say, for you have such a way with words, it's unfathomable. You carry a sort of intelligence that no one can seem to obtain; you speak words out of a bible and it’s ironic I say that, Mr ‘God is gay’, but it’s true. You’re the reason I wake up in the morning. You’re like a hard candy, sweet and delicate, although the texture is very hard making it a burden to get through to you. I want to taste you on my tongue every morning, if you would like me to be honest. I crave for things as little as your scent even before I’ve risen from the cushion. Your grace must be envied by the heavens; there is and will never be anyone as alluring as you, not that I’m surprised. 

As my eyes continue to wander on him, a sudden stretch of his arms and a small groan echoing out of his vocal chords results in my body almost instantaneously sitting up. I watch him as he blinks his eyes a few times, his vision still not clear enough. “Good morning,” he whispers, his arms thrown to the skies; he’s like a baby, reaching out for their mother in the early hours of daylight, moaning and whining for affection, warming my heart with soreful ease. Quickly taking note of the small clock situated beside him that I was aware of for the many hours I had been trapped in thought, it read a bright and early 11am. My stare continues to linger onto him as I watch him shifting around, the heart situated in my upper chest now beating as fast as drum solos in heavy metal songs. A short silence stood in between both presences; I assume that he hadn’t taken note of my pondering state adjacent to him, though was that idea contradicted by his light greeting. “Did you sleep well?” he chirps, now using both palms to rub his what-seemed-like itchy eyes.

Now what is humorous from this scenario is that he asks this as if it means nothing; a simple conversation starter it may be, though, to me it means so much more hearing those light words roll off his tongue, compared to if someone else had said it, even if it was in the exact same moment living right now. A whiff of bad breath hits my face as I laugh lightly, shaking my head in a sort of admiration towards the man lying down ahead of me. He again blinks a few times, now in attempt to adjust the bright scenery to his view. For a couple seconds the room is frozen, Kurt’s alteration in position to sitting up becoming the only sound ringing through both our ears. As I find my gaze glued onto him once again, I subconsciously repeat the question he asked me, this time directed for him. However, from what I’ve seen, I’m certain he slept wonderfully.

A tired chuckle escaped his mouth. “I asked you first,” he mutters, the morning rasp still prominent in his vocal chords. This makes me smile. The raw, genuinity forwards the idea of realism that this moment was actually happening, coming like a pinch snapping someone out of their daydream, though my thoughts will never be known to understand how I was able to spend time with such a man. “I slept well, though.” he adds, a warm smile playing on his lips. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” I answered, my face now being cradled by my palms. 

I now feel the stare of Kurt burn onto my face. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asks, a hint of annoyance laced in his words. “We could’ve stayed up together,” 

A small chuckle breezes out of my nose. How considerate, how caring must you be to, even when you have performed such an exasperating gig, stay awake with me because of one night of my mind’s continuous ambles? For all I know, Kurt wouldn’t sleep for days if it meant I would be in absolute glee. It’s those sorts of traits in those who are lost which draw you towards them becoming the significant other to stay with for life. It’s that sense of attachment, connection you hold with someone, so strong that you would give up the roof over your head if it meant a smile to be drawn on their face. ”You looked so peaceful in your sleep,” I replied, staring directly into his loveable eyes, the shade of blue brightening as the sunlight melted onto his face. His hair was now a little more messier compared to how it was less than ten minutes ago, and the urge of me running my fingers through his golden locks only seemed to grow even more as time passed on. For a moment I decided to hold back my words, inhaling sharply to gain composure to my fatigued state. “I didn’t want to disturb you,” 

Kurt sighed - knowing that he needed sleep more than anything, though a hint of sadness dwindled in his stomach, his mind conflicted from the idea of me drowning in worry as I tended to do when I couldn’t sleep. Reaching his arm towards the table sat beside him, his fingers got lost in between the opened packet of cigarettes that slept reverently on the white wood, grabbing a random one at choice before placing it in a loose grip between his lips. With the known information that you need a torch to light a cigarette, I threw the one I had on his lap, a small laugh escaping my lips for no apparent reason. Actually no, there was a reason. “Who the fuck smokes first thing in the morning?”

Before he torched the lighter, he stopped, his piercing blue eyes locking in contact with mine. “Me, I do,” 

Another laugh tempted to flee itself from my throat, yet I held it back. If you would’ve said that to me the first night I met you, in that small, cramped room, littered with amps that Krist had dragged me into going in to listen to your material, I would’ve scoffed at your blown attitude towards such a random question. Watching you now as you’re admiring the cancer stick with pure attachment, my mind begins to wander over such a topic. I look at you and see a troubled, young kid who just wants love and affection because he seemingly never got enough from the people who designed his childhood; for you haven’t grown up since then. Perhaps in size and features, yes (and definitely the fact that children do not smoke), but hidden inside you is the same boy that was hidden away all those years ago - following onto your parents’ divorce. You say you’ve never been happy since then, you’ve never been able to think optimistically, and maybe you haven’t. Maybe the smile you give to me isn’t genuine; with continuous assurance I’ll consider it to be. Maybe I’ll never heal those bruises that were once your only source of living, and that’s okay, if you’re able to cope with the imprints. If you’re the Kurt Cobain that prefers smoking than having a normal breakfast, so be it; I’d give up my heart for you, and if anything, you’ve already stolen it. Words merely brush the surface of my adoration for you, and sometimes I believe that I’m just lying to myself, that nothing I’m saying in my head is true. Yet, as every minute, every second passes throughout the day, even in silent, contented situations with ceilings bright as yellow from the smoke like these, everything I say to myself simply strengthens in morality. My sweet, you deserve more than one could wish for. You deserve things that this world cannot give you, yet all you believe is that you are worthless. If only you saw yourself in my eyes, maybe then you’d realise, realise the impact you’ve sincerely doused onto me and my mind, you’ve got the moves to empower a generation and perhaps hundreds more - even if you don’t see that yet. 

“Give me one,” He hands me one, the strong gusts of cloud escaping his mouth creating a want for the rough substance to coat my throat in brutal ways; even if it’s slowly murdering me. It was a murderous addiction, nicotine, yet it kills us all, our addictions; and we are too blinded by the goodness it seemingly overshadows what we force to neglect in our minds - the bad in it all. We become so unbelievably enthralled by the pain we choose to accept it; we believe it is favourable, not disastrous and catastrophic. Drugs are frowned upon dearly, as they should be, but once you’re stuck, it takes more than simple courage to escape out of the deadly grip it chokes you in. Placing the cigarette in between my lips, identical to how he had just done, I reached my arm out to obtain the lighter that was in my clutch merely seconds ago, swiftly lighting it with one hand. As I breathed out the first tar-filled cloud from my cigar, I fixed my gaze onto him once again, sucking in my top lip as I allowed the droplets of ash fall onto my shirt. “I know I always say this,” I began as I studied his features, trying to identify any solemn, unpleasant emotions, noticing that there was none at all for the time being. “You’re going to make it big one day, I’m now for certain you’re going to take over the world,”

His eyes now locked into mine, a short chuckle leaving his throat as he blew out an even bigger gust of smoke. “I don’t want that,” 

Smiling, I took hold of my cigarette and inhaled deeply, holding it in my mouth until my body was unable to carry on without oxygen for longer - not that the air in the room was even oxygen; it was more corrosive chemicals than anything else, yet we’ve become so dependant on a small roll of tobacco to guide us to a path of slow death, its unnoticable. I watched as Kurt’s eyes drifted on to admire the elusive sunlight gleaming through the window, the whiffs of grey contrasting the happiness that was attempting to journey itself into the silent room. No matter how many times I may tell, his belief that he will never be as big as acts like the Sex Pistols will empower over anything I endevour on to phrase. It was inevitable though, whether he dreamt of it or not, that they will be big, bigger than anything they’ve ever seen. The path bridging onto it may cause destruction, heartbreak, and even more addiction, but the future is never in our hands - only until it is close enough for the present to capture it. Time is simply a mantelpiece, the light eventually burns out when there’s not enough coal to keep it going. You continue to refill it as the days go by until you simply cannot any longer, which is what all youths fear and avoid. Surprisingly enough, Kurt wasn’t one of the many crowds in devastating apprehension; he wanted to burn out more than anything else, for there were only small things keeping him going, or perhaps he was waiting for a longer, more agonizing death, hence the many packets of cigarettes vanished in a day.

There was nothing left to say in the room; there was no need for a response - it was only going to result in the same bicker as it resulted in many a time. The room, now physically undergoing a change in colour from the smoke, held a significant ambience, one so serene it left you more relaxed than the aftermath of a crazy high in drug use, though sometimes the relaxation is more pain than anything else. Even when my mind was so consumed in ideation earlier in the morning, my thoughts were louder than ever in this given moment. My mind was mulled over the concept of Kurt and stardom. He would never like it, nor does he even want it. It’s humorous to an extent; how much authenticity can one acclaim, to not even look up to the sugar-coated concept called ‘fame’? You’re not like the others. You don’t want fame, you want to create music. And in all honesty, I wish I lie through my teeth whenever I mumble those encouraging words of how you’re going to make it big; I can’t stand the idea of losing you, but like I said, it's inevitable, one day simple moments like these will just be memories to look back on when you’re old and laughing about your previous attachment to drugs. Maybe you won’t look back on times like these however, maybe you’ll remember the more vivid, buzzing moments like your first gig as Nirvana, and maybe I won’t remember this either, maybe these moments aren’t to be remembered, to be lived in instead. If only you knew how much I loved you, would you be surprised that I haven’t ruined my life because of it. You mean more to me than the stars mean to the night sky, more than a memory means to a person’s mind. It hurts my heart knowing I can’t heal you, though I dream that one day, you’ll wake up, just like you did today, turn to me and say, ‘I’m happy,’ because that’s all I ever dream of you to be.

[wistfulcynic]

shelter from the storm

For the endlessly brilliant brainstormers @thesschesthair and @winterbythesea, a rainy interlude in Neverland and a very warm coat. (To Mandy in particular, I hope it brightens your day.) 

summary: Neverland. An unexpected storm, a cave, a bottle of rum. Emma and Hook, alone together, one of them wearing his coat. 

words: 2.1k rating: T tags: Neverland, stranded together, bedsharing, UST, the coat. 

AO3

-

The rain came without warning. 

Nothing more than the faintest breeze stirred the air before heavy drops were falling, hard and thick, in sheets that made it impossible to see much more than a foot or two ahead. Emma was drenched in a moment, her thin tank top moulding to her body and her hair plastered to her scalp. She shivered; the rain was cold and the sudden shift from steamy jungle to icy deluge came as a shock. 

The next shock came when warmth enveloped her, heavy, leathery, rum-scented warmth. Hook’s coat, flung over her shoulders. It did nothing to impede the sharp drops pounding against her skull but it stopped her shivering and kept most of the rain off her, especially after Hook flipped up the collar to shield her face and tugged at the lapels to wrap the coat snugly around her. 

Emma slipped her arms through the sleeves and took hold of the lapels herself, casting a glance up at Hook as she did. He was as drenched as she, more so now, with water running in rivulets down his face and concern in his blue eyes as he released the lapels, then frowned at the sky. 

“We should find shelter,” he said. “There’s no telling how long this will last.” 

He took her hand and she made no protest, using one of hers to hold the coat closed while the other curled around his fingers and held tight. His hand was warm despite the cold rain, large and slightly rough. Emma shivered again, and not from cold this time. She could still remember the feel of that hand in her hair, its rough skin catching on the soft strands... his thumb stroking across her cheek... the hitch in his breath... the look in his eyes…

Not the time, Emma, she reminded herself. Not now. 

Possibly not ever. 

He led her through the jungle, his stride sure and unfaltering in defiance of the blinding downpour. When they came to a copse of trees even denser than the rest he plunged into it with no hesitation, shoving the branches aside and tugging her forward, and when he let the branches go again their thick foliage muffled the deafening thrum of the rain and Emma felt herself relax. 

They were in a cave, she realised. One not that different from Neal’s, if somewhat smaller and surprisingly snug, with a lone torch on the wall and no drawings. She felt Hook move behind her, felt a slight tug on the coat as he reached into its pocket and withdrew his piece of flint. With that and his hook he managed to light the torch after only a few tries, and Emma bit back a quip about how much easier it would have been to use the lighter except oh, yeah, he’d lost it in the Dark Hollow by being an asshole. 

It was probably not the time for that either, she reflected. Not when they were stuck here together, trapped by a furious storm. Instead she watched as he stepped close to her again to slip the flint back in his pocket, watched the play of the soft torchlight across his features and the flex of muscle beneath his clinging shirt. She and Hook, alone in this small space, together, drenched to the skin. For who even knew how long. Emma swallowed hard and looked away. 

“What is this place?” she asked. 

“It’s a cave, Swan,” he replied, and she could hear the smirk in his voice. She rolled her eyes. 

“I know that. But what cave? Who lived here?” 

“No one.” 

“Hook, there’s a torch on the wall and a bed over there. Someone lived here.” She turned back to him, took in his guarded expression and tense posture, and then she understood. “It was you, wasn’t it? This was your place.” 

He gave a shrug. “I remained on my ship for most of my time in this land. But there were occasions when, yes, I stayed here. Stayed, not lived. It was… a haven of sorts. But never a home.” 

Like Tinkerbell’s tree house, thought Emma. Like her mother’s hollow log. Like so many of the foster homes and alleyways and back seats of cars where she’d once spent her own nights. She nodded. 

“Yeah. I get it.” 

Once again that connection flashed between them, as it had on the beanstalk, after the Dark Hollow, before that kiss... Hook’s shoulders relaxed and his lips curled into a smile. A softer smile than she’d ever seen from him, open and earnest and with no hint of flirtation in it. A smile that dimpled his cheeks and crinkled the corners of his eyes in a way that should not be as attractive as it was. His voice was soft as well, and low, sending warmth tingling across her skin. “We might as well settle in,” he said. “Storms like this one have been known to last for days.” 

Emma shook herself from her reverie. “Days!” she exclaimed. 

“Aye. Not always, though. Let’s hope this is one of the shorter ones.” 

“How long do the shorter ones last?” 

“Hours. Like I said, settle in.” 

He gestured to the mattress set against the back wall, atop a sort of platform made of stones and rough-hewn wooden boards. Emma hesitated for only a moment before striding over, prodding it experimentally with her finger, then gingerly sitting down. It was soft and springy, and when she shifted her weight it released a faint, dusty smell of hay. 

Her boots were so wet that her toes within them made a squelching noise, so she pulled them off, followed by her socks. These she draped over the end of one of the boards, then curled up with her bare feet tucked beneath her and made herself as comfortable as she could, leaning against the wall and burrowing deep into the warmth of Hook’s coat. 

She could sense his gaze on her, focused and intent, and when she glanced up the look in his eyes set her heartbeat racing and her brain scrambling to think of something—anything—to say that might distract them both from the reality of where they were, the intimacy of it, how little space there was and how long they might have to stay there, alone together. 

“It smells really good,” she blurted, then immediately wanted to kick herself. “I mean, um, I haven’t been in a lot of caves but I guess I would have expected them to be, I don’t know, mustier? Does that make sense?” 

Stop babbling, you idiot. 

She had no idea how caves were supposed to smell and cared even less, but she’d die before she let Hook find out that her muddled brain had not actually meant the cave smelled good at all. The warm, spicy scent tickling her nose was the same one she remembered clinging to his skin during their kiss. It clung to his coat as well, of course, stronger now that the rain was no longer washing it away, and made her light-headed as she fought the urge to bury her face in the leather and just breathe. 

Hook, fortunately, gave no indication that he noticed her discomfiture. “I expect it’s just the island,” he said. “Whatever keeps its inhabitants young also seems to hold other things in a sort of stasis. Despite all the rain there’s not actually much decay here.”

“Oh,” she said. “Wow. That’s... actually a bit creepy.” 

“Neverland, love. Creepy is its byword. Although, now, I wonder...” His eyes lit with speculation and he strode across the small space to the wall opposite the bed where a small pile of rocks lay. She couldn’t see what he was doing but she could hear his muttered curses and the shifting of the rocks and then he said “Aha. Here it is.” 

“Here what is?” 

Hook turned to her with a triumphant grin. “Something to keep us warm,” he replied, holding up a bottle. 

“Rum, I’m guessing,” snorted Emma. 

“Naturally.” He smirked at her. “But also this.” 

He crossed the cave again sat down next to her on the mattress, tucking the rum between his knees and handing her a small parcel wrapped in oilcloth. She unwrapped it and frowned at the contents. 

“What is this? Beef jerky?” 

“Is that what you call beef that’s been salted, smoked, and dried?” 

“Um. I think so?” 

“Then yes, this is beef jerky. I’ve always known it as boucan.” 

“Huh.” Emma poked at the dark brown strips of meat. “How long has it been here?” 

“Oh, a good forty years I’d reckon.” He grinned at her. “But that’s a mere blink of the eye in Neverland. It’s fine. Here, look.” He took a piece and bit into it. Emma watched him as he chewed, watched his jaw work and his throat flex as he swallowed, and felt her own throat go dry. “See?” he said. “It’s perfectly fine. Try some.” 

Gingerly, she selected a piece and took a tiny bite. It was intensely smoky and very salty, but so good and she realised to her surprise that she was starving. Her stomach gave a loud, gurgling rumble and Hook laughed, the cords in his neck straining beneath skin still damp from the rain, illuminated by the torchlight’s glow. Emma stuffed the rest of the jerky into her mouth and concentrated on chewing it.

When she dared look at Hook again, he was watching her with another of his looks, this one soft and indulgent, the corners of his mouth quirked in a faint smile. Her belly clenched. 

“So what do you think?” he asked. 

“Hmm?” 

“About the boucan?” 

“Oh. It’s, um, it’s good. Salty though.” 

He picked up the rum bottle and pulled its cork out with his teeth. “Quench your thirst, love?” he asked. 

Emma looked at the bottle, then the pirate, then the bottle again, listened to the pounding of the rain outside and the felt the equally intense pounding of her heart. She weighed it all in the balance, then threw her caution to the wind. 

“Why the hell not?” she muttered, grabbed the rum, and drank. 

—

When she awoke the next morning the rain had stopped. Emma vaguely registered the absence of the dull roar of rushing water and was grateful for its lack. Her head was throbbing and her mouth cotton-dry, and she wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep for another hundred years or so. She burrowed deeper into her pillow with a groan. 

“Ahem.” 

The sound of a very pointed throat-clearing penetrated her sluggish brain and the realisation that she was not alone had her eyes flying open. Only then did she realise that her head was resting not on a pillow at all but on Hook’s bare chest as they lay together on the narrow bed, she curled up on her side still swathed in his coat and his arm around her waist, fingers curled over her hip, holding her close. 

Their clothes, she was relieved to note, were still on. 

 From the look on David’s face though, they may as well have been naked. 

“What the hell is this?” her father seethed. Emma jolted backwards, scrambling out of Hook’s embrace and wrapping the coat more tightly around her. Behind David, she noted with dismay, stood Mary Margaret and Neal—she looking disappointed and he incredulous—with Tinkerbell bringing up the rear, smirking at Hook. 

Hook sat up and ran his hand over his face. “Relax, Dave,” he said. “No need for the tone. We got caught in the rain, came here for shelter, drank some rum to keep warm, and fell asleep. I don’t think pistols at dawn or the business end of your sword will be required.”

“And that’s all?” demanded Neal. “You just slept?”

Hook’s eyes flashed dangerously but he held his temper. “That’s all,” he confirmed. “I may be a pirate but I am always a gentleman. Not that it’s really any of your concern. ” 

Neal’s cheeks flushed red and opened his mouth to reply, but David spoke first. “Let’s get out of here, then,” he said. “Pan showed up this morning with a new message about Henry and we’ve got to act fast.” 

Emma scrambled to her feet then realised they were still bare and sat down again to tug on her socks. “What was it?” she demanded. “What was the message?”

“Let’s get back to camp and we’ll show you,” said David grimly. Emma nodded and shoved on her boots as quickly as she could before following her father out of the cave. She didn’t look back. 

It wasn’t until much, much later, after many reproachful looks from her mother and wounded ones from Neal, speculative ones from Tinkerbell and an amused one from Pan himself that she realised she was still wearing Hook’s coat. 

—

NOW WITH AMAZING ART by @cocohook38​

[wizardofahz]

High School Reunion

A/N: Midvale is coincidentally set around the time Alex’s 10-year high school reunion would’ve been, so that’s when this is set.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Alex heads down to the beach.

Spending the night in her childhood bed and the emotional release of her conversation with Kara had been nice, but leftover pent up energy is making her restless. A difficult run in the sand should help.

It does at first. It’s been a while since she’s run on a beach. All her energy is spent on reacquainting herself with the lack of solid footing, the way the sand deforms under her feet, how much harder her muscles have to work to extract her feet and carry them forward.

Not long after she falls into a steady rhythm, Alex spots two women walking ahead of her. They’re going in the same direction as her, but she passes them easily.

The monotony of her physical movements allows her mind to wander. Inevitably her thoughts return to Maggie. Actually, no, not Maggie but the coming out journey she had helped along. Alex’s self-realization may have come in National City, but the signs had started here in Midvale.

Vicki hadn’t been her only crush, she’s sure. Over the past year, other memories have come back to Alex, puzzle pieces falling into place with a startling new clarity. Alex wonders how many she’s forgotten. Her mother hadn’t been surprised when Alex came out to her. Maybe she remembers more.

Eventually Alex decides to head back. At this point, she can run half the way and use the last half as a cool down walk.

The two women from before are still walking in the same direction. Alex glances at them, prepared to give a courtesy nod, but recognition stops that plan in its tracks.

It’s Josie.

And Vicki.

Crap.

After Kenny’s death, the friend bubble that had shattered so quickly around Alex hadn’t lasted much longer for Josie.

Except Vicki.

Vicki had been so unfailingly kind to and well-liked by everyone that she had the unique ability to stand up for anyone regardless of social status. And so she did for Kenny, Josie, and Alex.

Until Alex had screwed that up.

Alex hopes they won’t recognize her. She really doesn’t need this reunion now of all times.

No such luck.

“Alex?” Josie says as Alex nears.

Alex skids to a stop, momentum carrying her past Josie and Vicki, so they all have to turn to see one another.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Josie continues.

Feeling more off-kilter than just her sudden stop can explain, Alex says, “I-- Josie, hi. Come to what?”

“The reunion.”

Josie’s words ring a distant bell though Alex doesn’t know how. She doesn’t really keep in touch with anyone from high school, though she sees the occasional update on social media. Maybe her mom mentioned it on a phone call. Either way, Alex has a vague recollection of hearing that her 10-year high school reunion is being held sometime around now. Apparently exactly now.

That also explains Vicki. From a brief moment of weakness when Alex googled her, she knows Vicki hasn’t lived in Midvale since she left for college either.

Vicki alternates between averting her gaze and shooting Alex odd looks. Once upon a time, Alex would’ve known what those looks meant.

“Oh, that’s this weekend?” Alex says. “Umm, I’m actually not here for that, just coincidence really.”

“Well, even if you hadn’t planned on going, since you're here, why don’t you drop by the reunion anyway?" Josie offers. “I’m sure we’ll be well-stocked with booze if nothing else.”

“I’ll think about it,” Alex says, her version of ‘thanks but no thanks.'

Josie seems to understand. “Either way, I’m glad we ran into each other. I wanted to say thank you and I’m sorry. The whole thing with Mr. Bernard...” She grimaces and shudders. “The more time passes, the grosser it feels. Thanks for ending it.”

“Just glad I could help,” Alex says. Maybe if Vicki wasn’t here, she’d ask how Josie is doing. But Vicki is here, which means Alex would very much like to be anywhere else. “I should finish my run before I cool down. See you around?”

Josie nods, looking a little lighter. “See you.”

Alex takes one last glance at Vicki.

The odd expression now looks like jealousy.

... 

Alex watches the waves crash into the rocks below.

As the water recedes, she hears the shuffle of someone approaching.

There are very few people who know about her hideout. It’s not the sort of place people find by chance. The rocky cliff face is sloped but occasionally steep. Getting to her particular little hole in the wall requires knowing that sometimes the best way across is going down then up.

Her father is MIA. Her mom wouldn’t know to come looking for her now. This area is remote enough that Kara typically flies, which only leaves--

Alex sighs.

“I’m not in the mood to fight,” she says.

“Me neither,” comes Vicki’s voice moments before she appears. “I thought you’d be here.”

“Shouldn’t you be with Josie?” Alex wishes she could sound calmer, neutral at least, but her voice comes out reeking of resentment. “Doing... whatever, walking? Something?”

“I’ll see her tonight,” Vicki says evenly, and Alex’s resentment grows. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Vicki tilts her head towards the empty space beside Alex, asking if she can sit. The cave can probably fit three or four people, but given the giant elephant in the room, the prospect of two seems cramped.

Alex nods anyway.

An uncomfortable silence settles between them until Vicki clears her throat.

“I wish I knew what to say sorry for,” Vicki says.

Confusion proves a preferable alternative to discomfort. “Why would you be sorry?” Alex asks.

“You know, when we were kids, I remember hearing a lot about heartbreak,” Vicki says, and Alex’s own heart convulses in her chest. “No one ever told me you could feel it as deeply with friends.”

Friends. Right.

“I missed you, you know?” Vicki continues. “In college and even now, whenever I learn something interesting but super nerdy, I think, ‘Alex would love this.’”

“Ouch?” Alex says--she's a nerd but is she that nerdy--but she knows what Vicki means. When reading feel-good stories on the internet, she often thinks that Vicki would do something like that.

Vicki smiles, a subtle quirk of the mouth. “Watching you with Josie just now... it seemed so easy. I wish I could remember why we fought. If I said something stupid or insensitive... I remember it was after your dad died and then Kenny.”

“What? No!” Alex says immediately. “At least I don’t think so. To be honest, I also have no idea what we were fighting about.” Then because she feels guilty about Vicki’s guilt, she adds, “I did sort of have an epiphany last year about why though.”

“Last year? That’s random.”

“Not really.” Alex's face is burning now. She wishes the cave was bigger, provided at least a facade of an escape. But then again, maybe with an escape, she wouldn’t be bringing herself to having this conversation. “I, umm, I came out last year. I guess I’m coming out again now. To you. But I-- last year I came out for the first time, and it sort of made me think about things, and I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think I had a crush on you, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Vicki looks stunned, and Alex immediately regrets saying anything. All of her coming out experiences until now had been positive, but now Maggie’s story about her and Elisa is rattling around her head. Alex racks her brains, trying to remember if Vicki said anything in high school that even hinted at homophobia.

An even more panicked thought runs through her head. Alex is pretty sure she’s the stronger of the two of them. If someone is getting pushed out of this cave, it’s not her.

“You know what,” Alex says quickly, desperately retreating from that terrible thought. “We can forget I said anything.”

“No, I… Thanks for sharing. I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to,” Vicki says.

Relief floods through Alex’s body. It’s not enough to calm her pounding heart and twisting stomach, but it provides a moment of clarity. She’d been talking a mile a minute and given Vicki less than half a second to respond before she went into panic mode.

“To be honest, I think I’m more surprised that you had a crush on me specifically,” Vicki continues. “You’re such a perfectionist. That you of all people could think that I was worth crushing on... It’s kind of flattering.” She’s quick to clarify, “Not in a weird way!”

Alex laughs, shaky but sincere. “Well if it helps, I don’t have a crush on you anymore.”

Vicki nudges her leg against Alex’s. “My turn to say, ‘Ouch.’”

Silence settles between them again. Alex wishes she could say this one is less awkward than the previous, but they still have ten years of distance between them.

Again, Vicki is the one to break the silence. “So what brings you to Midvale since it’s not the reunion?”

“I’ve been going through--” Alex lets out a weary sigh “--something. I don’t want to talk about it, but Kara thought it’d be a good idea to get away from National City for the weekend.”

Vicki respects Alex’s wishes and pivots. “And how is Kara? Seemed like Supergirl also had it rough for a while.”

Alex thinks she could rival Kara’s super speed with how quickly she turns to Vicki. “What? Why would you--”

“I’ve never said anything to anyone,” Vicki says with her hands up, “but I grew up with you. It’s kind of obvious.”

“No.” Alex sinks her head into her hands. “You can’t know.”

“I think it’s kind of amazing,” Vicki continues, oblivious to the panic once again coursing through Alex’s veins, “you two saving the world together.”

“You don’t understand,” Alex chokes out. “Do you remember Rick Malverne?”

Alex knows she’s breaking confidentiality by saying this, but she needs Vicki to understand the scope of the problem. If Alex missteps, it won’t be a great solution, but J’onn can wipe Vicki too.

Vicki’s brow furrows in thought before saying, “He liked you, right? Used to carry your backpack or something?”

“He also figured out that Kara is Supergirl, so if he knew, and you know, then how many other people in this town know?”

“Okay, uhh, even if other people do, no one is going to--”

“Earlier this year, he kidnapped me.” 

“Oh my God.”

“He wanted his father freed from prison, so he went after me, said that if Kara didn’t break him free, he’d kill me. Nearly did too. But the point is that I can’t do that to Kara again.”

“What about you though? Are you okay?”

Alex looks down at the water below. The tide is rising much like the water in the tank. Alex shakes her head to wash the memories away.

“I’m fine.”

Vicki looks at her skeptically.

“I’m fine enough.”

“Well, if it helps, when I said it’s obvious, I meant to me.”

Alex shakes her head. “He knew because of that day on the beach. You know, when Kara saved that woman and her baby from the car? Our whole class was out there.”

“Yeah, but Rick moved away not long after, right? That’s one of his last memories of Kara, and it left an impression. No, hear me out. Everyone else who was there remembers her as that weird kid they picked on or avoided for years afterward. I’m pretty sure at this point the ‘weird kid Kara’ reputation is not the good kind of weird you’d expect to find in a superhero--no offense to her. It’s obvious to me because I know you, and especially in senior year after everything with Kenny, Sheriff Collins, and Josie, spending time with you meant spending time with Kara. I got to see her for the good kind of special that she is.”

“I don’t know.” Alex rubs her temples. She wishes it was that simple, but she doesn’t think it is.

“You know,” Vicki says playfully, sending off alarm bells in Alex’s head, “one way you can make sure is to come to the reunion tonight.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “I’d rather be kidnapped again.”

“Want me to sleuth around?” Vicki offers. “I may not be a super spy or whatever it is you do, but I’ve got skills.”

“No, we have other ways of dealing with this.” Alex makes a mental note to talk to J’onn. “And I was serious about the ‘you can’t know’ part. At the very least, you’re going to have to sign a lot of confidentiality documents.”

“Fair enough. Do I go to your office or something? Does that mean we’ll get to spend time together again? This has been nice.”

“We have another field office closer to where you live, not that I know where you live,” Alex adds quickly, but to her relief Vicki just laughs. “So, umm, maybe we could do something non-business related sometime?”

“I’d like that.”

[sanktnikolais]

Weather The Storm

A/N: Second piece from the three-year gap series (my house of stone, your ivy grows) of the trilogy and King of Scars lashkljhas another argument bc they have the trope of reluctant allies to lovers pining idiots and I want to explore that more ohoho

have this mess

Word count: 1996

Zoya's boots crunched in the snow as she tore through the crowd of bustling soldiers in the camp. She ignored the curious stares she got from the First Army men, her mind focused on one thing that was driving her feet faster. 

          The King is an utter fool. 

          She grit her teeth as another wave of annoyance hit her, threatening to make her lash out at anyone around. If it weren't for the hushed chatter of a few Grisha from the other side of camp, she wouldn't have known that he was here. 

          Didn't you hear? The King came along with the First Army to lead the attack in the left flank. 

          We would have lost the bigger part of the boundary if it weren’t for their surprise attack. 

          He wouldn't have been recognized if his disguise hadn't faded. 

          It was actually a good cover, but I would have recognized the redheads among our men. 

          Her jaw twitched, the wind picking up around her. She breathed deeply and calmed her powers. But the coldness only became worse. Annoyance had already clouded her reason. The wound in her right arm stung, and she was sure it had opened again, but she didn’t bother checking on it. 

          Zoya should have known he would pull off something like this. If she had, she would have chained him up in his chambers and locked him in there. She figured she had underestimated his stubbornness. 

          Ahead, the biggest tent that she recognized as the makeshift infirmary loomed, with people coming in and out restlessly. A small part of her worried that the King could be one of the wounded inside, but her irritation told her there was no way he would be there if he just hadn't come. That idiot. 

          She was almost by the tent flap when a familiar figure emerged from the inside. 

          "Well, isn't it the Commander?" Tamar was smiling brightly as she approached Zoya, completely unaware of her inner turmoil. Behind her, Tolya came out from the tent as well. They were unharmed, at least, and Zoya felt relieved at that. But unlike his sister, Tolya’s face looked grim at the sight of Zoya. 

          She appreciated the tall man's ability to read facial expressions.

          "I still can't believe—" 

          "Where is he?" Zoya cut her off, voice low. 

          Tamar went silent for a moment. Then she sighed, her smile fading. "He insisted," she said, shaking her head. “I would have locked him up if he hadn’t become all too authoritative.”

          “Then you should’ve tried harder!” Zoya’s voice rose. Some of the soldiers stopped to listen, and she fought the urge to berate them about being nosy and to mind their own damned business. “Do you realize the danger you let him walk into?”

          “Woah, Commander.” Tamar straightened, her sharp eyes narrowing as if she had been challenged to a duel. “Just because you go against him doesn’t mean I would too.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Unlike you, I am loyal to the throne. You could—”

          Tamar stopped abruptly, and Zoya’s anger flared. The winds howled atto her will. “Go on. I dare you,” she said. Thunder cracked in the sky despite the snow, making Tamar flinch slightly though she immediately regained composure and set a hand on one of her axes. Zoya knew she would regret this later, so she tried to calm herself down. But something inside her had been ticked, and the rage just overwhelmed everything. “Go on. I could what?” 

          It was then Tolya stepped forward and got in between them, his towering form almost intimidating Zoya. Almost. “Alright, that’s enough, you two,” he said, his deep voice more gentle than she had expected. He looked at her, then turned to his sister. “Let’s not do this now, or ever, if you may. We’ve all had a rough fortnight, and besides, we have a victory to celebrate.”

          A tense silence washed over them, neither of them wanting to back down just yet. But Tolya's words seemed to get to them because their stances slacked, Tamar letting go of her axes and Zoya willed the wind to calm down around them. 

          The people around them were still watching, so she sent a glare to their way that had them scurrying back to whatever it was they were doing. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Not the time to lose control. 

          "Where is he?" she asked again. Her voice was much gentler this time, though it took all she could to make it sound like that. 

          Tolya inclined his head to the side. "There, by the edge of camp near the cliff," he replied. “He went there just now.” 

          Zoya turned to the direction he was pertaining to. True enough, she could make out a small figure through the still falling snow. 

          "Let me guess, he wanted to be alone this time?" she said, tone a bit mocking. The King was out in the open, and he didn't even care about the worst case scenario. "Out there in the open? Good saints." 

          She didn’t let them say anything else as she stomped over her king. The title sounded funny to her, with the way he was acting. He definitely had to live up to his name if he wanted the people to trust him. Or if he wanted her to trust him.

          Lantsov was in a First Army soldier’s uniform, the olive drab looking black against the weather. The golden double eagle on his shoulder indicated an officer’s—a Major—rank, and Zoya was left wondering how he had gotten such a high place in the military despite being young. 

          He was near now, and if he noticed her, he didn’t acknowledge her presence. Zoya was already ready to call him out had he not moved and buried his rifle in the snow in front of him, its stock pointed upwards. She stopped in her tracks. Her eyebrows furrowed as she watched him take off his helmet and put in on the gun, along with a bunch of tags he was holding. There was a long silence, nothing but the sound of the wind could be heard. His head bowed, letting his hand linger on his helmet, and then he was standing straight again, the poise and stance of a well-respected leader.

          She eyed him for another moment, noticing the slump on his shoulders as he clutched at the tags on the helmet, and she was left wondering who owned them. Were they his friends? Mere soldiers he wanted to grieve for? The questions lingered in her mind, but she didn’t voice them out. 

          Another beat passed, and then he trained his eyes forward. “Come to give me an earful, haven’t you, Nazyalensky?” he said, a rueful smile on his lips. If it were some other time, Zoya would have sympathized with him. But now she was just angry. “Worry not, I think I deserve it, anyway.”

          Zoya almost laughed. “I am indeed glad you know your mistake, Your Highness,” she said. She considered her next words, but she couldn’t find a way to make it lighter. “You should not have been here.”

          Lantsov huffed incredulously, as if he were insulted. “And what, my dear Squaller? Sit back pretty on my throne and watch as my men give their life to the country I have sworn to protect?” 

          “As much as I hate to break it to you and your ego,” she said, “it is the only way for you to be able to protect Ravka.” She stepped closer to him to emphasize her point. “You have to live.”

          “I don’t think watching your people do things for you could be called living.”

          “You fool,” Zoya said through gritted teeth. “You’re missing the entire point. You’re the king. If you died in battle, who would have replaced you? Some distant relative who had no care to the throne? A pretender? The Triumvirate?” She shook her head in disbelief. “You’ve chosen us to steer this forsaken country alongside you, so don’t try to make any more reckless decisions that would lead to the nation’s and your own demise.”

          Lantsov became silent, a flash of hurt passing over to his face. It was gone in a blink, and Zoya questioned herself if she had just imagined it. His expression became stoic, the usual one he gave when he was wearing the mask of the monarch again, instead of a boy that had too much on his shoulders.

          “Sometimes I wonder if you knew how it felt like losing people close to you to this country,” he said. His eyes were hard, grief-stricken, and she realized that he had been through wars too, just like her and countless others. “Maybe then you would realize why I am willing to put my life on the line.”

          “We all lost people. And don’t you dare tell me that I do not know how it felt like,” she said. Her aunt’s kind smile flashed before her eyes. She blinked the image away. It wasn’t the right time to grieve, but the pain of losing her rekindled in her chest. “Because I do.” She paused, mustering up her strength to speak. “The only difference is that I don’t let grief consume the logical part of my mind.”

          She expected Lantsov to get angry, or leave, or even remove her from her post. But he just smiled ruefully. “No,” he said. “The only difference is that I am a royal and I am not permitted to die. Even if I wanted to save them, I couldn’t. But you could.”

          Zoya stilled. The words hit like knives to her heart, and suddenly she was fifteen again, crossing the Fold on her own in hopes to see her aunt again. But she never got to her in time. 

          She tried to shove the memories away, but it kept flooding. Her aunt and her niece weren’t just the ones who perished in the war barely a year ago. Sergei, mutilated by the Darkling’s nichevo’ya. Harshaw, struck by a bullet to the chest. Fedyor, thrown from the roof of the Little Palace and down to the waiting monsters. Marie. Paja. And countless others. Friends and companions, lying dead in the pool of blood in the hall they had been staying before the attack happened. 

          She had seen the Second Army on the brink of annihilation. He was aware she had been through the same war, and yet he still asked her if she knew how it felt losing people? 

          Her eyes stung, fists clenched. Her hands twitched at her sides, ready to summon the winds and even lightning to her will if it meant making her point to the king. But she chose not to. It would only make things worse.

          Zoya breathed deeply, letting her anger pass  before she spoke again. She hated this. She hated herself. But above all, she hated him because he was right. 

          She knew to herself she wouldn't have sat back too, waiting until her people made a difference. No, she would be with them and fight alongside them, and try to see the change with her own eyes. 

          But she wasn't the leader of Ravka,  and she never would be. So she would do everything she could to protect its king, even from him himself and his own foolishness. 

          She straightened then, slipping her own stoical mask on her face. “That may have been the difference, Your Highness, but I am not the one who chose your fate. It was you alone, and you would stand up to it.” She started to turn, wanting nothing more than to get away from him. “And your fate is to live. For Ravka.”

          With that, Zoya left the king standing on his own in the cold, the weight of her own words heavy on her shoulders. But she locked them away and continued on. She only did what she knew was right.

          For Ravka.

[halitophobia]

Blind Eye - Four

Parings ⟶ OC x Hank's Daughter! Reader (TEMPORARILY) , RK800! Connor x Hank's Daughter! Reader (EVENTUALLY)

A/N ⟶ Ha...so let’s just pretend that I haven’t been gone since...dude I don’t even know...September? Yeesh...well, I haven’t forgotten about this story that I started and have not lost interest...I’ve just lost motivation. For ten months. Anyways, here’s part 4 and I hope you enjoy it. I appreciate everything and if you’re here, having read the past parts, welcome back! Long time no see...Alright without further ado, please enjoy :)

Much love.

Disclaimer ⟶  over the century I’ve been gone, I have not established ownership over DBH characters

Warnings ⟶ swearing, violence, mentions of death, stubborn reader, stubborn Hank, spoilers...?, slow burn, sLoW bUrN, SLOW BURN, alcohol abuse (Hankster), angst, toxic relationship, eventual....fluff, happiness, cute stuff, flustered Connor, flustered Reader, all the gushy-ness, and ?????smut?????

Word Count ⟶ 3228

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

----

NOV 6th, 2038

AM 10:53:11

    The sweet, comforting sound of middle-aged men arguing about an empty milk carton wakes you from your beautifully sound slumber.

    With one eye open, you tenderly lift your arm to flip over your phone. The blue light screams at you so invasively, you almost forget to check the time. As it renders in your brai-

Shit.

    You hurl the covers over and yank yourself out of bed. You have exactly seven minutes to get out this motel before they charge you another night. You hiss as the unnecessarily freezing floor hits your soles, then drop down beside your suitcase. Toiletries and clothes are strewn somewhat near, quickly finding their way into a miscalculated arrangement. You collapse onto the case flap for strategic compression, swearing as you catch your hair in the zipper. Once the suitcase is successfully shut, you stand triumphantly...and realize you are definitely not wearing pants. Comedically, you stare at the wall ahead of you, truly contemplating whether it's worth scavenging the depths of your now clumpy suitcase to find your sweatpants, or to run out in the bite of winter...

    With legs spread out around your luggage, you dig through, trying to cause the least amount of disturbance. However you forget the whole point of searching gently once you feel the familiar fabric and jerk them out not so gently, creating a volcanic explosion.

No, no thank you. Thank you for giving me this chance to further fuck up my belongings...

    As you seal the case shut with great difficulty, you quite literally launch it toward the door. You check the bathroom to make sure you're not missing anything, then race to your bag. With a cute jig, you shove your shoes on while fumbling with the door handle. As you slam the door behind you, you pause, seeing a completely calm and silent hallway.

Ba-da bing, ba-da boom...

Fixing a few strands of hair, you give your room a lock and sign out of the motel.

----

PM 1:10:45

"I'm home!" you holler, expertly chucking your keys towards a bowl on the kitchen counter. You watch as they collide with it and thrash the contents inside, bringing everything to the tile floor. Nice...

    You move through the kitchen (which functions as a hallway), into the living room - corner as you like to call it. To your left sits an aged leather couch, pillows deformed and flat. Across that is the ancient one; the almighty TV3000, surely made three thousand years ago...A rickety window directly in front of you allows natural light to flood a small area of wall below the completely meaningless picture Ben insisted on hanging. Speaking of, there he lays limbs strewn out, trickling down the couch. His jaw, fallen down, reveals a gaping hole which projects a discomforting grumble and snort. You study his breathing pattern, then let your eyes wander to his hands; one lazily rested atop his stomach, and the other hanging off the couch with the neck of a bottle between his thumb and index. You scoff.

"Ben," you test, with a nudge to the couch. "Ben." you repeat.

You sigh, moving beside him and crouching down to his level. "Wake up."

He grumbles in response, swiping his lips with his tongue.

"Ben, you've got a shift in twenty. Get up, shower, and go."

"Shhhhhhh..." he starts, "too loud."

    You swallow, lowering your gaze to the cracked hardwood floor. "How much did you drink last night?"

    Your eyes narrow as he shakes his head, adjusting his position. You stand, leaving to your shared bedroom. Ignoring the much disturbed bed and clothes dotting the floor. You dig around the closet, clutch a certain bundle, then return. You drop the clothes with a hint of 'you're a shit' energy, then watch as he frustratingly awakes.

"What the fuck?" he snarls.

"Get up, shower, and go." you repeat, accenting select words.

"Fuck you." he mumbles, sitting upright.

    He groans, letting his head still from the commotion, and with his eyes closed, he reaches for your thigh. He rests his head against it and sighs.

"How was the shift?"

"Good. Got a good bite that'll last us a couple days or so." you answer, involuntarily playing with his hair. He doesn't need to know how it really went and how you practically begged to be paid. Let's be honest, what did you contribute last night?

He yawns, "Then I don't have to go in for work."

You frown, pulling away. "Yes you do. Aaron said you're done unless you clean up your act."

"Yeah, yeah. Take a joke, will you?"

    He uses your thigh to stand, draping an arm around your shoulders. He places a lazy kiss to your forehead and grins. It's scratchy and rough due to his ignorance for lip balm.

"You're great, Y/N." he states, wandering to the bedroom.

    Your eyes close as you hear the shower running. Letting yourself fall back on the couch, you run a hand through your hair. It's been like this forever. You can't remember life before simply because you can't imagine this one being nearly as lively. You can't remember having to crunch out bills like this. You can't remember a floor that doesn't wail at you. You can't remember feeling so full that you need to un-button your jeans, or a silent neighbourhood with that one family that invites you over every Friday.

    That life you lived before seems so un-reachable, so beautiful, that it's become imaginary. You love Ben. You do. He makes you smile. He makes you laugh when times are tough. He holds you through bits of the night and tells you he loves you. Though he's changed. When you touched his lips, young and naive, he knew excitement. Hunger. Want. When alcohol touched his lips, plentiful and cool, he knew ease. Numbing. Solitude. You weren't a stranger to this behaviour, you'd seen- you see it with your father. You know how to handle it.

He doesn't mean that.

He's got other things that are worrying him.

He's just stressed.

He's just tired.

He loves you.

He does.

"We need more shampoo."

    Your eyes open, and are met with his, looking much younger and fresh. You nod, "I'll add it to the list."

"When uh, when does my shift end?" he asks, touching up his hair.

"Six-thirty."

    His nose scrunches, and with a sniff, he turns to you. Instantly knowing, you stand, meeting him at the counter. He offers a small smile, acknowledging the tired in your eyes. He looks good; showers always fix the bags. Maybe last night had a lighter mood...

"You get some sleep, yeah? I cleaned the bedroom a bit."

    You nod, returning his smile. He juts out his chin, looking down at you through his lashes. You lift, keeping you arms by your sides as you meet him for a kiss. He places his hand on your crown, pressing his lips on your hairline.

"See ya at nine."

"Nine? You get off at six-thirty."

"Stopping by Jordy's." he states, grabbing his keys that are on the floor with yours and a pack of gum. "Love you."

You frown, the door nearly secure in its frame-

"Pick up dinner, okay? I didn't get anything while you were out."

Now it's secure.

    A scoff leaves your lips as you look to the crack embedded into the doorframe. You've convinced yourself it grows deeper and longer, his eager 'goodbyes' being the cause. Succumbing to yet another pause, your eyelids flutter shut once again; though not for long. Now that Ben's gone, you have duties.

    Number one. Count empty bottles. Six and a half. Number two. Search for anything out of the order. A slightly bloodied rag partnered with a slightly bloodied countertop. Seems like someone was eager to open a bottle... And finally, get rid of his secret stash.

    Thankfully, he didn't stock up much. Maybe just enough for the weekend or a 'stop by Jordy's'. With a small exhale, you clutch two packs of beers, heading for the door three to the right.

"Ben?"

"Huh? Oh, I-what are you doing with those?"

"What are you doing with that?"

    His eyes follow yours, the expedition ending at his first two fingers. Between them burns a cigarette, merely used if not freshly lit. He left ten minutes ago...is this not his first?...Your eyes slender as the layers of thin paper slowly recede. The air is thick; squeezing both of you tight and still. The start of a lecture bubbles from your stomach while a story fabricates in his. The creases buried beneath the stillness of your face emerge, your lips quivering to expel words.

Though, yesterday's events rattled you enough.

"If you leave now, you'll arrive only minutes late."

    A low sigh seeps from your body as you step forward. You gingerly press your palm upon his lower side and your other on his fist. Nimbly, you dance your fingertips along his knuckles and with your eyes on his, you swipe the cigarette from his hand. It falls and you listen for the minuscule bump it'll make as it collides with the concrete.

    He thought that was the end of your show, but the respite was only an intermission. You tighten your hold on his abdomen, then crush the embers beneath you, a quick twist or two becomes music to your ears. His jaw tightens and his throat bobs. If only you knew how many more have touched his lips; blackened his lungs.

"Put those back."

    His voice slices the silence, but your hardened stare adds more. This is the first time he's caught you, but if only he knew how many more bottles have been sold to the neighbours; dropped by their door.

    He's relieved. You have yet another tear in your perfect image. He's usually one to slip up, this moment adding to his endless list of mistakes, but now, he concludes, you've got a growing list of your own.

    A change of emotion from your face doesn't come, and you turn around toward the door. Your fingers curl on its handle and you send him a side glance, entering the apartment. With that, he stares where you once were, swears and threats swelling his tongue; he could storm back in there and he will.

    But he needs this pay check. He needs this money. You don't need to know why.

----

PM 3:08:30

BZZZzzz...BZZZzzz...

    Your eyes snap open, a brief gasp travelling your throat. A quiet curse entangles with an exhale as you reach for your phone. Whoever's on the other end won't be receiving a cutesy 'hello'...you were napping so peacefully.

"Yes?" you offer, rolling onto your back.

    You're on your side of the bed; the clean side of the room, dragging your gaze over the popcorn-styled ceiling. As the caller begins to speak, a headache begins to form. Captain Fowler.

"Detective Anderson..." he pauses and you simply close your eyes, "I'm surprised you actually answered." he chuckles lightly, though you hear a more pressing undertone, indicating he has business to express.

"With all due respect, Captain...get to the point."

    He replies with a grumble, and you hear his chair squeak through the phone. It's a discomforting pause for him, but a moment to rest for you.

"I have a new shift an-" he starts.

"I'll save you the time. No."

"Y/N..."

"No."

"Look, you need to get back out there. Your position here is wavering. I have been easy on you for too fucking long and that desk can be filled quickly..."

    His voice is firm; comforting to you since it's all you've known. You smile softly. He's trying to threaten you.

"Fill it." you jest.

"You're willing to let that go, eh? Even to an android?"

The curve of your lips flatten and suddenly you're upright. That's fucking cold.

"Fowler you-"

"Hank was chatting it up an' everything. They have a common ground for dogs."

"Shut up."

"The thing was wigglin' in your chair, leaning back in it,"

"Shut up."

    This isn't fun anymore. This is getting too close to home. You're seething. The anger in you reaches your ears, pink from your sleep, now red from your wrath. You storm with rage, huff hot, heavy air...though this time, there's more to it. Not only are you raving...you're hurt.  

    It's that easy? That easy for you to be replaced? You never thought your skirmishing would come to this. Androids have taken everything from you. From both of you...and he does this?

"Y/N."

Leashed and choked, you're brought back to your senses.

"If I do this, will you discard of it?"

"Of...what? Th-oh. The android."

    Your jaw clenches, the skin around it bulging while you wait for his answer. You snicker. Hank's traded you for a piece of plastic. A rancid, putrid, self-centered-

"Get out of your head and listen to me,"

    None of those thoughts left your lips; you wouldn't let that spill. He can't know you're hurt. Because you're not. No. You don't care.

"Take the job."

"If you trash it, I will."

You won't budge. It's you or it.

    There's silence. A sigh, nearly a growl. Then a crackle through the line signifying a shift in his position.

"I'll see to it."

    It's an accomplishment. Hank's a downright fuckhead and he'll be the one to apologize. To make amends. In the meantime, you'll climb that tower and set his work ablaze. You'll fight against him. Make him pay for everything he's done. He'll watch, clutching onto his beloved robot as you succeed like he once did.

"Well?"

    Right, Fowler's still on the line. You aren't surprised he's hanging on. He's a soft spot for you ever since the incident; you and Hank, but you're more personable. You take advantage of him though. His calls, offering work. Shifts that you and Ben survive on. You'd be rubble without the cold Captain, surely. You don't deserve any of it, but on the other hand, the pride clouding your head traps the gratitude. Or maybe you can't find the words. The second sounds kinder, but you're not sure if you yourself even believe it.

"I don't have money for the trip." you bite.

'Thank you...'

"Your pay check will cover it."

'You're welcome...’

    To your surprise, a smile finds it way to your lips. He can't see it. You don't want him to. For the first time through this treacherous hike, there's rope for you to hold. It's frayed at the ends and secure to nothing but twigs, but it's presented itself and you take your chances.

"So when do I start?"

"Leave now. A Lieutenant plans to head out to a case and I direct you to join." he takes a moment, "This situation is critical and it requires you to be local."

    You nod. You know what he means. You'll need a place to stay. The first place that comes to mind is the motel you left earlier today...but even after getting this temporary job, it's expensive. Too expensive...

The Captain acknowledges your hesitance, predicting your setback.

"You know there's someone here with a home. And a dog..."

"Where do I meet the Lieutenant?"

    Fowler stops his pushing, but only this time. He speaks as you begin to pack while scribbling the address down. You sit on the suitcase an- oh...I should probably...

'Can't talk now. Leave a message.'

"Ben, I..uh...Fowler's offered me a job," subconsciously, you start to fiddle with the zipper on the case, "Well, temporarily...but it's still good money. So...I'm leaving now and uh...well I have to stay there for a couple days. I don't know how long um," you take a breath, suffocating your bag and the grudge you held, "look I'm sorry for today, I'll put some cash on the counter for dinner and...I'll give you updates. Um...see ya."

     A groan escapes your lips and you head for the door. Leaving this place doesn't tug or heavy your steps. You do this all the time. You're not attached to any places anymore...always sleeping in different rooms, organizing clothes into different compartments, dragging your luggage onto busses. It helps, in a way, knowing you don't have strong ties to one place other than...Ben. He helps too. Lets you know there's a sense of being somewhere. It's with him. You think.

    The doors of the bus slide open and you step in with ease. This is routine. You know this. The bus accelerates pulling you back, but it feels different, like this time, you might regret leaving. This time, you'll come back changed. Or you won't...come back.

----

PM 3:52:10

    The elevator ride is intruding. Clicking, clunking, rattling...hell you can't even think. You can't prepare yourself; put your mind at rest and focus on the case. Then, like bird shit slapping the top of your head, you realize...you have no idea what you're going in to. You don't know who this Lieutenant is, nor what the case is about. Is it in your area of knowledge? It has to be. Fowler wouldn't put you on foreign grounds. He is an ass though...he could do it to make a point.

    Your damned anxiety dances over you like a sugar plum fairy. Can this elevator go any faster? Your right leg starts to shake. It's a habit. Just get it over with. Just get it done. Just let it go. The words you feed yourself are no use. You're just regurgitating them back. It's pathetic, really. You've seen the worst of the worst, yet you shrivel at the thought of working with a stranger on an investigation you have no idea about. Cute.

The ding invades your mind and you bite the inside of your cheek. Hard.

Fuck it. Right? Fuck it!...

    A loud scrape sounds before the doors even budge. They part and you're face-to-face with a poorly papered wall. To the left, you look, is another wall, and to your righ-

"Mmph!"

    Adrenaline crashes over you while a person crashes into you. A heavy person. Before you can process, your chin's scaping the chipped floor and your arms are pinned from behind. Legs tighten around your hips while a hand presses your cheek. There's a halt in movement allowing you to assess the position and its gaps. Your eyes slam shut; you have to think and think quickly. You recognize a space between the legs and yank your top knee through, driving theirs to the wall. After creating an opening, you heave yourself out, bucking your shoes into their chest. Scrambling to stand, your ankle's caught in an excruciating hold and a growl from you is the first verbal sound. The skin on your left cheek burns again as it’s raked on the ground. You're being hauled back. You feel legs return to your torso and hands tearing yours apart to each ear. With your back flush on the floor, you finally look at your attacker.

What. the. fu-

"Connor! Hold them tig-Y/N?"

You glance back and forth at the two.

"Oh for fuck's sake."

----

[sigcy]

We dabble in writing fics, as well! Here’s a slowburn sigcy fic (it’s still a WIP, first posted on AO3) that Mod Cricket and I worked on together. (CW for violence.) Part Four.

[ Part One ] | [ Next Part (coming soon!)]

Overwatch’s Recall had been in operation for nearly a year. Supported by the League of Nations-- the community of city states that had united post-crisis-- Gibraltar, Hong Kong, The Vatican, Singapore, and others, Overwatch managed to squeak by. They had supplies needed, personnel in roles filled, and the Watchpoints around the world began to fill with agents and recruits alike. Their numbers weren’t like they were in their golden days, but they got things done. They were striking blows against Talon everywhere they went-- Teams taking out supplies, intel runners doing their best keeping tabs on the organization. Talon was seeking to start another Crisis-- potentially ending the human race as they knew it.

And so they had to be stopped before they reached their goal.

But it was difficult--easier said than done-- Whatever they did, it seemed that Talon always seemed to be one step ahead of them. Where Overwatch stopped an incident in one location, Talon would succeed in another. Civilian casualties-- Human and Omnic alike. With each passing day, they teetered further and further toward the cliffs of war.

Angela Ziegler was one of them-- having joined back up as soon as she could. She immediately took her place as head of medical sciences-- spearheading the organization and along with Winston, and the newly rescued Mei-Ling Zhou, hoped to point this new Overwatch down a better path. They adamantly insisted they were not a Mercenary group, nor did they have any semblance of a Blackwatch organization in their ranks. Jesse McCree and Genji Shimada served just as much as the rest of them. Reinhardt, Brigitte and Torbjorn all returned of their own volition. Miss Fareeha volunteered her time, as well. With a daring rescue to Rio, they even had Lucio Correia dos Santos and Satya Vaswani-- a Vishkar defector. Even Hanzo-- Genji’s older brother-- had joined their ranks. Lena was present, her girlfriend in toe. The little family they had all been once before seemed to come together once again. More had joined them, over time.

Thursday, November 18th, 2077.

0319.

Angela didn’t know the specifics on how the mission went down. Nor, did she entirely care at the moment. She’d been bogged down with work at base-- requisition orders, several video conferences with UN officials, and her usual filing and medical paperwork-- and had been ultimately unable to tag along on the mission. and so when she’d been awoken by Athena requesting urgent assistance to the returning team, she didn’t waste a moment getting ready. A pair of flats, her usual black-on-black, her hair thrown up into a quick, messy bun. She looked tired, but still threw on her usual bit of makeup to hide that fact.

The prisoner—patient— asset-- had been 'captured', on her request. Athena believed the man to be rather important in Talon’s ranks— one of their scientists, judging by biometric scan and matching reports alone. Siebren de Kuiper, an astrophysicist that had been institutionalized following an accident that left many people dead. He’d gone missing following another incident involving Talon agents seemingly breaking him out— and now... here he was. Working with Talon? Or for them? Her colleagues wanted to know. They all needed to know. This could severely hurt Talon as they knew it. Baptiste had been sent; their only agent who had enough know how of Talon's Fulcrum to free Dr. de Kuiper.

“Angie, You gotta be careful with that guy. His file weirds me out. Story doesn't add up.” Jesse crossed his arms in front of his chest, the American furrowing his brow at the medic as she checked over the man’s file that Athena had prepared for her. He’d taken off his hat, a gesture of respect to Angela in her wing. “Guy took a couple’a bullets and still came comin’. He’s not to be messed with, darlin’.”

“Yes, Dr. Ziegler. McCree is right.” Genji insisted, the cyborg taking a similar stance as the two of them urged Angela to be careful. “He has a power unlike anything we have ever seen. It would be best if you didn’t go in alone--”

“I will be fine, gentlemen.” She responded, giving a warm, appreciative smile to them both. She appreciated their concern-- but she had handled all sorts of patients. “If he is as unstable as you insist, It would be best not to overcrowd him. Plus-- I wasn’t there, and so he likely won’t recognize me as easily. Perhaps from the old posters... But... he will hopefully not equate me with violence. It will be okay.” She reached out and patted at them both, to which Jesse simply sighed and shook his head.

“Ya really are a handful, doc. Yer gonna getch’yerself hurt, yannow that?”

“I am aware, Jesse. Thank you.” She reached up and tapped the man’s nose with a fingertip, scanning over the datapad with her eyes one last time before she turned to the door in question.

“The prisoner has been sedated to keep him still. He is also cuffed to the bed as per procedure.” Athena’s voice piped up from the nearby wall interface-- the insignia lighting up and catching her attention. They couldn't take any chances after what had happened with Amelie and Gerard all those years ago, she supposed.

Angela was to stabilize his condition, and hopefully get any information she could out of him. She was used to strange patient cases— just look at Genji, and Reinhardt, and even McCree. First, though… She had to stop the sedative and get him coherent.

The medic dismissed the armed guards outside the door to the room— who both insisted she leave the restraints on the man, and that he was incredibly dangerous. They insisted to stay nearby— but she retorted and demanded to have at least the room’s privacy. She was sure she could handle the man herself. There was no patient that she had been unable to deal with before-- and she had almost a lifetime of experience.

And so... she stepped into the room, spying the behemoth of a man where he lay. Sedated, injured, hooked to a caduceus IV that had been slowly fixing his injuries. Returning him to the peak of health. His file claimed that he was unpredictable and dangerous, yet she entered the room unarmed-- confident. Baptiste sat nearby, arms crossed over his chest as he slept in his chair. Angela couldn't help but smile at them both. A tap to his shoulder was enough to wake Baptiste, and the other medic only straightened in his chair before looking to Dr. de Kuiper.

"He knows you, Ma'am." Baptiste mused, leaning forward in his chair.

"A lot of people know me, Jean." Her shoes tapped on the tile as she approached, quietly pinching off the sedative stream into Dr. de Kuiper's IV, and ultimately removing the needle from the injection point. It would take several minutes for him to come to, and so she simply looked over his file on a datapad--committing things to memory-- until the man began to stir, his eyes opening and his mouth curling into a confused frown. He was tall-- akin to that of Reinhardt, she supposed. He’d been given basic pants after his gear had been stripped, and was tucked in to the bed with a hardlight cuff keeping his IV arm in place, secured to the bed. Another hardlight strip crossed his hips, holding him down. His face was scarred, and his mouth curled down in a frown line-- this man had certainly led a rough life-- just looking at his face alone. His frown turned into a grimace as he shifted slightly, obviously still sore.

“Can you hear me, Dr. Kuiper?” She asked, her voice soft and as comforting as she could manage as the man furrowed his brow and blinked away the bright lights of the hospital room. His eyes focused first on the ceiling, then drifted over to her as she repeated her question-- taking the little medic in and looking her up and down--sizing her up.

In all but a moment, he was awake and coherent, snapping to attention as he seemed to realize his situation-- his face twisting in anger as he yanked his arm up at the cuff, letting out a furious growl at the restraint. His breath hitched, anger and panic setting in as he pulled again, and again, and again. He looked to Baptiste, and to Angela, and he let out another furious grunt.

“Dr. Kuiper, I need you to calm down--” She started, her hands reaching out to try and steady him-- only to have a lashing hand grasp roughly at her chest with a tightened fist, drawing her up and in close by the shirt as he half-sat up.

“Release me!” He bellowed, and at that moment the woman was lifted from the ground ever so slightly-- not by force alone, however. The room almost felt lighter, the floor rumbling as though he caused it to shift and shake. “I will be a prisoner no longer! I was promised!” The medic kicked her legs, her mouth curling into a grimace and her brows furrowing in almost fear.

“Dr. Kuiper, I--!!” She started, before Baptiste intervened.

"Hey, hey, hey. It's alright." Dark hands touched at Dr. de Kuiper's shoulders, pulling the man's attention away from his commander. "Let's talk. It's alright. No one here aims to hurt you." A pause, and Baptiste tilted his head to the side, gesturing to the glowing gold caduceus IV above his head, its line trailing into his arm. "You were at that convention, right? When she told the world about her thesis? You told me you met her then. You know her, she sent me for you!"

Sigma paused, periwinkle eyes flicking to the caduceus IV as it hung above him. There was a moment of silence, a moment of shaking breath. After a few seconds, his eyes turned back to Angela-- the spectre of a woman who had haunted him all these years, and his fist was clenched in the fabric of her shirt. She weighed so little, and he could barely tell if it was his own strength or his mind that lifted her and several other objects in the room. Bright blue eyes looked at him, surprised far more than afraid.

"Put her down, big guy. Neither of us mean you any harm." Baptiste said, and it was as though he suddenly came to. He snapped to attention, gently returning the acting-commander to the floor as though she were made of glass. Movements slow, deliberate, delicate.

"I..." Dr. de Kuiper started, slowly pulling his hand he'd used in rage back to his side. "I am so sorry."

Angela dusted herself off, nodding in thanks to Baptiste as the medic's hands moved away from Sigma's shoulders. "You are forgiven, Dr. de Kuiper." She smiled, righting her clothing as though he hadn't touched her at all.

The smile made him hate the fact he even breathed the same air as her. It was warm, kind, and genuine. Like the first light after a terrible storm. An offer of grace. His gut twisted in anxiety as she turned to retrieve a datapad that had been dropped, looking to his vitals screen and scribbling on the datapad's surface for a few moments, and throwing a knowing look to Baptiste.

"I apologize for this whole situation, Dr. de Kuiper." Baptiste murmured, moving to sit back down. "For the record, they had to cuff me as well when I first arrived here."

"It isn't the first time we have... acquired operatives from Talon. Once, one of our informants ended up killed because of our carelessness." Angela's voice was blunt, still writing on her datapad.

"Amelie La'Croix." Siebren looked down at his lap, cupping at his forehead.

Blue eyes flicked down at Siebren where he sat, mouth pressed into a line. "You know her, I presume?"

Siebren sat quietly for many moments, before nodding. "She was... A shell. Emotionless, cold. I thought that that was just how she was... I--I'd never met her prior to... what happened, but--"

"Let's not talk about her." Baptiste offered a smile, standing up and undoing the man's hardlight restraints fully. "You're at Overwatch's base of Operations, in Gibraltar. You've been asleep for a few hours."

"I don't remember going to sleep."

"The water I gave you on the ship. It--" Baptiste started to explain, but Siebren only huffed.

"You could have told me."

"That was the point, my friend. I hope you'll forgive me."

"He was only following protocol, Dr. de Kuiper." Angela mused, a gentle hand placing itself on Siebren's shoulder as she sat on the edge of his bed. Her hand was warm, and it made his heart skip a beat, periwinkle eyes looking to her searchingly.

There was a knock at the door, and Angela's attention was pulled away as the door opened to an omnic nurse bringing in a tray of food, setting it on the side table next to Siebren's bed.

"Thank you, Sybil." Angela smiled at the nurse, until she caught two more peering faces from the door frame. Jesse and Genji. Jesse's face was twisted into a distrusting almost anger, while Genji's was always unreadable. Protective, furious. She only smiled reassuringly at them both, and Jesse crossed his arms in front of his chest before the door closed, the omnic nurse leaving the room once more.

"I am sure you're hungry, friend." Baptiste mused, and Angela stood, reaching to the side table to deliver the food to Siebren's lap. Toast, an unopened bottle of Orange Juice, an apple and some yogurt-- staples in hospital cuisine.

"If this isn't enough, feel free to ask for more." Angela added, looking to Baptiste with a nod. "I will let you rest, for now. Baptiste, why don't you go back to your quarters? You deserve rest, as well." Information that was needed would have to come later.

Siebren's heart panged as he realized he'd be left alone again, and he looked up to her, and then up to Baptiste. Frantic, almost. Don't leave him alone again, he was fit for work, he was--

"No, no, I'm fine, I--"

"Dr. Ziegler, why not leave him with at least something to keep him busy?" Baptiste's tone was gentle, knowing, as he gathered his jacket from the back of the chair he'd settled into. She had no idea what he'd been through-- but Baptiste had an inkling.

Angela paused for a moment, before nodding. "My apologies, of course. I will be right back." Angela took a step back, collecting herself and disappearing through the door within a few seconds. The room fell into silence, before Baptiste only turned on his heel and laughed lightly.

"Now it makes sense, doctor." He laughed, shaking his head.

"E-Excuse me?" Siebren furrowed his brow, collecting his orange juice and cracking the bottle open.

"You love her, don't you?" He turned to Siebren, nodding, a knowing smile across his face as though he were teasing an old friend. "You love Commander Ziegler!"

[myforeverforlife]

my endless blue.

For @jenmyeons Junmyeon and 117. "Can I do your hair?" + 149. "I just need ten minutes, please." (Thank you for sending this in! I hope you like it! ❤️)

Pairing: Junmyeon x Reader

Word Count: 3,775

Masterlist

You didn't know much about the second prince. 

Everyone in the country knew of the first prince, generous, reticent, humble Crown Prince Minseok. The third and fourth princes were also well-known, both of them praised for their artistic talents in music and dance, respectively. But Prince Junmyeon always seemed to be leaving to far-off lands, never staying at the castle for more than a week or two. He was said to have an agreeable temper, polite to all that he met and yet, he never stayed long enough for anyone outside the castle to truly get to know him. There were a multitude of rumors surrounding him: that the prince was the odd one out scorned by his family, that he was afflicted with a severe rash, that he was jealous of his older brother. 

You knew better than to believe in the gossip. Your art took up most of your attention anyways, many an hour spent in your airy studio with only canvases and a rainbow of paints. Although you weren't born into a high-ranking family, you had garnered fame and renown through your vivid, emotion-filled pieces. 

However, it still came as a shock when you were summoned before the king and queen. 

Donned in your best clothing, each crease and fold carefully ironed out, you made your way to the castle. You were hyperaware of your surroundings, soaking in each new sight and sound as your journey brought you closer to the castle. It was an out-of-body experience, being led inside and walking down the hallways, floors intricately lain with decorative tiles in the royal colors. Even as your presence was announced, you could hardly believe that you were about to lay eyes on the king and queen — in person! 

The doors swung open, your feet automatically taking steps forward. There, at the other end of the throne room sat the king and queen. Your steps faltered for a second when you realized that there was another person beside them, a face you had never seen before. 

You dipped into a low bow once you reached them, gloved hands resting over your stomach. "Your Majesties," you greeted them. "I'm honored to be in your presence." 

"We're thankful that you came all this way," the queen replied graciously. She gestured to the man standing beside her. "The king and I have a favor to ask of you regarding our son." 

Son? Your eyes widened at the sudden realization — this must Prince Junmyeon.  

The man in question was strikingly handsome, hands clasped behind his back as he stood with ramrod-straight posture. Not a single lock of his raven-black hair was out of place, and while his jawline was sharp and sculpted, his round cheeks gave his face an overall boyish appearance. But the prince didn't spare you a glance, gaze fixed on a single point on the floor. 

The king cleared his throat, Prince Junmyeon blinking as if coming out of a stupor. He looked up, eyes meeting yours before dipping his head slightly. 

"Prince Junmyeon, pleasure to make your acquaintance." But despite his words, his voice seemed empty, devoid of any warmth.

"Junmyeon is set to be wed by the end of the year," the king spoke up. "As per royal tradition, Junmyeon will gift his betrothed with a self-portrait as an engagement present. It is an opportunity for him to showcase his talents, as well as to display the most appealing image of himself. However, painting is something that my son has, ahem, never been particularly skilled in." The king shot his son an apologetic look. "And as we had heard of your wonderful artistry..." his voice grew faint. 

"You would like me to paint his portrait?"

"Ah, no," the king said quickly. "That would not be in accordance with the tradition. We would like you to give Prince Junmyeon lessons to help him acquire the skills that he needs." 

"You would be paid handsomely, of course," the queen added. 

The prince was in need of art lessons? You snuck another peek at him, taking in the way his dark brows had a slight furrow in between them, the way his lips were pressed into a thin line. "I've never taught before, I wouldn't want to be a burden to you, Your Highness." Your last words were directed to the prince, waiting to see what his response would be.

Prince Junmyeon flinched as if he had been stung, clearing his throat roughly. "It would be no burden at all," he said stiffly.

The king clapped his hands together, beaming widely. "Then it's settled! We are greatly indebted to you." 

"It is no trouble to me," you replied with another tiny bow. Even when you looked back up, the prince's face was just as impassive as before. You couldn't decipher any emotion on his face besides boredom and what seemed like suppressed annoyance. The prince was a mystery, hiding his true self under the mask that he wore. 

And yet for some reason, you couldn't help but want to find out what lay underneath.

The second prince sat hunched over, one arm resting on his leg as he brushed globs of paint across his canvas. It was an posture unaccustomed to painting, but you held your tongue. 

Before you could even begin lessons, you needed a clear picture of your pupil's current abilities. It was hard not to jump in when he first started painting his nose, much to your discomfort. Personally, you would have done a rough sketch first, starting with the edges of your face and working inwards. The prince shocked you even further when he moved on to paint his ears, facial features appearing on the canvas in an strange sequence. To add onto that, everything was out of proportion, creating a sort of optical illusion for the viewer.

You were itching to speak up, to fix the oddities that you had noticed in the past fifteen minutes. "Your Highness, I think this is fine. We can move on to other things, you've already got your entire face done." 

"Oh, I just need ten minutes, please." Prince Junmyeon looked at you over his shoulder, blinking innocently. 

Suppressing an impatient sigh, you forced a smile onto your face. "Ten minutes, then." 

And so, you waited another agonizing ten minutes until the prince finally set down his paintbrush. "Well? What do you think?" he asked, crossing his arms across his chest. 

"It's... very unique," you managed to say. "You've used a lot of color in your self-portrait, Your Highness." 

It was true: Prince Junmyeon had used almost every available color provided. Dark green shadows framed the edges of his face, orange highlights running down his nose and lips painted a vivid red. How he managed to even paint blue onto his cheeks, you had no idea.

Prince Junmyeon let out a snort, taking you by surprise. "You don't need to compliment me to make me feel better. It's horrendous, I know." 

"Well... do you like it?"

"What?" The prince frowned at your question.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. While I may not have done a self-portrait in this way, it doesn't matter what I think, as long as your art speaks to you. Do you believe that this represents you the way that you would like to be seen?" 

Prince Junmyeon turned back to his portrait, unable to help the small chuckle that escaped from his lips. "I would hope that no one saw this and thought it was me." 

"Which part are you dissatisfied with?"

"Honestly, all of it." The prince ran a hand through his hair, forgetting about the paint on his fingers. "I didn't even want to do this ridiculous self-portrait in the first place, much less get married." His last words came out in a whisper.

You hadn't thought much of the prince's marriage, taking it as an accepted and natural way of life for him. Not once had you thought that he might have any objection to it, though looking back on it all, Prince Junmyeon hadn't shown an inkling of interest in his marriage. 

"I'm sorry to hear that," you said truthfully. "I can't imagine what it must be like to be in your position." 

The prince opened his mouth as if to speak before closing it and looking away. "Thank you," he replied after a few seconds of silence. "But it can't be helped. This is what I was born into, and so I must deal with it as it comes." He straightened up in his seat, hands resting on his knees. "Well? Where do we start from here?" 

You gave the painting another once-over, eyes zeroing in on something. Reaching out for his paintbrush and palette, you took a step closer to the easel. "Can I do your hair? You have good, defined strokes here, but they're lacking variation in color." 

Junmyeon watched as you mixed a few colors on your palette, creating one that was a few shades lighter than the one he used to paint his hair. He watched in awe as you added the new color to the painting, effortlessly adding more dimension. 

"Wow," he breathed out. "It looks better already." 

A proud smile came to your face. "It's nothing much. If you would like to do a more realistic portrait, it's important to include light and shadows as well. But  there's also nothing wrong with taking a more abstract approach." 

"Oh no," the prince replied quickly. "I think I'm done dealing with the abstract for a while." A grimace found its way onto his face as he stared at his artwork. "I have a lot of work ahead of me, don't I?"

"If it helps, you only have to do one painting." 

Junmyeon burst into laughter, leaning back in his seat with his eyes closed. "It's an unusual way to cheer someone up, but you've succeeded. You're an interesting one, Teacher Y/N." 

You scrunched your nose up upon hearing the title he had attached to your name. "Just Y/N, please. It's so strange to hear my name like that." 

"Then I ask that you do the same for me as well." 

"Your Highness, I couldn't — "

Junmyeon lifted a finger, your words instantly coming to a halt. "Try it. No formal titles, just my name — like between friends."

The idea was ridiculous to you. Friends, with the prince? But you thought of how lonely he seemed, always leaving for trips far away from the castle, alienated by rumors and burdened with a marriage that he didn't ask for. Maybe what the prince needed most wasn't lessons, but a friend. 

"Alright then," you began hesitantly. "Junmyeon." 

The prince's face lit up, chasing away the gloom that had been hanging over him all day. "That's more like it.”

Junmyeon always complained whenever you looked over his shoulder, claiming that he felt even more nervous when he could feel your eyes on him. You always spent the first half of your lessons introducing new techniques and tips, and then gave him the rest of the time to put them into practice. Only at the end of the lesson would the prince show you his work for the day.

You sat in a chair across from the prince and his easel, an easel and canvas of your own set up. 

"What are you painting?" Junmyeon asked, peeking out from behind his easel. 

"It's a secret," you replied with a smirk.

"Ah, don't be like that. You know what I'm painting." 

"That's because you only have one task at hand, Your Highness." 

"Hey." Your head shot up at the unexpected sternness in your pupil's voice. "You're doing it again." 

You let out a weary sigh. "My apologies, Junmyeon." 

Junmyeon set his paintbrush down, the handle clattering against the small table by his side. "Are you really that uncomfortable with calling me by my name?" he asked softly.

You paused in the midst of a brush stroke. "You're a prince, Junmyeon. It's hard to break the habit when I know who you are." 

A somber look came into Junmyeon's eye. "I understand what you mean. I suppose it's one of the reasons why I enjoy traveling all the time." He seemed to forget that you were there, caught up in his own thoughts as he spoke. "Outside the kingdom, even outside this castle, very few people know what I look like. It makes it easy for me to blend in with everyone else, to pretend that I'm another ordinary person."

Junmyeon was far from ordinary, prince or not, but you kept this to yourself. He would only tease you about it, giggling at your embarassment. 

"It sounds very freeing," you said instead.

"Free," Junmyeon repeated. "It is, truly. But my parents argue that I have too much freedom." He smiled bitterly to himself. "They've been wanting me to settle down for years, to stay at home where I belong. I know that they're only concerned for my safety, but still... I love my country, but I love the adventure of traveling to new lands more. At the end of it all, I get to bring what I've learned to the people that I love back home." Junmyeon turned to you with a curious glint in his eye. "Have you ever gone traveling?"

"I've never even left the kingdom," you admitted as Junmyeon's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Never?"

You shook your head. "I haven't had the opportunity to, although I'd love to see art from all over the world." 

Junmyeon was silent for a moment before speaking up. "If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?" 

"Any place where there's an ocean. I've only gone once as a child, but I have fond memories of that day. Sea landscapes are some of my favorite to paint as well." 

The prince paused, nodding to himself before picking up his paintbrush and palette once more, immersing himself in his work. 

You weren't sure what brought on this sudden change, but you were grateful for it. Your mind had already begun straying towards visions of voyaging across oceans, walking along pebble-covered beaches, the prince even making an appearance in one fantasy of you dipping your toes into the glimmering ocean water. 

Shaking your head, you followed Junmyeon's actions and resumed painting. It was silly to even think of seeking out new places with him by your side. 

Junmyeon might have been your friend, but he was still a prince. 

However, even calling him a friend in this past week had awakened a new, fluttery feeling in your chest. You were afraid of thinking too deeply into it, of feeling things that could never be reciprocated. 

After all, he was getting married. He was your student, a friend, and nothing more. 

Or so you tried to convince yourself.  

Weeks passed, every other day spent at the castle with Junmyeon and your paints. 

You tried to distance yourself from the prince, but found yourself falling for him more and more with each passing day. He didn't make it any easier, what with his charming smiles and increasingly playful attitude. You swore that the past few sessions had consisted less of actual painting, and more of playing around and talking about his travels. 

Time was slipping through your hands, and you knew that these lessons would come to an end all too soon. 

Junmyeon didn't object when you came in one day, determined to actually get some painting done. This time, you read a book to keep yourself busy instead of working along with him. The only thing you felt like painting was the second prince, but you would die of embarrassment if he saw you painting him. 

The room was oddly silent, different from the weeks of laughter that had filled this room. You could feel Junmyeon's eyes on you every so often, knowing that he must be at a loss for your sudden shift in behavior. 

Even at the end of the lesson, as you studied his finished self-portrait, a heaviness lingered in the air. It was stifling, almost suffocating Junmyeon as he waited for you to say something. 

"You've improved so much since we first met," you finally said. "Soon enough, you won't need my help at all."

"Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?" Junmyeon shot back, getting up from his seat. 

You stepped back, hand raised to your chest as you tried to calm the racing of your heartbeat. "What do you mean?" you replied lamely. "Why do I get the feeling that you're trying to say goodbye?"

"We would have to eventually. You're getting married, Junmyeon." 

Junmyeon's face hardened, the sharp edges of his face emphasized as he clenched his jaw. "I can't."

"What do you mean, you — "

"I can't marry a person that I don't love. I've tried in order to make my parents happy, but the more I think about it, the more frustrated I get." Junmyeon's gaze was desperate as he stared at you. "Y/N, I can't marry someone when I'm in love with someone else." 

You couldn't help the gasp that escaped from your lips as you realized what he meant. "Junmyeon, we can't." You backed up as he took a step closer, a pang of guilt striking you Junmyeon's face fell. "The king and queen, they'll be furious when they find out." 

"Give me a chance to convince them," he pleaded. "Meet me here tomorrow, please. I will find a way to make this right, I promise." 

There was no doubting the fierce sincerity in Junmyeon's voice, his earnestness to make things right. As terrified as you were, you still had complete faith in him.

"Okay," you agreed as Junmyeon sighed in relief. 

He circled his arms around you, holding you close to him. Junmyeon was sure that you could hear the loud pounding of his heartbeat, but he didn't care. Never in his life had he cared for someone so deeply, had wanted to be with someone so ardently. No matter what happened, he was determined not to let anything get in the way of the future that he wanted. 

He would run away with you, if that's what it took.

You were a mess of nerves, although on the outside, you appeared as cool as a cucumber. Upon your arrival, you had been led to the throne room — the same place where you had met Junmyeon for the first time. 

Like deja vu, the king and queen were seated at the far end of the room while Junmyeon stood close by. This time, a covered easel was beside him. 

The king spoke up as soon as you came to a stop in front of them, his dark eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "What is the meaning of all this, Junmyeon?" 

"I've finished my portrait, Father — the one for my betrothed." 

You looked over at Junmyeon, puzzled by his words. Dark shadows rested under his eyes, as if he had stayed up through the night. 

Without a moment of hesitation, Junmyeon lifted the fabric off of the easel, revealing the painting underneath. 

Instead of seeing Junmyeon, your own face stared back at you, painted in different shades of blue paint. The colors reminded you of the vibrant open ocean you once saw as a child. Tears pricked your eyes as you realized that this painting wasn't just a declaration of Junmyeon's true affections — it was a vow to take you to the places you had once dreamed of visiting, to go on these journeys together.

"Junmyeon," the queen said. "What do you mean by this?"

"I cannot go through with the marriage that you and Father set up for me." Junmyeon came to your side, his strong, firm hand slipping into yours. "I love Y/N, and I don't wish to be with anyone else. I beg of you, please call off the engagement."

The king and queen exchanged a stunned look, both of them speechless at this turn of events. "Is this true?" the king asked you. "You care for my son?" 

You nodded with certainty, unable to stop the smile on your face. "Yes, Your Majesty. More than anyone else in the world." 

"Mother, Father," Junmyeon ventured carefully. "I know that you have only been doing what you believed was best for me, but I don't want a marriage to keep me confined, to keep me from what I love. I want to travel the world with Y/N, to learn about all there is to see and experience. I'll always come back home, no matter what."

The queen brought her hand to her mouth, eyes almost as glossy as yours. "But what if you were to get hurt?"

Junmyeon turned to you, squeezing your hand gently. "Y/N and I will keep each other out of trouble. Any difficulties that come our way, we'll face them together." 

A defeated sigh caught both of your attention, the king shaking his head with a weary smile. "You're too much like I was, at that age. We should have known better than to try and stop you in the first place. Alright, I shall call the engagement off." 

"But you must come home at least once a month," the queen added quickly. "No more gallivanting and disappearing for months at a time." 

Junmyeon laughed, the sound as soothing as a fresh breeze on a summer day. "Yes, Mother." He brought your hand up to his lips, pressing a feather-light kiss to the back of it. "How are you feeling?" he asked, voice hushed to give you two some semblance of privacy. 

"I can't believe it," you murmured back. Your eyes were drawn back to Junmyeon's painting, tracing over each brushstroke, each pop of color on the canvas. "When did you have time to make this?"

"I stayed up all night working on it. I don't mean for it to be an engagement gift to you — not yet. But I wanted to show you how much you mean to me, how much you've changed my life already." 

You reached up with your other hand, running your thumb over the smooth skin of his cheek. "No one's ever done anything like this for me before. Thank you, Junmyeon." 

"Of course." Junmyeon leaned down, forehead resting against yours. He giggled to himself as your noses bumped into each other in the process. "Where to now, my love? We have the entire world to see." 

You closed your eyes, soaking in every detail of this unforgettable moment. 

"Anywhere is fine, as long as I'm with you." 

A/N: 3.8k words oh my gosh, someone stop me 😂 the requests just end up being longer and longer than the one before, this is so funny to me omg. but each time I tried to make it shorter, it just didn’t make sense to cut any of the parts out. I was inspired by myeon’s “self-portrait” album, specifically the album cover! 

[crowleyellestair]

Hello, how are you? Are taking requests? If so, could you please write a Lambert blurb? I read you Eskel one and I love it! Thank yoooou

AN// Thank you! I’m glad you liked my other one <3 I wrote this, then realised you wanted a blurb. This is a little longer, but I will get to writing a shorter thing for ya. Requests are always open!

  Kaer Morhen was a wrecked fortress, with rubble rolling over every lick of the mountain it was built into. Only ghosts and the remaining witchers tread through the demolished halls, unless bringing on a willed companion. Geralt was the only wone who ever brought people with, though they were growing less welcome by the person. Yennefer, Triss Ciri and Dandelion had taken the trail and had spent winters within the walls. Though, after Triss, the White Wolf was warned by the youngest witcher that compliancy with new people was quickly dwindling.

It had made sense. Yennefer was known to have her talons embedded in the wolf’s fur, which never really gave anyone hope for any other sorceress from the Lodge. The Merigold had come along, chestnut hair bouncing in the wind, her nose held high. Lambert hadn’t taken too kindly to what she preached, as she hadn’t spent every winter in the keep- everything she saw and spoke down upon were things the men were well aware of. He swore, that if the woman ever spoke poorly of his manners again, he’d show her just how ‘savage’ he could really be.

Luckily, this winter was looking up. The men usually informed the others of any companions they were bringing, but there was no word from Geralt. Yennefer had made a large fuss after Triss had apparently tattled, so the young Lion Cub would be spending winter with her and the Lodge. While Lambert would begrudgingly admit he’d miss the little spitfire, being alone also sounded like a nice difference. It been a rough year for him and the public, and despite hating being alone with his own ghosts, he wasn’t sure he could handle more people.

When his medallion started to vibrate against his chest, every hair on his body stood on end. He clutched the powdered dimeritium closer to his chest, ready to start a war. He had warned Geralt, and he wasn’t one to joke when it came to disrespect and people associated with it. Geralt strolled through the front door, and a younger female gasp was heard behind him. Eskel was quick to evaluate Lambert’s reaction, but decided to greet the two.

“Brother, glad you made it.” The two wolves’ arms fell around each other in a familiar yet rare embrace. The brunette pulled away to ask his friend, “And who is this?” The subject of the question turned from the pile of supplies she was looking over to show a bright smile. Her hand jabbed towards him through the air, excitement seeming to be her driving force.

“Hello! Y/n, mage consultant of Dorian. Thank you for being kind enough to allow me to stay here, it’s an honor.” The hand not meeting her shake went up to brush over his scar, and landing behind his neck. He gave a small, dubious smile, trying to cover up Lambert’s loud scoff with a response. Despite being across the large hall, it was clear as day what type of anger and disgust that dripped from the young witcher.

“Eskel. I don’t know about honor coming with it, but you are welcome. We aren’t entirely sure the reasoning behind your stay, but you’re here now.” Y/n’s smile faltered when their hands dropped.

“Oh, my apologies. I helped Yennefer and Ciri out of a large scuffle, but some people are after me now.” Lambert had left his spot on the table to come to the group. Shoulder’s squared, he threw on a sarcastic smirk.

“What type of people does a sorceress need to worry about?” Sorceress was spoken with a fake worshiping tone, with hand gestures in the air to allude to him seeing them as overpowered deities. The woman’s smile fell completely at the new character’s entrance. Both Eskel and Geralt watched as her chest popped out as well, and her eyes followed Lamberts purposely. Though, it was clear it wasn’t a struggle for dominance, but for respect.

“I’m actually a simple mage. Human. Aging and all. That’s why Geralt offered to help,” her tone became stronger through her finishing statement. “And why it was so surprising I was any help in the first place.” Eskel’s eyes widened, looking to his younger brother. No one had approached his berating with that tactic. How can one bully someone who already bullies themselves- and with such confidence and bravado? Eskel stepped in, his shoulder barley overlapping Lambert’s, giving a small buffer between the two.

“This is Lambert. He’s always this way, but he is kind.” The man in question rolled his eyes before folding his arms over his chest. His glare flickered to Geralt, and snarled out,

“I told you after Merigold that I’m not dealing with this horse shit.” Every consonant was hit with a certain venom that reminded the other two of the Viper school. Grealt had huffed, folding his arms as well while it was the mage’s turn to scoff.

“Triss? I wouldn’t say I’m in league with her.” Wide eyes flew to her, but she gave a nonchalant shrug. Her eyes wandered over everything but them, her attention easily being taken by the new location. “I might have a great knowledge of alchemy and chemistry, but she was never fond of how I conducted my experiments. You need to take risks for breakthroughs, even if it’s yourself that’s at risk.” Her eyes finally met everyone else’s. “I know she didn’t want me to hurt myself, but discovery is harnessing the unknown. I know the risks. She certainly could have laid it on nicer though.”

Vesemir’s entrance back into the great hall had taken a weight off of the White Wolf’s shoulders. He had mentioned the tension she might face, but he hadn’t been too worried. Though her introduction was kind, he wasn’t confident that it would deter the young man. He wasn’t one to let go of grudges, especially since they are his main bedfellows.

A week had gone by, and the men hadn’t really seen the mage outside of mealtimes. While it was understandable as they were really only focused on three other things: Training lounging, and rebuilding the ruin. As far as Lambert was concerned, that’s how it should be. This was his time, and she was Geralt’s guest. If she stayed away and was only summoned for meals, so be it. Though, this fake paradise was short lived once Vesemir asked him to escort her through the mountain to the old watchtower.

He didn’t bother knocking on the library door when he pushed it open as it was his home. There was a certain strut he had to him, but his grand, sassy entrance was wasted as the mage was leaned over the large table that had been pushed to the side years ago. Lambert stopped just next to her, leaning over her shoulder to find multiple books spread over a large map. Penciled in circles scattered over its surface, and she had a finger running over a book’s text before adding another circle.

There was no attention afforded to the man yet, and he was able to finally get a clear look at her. Her frame was covered in thicker layers that still had lighter colors despite the norm having otherwise. Light blues painted the clothes with white furs lining it. He was glad to see she wore trousers, dreading to have to carry a woman through the mountain if she strips over the skirt of a dress. Her skin looked soft- too soft to be found in the fort. Even Triss and Yen, with their perfect skin, had a specific hardness to them. Weathered skin, while it can look flawless, has a texture. There were burns and cuts that littered Y/n’s hands and wrists, likely from the experiments she had mentioned when she first arrived. Despite those blemishes, Lambert was sure that he would only feel a silk or velvet like thing- he wasn’t familiar with either textures, so the fluffy words were things he must have picked up in passing with Dandelion. If he were to reach out, he was sure she would fit snuggly in his arms.

The young witcher was lost in his observations, so when she abruptly stood straight, he had to work double to make sure she didn’t touch him. She turned; a bright smile that had the sun reflected in her eyes beamed at him. The map was being rolled in her hands and was shoved into a satchel that was hastily thrown over her shoulder.

“Thanks for doing this, Lambert. I think I’ll find the herb at the watchtower, but if not, there are three other places it might be. Of course, if you don’t want to, we could go out a different day if the tower is a bust.” His arms crossed over his chest, trying to shield himself from the onslaught of positivity.

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. ‘We’ could easily turn into a ‘you and someone else’. I was volunteered, and I doubt I’ll be as willing to waste my precious minutes next time.” He gave a smile that was tainted with sarcasm. Despite this, her hand had somehow made its way to his upper arm, and gave a light squeeze. Her smile faltered, telling him something hit home, but she put up a strong front.

“I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that this herb will help in covering my magic footprint. Therefore, we find this now, you won’t have to see me later. Volunteered or not, I’m sure you’ll find some joy from today’s journey somehow.” The feigned joy that radiated from her statement threw the man through the wringer again. The deflection by self-destruction in their first meeting had obliterated the jesting wall around his heart. It had defenses- it had to. One of the main defenses it had was what some would call bullying, but he usually never meant any jest he tossed. But it was like he threw a bomb at her, and by her using aard against herself, it blew the bomb back at his wall by getting caught in the gust. And again, he was taken back. He was familiar with the tactic, but only because it was something he used to do before the trials. If you bully yourself, no one else can find joy in doing it. He saw himself in that moment, and it made him wonder, what happened to her?

Lambert nodded, moving to give a grandiose wave of the arm.

“Lead the way.” With that, the two headed towards the tower. Luckily, there were trails leading to it, but unluckily for them, they met trouble. The mountains were crawling with bears, and while both Lambert and Y/n were fine with it, it seemed the bears weren’t fond of them. A smaller, yet fair size bear walked in the way of the path, though it looked to be alone.

Lambert was quick to pull his steel, but he stiffened when he felt the mage’s hand clamp around his that gripped the sword. His eyes glared towards her for a moment, but her eyes were still on the bear. She was completely still, which made Lambert roll his eyes. Then, her voice came out stiff, lips unmoving.

“Stay very still.” His eyes rolled, but decided not to move. He couldn’t smell any fear, but anxiety still came off in soft waves.

“That doesn’t really work. If someone from the School of the Bear heard that, they’d laugh at you.” He watched as her body shifted slowly, and only when she couldn’t see the bear’s eyes. After a minute of the standoff, she was behind him completely. The young bear looked baffled when she was gone, and started to move quickly towards them. Lambert brought his sword in front of him, but he heard a small, ‘get ready’ in his ear. His form broke when Y/n jumped onto his back. His hands automatically fell under her legs, and shifted her up. Despite catching her, he remained confused until he heard her make something between a roar and a scream. It was loud and full, but to him it sounded as if a kitten were impersonating a lion. The bear, who looked as though he was going to stand on his hind legs and strike, quickly fled. Lambert let her fall from his arms before picking up his discarded sword.

“That shouldn’t have worked.” He looked to her, who was smiling and looking quite pleased. She turned to face him, throwing her hands over her head, while curling her fingers to make fake claws.

“Well, we make quite the feral beast.” Lambert’s head was thrown back at the loud and powerful laugh that raked through him. He felt his shoulders quake, and his eyes close, but the other half of their ‘feral beast’ stood there blushing. Her hands fell back down by her sides, and she simply stood. When his laughing died down, and she still simply stood, he sensed her. He noticed the elevated heartrate and turned, hand on hilt, making sure another bear didn’t appear. When there was nothing, he turned back.

“What?” Her blush grew, and she bent to fix her boots and fiddle with her satchel. When everything seemed in order, she turned to start walking toward the tower again. The witcher followed, and after a moment, she looked to him.

“You have a beautiful laugh, is all.” Lambert immediately stiffened, but when he listened to her heart, he found she was telling the truth. It was still elevated, but the flush that was still spread overhear cheeks and neck was the reasoning for it. His brows still furrowed as they continued to the destroyed building.

It didn’t make sense. People don’t like Lambert. He was brash and blunt, neither attribute highly sought after. Brutal honesty is what he gave because the other option was lying. Lying by sprinkling in a kindness that he knew didn’t exist in the world. There was little positivity that he gave because there was never any shown back to him. He knew that it wasn’t too fair, as he gave up looking for it. There were always moments when he would be shown that sun, but every other day was grey. And being a witcher at the core was the nail in the coffin. People didn’t want to interact with a mutated monstrosity, let alone like them. Or find their laugh beautiful.

The young witcher agreed with himself in putting up extra defenses. This random mage who was on the run wouldn’t get any closer to that fortress he called his heart. He tried to forget the multiple smiles she has thrown his way over the past week. The multiple times she received the bread bowl, and asked if he wanted any before taking some. The short, passing statements that showed a valley of pain behind the mountains of kindness. Forget those bright eyes that show no judgement for anything but herself.

Disappointment was obvious when they made it to the tower, and she couldn’t find it. Lambert stood by the entrance, watching with crossed arms and a dismissive look as her shoulders fell. His golden eyes fluttered over their surroundings for a moment, looking for wraiths or bears. He looked back to where Y/n had just been, but ran in when she was gone. He found her halfway up a tattered latter, a look of determination obvious.

“What are you doing? If Vesemir- hell, if Geralt sees me carrying you back to the fort with broken bones, it’ll be my ass on the chopping block. Get down.” While he was telling the truth, and his tone was harsh, he did feel worried. He is her escort, and he can’t have her getting hurt on his watch. If a strong witcher can’t protect her on a simple scavenger hunt, what would she think of him once she was better? Would she still smile at him? He doubted it, and the way he covered up his real reasonings didn’t matter. She didn’t know he needed her safe to see her smile at him willingly. Y/n turned, pointing up somewhere towards the remaining top of the turret. He could see her red, cold fingertips due to the fingerless gloves she decided to wear. While it was just frost and light snow that covered everything, the chances of her fall was too high.

“There’s a platform up there, and I’m gonna check.”

“No.”

“What?” He shook his head, putting his hands on her hips. He lifts her easily and places her softly back on the ground.

“I’ll go. What does it look like?” Again, Y/n simply stood there. She shook her head, while quickly going for her satchel.

“Uh, yeah, yeah. The herb. Give me a moment.” Lambert dropped his hands from her hips when she had to maneuver her bag over his arm. The mage pulled the book from her back, opening to the page with a small purple bud. “They’re hard to spot. If it’s open, don’t touch it. If it’s closed, give it a pinch. It should be hard to the touch despite its gentle looking exterior.” He nodded, and turned to the latter. It didn’t take too long to scale the rubble, finding the small buds. He did as she asked, and gathered a handful before jumping and flipping back down. When he landed, and presented the buds, her eyes sparkled much like they did when she first arrived.

“Are you going to take them, or did I do all of that for nothing?” Again, she shook herself back to reality, tearing her eyes from his face. He didn’t feel it happen, but a small smile crept onto his face. He wasn’t even trying to impress, much like he would in the courtyard. Her fingertips brushed the heel of his hand as she gathered the buds, and he felt a yearning he hadn’t felt before. He was right; her skin was soft. Cold, but soft. He wanted those fingertips to brush over him again. One of the tips felt rough, likely from the same place those burns came from. But it was a pleasant difference, and something he’d love to explore.

“Perfect, Lambert.” Her voice was soft, and she hadn’t said anything after that. She smiled and turned, jerking her head to beckon him to follow. He did like a lost dog. They made their way back to the keep, Y/n rambling about the importance of the plant. There was an interlude in her speech when she asked, “How do wolves climb? Is that like a special power you have? How high can you climb? Can you do anything else as cool?” A smirk found its way to his face as they entered past the bridge.

“I frequent with people from the School of the Cat. I don’t think the others can do quite what I can. They don’t like when I hang with them, but I think it’s just jealousy. And yeah, I have a whole arsenal of tricks.” He smiled to her during his last statement that earned what he would classify as a giggle.

“Well, it was quite spectacular.” Lambert found his smirk falling, trying to figure out why that statement would be made. They made their way back to the main hall, where his eyes danced over the rest of the men at the table. “I’m going back to the library. Thank you again for the help.” Her hand flew back to his arm, giving another light squeeze. “If you want to show any other cool things from that school, I’d happily watch.” Lambert watched as the blushing mage flew to the stairs. Once they all heard her footsteps disappear, the men at the table start to chuckle. Lambert throws his swords onto the tabletop, falling in place next to Eskel. Before the brunette takes a drink, he jokes,

“No more Merigolds, Geralt. Our guest has to go.” More chuckles stirred around him, but he didn’t react from his hunched position, looking at the table.

That woman should be running from witchers. If she didn’t run from face value, she’d definitely run with a man riddled with rage and a torn past. Even if he wanted to pursue Y/n, there are multiple points in their courting where he knew she would run. He didn’t want to be fixed if she didn’t, and he knew those types. They think they can strut in and try to glue pieces back together. But it’s never right, and he is forced to break down the new image they tried to build. But there’s something more to her that makes him hesitate to brush her off completely. And the warmth he tried to deflect had gotten past those walls that kept his heart.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Come Hell or Helwater - Part Thirteen

Claire comes back to the past with Brianna and arrives at Helwater looking for Jamie—but must confront the Dunsanys first.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve

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

Claire bit her lip and braced her arms against the rough boards of the wall of the empty stall while her legs went to jelly. Jamie’s arm tightened around her waist, holding her up as he breathed heavily against her neck, his chest heaving where it pressed against her back. She could feel his satiated smile as he kissed behind her ear. Slowly, her pulse began to check itself and return to normal, awareness of their larger surroundings returning with the strength in her legs. 

The stall stank but not as badly as it had before Jamie had finished mucking it. Claire had watched him, the basket with their lunch over her arm. The mare, temporarily displaced to the next stall, had been kicking up a fuss at the disturbance, so Jamie had been chatting to her in an effort to keep her calm. He hadn’t heard Claire’s approach and didn’t know she would be coming. 

The image of a different barn, from a different time and a different estate, crashed over her, dragging her back. 

Then Jamie had glanced over his shoulder and spotted her, his face lighting with the same smile she remembered from those early days at Leoch. She did what she wished she’d done all those years before and pulled the stall door closed behind her so she and Jamie could have a few moments to themselves with a little more abandon than could be managed with Brianna on the other side of the wall. They tried to keep quiet but when it couldn’t be helped, the horses minded less than their daughter would have. 

“I dinna suppose that was quite what ye had in mind when ye came lookin’ for me,” Jamie murmured, reluctant to pull away. 

“Not precisely, no,” Claire confirmed. “But I’m not going to complain,” she chuckled. 

“I wouldna wish to encourage complaints, but I do take requests under consideration,” he teased, finally releasing her with a final kiss to the side of her throat. 

Her skirts fell, causing the straw to rustle on the ground and Jamie hastily began rearranging his breeks, tucking in his shirt, and fixing his belt. 

“Well, we don’t have the time for a more formal picnic anymore,” Claire mused, “but I hope you can still sit for a few minutes to have some lunch.”

“I believe I can manage that.”

He exited the stall, leaving her to tidy herself while he found a barrel they’d been using to temporarily store the horses’ oats and a board that could serve as a tabletop. Claire unloaded the basket and Jamie fetched a pair of stools. 

By the time one of the other grooms came through the door, Jamie and Claire were the picture of respectability, seated and halfway through their midday meal. 

“Best make quick work of that,” the man nodded to Jamie as he made to move the mare back to her original stall. “Word’s come that Lady Geneva has decided to visit her family for a few days. Messenger was sent ahead when she stopped for fresh horses. She’s expected within the hour.”

Jamie sighed as Claire began to tidy their lunch things and return them to her basket. 

“I should fetch Bree from the house,” she explained. “They won’t want her about and she’ll be pleased to have her ‘lesson’ cut short.”

“Will the lass be underfoot wi’ you this afternoon if she’s no to stay at the house wi’ the ladies?” Jamie asked. 

Claire tried to decide from his tone which way he hoped she’d answer. Brianna had taken to splitting her time between her parents as they went about their daily work. She enjoyed helping Claire build and plant her herb garden more than tend to the weeding or gather and dry the herbs. And she enjoyed physically caring for the horses and roaming the fields with Jamie more than the tiresome and repetitive training of the colts and fillies. 

“I don’t expect so but if there are guests at the house—even if it’s only Lady Geneva—it could easily throw things out of whack. What’ll you be working on?”

“If there’s a carriage due, I expect I’ll be left to feedin’ and cleanin’ the horses, settling them in for however long, and then doin’ the same for the carriage—well, no the feedin’ so much as makin’ sure everything’s in proper workin’ order. Wouldna want to let a wheel go that might need repairing,” he mused as he set the board back against the stable wall and shifted the barrel back to its prior resting place.

“I’ll let Bree know. She might want to help or just watch.” Claire went up on her toes to kiss his cheek in farewell but Jamie slipped an arm around her waist before she could slip away again. He made sure she left with a proper kiss and a gentle squeeze to her arse, a thank you for the brief meal and the impromptu tryst shared before. 

Claire saw the carriage making its way up the drive as she crossed from the stables to the yard. She entered the house through the kitchens, thanking Cook for the basket of food and flushing as she told the older woman how much she and Jamie had enjoyed it. Cook chuckled knowingly as Claire slipped through to the drawing room where Brianna had her informal lessons with Isobel. 

Brianna and Isobel were at the window holding back the drapes to watch the carriage.

“Mrs. Mackenzie,” Isobel exclaimed as she turned at the sound of Claire’s entrance. “I was just going to send someone to fetch you. I apologize for the change in plan—”

“I heard about your sister’s visit and came straight away. I know you’ll want to catch up with her and I don’t blame you for it in the least. Brianna doesn’t either, does she?” Claire looked to her daughter.

Brianna finally peeled her gaze away from the window. “Huh? Oh. No, not at all. It’s been a while since you’ve seen each other and it doesn’t sound like she’s staying more than a day or two. We can pick up where we left off after she goes home again,” Brianna offered, moving to the table and putting away her things. She wasn’t particularly gentle with the bit of embroidery work she’d been practicing, gleefully squishing it into the pile between two books. 

“You should take that with you,” Isobel suggested. “So you don’t fall behind.”

Brianna smiled politely, backing away from the shelf where she’d been prepared to shove everything. 

“We’ll get out of your hair. You’ll be wanting to go down and meet the carriage,” Claire guessed. She guided Brianna out of the room and back through toward the kitchen. 

“I doubt I’ll fall behind in two days,” Brianna muttered under her breath when Isobel was out of earshot. 

“Probably not,” Claire agreed. “We’ll run these back to the cottage for safekeeping and figure out what to do from there.”

They were just unlocking the door when they heard hurried footsteps on the gravel behind them. Brianna pushed inside, eager to be rid of the weight of books. Claire turned to see one of the kitchen maids running after them. 

“Is everything alright?” Claire asked, fearing the young woman might pass out from the exertion. She was bent double, her hand kneading a stitch in her side while she fought to catch her breath. 

“Yes, everything… is fine. Lady… Lady Geneva said she’s… tired and feeling a little… unwell—from the carriage ride,” the kitchen maid explained. She swallowed and took a deep breath, settling. “Complained the way was rough and she was tossed about. Wants to see if you might stop in to see her and bring some sort of tonic to ease her nerves.”

Claire turned to see Brianna rolling her eyes, thankfully, out of the maid’s sight. 

“I’ll be along shortly,” Claire assured the messenger. “I just need to get my daughter settled.”

The maid nodded and turned to make her mad dash back to the house. 

“I was going to see if you wanted to go help your father in the stables anyway,” Claire told Brianna. “He thought you might like to see the carriage up close. Might even let you pretend to ride in it if you help him clean it.” 

“He would be right,” Brianna agreed, her step lighter as she closed the cottage door and turned to lead the way to the stables. 

[nelvana]

In which the tower of time is explored

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which the god of time is met Previous: In which the land between time is explored

    “They’re expecting us…?” Alex repeated, his brows creasing at Ceebee’s comment.

    “I didn’t do anything to activate this. It had to be someone else, and based on how we’ve gotten this far, it was probably manually activated,” Ceebee explained quietly, “right?”

    Giratina, speaking from the rock still being held by Edgar even after all this time, let out a hum of confirmation, but did not divulge into the subject further.

    Alex sighed, “I suppose that I shouldn’t be too surprised. Even if our arrival didn’t come in some sort of time vision, Dialga must know by now that if anyone was going to step up to handle this, it would be us.”

    Dusknoir sat up, “they may have been expecting my… return here, as well,” he added.

    Frowning, Alex turned away, staring out into the now clouded horizon. His gaze followed some of the floating islands as they slowly moved like on a fixed axis around the Temporal Tower. The Rainbow Stoneship continued its journey at a steady pace, navigating around any stones in its path as if it had always been a natural part of its path.

    Dusknoir slouched slightly as the conversation died at his words, idly tracing the markings on their cruise. A few eyes continued to watch each other, but soon everyone had glanced off to either watch their surroundings or their ride.

    Carefully padding towards the edge of the Rainbow Stoneship, Nelvana crouched at the back of the platform, studying the rainbow trailing behind it with wide eyes. The glow of the colors bothered her eyes slightly, but at the same time she never wished to look away. Hesitantly, she reached a hand down, waggling her fingers through the arc. It didn’t feel like anything, and unlike natural light, it did not bend around her hand, giving the fur no illusion of extra color. Regardless, the act of touching a rainbow at all brought a smile to her face, and she only moved her hand back to sit on her lap due to her concern for safety.

    “Now this is really cool,” Damien gasped.

    Nelvana glanced up at the gengar, only mildly surprised by how silently he had wandered up beside her. He leaned down to poke the rainbow as well, but leaned back much sooner than Nelvana had, sitting down and leaning back with his hands palm down behind him for support.

    “Well, I can knock ‘touching a rainbow’ off the bucket list,” he joked.

    “Touching a rainbow was on your bucket list?” Nelvana chuckled, smirking back at him.

    “Not really, unless you ask, like, maybe eight-year-old me,” Damien responded, “I’m more surprised that you know what a bucket list is,” he commented.

    “Oh, yeah, bucket lists were kinda common, for humans at least,” Nelvana replied, wrapping her arms around her knees to pull them up to her chest and rest her chin onto. “I can’t remember if I ever had one. I guess the knowledge that I would either succeed my one goal and disappear, or die trying, kind of discourages the idea.”

    “Or encourages it,” Damien pointed out, though the casualness at how Nelvana spoke of such a dark fact got him the frown momentarily. “I never really had one either. Maybe we should all work on one when we get back. It’ll keep us occupied, at least.”

    Nelvana snorted, “add it to the ‘we’ll do it when we get back list’.”

    Shuffling up in between the pair, Keahi ruffled up zir feathers and leaned up against zir partner, smiling and looking out at the rainbow trail behind them as well.

    “I can see why Alex was pretty excited for this. This looks amazing!” Keahi commented.

    “It really does,” Nelvana agreed, and then paused. “Has he or Ceebee come back over to get a look at this?”

    “Dunno about Ceebee, but Alex is still busy brooding over there.” Damien leaned his head back to peer at the grovyle sitting on the other end of the platform. “Here, you two can keep sitting here together, I’ll go check up on those two. Maybe see how Edgar’s holding up afterwards… seemed a bit shaken up by some of those monster houses.”

    “Oh yeah, I asked Edgar about that, but he said he was fine… maybe you’ll get some better comfort out of him, he’s always been pretty close to you,” Keahi responded, “thanks Damien!”

    Nodding a farewell to the pair, Damien stood up and walked off towards Alex. Both Nelvana and Keahi watched him head over to the grovyle, but then turned back to watch the colorful trail being left behind their ride. Keahi snuggled closer to zir partner, who shifted her position so she could wrap an arm around the torchic.

    “Is it just like you thought it’d be?” Keahi asked, turning to look up at Nelvana. “Just the Rainbow Stoneship and all, I mean,” zie added, before sighing. “Wow, it’s been a long day. Can’t see where the sun is from here though, wonder what time it is.”

    “This area must be locked into daytime. I have no idea what time it really is anymore,” Nelvana responded, “but… yeah, kinda how I imagined it. Kind of different. I guess the people here and the circumstances really make the difference though. I don’t think the Rainbow Stoneship itself has really changed.”

    Keahi let out a hum, “that’s true,” zie agreed, closing zir eyes as zie leaned zir head to fit in the crook of Nelvana’s neck.

    “Am I interrupting something?” Alex joked, going to sit beside the two without waiting for an answer.

    Keahi flinched in surprise, lifting back up zir head, but not making an effort to move away from Nelvana otherwise. Nelvana blinked over at the grovyle, before chuckling and shaking her head, not moving much either.

    “Nah, we were just talking about the Rainbow Stoneship here,” Nelvana told him.

    “Hm, yeah… quite the view, huh?” Alex replied, “Damien insisted that I should come back here to look at the rainbow, and he was definitely right that moving back over here would be worth it. I had only been waiting to see if anyone else would rather get situated here first; I’ve already seen this,” he explained.

    “Yeah, I mean, may be yo- our second time, but who knows when we’ll get the chance to look at this again?” Nelvana responded.

    “At least this ride is pretty long, so we can take it all in,” Keahi added, “makes for a nice break too. I was just saying to Nel, that it must be getting pretty late now.”

    Alex turned back to glance over at Temporal Tower, steadily growing closer, “I was hoping we could make it through the tower before resting; we don’t really want to hang around at the base of that thing.”

    “Do you think it will be any better at the top?” Nelvana asked.

    “Had better be. A good night’s rest is the least we deserve once we get all the way up to Dialga,” Alex sighed.

    The trip lasted at least ten minutes, the Rainbow Stoneship not being the fastest method of travel, but finally they had arrived at the base of Temporal Tower. They stopped by another rocky island, the cliff of such a platform rough and jagged. Though this base seemed small, the structure built on it stood tall into the swirling clouds above them all. The outside walls were deep blue, with a lighter metal forming patterns around the tower, likely adding extra support to such a massive building. Their only entrance to Temporal Tower were huge, double doors right ahead of where they landed.

    Silent from the awe of such a building, the group one by one carefully stepped off the Rainbow Stoneship, which depowered once they had all gotten off, remaining in place beside the rocks in case of their return.

    “Woah… so this is Temporal Tower,” Keahi murmured, “this feels… different than looking up Sky Tower, in a way. I can’t quite explain it.”

    “This is an actual dungeon?” Edgar suggested.

    Keahi laughed, “maybe.”

    “That, and this certainly has… a much more powerful aura to it,” Tsuki added, “Sky Tower may have been Rayquaza’s home, but Temporal Tower is an extension of Dialga’s power. You can feel it.”

    “Yeah… that’s probably it,” Keahi murmured.

    Sizing up the next step in their quest, the group fell into another comfortable silence. Keahi turned away from studying the tower though to look over zir teammates, and extra allies. Despite the turmoils of the day, no one appeared tired enough to have to call it quits yet. Zie couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief; zie didn’t want anyone getting too exhausted to complete this next dungeon mid-war, including zirself.

    “Same number of floors, same safe floor spot, and same dangers as Hidden Land,” Alex stated, crossing his arms as he stared up the tower. “Big difference is that here, the main type is psychic, with some steel, poison, and ghost pokemon lingering here and there as well.”

    “Mainly psychic pokemon? Good thing we have three ghost-types here!” Keahi commented.

    “With two of us as mainly support,” Damien pointed out.

    “You were doing really well with your thunderbolt attack! You can give yourself a bit more credit,” Keahi insisted.

    “Still… we should be back to the usual dungeon pace. Plenty of different pokemon, not all fully evolved,” Alex continued, “doesn’t mean that this will be easy though.”

    “Will this all be similar as to when you were last here, though?” Tsuki questioned, “Temporal Tower was broken when you had travelled through here; now it is fully functioning.”

    “Giratina? Do you know?” Edgar asked, shaking the rock slightly in his grasp.

    “What Temporal Tower is like typically… unfortunately, my experience out here specifically is not much. What Alex has been saying so far has been correct, and stays… fairly the same between the two timelines. You may find less variation of pokemon here, as less have attempted to enter but got trapped in this timeline than the other, but that should be the largest change,” Giratina responded, “if anything is this world manages to stay strong throughout destruction… it’s mystery dungeons.”

    “How mysterious,” Damien joked.

    Alex sighed, shaking his head, “well, no sense in dilly-dallying; we’re almost to Dialga now.”

    Small nods of agreement. Taking a couple steps towards Temporal Tower automatically summoned the doors to open wide in front of them. Despite any mild surprise, they were forced to simply chalk it up to Dialga expecting them, like Ceebee had said before. Now without any troubles due to habitude from doing this a couple times before, the group formed their line, and entered Temporal Tower.

    Perfectly cut stone floors, and metallic walls with a mild blue hue filled their surroundings indoors. This simplistic design to the dungeon gave it something closer to the appearance of an actual, ordinary building than any dungeon before this one, which only served to create an eerie feeling. The way the ceiling constantly stretched out high above them, and how each hallway exiting a room had its own doorway made everything almost as if they were walking through a strange mansion than the ruined and overgrowth mystery dungeons they were all accustomed to.

    “Hey… does anyone else hear that?” Damien asked quietly, eyes flitting around their current room.

    “Hear what?” Edgar responded.

    “That… ticking noise, like a clock,” Damien told him.

    Everyone paused momentarily to listen more, though some, already hearing it at the same time Damien did, were already nodding back to him, but respected the current silence and everyone else wishing to listen and didn’t say anything. Faintly was the sound Damien had described; ticking, just like an old hand clock. The ticking, while almost sounding distant, was still clear as if it were in their current room, despite the source clearly not being here, if there was a solid source at all.

    They waited for nearly half a minute, listening to the tick, tock, at every second, before someone spoke up.

    “That’s weird, I don’t remember that being here when we were here last, but you’re right, there’s definitely a ticking here,” Alex commented, “think it’s because time is flowing?”

    Ceebee nodded slowly, “that was going to be my guess. It must help symbolize the time passing in real time. A tick for every second.”

    “Oh, yeah, that would make sense…” Damien murmured, “with everything being time based here.”

    Continuing onwards, their first dungeon spawn encounter of Temporal Tower was the psychic-type solrock; just as foretold, and something almost all in the group had seen before. Nelvana dealt with it with a couple swift bonemerang attacks, and they continued onwards without terribly much difficulty.

    In fact, the more the continued exploring the dungeon, the more they found that many of the spawn here were not only familiar, but easy to defeat. These foes were certainly stronger than any previous of their kind any of the group had found in dungeons, but still shared weaknesses, and that knowledge helped deal with any of their opponents before they had the chance to become much of a problem.

    No, it wasn’t the spawn themselves that were the main problem of this dungeon, as they quickly became aware of. The true challenge began when a grovyle leapt from another hallway in front of the group. Nelvana jumped, startled, but her surprise and confusion only grew as she identified the scars of this grovyle as being the same that Alex had. There were fewer than what Alex currently had, but the scar that stretched across his muzzle was unmistakeable.

    “Wha…”

    The grovyle ignored the group, even as they looked in their direction, the golden eyes seemed to look past all the pokemon crowded by another hallway. Instead, the grovyle turned back towards something or someone. Their mouth opened as if they were speaking, but no sound came out. In response to their silent words, someone else hurried out from the hallway; a human.

    “Is that…” Keahi trailed off, tearing zir own gaze from what was happening in front of them to glance up at zir partner.

    “That’s me,” Nelvana confirmed, her voice scarcely a gasp.

    The… duplicates of Alex and Nelvana paused in the middle of the room momentarily, talking to each other without any sound. Strung over the grovyle’s shoulder was even the same bag he had now, slightly less worn than currently, but inside the satchel a slight blue glow emitted; a time gear.

    Just as soon as the pair entered, they left. Hurrying off to the other end of the room as if in a hurry and fading away from sight before they hit the wall.

    “They’re illusions,” Nelvana whispered, letting go of the breath she had been holding.

    “Illusions…” Keahi murmured, “you didn’t say there were illusions here,” zie said, glancing back to the back of the group.

    “I didn’t know there were any either,” Alex replied, voice sounding far away despite having entered the room with everyone else at the tail end of the illusion display.

    “Is this… the normal for here, then?” Tsuki asked, cautiously padding towards where the illusions had disappeared, sniffing the floor and finding nothing unusual.

    “It is,” Giratina answered, “I apologize, I had not realized before… But yes, these illusions are us seeing pieces of time.”

    “Why weren’t there any when any of you went through here?” Damien questioned.

    “Time was frozen then. It must not have been able to… display anything from other times,” Ceebee told him, “it must be that when it flows normally, visions of other times leak in.”

    “That must explain why the spawn was not up to the same caliber as Hidden Land; the dungeon’s energy is seeping more into these illusions than typical dungeon tricks,” Dusknoir added, gesturing with one hand vaguely as he spoke.

    “Why was there no sound from it though?” Edgar asked, “I didn’t hear anything from it, at least, but it looked like… it looked like, uh, they were speaking.”

    “Could be for a number of reasons. I have not seen these illusions before, so it could be normal for Temporal Tower to only display the sights and not the sounds from these points in time it chooses to create as illusions,” Giratina responded, “or it could simply be from the fact that that was an illusion from the dead timeline. Illusions specifically from that timeline must be more challenging to grab.”

    “I am surprised we saw an illusion from that timeline at all,” Tsuki admitted, padding back over to her vague place in the lineup; the group now closer to a huddle in the room together than a line. “It must still be slightly connected to then; dungeons tend to latch onto more disastrous energies, I’ve found,” she added.

    “That must be it then,” Keahi murmured, “are we all okay to keep going, then…?”

    Alex shook his head, exhaling, “yeah, yeah… we’re going to have to get used to that soon anyway.”

    “Nel?” Keahi stepped up beside zir partner, who was still silently staring towards where the illusion first appeared, as if expecting it to return.

    “I… Yeah, let’s get going,” she replied quietly, continuing onwards in more of a daze, almost stumbling over her own feet after the first step, but catching herself and moving forwards as if that had never happened at all.

    They ran into another illusion on every floor.

    The next illusion they found was another from the dead timeline, and another with Alex and Nelvana. The group almost didn’t see this illusion, and almost didn’t want to. In the corner of a room they barely peeked into at first, was an illusion, showing the pair sitting together, Nelvana wrapping bandages around Alex’s right leg. It was a simple vision, and unlike the other, did seem to loop, and never disappeared, even as Nelvana paused to stare at it for a long time before coming back to her senses and moving on, skipping the room.

    On the third and the fourth floor were more illusions from the dead timeline, one with a horde of sableye running through the hallway and startling everyone enough to move aside despite the fact that the army wasn’t actually there, and one with a trio of pokemon, an audino, a mamoswine, and a porygon, that no one in this group recognized personally, but this trio were quickly surrounded by sableye in the illusion, disappearing before the inevitable could be displayed.

    It was on the fifth floor that they finally spotted a vision from the past, an incineroar and a salamence, both sporting rescue team badges, cautiously walked together, tired from assumedly having walked for much, much longer than this illusion would show, yet their eyes narrowed with determination and focus. Suddenly, the pair reared up at an unseen enemy, Salamence blasting it with a powerful beam shot out from their mouth, surely defeating whoever their opponent was in a single hit. The illusion disappeared soon after, but not before Incineroar gave Salamence a small pat on the back as a silent compliment.

    “That was a rescue team…” Nelvana murmured, “have you heard of them, Keahi? An incineroar and a salamence?” she asked, glancing back at her partner.

    Keahi nodded, “yeah… I think that was Team Endeavor!”

    “The diamond rank team?” Damien interrupted for clarification.

    Again, Keahi nodded, glancing back at the gengar momentarily before going back to facing forwards, staring past Nelvana and out to where the illusion had been.

    “That wasn’t all of them though. There are four members. Er, well, at least four from the last time anyone heard from them….” zie continued, “the team has been missing for a long time now… it’s a mystery as to what happened to them, but Drapion keeps them as the diamond rank team anyway, so they must be okay.”

    “Perhaps if we see more visions of them from here, we might be able to figure out where they went,” Tsuki suggested.

    “Maybe…” Keahi replied, “I kinda hope so; that would be nice, huh? It would be really cool to actually meet them, and it would be great to have some confirmation on what they have been up to.”

    “They looked tired,” Nelvana commented quietly, “I hope they made it out of wherever they were, at least out of what we just saw there, alright.”

    The next few floors continued similarly, but nothing got easier. To say that other dungeons got easier as they progress as well would be untrue, however, in most dungeons, getting used to the pokemon that showed up and picking out signs of traps or monster houses granted some more ease for exploration. Here with the time illusions… no one could get used to that. How could they? How does one get used to seeing visions of other times, including the timeline of the darkest future, whenever one least expects it?

    And unfortunately, simply because this dungeon had an extra trick, didn’t mean that it laid off on other, more typical, dangers. There were times the group would pause to watch one of the illusions, and wind up getting attacked from behind from one of the spawn.

    On a couple floors, they ended up finding a monster house in the same room as one of the illusions. In those cases, it could be challenging to discern which pokemon they were seeing were really there or not.

    The traps, while few here, still would crop up here and there to throw everyone off. Traps could never be perfectly predicted, dungeons always hid them too well for that, but sometimes the more experienced one could take a moment and pick out spots where not to step. Any chance of those predictions being successful were thrown off as well, with sometimes everyone feeling too caught up in everything else to remember that traps were, in fact, still a problem.

    Fortunately, for the most part, the few traps they ended up stepping on were mostly harmless. Nelvana stepped on a slumber trap in a hallway, but the effects were temporary and she woke up again after a couple minutes. The spin trap and the slow traps that Keahi and Damien accidentally stepped on turned out to be ways to lighten the mood more than anything else, with those two making jokes out of their temporary situations while they waited for the effects to wear off. Plus, if they had to, there were still heal seeds packed just in case to handle those sorts of effects from traps.

    On the tenth floor though, they ran into a more inconveniencing trap, paired with an illusion.

    The illusion itself appeared in a large room, a couple moments after everyone had entered. A portal swirled and glowed from the back wall, and the figures of Alex and Nelvana could be seen in front of it, almost entering, but not quite. Nelvana was slouched over so low that Alex standing beside her appeared taller than her, despite the full group now knowing that as a human she was about twice his height.

    He turned back, calling out across the swarm of sableye, out to Ceebee, fluttering weakly not far from the portal as well, arms outstretched in front of her and antennae twitching with the telltale sign that she was focusing her abilities. Alex yelled again, the desperation stretching across his face despite the illusion bringing no sound to his voice. Ceebee glanced back, calling something out to him in return. He screamed at her, evidently not liking whatever she had said, but as another sableye lunged at him and Nelvana, just barely missing, he swallowed his pride and guided Nelvana into the portal with him, it closing behind them, them and a sableye leaping in last second, as a couple in the group watching this all managed to glimpse, and leaving Ceebee behind.

    Continuing still as one of the longer lasting illusions, they could see the image of Dusknoir roar in fury. While Ceebee was putting up a good fight against the numerous sableye with her fairy-type move, she was inevitably knocked out by a powerful shadow punch attack, Dusknoir shaking with rage as he pulled off the attack. The illusion faded soon afterwards, with the image of Ceebee slumping to the ground, defeated.

    “So that’s…” Keahi was the first to speak afterwards, zir voice quiet and hesitant. “…that’s why Ceebee wasn’t with you guys at first when you traveled back in time.”

    Ceebee nodded somberly, “with one of the time gears broken, it was important that I managed the portal. It would have been risky for me to get in there with them in the moment,” she explained, “we were already cutting things close.”

    “That makes sense…” Keahi murmured, “but Nel, you looked really hurt there. What happened before what we saw to-“

    Keahi was cut off suddenly at the familiar sound of a click somewhere in the room. Everyone managed to look over in time to see Dusknoir, having moved to the side slightly during the illusion to watch better, now had a warp tile below him. And just before anyone could say anything, the trap activated properly, and Dusknoir disappeared.

    “Where did he go?” Edgar blurted out in alarm, “if we step there too, will we go to the same place…?”

    “No, we won’t. Warp tiles always take you somewhere random in the dungeon; no one should step on that,” Tsuki warned.

    Ceebee sighed, “I’ll go looking, I can already sense him from here. You all can keep exploring, we’ll catch up later, just don’t go to the next floor.”

    Taking the mobile scarf to make the trip quicker, Ceebee bid small goodbyes to everyone before flying through one of the walls to search for the missing Dusknoir.

    Traveling through walls was, of course, still disorienting, but her own practice using this item in Murky Cave helped her stomach feel better about it all. She found though, that akin to the rest of the most building-like structure for this dungeon, that the walls were thinner and always seemed to offer more rooms behind them, unlike many other dungeons which truly felt like tunnels more than anything else. This meant she had more walls to travel through, but each wall took less time to pass through.

    Eventually, she located Dusknoir in a small room. He had run into another illusion, and Ceebee found him watching it, frozen in place. She couldn’t see his expression, or much of the illusion itself due to her coming in behind Dusknoir. However, what she could see was the images of two septile laying on the ground in front of him, blood pooling over unseen grass. They were dead. Unable to help herself, Ceebee tried peering around Dusknoir, and met the gaze of his duplicate, a younger version of Dusknoir, with bloody hands and no remorse in his eye.

    The illusion faded, and sensing the extra presence in the room now, Dusknoir spun around, eye wide, to face Ceebee. For a few moments, neither of them said a thing. They only stared at each other in silence.

    “Come on,” Ceebee finally muttered, “the others are waiting; they might have even found the stairs by now.”

    Wordlessly nodding, Dusknoir followed Ceebee out of the room, and continued remaining quiet as they made their way back to the rest of the group. By the time they had returned, the others had managed to find the stairs to the next floor, and after forming their lineup again, they moved on up the steps.

    Proceeding past the eleventh floor afterwards finally brought them to the safe floor, where they could rest. Though there was the lingering thought of if illusions could reach them here as well, when nothing happened for the first few minutes, the group slowly began to relax again. For once, this floor became an opportunity for them to discuss what they had previously seen more, rather than focusing on specifically checking on supplies and whatnot.

    Nelvana sat against a wall with Keahi beside her, leaning up against the cubone for comfort again, while Alex chatted with the both of them, starting out mostly speaking about the illusions from the dead timeline, but eventually curiosity brought them to talk about Team Endeavor again; fascinated by the mystery surrounding the elite team. Looking for more clarification otherwise, Ceebee talked with the rest of the group, explaining to them about what she knew.

    Dusknoir, for the beginning of their break, separated himself from everyone else to lean on the wall across from where Nelvana, Keahi, and Alex were gathered. He said nothing and did not move, at least not until moments after Alex got up to check on the others with Ceebee.

    Cautiously, Dusknoir floated over to the pair still sitting against the wall, letting himself drift lower to the ground as to not appear as large, at least slightly. Despite his efforts, Nelvana still stiffened as she realized he was approaching, though she remained frozen in place, allowing him to reach a comfortable conversation distance from the two. Sensing Nelvana’s returning unease, Keahi leaned closer, bumping zir forehead on zir partner’s shoulder for a moment before turning zir head to face Dusknoir again.

    “Hello, Dusknoir,” Keahi greeted after a few moments passed where Dusknoir still said nothing despite his closeness. “Did you need something?”

    “I had been hoping to speak with Nelvana briefly, if that would be possible,” Dusknoir requested.

    Keahi glanced at Nelvana, who, after a pause, hesitantly gave zim a small nod.

    “Okay,” Keahi replied, without moving.

    Dusknoir waited for a moment, but when he realized that the torchic would not be moving, he simply let out a sigh before continuing with what he wanted to say anyway; he didn’t want to have to force Keahi to leave, it was clear why they were refusing already to do so.

    “I wanted to tell you this, since I do not know that the other two will give me a moment to listen, so I do thank you for giving me a moment despite everything,” he began, “in my time here in this timeline with you all, I have come to realize my faults, and that I was wrong in what I did before. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry,” he told her, “I know that you may not believe me, or that this does not fix what I did to you and your friends, but I do not know when I might get another chance to apologize. Though I regret my actions before when I worked under Dialga, they still brought me back here, and I wish to repay them, so my plans of staying with then after this have not changed. However, if there is something I can do to make anything better for you… please let me know. And if you could, let… let Grovyle and Celebi know that I am sorry too.”

    Nelvana stared at Dusknoir, unsure of what to say. This was completely unexpected to her, and if she didn’t trust her ability to read others so well, she would have thought that he was completely lying. Though, knowing that he was telling the truth only made it harder to wrap her head around.

    “Okay,” she finally croaked, unsure of what else to say in this moment.

    Dusknoir’s gaze softened, “okay. Thank you for listening, despite everything. Again, I’m sorry.”

    With that, unwilling to bother Nelvana any longer, Dusknoir turned away and floated back to where he stood before. Nelvana watched him leave, her throat dry and heart still pounding. She didn’t understand.

    “You alright?” Keahi asked, sitting up more to properly rest zir own forehead against Nelvana’s.

    Merely humming back in response for now, Nelvana leaned back to Keahi’s touch, letting herself breath for a few moments. She let her shaky hands find the comfort of brushing through her partner’s warm feathers, listening vaguely to the background noise of the others still wrapped up in their own conversation.

    “Do… Do you believe him?” Keahi asked hesitantly, curiosity already eating away at zim after what had just happened.

    “I don’t know,” Nelvana whispered, denial at the truth of the answer twisting her thoughts and leaving her with uncertainty in her words instead.

    Keahi didn’t say anything else, not trusting zir own knowledge of the situation to make any sort of assumptions. To zim, Dusknoir sounded sincere, but there was always the option of him being a good liar. Admittedly zie still hadn’t spent enough time around him to pick out which was most likely.

    “We should keep going,” Nelvana announced quietly, leaning away from her partner and immediately missing the warm touch.

    Without waiting for a proper answer, Nelvana shakily stood up again and moved towards the exit of the safe room. Keahi sighed, but got up to follow after only a moment’s pause. Gathering the attention of everyone else, the group quickly collected themselves and headed out to tackle the next half of the dungeon.

    Though by now they considered skipping by any illusions that they came across, the possibility of valuable information was far too important to pass up, despite the extra time it took to watch the images came appeared in various rooms, despite how emotionally draining it could be to view something from one’s own past so openly displayed.

    This was, at least, fortunately the only major delays they would have throughout the dungeon. The latter half of Temporal Tower introduced more pokemon for them to battle against, but there were only a couple new encounters of which none of them had seen in any dungeons before, but even those ones were the evolved forms of pokemon that they had just seen in the earlier half of this dungeon, and often the same sorts of battle strategies could be used on them as had been used before. Their largest difficulty with the spawn came with the salamence that would appear, which were mistaken from the illusions of Salamence of Team Endeavor a couple times, catching them off guard.

    After a few hours after entering the dungeon, surely getting late into the night in the outside world, they stepped up to the final floor. Alex announcing this achievement was met with tired cheers, all thankful to finally be so close to their goal after all this time. They quieted down after this for a few moments, until Damien spoke up again.

    “You know… and I’d hate to jinx myself here, especially so close to finishing… but we haven’t seen any illusions from my past,” Damien commented.

    “That is an interesting point, actually,” Tsuki replied, licking her whiskers idly. “The illusions we have been seeing do not seem to range that far into the past, or into the future aside from the dead timeline; at least from what we can assume.”

    “Does the Temporal Tower have a range of time that it can create illusions from?” Edgar asked.

    “I am not certain about that, but it would make sense,” Giratina answered, “this is a dungeon, but it is distantly affected by Dialga themself. It is possible that they may force the dungeon to create… more relevant illusions.”

    “I would have been interested in seeing some illusions from that far in the past though,” Nelvana admitted quietly, “your time sounds incredibly fascinating from what you’ve told us, Damien.”

    Damien shrugged his shoulders, glancing over at the walls, “nah, nothing really that special… a couple big events happened that I can recall, but honestly nothing as exciting as these mystery dungeons and stuff.”

    “I’m sure there would be something interesting to see!” Ceebee chimed in, “you lived centuries before any of us! Well, except for Giratina, that is.”

    Giratina chuckled, “Damien is not giving his own time enough credit. The humans then did some incredibly interesting things. You’d get some group of them attempting to summon one of the legendaries every decade or so.”

    “Really?” Alex responded, “and you call that not interesting, Damien,” he teased.

    “We’re literally about to talk to a legendary right now! We’re currently talking with a legendary and a mythical!” Damien pointed out.

    “How do you summon a legendary though? Aren’t there just places to find them?” Keahi asked, “we’ve walked to most legendaries we’ve talked to, and there weren’t even mystery dungeons back then.”

    “That’s exactly it though. The legendaries would often have to hide themselves in more… creative locations without mystery dungeons being available to guard themselves. Those that could hide in pocket dimensions often would, and many others would sleep deep underground,” Giratina explained.

    “Oh. I guess that makes sense,” Keahi murmured, “you know, we haven’t seen many humans from these illusions either. How many humans were in the dead timeline?”

    Alex clicked his tongue, “not nearly as many humans as pokemon, but their numbers were steadily growing over the years. Because they needed good weapons to handle themselves in battle though, it wasn’t often you’d see them exiting the safety of their communities. That’s probably why we haven’t seen many illusions of them. The illusions we’ve seen from the dead timeline that haven’t been of us have been of other traveling pokemon; the humans couldn’t afford to travel as much as pokemon, and pokemon travellers were even few and far in between.”

    Keahi nodded, though any previous response was interrupted as zie peered into the next room they were entering, “oh hey, the stairs! Good job, Nel!”

    “Finally,” Damien groaned, “my feet are killing me, and if I see one more damn il-“

    The image of an enormous pokemon appeared in front of the stairs. The tall quadruped stood on pointed, golden hooves, and it was coated in a smooth white pelt with a grey underside. A golden cross-like wheel was attached to its body with green jewels on each point that matched their eyes. Their long neck was covered in a flowing mane, which reached up to their head and flowed out back from it, appearing similarly to their long tail.

    Though no one in the group had seen this pokemon in person before, a few pieced together their appearance to one of the images they had seen carved into the walls of the Old Ruins to go along with the story of creation.

    This was Arceus.

    The god of all gods gazed across the group, almost as if they were more than just an illusion. And for a moment, everyone was caught up in the silent and peaceful awe at being able to look back at such a powerful being that even some legendaries would not have seen in centuries.

    Suddenly, something struck Arceus in the side. They roared in pain, and even though there was no sound to the illusion like all the illusions were silent, the feeling of what the sound would have been seemed to strike right into one’s heart. Arceus, like a tall and powerful tower, slowly toppled over, and unlike all other illusions, they did not merely fade away as the vision ended. Instead their image seemed to peel away and disintegrate, the individual pieces finally disappearing into the air.

    The horror at what had been witnessed gripped the group into silence.

    Tsuki moved first, as her eyes lidded shut and she collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Not before brushing against Damien during her fall though; who screamed at the sudden touch, jumping up in shock before immediately slapping his hands over his mouth as his voice echoed in the room.

    Fortunately for Damien’s dignity at least, attention was drawn to their fainted friend before anyone could be bothered to focus on his shriek. And fortunately for everyone’s worries, Tsuki woke up and began shakily rising back to her feet just as quickly as she had fallen.

    “Are you okay?” Keahi was the first to ask, though the question was surely on most minds, and zie shuffled around Damien to stand in front of the absol as she pulled herself up into a crouch.

    “I…” Tsuki breathed heavily, her eyes still not focusing properly. “I don’t know,” she admitted quietly, “what was that? What could have harmed Arceus like that?” she questioned instead, staring blankly out towards where the illusion once was.

    “What did you see?” Giratina asked worriedly, unable to have been able to see the illusion.

    “Arceus. They were hurt by… something, and it looked bad; only one hit too and it almost looked to defeat them on its own,” Ceebee told them, “do you know what could have damaged them so much?”

    Giratina paused, “I… I’m not sure. A legendary or mythical at least. Mortals can fight us legendaries and even win, as you’ve proven, but to beat Arceus in one hit… I’m not sure if I would have ever been capable of doing something like that even.”

    All questioning faded out for another moment as everyone considered this answer. Even Giratina sounded nervous as they responded to Ceebee; the idea of something that posed such a threat scaring even a legendary that existed on another dimension didn’t inspire any confidence in anyone either.

    “I think… for now at least, the more important question is… did this happen in the past or the future?” Alex pointed out.

    His question brought heads that previously looked either towards Tsuki or the rock that Giratina spoke from now turned to the grovyle.

    “That’s a good point… Is this a threat that’s already here, or can we prevent it from happening…” Nelvana murmured.

    Dusknoir’s gaze hardened, “we need to speak with Dialga. Now.”

    Never had anyone in this group found had themselves agreeing with Dusknoir more than they had now.

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which the god of time is met Previous: In which the land between time is explored

[ethanlivemere]

Half-Life²: Anticitizen - Chapter 1

Note: if you haven’t read the Half-Life²: Anticitizen Prologue yet, go read that first here.

Chapter 1

Now Arriving: City 17

The shrill scream of a train horn makes me jolt up as numbness starts leaving my body. I pant and shiver from the cold air. As my heartbeat calms down I start taking in my surroundings. I am sat on a row of hard plastic chairs that extends along the side of a dilapidated train car. The gentle shaking of the cold surface beneath me and the clattering sound I had been hearing before tell me it’s moving.

“Hey there buddy, calm down. You scared me,” a gentle voice sounds. I turn my head and see a dark-skinned man, probably in his late thirties, sitting in a seat on the other side of the aisle. His eyes are dark and tired and his short beard is trimmed irregularly. His arms are resting on a plain black suitcase in his lap and his clothing consists of blue denim pants and a beige shirt. “Had a bad dream?” he asks.

I rub my head as I turn, taking my feet off the chairs to sit normally. I now notice I am wearing the same, rough fabric clothing as the other passenger. Well, so much for having earned the H.E.V. Suit. At least I still have my glasses.

“I didn’t see you get on,” he continues talking. “Are you being transferred to City 17 as well?”

I take a better look at the interior of the vehicle. The worn down red carpet that stretches from one end of the car to the other is littered with scraps and cigarette butts. About half of the ceiling lights are either dead or flickering. The walls and many of the windows are covered with posters and advertisements, most of them torn off or faded beyond recognition. Here and there, there is an intact, more recent looking poster of an owl-eyed man looking down on the passengers with a solemn expression. All of them have some variation of the same brief message: THE CONSUL SAYS… RELAX. THE CONSUL SAYS… REPORT.

“This is my third transfer this year, you know,” my co-passenger continues, ignoring my continued silence. “I spent my last trimester in City 49, and 45 before that. But no matter how many times I get relocated, I… I never get used to it.” He softly shakes his head and looks down at his fingers, playing with a loose bit of leather that has peeled off his suitcase. “The name’s Samuel, by the way,” he says in a lighter tone, sitting up. “I noticed you don’t have a tag on your uniform.” He brings his hand up to his chest and taps a stitched-on strip of grey fabric with his index finger. It says ‘G-11789RF’. “You’d better do something about that before a Metrocop catches you without one.”

My head spins. The sudden overload of impulses is too much for my still foggy mind. While trying to piece together what is going on I look to my left. There is another passenger sitting some ten feet away from me, his arms crossed and his suitcase on a seat next to him. I spot a third passenger, an Asian-looking woman, at the far end of the car, sitting next to the door. Everyone is wearing the same uniform. None of them look like they want to be on this train.

I suddenly realize that I have been avoiding looking out of the windows. There is a pit in my stomach, a sickening feeling of dread that tells me I already know what I would see. I do it anyway. I shift in my seat, turning my head around to look out of the window behind me. It’s even worse than I expected. Just like in the vision, the landscape is a desolate wasteland. Skeletons of trees crown the small hills that pop up all over the plains. The ground is cracked and there isn’t a stream of water as far as the eye can see, which isn’t all that far. The sky is completely covered in dark, greenish gray clouds that sometimes drift down to envelop the land in a disgusting smog. The sun is nothing more than a slightly brighter spot in the thick carpet, standing low above the horizon. Here and there a silhouette stands out from its surroundings by its jagged, square shape: abandoned buildings that look as if they have been picked up and dropped from a great height. A pipeline runs parallel to the rails, and I see another train track in the distance.

Just when I think the world is completely devoid of life, movement in the periphery of my vision catches my attention. Something is running beside the train, flashing past because of their lower speed. I recognize the green, three-legged creatures. Their piercing, supersonic squeals still echo through my head. Looking further into the distance again, I start noticing more signs of life. I spot a bullsquid, the large amphibian beast with acidic spit that almost cost me my life several times, in a muddy ditch. I am also relieved to see what seem to be normal crows flying to and from some of the trees, but there are some things creeping around that I have never seen before. A flat reptile with a wide mouth and four chimney-like limbs protruding from its sides, with tufts of hair on the end of each of them. Tall, tripedal insects with ambiguous organs dangling between their stalky legs. Somewhere deep inside, the scientist in me is fascinated by the alien sights and wants to study them more closely. But that man died the moment the crystal hit the beam. This Gordon Freeman just wants to avert his eyes and hope never to see anything again that reminds him of how terrifying the universe can be.

A train slides into view on the parallel track. It seems to be freight train, but it’s a model I have never seen before. The locomotive is tall, streamlined and has a sharp nose with a single headlight illuminating its path. I don’t see any windows or other indications of a control room. The thing is made of a dark, obsidian-like metal that also covers the wheels, making it seem like the train is just sliding over the dusty ground. The cars directly behind the locomotive are in the same style, but further to the back there are also some more normal looking cars with containers. I notice Samuel has gotten up from his seat and is looking over my shoulder. “Look!” he says, pointing in the distance. On the path of the other train, a gargantuan shadow looms over its surroundings, hunched over, arms spread as if bracing for impact. Its dark blue exoskeleton and single glowing red eye almost seem to mirror the image of the vehicle speeding towards it. A low, wailing horn sounds from the train as the distance between the two shrinks. The monster doesn’t flinch. It stands its ground, determined, until the train hits. The locomotive doesn’t even slow down. The monster, despite being quite a bit taller than the train, gets violently pushed out of the way and, though it is hard to tell from this distance, quite possibly cut in half by the locomotive.

“Razor Trains, man,” Samuel says with a hint of awe. “I would feel much safer if we were aboard one of those.”

Our view of the other train gets obstructed by a nearby building. There seems to be a sudden increase in the number of ruins near the track, as brick walls suddenly make up all we can see through the window. “Looks like we’re almost there,” Samuel notes. I try to look ahead and see we are heading towards a gigantic wall made of the same dark metal as the Razor Train. Behind it, tall apartment buildings and skyscrapers stand in much better condition than the buildings on this side of the wall – though they, too, show signs of ruin and neglect. “There it is,” Samuel says, “City 17.” He scoffs. “They all look the same from the outside, don’t they?” The wall grows ever nearer, until everything suddenly goes dark as we enter a tunnel, the only source of light now being the few functional lamps on the ceiling. “I heard living conditions are supposed to be much better in 17 than they were in 49, though. The air is much cleaner here since it’s so close to the Air Exchange. I guess that’s why the Consul moved here.”

The other male passenger, who visibly has been growing increasingly bothered with Samuel’s talking, suddenly speaks up: “Yeah, well, there’s also much heavier security, so if you don’t want to get us all into trouble, you’d best quiet down a bit once we’ve arrived.” Samuel looks at the man offendedly. He opens his mouth for a rebuttal, but decides against it and looks the other way, shaking his head.

When we emerge from the tunnel, it barely makes a difference for the amount light streaming in through the windows. The already dim light the sun manages to squeeze through the clouds is now also blocked by the tall buildings. It might as well be nighttime. The view outside is somehow more depressing than the wastelands: near-empty streets lit by slender lampposts, only inhabited by abandoned cars, trash and a lone citizen clutching something against his chest as he makes his way from one patch of light to the next. The railway is elevated a good fourteen feet above the street, and now and then I catch a glimpse of people behind the windows of the second floors we pass by. They fly by too fast to properly see what they are doing, but the rooms in which they reside all seem as bare and featureless as the beige shirts they are all wearing.

The train starts to slow down and I see the female passenger stand up and pick up her suitcase. The man also stands up and grabs onto a metal bar that runs along the ceiling for stability. Shortly after, the train comes to a shrieking halt at an empty platform. Once the carriages have stopped shaking and the train lets out a sigh of relief, the doors on either end of the car open, letting in a cold draft that paces down the aisle and brings life to the scraps dotted around on the once-red carpet. Samuel stands up and arches his back. “Well, end of the line,” he mutters before following the other passengers outside. I stand up on still shaky legs and do the same, stepping down onto the hard ground of the outside world.

The train platform is a desolate concrete slab, flanked on both sides by the steel and plexiglass walls  of trains and cut in half by a row of benches and pillars that support the overhead shelter. At the end are stairs leading into a hole in the ground that hungrily swallows the passengers heading down. I keep following them, heading down into a chilly tunnel that reeks of rotting trash. Our footsteps echo as we walk past branches of the tunnel that have signs with arrows and numbers to guide non-existent travelers to their platforms. As we follow the main flow of the tunnel I start hearing a distant voice from up the large stairs at the end, but by the time I reach the stairs, it has stopped.

We emerge into what must once have been the majestic main terminal hall of the station, but has now been transformed into a twisted version of its original purpose. A roof of translucent glass arches over a gaping abyss that cuts through the hall, leaving only a narrow strip of the original black and white tiled floor around it. The gap is about thirty feet across and has a chain link fence surrounding it. I walk up to the fence and look down. Several train tracks run along or across the ravine at differing heights and angles. Several trains are stationed on the rails, suspended above the seemingly bottomless gorge. All of them are the same model as the train I saw plow through the creature on the wastelands – Razor Trains. The smoke that pours down from the locomotives and the tunnels, combined with the cycloptic headlights on the trains, make for a mesmerizing display of light and shadows.

There’s a walkway across the chasm, accessible through stairs to my left. Seeing no other way forward, I take the stairs up to the walkway, only to see a strange figure standing in the middle of the path, watching over the passengers traversing the room. A man in a black uniform with red markings on the chest and shoulders. His face is enveloped by a white gasmask with lenses that glow a faint yellow. His leather glove is clenched around a baton that he softly taps against his hip as he follows passing civilians with his obscured eyes. I suspect this might be one of the “Metrocops” Samuel mentioned, and I know that whatever he is, it can’t be good news for me if he sees me.

As I’m looking around for another way, my eye falls on a large vertical screen hanging in the center of the largest wall, in front of a circular stained glass window. It displays only a set of strange symbols on a bluish green background, but suddenly a face appears on the screen. I immediately recognize it as the balding, solemn-faced man from the posters on the train. Under the face, a message appears: THE CONSUL SAYS… WELCOME.

“Welcome,” the face starts speaking through unseen speakers, “Welcome to City 17. You have chosen, or been chosen, to relocate to one of our finest remaining urban centers.” His voice is stoic, but strangely comforting. “I thought so much of City 17 that I elected to establish my administration here, in the Citadel so thoughtfully provided by Our Benefactors. I have been proud to call City 17 my home. And so, whether you are here to stay or passing through on your way to parts unknown…” The Consul smiles warmly, “Welcome to City 17. It’s safer here.” The Consul’s face fades away, and the screen goes back to the illegible symbols. I look back to the Metrocop, only to see him looking back at me. I freeze.

“Move along,” a voice sounds from the mask, distorted as if through a walkie-talkie. He gestures with his baton, and I realize it’s in my best interest to just walk past him as if nothing is going on. I have just passed the Metrocop when I make the mistake of looking down, through the metal grating, into the abyss below. I am not usually one to get vertigo – I had gunfights on cliffsides and on rocks floating between dimensions for crying out loud – but the sight makes my head spin, and I have to lean on the railing for a moment. As I’m catching my breath, I hear the low bellow of a Razor Train horn coming from underneath me. I carefully look down again to see another train arrive on a track that runs along the side of the ravine. Judging from the disgusting greenish splats on the locomotive, it might very well be the one I witnessed plow through the monster – or maybe that is something that regularly happens. I then notice something walk to the nose of the train on a steel platform besides the track. From my top-down perspective, it’s hard to tell what it is – but it sure doesn’t seem to be human. I see brown robes, a white, oval head and long, slender arms holding something that resembles a flamethrower. It points the nozzle at the train at starts spraying it with jets of sickly green… gas? Liquid? Fire? Energy? It’s hard to tell, but when the spraying stops and the being walks over to the precarious, narrow platform on the other side of the track to start spraying the other side of the locomotive, it seems to have removed all of the filth from the train’s hull.

The voice of the Consul startles me as he repeats the same welcoming message. I glance over my shoulder and am relieved to see the Metrocop doesn’t seem to be paying attention to me. I decide to get a move on and quicken my pace as I continue traversing the walkway. When I finally reach the other side, I go down another set of stairs and see a doorway leading into another room. The tables that are spread around it and what seem to be the remains of a shuttered counter lead me to believe that this used to be cafeteria. Now it just has a few tired travelers resting their heads on their hands, the only voice heard being the Consul’s coming from another large screen. I make my way between the tables and dilapidated potted plants to another doorway. Passing by, I hear a man at a table quietly mutter to himself: “They’re always departing but they never arrive… and the ones that do arrive, they never leave… you never see them go, they’re always full… no one ever gets on but they’re always…” He keeps muttering, when there’s suddenly screaming on the other side of the room. I see a man struggling against two Metrocops, thrashing around and shouting that he didn’t do anything. One of the Metrocops lifts his baton, which suddenly glows with electricity, before bringing it down on the man’s back, bringing him to his knees. The man doesn’t stop struggling and tries to crawl away. The other Metrocop pulls something from a holster on his belt and points it at him. There’s a loud bang and then a brief silence… “Welcome to City 17. It’s safer here,” the Consul’s ever hollower sounding message echoes. The two Metrocops drag the man away. Everyone goes about their business, and I decide to do the same.

The doorway from the cafeteria leads to a corridor. Posters on the wall catch my attention. They are bigger than the ones I saw on the train, but look just as much like textbook propaganda. They all bear the number 17 in one of the corners. One of them depicts the Consul with the words “It’s great to be part of the greater good”. Another depicts a Metrocop and says “Civil Protection: They’re here for you”. But one particular poster catches my attention: it shows a familiar figure in brown robes holding a flamethrower-like object. I can now more clearly see its head: it’s white, metallic, and shaped like flattened ball. It has two beady, tubular eyes and a third orifice that probably serves as its mouth. “Keep it clean… or he will”.

As I’m walking through the corridor, looking at the posters, I notice a vending machine. “The Consul’s Private Reserve”. It takes me a moment to realize that it dispenses cans of water. For free, it would seem. I’m looking at the buttons on the machine, considering pressing one, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. A bewildered looking man spins me around and grabs me by my shoulders, bringing his face very close to mine.

“Don’t drink the water,” he says. His eyes frantically dart around and his breaths are shaky. “They put something in it, to… to make you forget. I don’t even remember how I got here…” He slowly lets go of me and looks around. “I…” His voice trembles and he walks away, shaking his head. I decide to pass on the water.

The corridor leads me around a corner to a fenced-off waiting line, where citizens cue up to be scanned by a camera-like contraption hanging from the ceiling. Most people are sent straight ahead, but some get taken aside by a Metrocop and are escorted through a gate marked “NOVA PROSPEKT”. I’m not sure what exactly is going on, but I know it is a situation I would rather avoid. I turn around to leave, but am suddenly stopped by a voice: “You, citizen!” I turn back around and see a Metrocop beckoning me from a side door. “Come with me, now!” I look around, weighing up my options. Can I run? No, that’s ridiculous. The scene in the cafeteria proved that Metrocops are ruthless, and without my H.E.V. Suit I don’t stand a chance against multiple armed individuals. I have no choice but to follow him and hope I can overpower him when he’s alone.

I follow the Metrocop into a narrow hallway, past a door behind which I hear a man protesting and trying to defend himself. I get lead into a small office. “Back up,” the Metrocop says with a soft push before closing the door and walking over to an alien looking console with a triptych of monitors above it. I frantically look around the office – a desk, a filing cabinet, another of those ceiling scanners, a chair with leather straps on the armrests and suspicious red stains on the floor around it… Anything I can use as a weapon? Perhaps the desk lamp…

While I am frantically looking around for a way out, the Metrocop pushes some buttons on the console and the scanner disappears into the ceiling. “Yeah, I’m gonna need me some privacy for this,” he says with a chuckle. Before I can make a run for the lamp, he turns around and brings his hands up to the sides of his head. “Now…” There’s a click as the front part of the mask comes loose. When he takes it off, I, for the first time in too long, look into the eyes of a friend. “About that beer I owed ya!”

Chapter 2

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So, here is chapter one of Anticitizen! I’m so excited to finally get this out there. I have a couple more things to say, but first, as promised, here are a few images to aid the visualization of some of the things I described. (Don’t take any of the images literally, there might be differences between them and the story)

Wasteland

Wasteland creature 1: Stampeder

Wasteland creature 2: Tripod hopper

Razor Train

Train Station Abyss

Beta Metrocop

Consul

Propaganda posters

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So, this first chapter was very descriptive but I had to do a lot of scene-setting. Even if y’all know what a Metrocop looks like, I have to describe them from scratch because (1) I want this story to be readable for people who have never played HL2, (2) I need to make clear to all you HL2 fans what looks the same and what looks different and (2+1) since it’s from Gordon’s perspective I can’t just go “oh look it’s a Metrocop” since it’s his first time seeing one.

Undoubtedly you are now bursting with anticipation for the next chapter. Well, you can probably guess what I’m about to say: it’s gonna take some time. I have started writing it and it’s mapped out and all, but you know, I still have to actually write most of it.

Oh, before I forget, following a suggestion by @perfect-trash-king​ (thanks by the way) I will be posting this story on Ao3 Ao2+1 too, so if you for some reason much prefer that platform over Tumblr I guess you can head over there. Or you could follow it on both platforms. And don’t forget it’s also being uploaded to Fanfiction, so you could follow it there as well. Or don’t. You do you.

Thanks for reading, stay awesome and I’ll see you next time :)

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia: Once Upon a Time

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

Once upon a time, in a far off land, there lived a boy named Isamu.   He was tall and he was kind and he was known for being extraordinarily fleet of foot.  It was said that he had a kind word for everyone, though he was possessed of a nervous disposition, given to jumping at the slightest surprise.  But in spite of that, he was quick to speak up for those in need and quick to rush to the aid of others.

In other times, he might have been a knight, a protector of the realm, so great was his desire for to help others.  But that was an impossible thing, because he was a commoner.  He had no noble lineage and parents were ordinary people.  It had been said in times past that the common folk could earn knighthood by special deed, but in his small town, it seemed as though that would never happen.  Isamu fully expected to live out a normal, happy life, free from the troubles and adventures that had once plagued the land.

But fate often has a way of proving such beliefs wrong, as Isamu would find out one summer day.

***

His parents had sent him to the neighboring larger city to sell some of their wares and it had been a good day.  Isamu was ready to return home and his pack was lighter by far but his coin purse heavier.  Just as he finished tying together the bundle of his pack, an ugly voice split the air.

“Give us your purse and we won’t hurt you. Much.”

His eyes instantly went to the source of the voice.  Two big men, both of rough and dangerous, had cornered a girl about his age and had her blocked against a wall.  She wore a hooded cloak, despite the summer heat, but from what he could see, she was pale and very slight.  There would be very little that she could do to defend herself.

He looked around.  No one was paying them any attention.  It was just one more facet of life in a bigger city, he guessed. People said it happened all the time.  People said things like “somebody ought to do something about it.”  But right now, there weren’t even any members of the city watch around.

He should have just kept walking.  It was none of his business.  This was just the way of the world sometimes.  No one would have blamed him.  Both of the men had muscles he could only dream about and both were armed, carrying knives that looked like they had not been cleaned in some time.  He was just a gangly young man and no one would have ever expected that he act.

And yet, his body moved on its own.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was running forward, swinging his pack through the air in big circles.   He let out a sound that was half battle cry and half terrified scream before releasing it.  The pack sailed through the air and hit the nearest of the two with a heavy impact, knocking him senseless.  The sound of shattering pottery told him that he would be having a very difficult discussion with his parents when he returned home, assuming he survived the next several minutes.

“What the hell?” the one who was still standing asked, turning to face him.   He swung his knife wildly, slicing through the air.  “That was a mistake, boy!  You’re going to pay for that!”  He took a menacing step forward, the girl seemingly forgotten for a moment.

It was starting to look even less likely that he was going to survive the next few minutes.  Which was, in truth, a relief, because it meant he would not have to explain anything else.  He could only hope that the girl would run while the man took his anger out on him.

But just as suddenly, the man paused, stopping dead in his tracks.  Fear flashed over his face and the knife fell to the ground, his fingers suddenly gone boneless from terror.  “I… we weren’t meaning no harm, see?” the man babbled.  “I’ll just… be going now…”

Isamu did not know what caused the man to turn tail and run, but he was grateful for whatever it was.  The girl, who had not fled as he had hoped, stepped over the unconscious form of her other attacker and smiled at him.  Up close, he could see that she was very beautiful and had kind eyes.  Her smile made him feel as though all was right with the world.

“Thank you,” she said, and her voice was soft, barely above a whisper, like someone unaccustomed to speaking loudly.  “You were very brave.  But there was no need to endanger yourself.  I would have been all right.  And even if I was not, my friends would have taken care of them.”

Her friends?

A grunt behind him made him turn.  Behind him was a young man about his age, with a shock of green hair, dressed in well-worn, but clearly high class clothes, a scabbard on his back and a sword in his hands.  Next to him was the most terrifying girl he had ever seen, short, but with thick muscles and red eyes that seemed to glow.  She had to be from the barbarian outlands, for she was dressed in furs and skins, her arms and stomach exposed to the elements.  An axe that looked far too heavy to hold was in her hands and her face was twisted up in rage.

The boy relaxed when he saw that things seemed to be all right.  “Thank you,” he said to Isamu, replacing his sword in its scabbard.  “We could have handled them, but I’m glad we didn’t have to.”

The scary girl on the other hand, pushed past him and approached the girl, putting her hands on her upper arms with a tenderness that surprised him.  “Are you all right, Izumi?” she asked.

“I am fine,” the other girl said.  “You worry too much, Katsumi.”

“I worry exactly the right amount,” the scary girl—Katsumi—said.  “It’s not safe for you here.  We need to…”

A stiff breeze chose that moment to pick up, and it flung the pale girl’s hood back, fully revealing her pale face and soft features.  Hair that was white, but became red, cascaded from her head.

Isamu sucked in a breath in surprise.  Even being from a small village, he recognized the princess of the realm.

***

“You’re the… you’re… you’re…” Isamu stammered, arms flailing through the air wildly.  Some powerful instinct dropped him to his knees and he averted his eyes.  Of all the people in all the land, he never would have expected in a thousand years to see the princess!  What was she doing here?  Why wasn’t she at the castle?  And why was she in the company of a barbarian?

“Please,” Princess Izumi said, “rise.  There is no need for ceremony here.”  She carefully pulled her hood back up, hiding her hair once again.

“And you’re going to blow our cover, you fool!” the barbarian woman snarled, clenching a fist.

It was the green haired boy who helped him back to his feet, offering him a hand up.  Isamu took it gladly.  “Sorry about that,” he said.  “Katsumi can be a little scary, but she is right.  We can’t afford to draw any attention to ourselves.  There’s people chasing us who would do anything to catch us.”

“Tell the whole flaming world, why don’t you, Toshi?” the barbarian girl, Katsumi, snapped.

“I should at least like to compensate you for your troubles,” Princess Izumi said, reaching into the pouch on her belt.  “We do not have much, but you risked much for us and…”

Isamu shook his head. The click of coins sounded like silver or maybe gold, money that would have more than paid for what he lost in merchandise throwing his pack. “I don’t need a reward.  It was the right thing to do, even if it cost me.”

“Great,” Katsumi said, pacing impatiently.  “He’s fine.  You’re fine.  We’re all fine. Can we go now?  We need to get to Naruhata by nightfall.”

“As soon as we figure out where it is,” Toshi said.

The barbarian girl gave him a menacing look, though Toshi did not flinch from it.  In fact, he seemed far too used to it.  “Which would be a lot easier if you hadn’t the lost the maps.”

“I apologized for that already!  And I didn’t lose them!  They set them on fire!”

“Naruhata?” Isamu asked.  He didn’t want to think about who they were.  “I’m from there.  I can take you.”

In the back of his mind, he wondered if whoever they were, they would follow.  Was he bringing danger home?

But this was the princess.  The boy seemed important too.  He didn’t know about the barbarian; she was too scary to focus on for long anyway.  He would swear that her eyes seemed to glow when she got mad(der), and that he could see little puffs of smoke on her breath.

The barbarian girl looked at him with her wild eyes.  “Well, guess who just got himself elected guide.”

Princess Izumi laid a hand on the barbarian’s shoulder.  “There is no need for that, Katsumi.  You’re frightening him.”

Katsumi seethed for a moment, but calmed under the princess’s touch.  “Hmph.”

The princess turned to him.  “I am afraid we must ask for your help again. It may be dangerous.  But the safety of the kingdom, the safety of our parents, the safety of everything depends on our mission.”

That was scary news indeed.  But what could Isamu do?  His father had always said that if you were able to help someone, you should.  Small acts of kindness had the power to move mountains.

“I’ll take you,” he said.

***

The light of day was beginning to fade as they walked the road from the city to Naruhata.  It wasn’t far, only a couple of hours walk, but there were some parts that were tricky if you didn’t know the way, where the road ended.  Without a map, Toshi, Katsumi, and Princess Izumi probably wouldn’t have found it.

What a strange trio they made!  Despite being no older than him and all of them being shorter than he was, they all seemed to carry themselves with so much more confidence than he had ever had.  The barbarian girl Katsumi in particular seemed to walk through the world as though it had personally offended her and was moments away from feeling her wrath.  And yet, whenever Princess Izumi was involved, she seemed to soften for just a moment.   Already, he had seen her listen to the princess many times.

The green haired boy, Toshi, carried himself like a knight, taking the lead, and scanning ahead for trouble.  The sword on his back had to be heavy, but he carried it was though it was nothing, and though he seemed concerned about something (probably whatever they were running from), he also seemed to clearly believe that whatever happened, it would work out.  He seemed neither quite as high class as the princess, nor as rough as Katsumi.  His clothes were well-worn, but high-class, a contradiction if ever there was one.  It was rare to find a noble who understood the plight of the common folk, and yet Isamu was certain that he did.

Even the princess was surprising.  She was easily one of the most beautiful girls Isamu had ever seen.  Her reputation as the fairest in all the land was well earned.  But so to was her reputation for kindness.  She spoke to him as those he were an equal, even though he had to fight every instinct to avert his eyes rather than look upon her.  And yet there was something about her, a steel hidden within her silk, that told him she truly could have protected herself if it had come to it.  But what was she doing here?  The palace was many leagues away, in the center of the land.  Surely King Shoto and Queen Momo would not have allowed their daughter to travel so far, especially in such strange company.

“You must have questions,” Princess Izumi asked, walking beside him.  Toshi and Katsumi were in front, though Katsumi continued to look back to check on her and to glare at him.

“I, ah, yes,” Isamu said.  “None of you seem like the kind of people you would find around here.  And I didn’t think people did quests anymore…”

“Would that it were so,” the princess said, with a slight bow of her head.   “But there is always darkness in the land.  And right now, there is far more of it than there has been in many years.”

Isamu felt a cold chill go up his spine at her words.

“You know that my parents are the king and queen,” she said.  “Toshi’s father is my father’s most trusted friend and knight and his mother a mage of the court.  And Katsumi is the daughter of the chieftain of the barbarians who roam the kingdom’s outlands, through a mutual arrangement between their chieftain and my father.”

So he was indeed traveling with very important people, a commoner among nobles.  Of course, the tales said that the king’s most trusted knight had once been a commoner himself, raised to his current station by the sponsorship of a golden champion and by his own heroic deeds, but no one knew if those tales were true.

“Many years ago,” the princess continued, “our parents banded together with several others and drove back the greatest threat our land had ever seen.  A dark wizard had left behind a disciple called Shigarki.  It took all of them and many more besides to defeat him.  It brought about a new age of peace.

“But Shigarki left behind many tools and weapons of his war on peace.  We had thought them all destroyed, but someone has found what was left, foul monsters called the Nomu, and used them to wage war on peace all over again.  Already, the outlands have fallen, and many more lands besides.

“Before they took our kingdom, Toshi’s and my parents were able to spirit us out of the castle, with maps and the names of towns where it was said we might find weapons and allies to stop the threat.  We already found Toshi’s sword and Katsumi’s axe, but on our way, we were attacked, and lost the next maps we were to use.”

“That… that’s bad,” he said, feeling dumb that he had no better words.

“It is,” she agreed.  “But I have faith that we will succeed.”  She grew quiet.  “We must.”

Before them, Katsumi suddenly stopped and held up a hand.  Around them, it had grown darker.  Ahead of them, the path wound through dark woods, much more frightening now, somehow, than they had been when he had first walked this way. She sniffed the air deeply, then reached for her axe.   “Damnation,” she growled.  “They’ve found us.  Get ready for a fight.”

Toshi drew his sword.   “Isamu, we’ll hold them off as best we can.  But if it starts looking dangerous, I want you to take Izumi and run.”

He gulped.  “I… I can do that.”

“I will not flee,” Izumi said, producing a pair of small daggers from her belt.  She handed one to him, which he took with shaking hands.  He had never wielded a weapon before.

He heard it before he saw it.  The sound of something heavy coming from the woods, steps that made the ground shake.  And they were upon them, monstrous, twisted creatures, with dead skin, beaks, and their skulls open, exposing the brains within.

One of them let out a monstrous roar that he would remember for all of his days.

***

Without any fanfare, the creatures attacked.  Toshi met them first, swinging his sword in a wide arc, leaving a great gash in the skin of the nearest monster.  There was no blood and it did little to stop the creature, so he struck again and again, his sword flashing like lightning.

“DIE!” Katsumi yelled, adding her axe to Toshi’s sword strikes.  With a single blow, she beheaded the monster.  Oily black fluid went flying from the stump and the head landed several feet away, but the body continued to move and fight.

There were four of the monsters all together and the one Toshi and Katsumi were fighting was by far the biggest.  Two smaller ones broke past them to attack Isamu and the princess, while the last circled around to try and get at Katsumi and Toshi from behind.

It let out a growl and struck out.  In a panic, Isamu stabbed forth with his borrowed dagger.  It left a scratch along the creature’s skin, which then immediately burst into flames along the scratch.   Had he done that?   It must have been the power of the dagger.

Princess Izumi dodged out of the way of the other’s strike, stabbing her own dagger into its hand.  From the point where she had stabbed it, ice spread out, freezing the creature’s hand solid, so that when she wrenched her dagger free, it shattered.  It let out a monstrous howl, but struck again, forcing her to take steps back.

His own foe seemed no worse for wear for the flames that appeared every time he struck it with his dagger.   All he could do, it seemed, was hold it at bay.  Thankfully, he was fleet of foot and able to dodge its blows, but he knew he could not do it forever.  Unless something changed, he would likely tire long before the monster did.

“Oooh!”  Princess Izumi let out a cry as the creature struck out with its remaining hand, tearing through her cloak and knocking her to the ground.

“Princess!” he shouted, throwing himself in front of her.  He struck out, stabbing the creature in the eye.  As he pulled the dagger back, the creature’s head burst into flames.  It let out a great roar and when he looked upon its burning face, he saw not bone and muscle under its skin, but clockworks!

“How?” he asked.  “It’s… not alive?”

Princess Izumi got her feet, standing beside him.  “Yes and also no, I think.   The clockworks augment something that was never natural to begin with.   Foul magics indeed.”

The other one had regained its senses, even as it burned.  It struck out again and this time both of them stabbed it at once.  Their daggers struck home, and flames and ice both spread along its body.   The intense heat and cold must have proved too much for it or its clockworks, because it jerked to a stop, twitching as it collapsed.

“Are you all right?” the princess asked.  Worry marred her delicate features.

“I, ah, I, I guess?” he said.  “I never really did anything like that before.  Ever.”

“Battle is never easy,” she told him.  “Even less so your first time.  But you did well.  I am just sorry I did not have time to tell you about my daggers, and even more sorry to have dragged you into this.”

“I volunteered to help,” he said.  “And it’s definitely not your fault those things are after you all…”

Speaking of…

It looked like Toshi and Katsumi had finally subdued the one she had beheaded, chopping enough of its body to keep it from moving.  The other one was bigger and slower, but it wasn’t going down from any of their strikes.  Instead, it struck out again, knocking Toshi away and sending his sword clattering from his hands.  Its follow-up blow hit Katsumi hard and it pinned her to the ground.  She tried to reach out and grab her axe, but it was just too far away.

“Katsumi!” the princess screamed.  Isamu had to restrain her to keep her from rushing forward and attacking that monster.  “Let me go!  She needs help!”

“That thing will kill you!” Isamu said.  They had been lucky with the others.  That one had beaten Toshi and Katsumi…

“Don’t worry, Izumi,” the barbarian girl said, laughing in spite of the danger she was in.  “I got this.”

And then she began to change.

***

He couldn’t see it clearly, because the monster’s bulk was in the way, but Katsumi’s skin began to ripple and her features began to stretch and distort, as crimson scales spread across her body.  Hands and feet became claws, tearing through her furred boots.  She was growing too, becoming larger and larger, the force her of growth enough to throw the monster off her.  Leathery wings sprouted from her back and her face began to elongate.

In mere moments, there was no more Katsumi, barbarian girl.

There was, instead, a crimson dragon, big enough that a man might ride it, dwarfing the monster.  But the eyes of the dragon still seemed very human and very intelligent.  The monster roared a challenge and the dragon roared one right back.   Neither seemed cowed by the other.

But the dragon kept roaring and unleashed a powerful blast of flame.  It engulfed the monster, setting it on fire.  The heat was so intense it took the beast’s flesh off, exposing the iron and other clockworks underneath.  The dragon kept the attack up, even as the clockwork monstrosity struggled to step forward, until the heat melted it into a messy puddle.

By now, Toshi had recovered.  “Katsumi!” he shouted.  “I think it’s dead!”

One of the dragon’s eyes looked upon him, then back the mess that had once been the monster.  It stopped its fiery assault and Isamu would swear it was smirking.  Then, just as suddenly as it had happened before, the dragon began to change.

“You may wish to avert your eyes,” the princess told him.

It took him a moment’s thought to realize what she meant, but as he saw scales become skin, he hastily found somewhere else to look.

“In your pack, Toshi?” Princess Izumi asked.

“Ah, yes,” Toshi replied.  “Over there… somewhere.  I can’t look right now.”

“Allow me, then,” Princess Izumi said, walking past Isamu.

There were the sounds of hushed conversations for a moment, before the princess spoke again.  “You may turn around, gentlemen.  Thank you for your patience.”

When Isamu turned around, Katsumi seemed dressed the same as she had been, though her boots were new.   He must not have been able to keep the curiosity off of his face.

“Did you think you were missing seeing me naked?” Katsumi asked, sneering.  She laughed.  “You wish.  Most people just don’t like seeing me turn back.   I’m told it isn’t pretty.  Murder on my boots though.”  She retrieved her axe and gave it a few experimental swings, which seemed to satisfy her.

His mind reeled.  How had she done that?  It was rumored that one of the last dragons served the barbarian chieftain, but how would she have inherited such power?  He had already thought her to be dangerous, but now she seemed so much more so.

“Those monsters…” Isamu began.  

“The Nomu I spoke of,” the princess said.  “And where those travel, I fear there may be more.”

More?  But if they were already this close, then could they have made it…

Isamu ran.

***

Isamu did not know how long he ran for.  At a walk, they had still been two hours out from his village.  At a run, for someone was fleet of foot as he was, it took considerably less time.  His thoughts drifted to his traveling companions, to brave Toshi, frightening Katsumi, and Princess Izumi, who had surprised him with how well she had fought and taken care of herself.  He had not meant to leave them behind like that and he hoped that they had been able to follow.

But when he came upon his village of Narahuta, his heart sank and at last his knees gave out, dropping him to the ground.  The village was aflame, many of the structures already collapsed or charred nearly beyond recognition.   The baker’s shop.  The town hall.  The church.  The… the houses…

There were three of those monstrous Nomu tearing through what few structures remained, one long-limbed and more animal-like, prowling about on all fours, one large and muscular, like one of the creatures he and his companions had fought already, and one pale and winged, with flames dancing all along its body.  He quickly ducked out of sight, behind one of the buildings still standing, one of the storehouses, and hoped that they could not see him, or worse, smell him.

It was only then, with the sounds of flames and monsters and his own breath ringing through his ears that he realized what he was not hearing.   People.   There were no sounds of people, none at all.   No cries or screams or pain or fear, not one trying to mount some kind of defense, nothing.

The people of his village were farmers and merchants and craftsmen.  There were few, if any, weapons in the village.  They would have been helpless when these monsters attacked…

But he had seen no bodies either.   No corpses sliced to ribbons, no charred skeletons, nothing.  Whatever had happened, it was as though no one had ever lived her at all.

He ran again, this time towards his home, not caring if the monsters saw him or not.  When he arrived, his hopes were quickly dashed.   Where once there had been his home, there was only ash and scorched earth.   Of his parents, there was no sign.

But there, in the middle what remained of the floor of what had once been his home, was what was clearly a trapdoor.   Strange.  He didn’t remember seeing that before.   But hadn’t there always been a rug there?   Had his parents been hiding something?  He wouldn’t have thought it possible.  He thought of his dad as one of the most honest people in the whole world.

Carefully, he crept forward and opened the trapdoor, the wood not even singed and the metal cool.  He could tell now that was closer that a protective sigil, a closed fist with a knuckleduster, had been drawn on it.  That must have been expensive.   Wandering wizards were few and far between and quite costly.  What could his parents have possibly had that was worth protecting like that?

Inside, he found a pair of gauntlets, shining and metallic, while looking remarkably flexible.  There was something about them that instantly told him they were magical.  It just raised more and more questions.   His eyes fell on a roll of parchment, perfectly preserved, and nestled between them.  Carefully, he grabbed the parchment and unrolled it.

 Son,

 If you’re seeing this, then something bad’s happened.  I’d hoped to never have to show you these.  I’d hoped that, at least, I’d have been able to give you these myself.  But sometimes, what we hope for isn’t what happens.

 What I never told you was, once upon a time, I was known as the Crawler of the Woods.  I was never a knight or a squire or a rogue or anything like that, but I did a little bit of good and I helped people. It was thanks to these gauntlets that I was able to do it.  They’ll give you the power to fight whatever evil is out there again.  They won’t be as good as some of the magical stuff they give people up at the castle or in other reaches of the kingdom, but they did some good once.  And they can again.

 No matter what happens, know that I love you and I know you’ll make me proud.

 Dad

There was no time for tears now.  It was too much to think about.   He would probably have a good cry later, when there weren’t monsters about.  Carefully, once again, he reached out and grabbed the gauntlets.  They slipped onto his hands easily, not even needing any adjustment.  The fingers were surprisingly flexible and he could swear he could see a faint blue-white glow between the joints.

“Look out, you idiot!”  A harsh voice—he realized quickly it was Katsumi’s—split the air and he looked over his shoulder just in time to see one of the Nomu coming for him.

***

Isamu rolled just in time to see the Nomu swing its massive arm and hit the ground with a ferocious impact.  It was the big one he’d seen earlier.  Reflexively, he brought up a hand to try and shield his face should its attention turn on him again.  From the palm of the gauntlet, a beam of blue-white light shot out and struck the Nomu, burning a hole right through its skin.  He could see the gears underneath and saw that some had melted and ground to a stop.

It was not nearly enough to stop it.

But it was enough to get its attention.  The Nomu pivoted and raised its arms to strike again, letting out that terrible roar that he could feel in his bones.  Isamu saw his life flash before his eyes.

No!  He couldn’t die here!  He had to find out what had happened to his parents and the people of his village!  He had to find out why his father and now he had these gauntlets.  He had to live!

“C’mon,” he hissed.   “Do it again…”   He pointed both his hands and wished with all his might that they would fire again.   Once more, blue-white beams of light lanced out and pieced the Nomu’s body, knocking it back for a moment.   He realized that he’d maybe bought himself moments at best.

 SCHLICK!

There was a sickening sound, as an axe blade split the Nomu clean in half.  As the pieces fell to either side, he saw Katsumi standing behind it.  She had a feral grin on her face and, in his opinion, it took a far too long moment for the battle lust to leave her eyes.

“I guess I should thank you for distracting it,” she said.  “Where’d you get the new toys?”

“I...  I found them,” he said.  “They were buried under my house.”

“Your house?” she snapped.  And then she looked around, as though seeing the damage for the first time.  Her expression softened by several degrees and he remembered that something had happened to the barbarian outlands.  Were her parents…?   “I’m sorry.”

She shouldered her axe and offered him a hand up.  He took it and she hauled him to his feet roughly.  “Word of advice?” she said.  She didn’t wait for him to respond.  “Any fight you don’t end up dead from is a good one.”   She gave him a slap on the back that nearly knocked him over.

“C’mon,” she added.  “Toshi and Izumi were going after the other ones.”

“And you came to save me?” he asked.

“Figured there’d be a fight,” she said.  “Don’t let it go to your head.”

The sounds of battle filled the air.  Sword against flesh, the war cries of the Nomu…

Katsumi took off towards the sounds of the fight without even looking back.

***

They arrived just in time to see Toshi’s sword fell one of the Nomu, the one that had been like a giant dog.  There were burn marks and signs of freezing, where Princess Izumi’s daggers must have struck home.   Toshi held his sword tightly, eyes darting around for signs of any further danger.  Relaxing only slightly when he was Katsumi and Isamu arrive.

“You’re all right!” he called out.  “Thank goodness!  When you took off… and then when we saw the village…”   His voice trailed off, uncertainly.

“We feared the worst,” Princess Izumi finished.  She held a dagger in each hand, looking ready to use them again if the need arose.  Where had a princess learned to fight like that?

“Sorry about that,” Isamu said, feeling guilty for having left them behind.  Fear had overtaken his heart and now that shamed him.

“I can’t blame you,” Toshi said.  “I’d probably have done the same.”

“Is your family..?” the princess began.  “We haven’t seen anyone other than you.”

He shook his head sadly.  “Gone.  My home was burned to the ground.  And there were no people, anywhere.”   He held up his hands, showing off the gauntlets.  “But I did find these.”

“They’ve got some punch,” Katsumi replied.  “Probably enchanted.”

Princess Izumi and Toshi exchanged glances.  “Do you think…?” the princess asked.

“I do,” Toshi agreed with a nod.  “Isamu… I think those were what we were meant to find.  The maps said we might find a weapon and an ally here.”

Had it meant his father?  Was he known to heroes of the realm?  “I think you’re right,” he said.  “And you’re right… you did find an ally.”

He looked around.   “There’s nothing for me here now. “

“Place is just like everywhere else,” Katsumi said, bitterly.  “When those damn things came to the outlands, there wasn’t anything left.”

“Father believed the people were not killed, but taken,” the princess said, kindly, and he realized those words were both for him and for Katsumi.   “He thought there a very good chance they are still alive.”

“If not,” Katsumi growled, “then I’m not just going to kill whoever’s behind this.  I’m going to kill them double dead!”

Isamu took a slight step further away from the scary barbarian girl.   “I hope you’re right,” he said.  “But whatever happens, I need to see this through to the end.  That is, if you’ll have me.”

“Of course,” Toshi said.  “It’s said these weapons we find can only be used by the worthy.  Those gauntlets must have chosen you.  And I can tell already, you’ve got the heart of a hero.”

“I knew it from the moment you were able to unleash the power of my Dagger of Flame,” the princess said.   “The road before us is hard, but it will be better traveled in the company of friends.”

Isamu nodded, the future stretching out before him uncertainly.  He knew not what it held, just that it would hold challenges aplenty.  But something worried him in the back of his mind…

“Wait,” he said, “there was another Nomu, with wings.  Where did it…?”

As one, the four of them looked up.  In the sky, heading towards the far distant mountains, was the last Nomu.  Even assuming Katsumi could turn into a dragon again, there was no way they could catch it.

“It would be safe to say it’s returning to its foul master,” the princess said.  “Whoever they may be… they will know what transpired here today.”

That was not an encouraging thought.  But from the way his new companions had spoken earlier, it seemed there was little encouraging these days.

“Let them,” Katsumi said.  “Let them know we’re coming for them all.”

There was great evil out there.  But perhaps, in finding his father’s gauntlets, there was some measure of hope as well.

As for whether or not hope could turn back darkness…  That was a story for another day.

[happymetalgirl]

February 2020

After a slow, but solid, start to the new decade last month, February sure picked the pace back up with a ton more releases. As usual though, the early month has seen a few more filler albums pushed out without the bands’ labels stirring up much of hype around them, and for some of it, you can see why. We got several more solid projects though that have me excited for what else their associated record labels have in store for the rest of the year. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, there’s plenty to talk about for February, starting with Sepultura.

Sepultura - Quadra

Machine Messiah was the first album I reviewed for this blog, and in that review I made note of the silliness ongoing complaining about this Sepultura lineup not being the “real” Sepultura by fans who still clamor for Max to come back or for the current lineup to retire the Sepultura name. As the size of the Derek Green era discography gradually dwarfs the Max era catalog, Sepultura fans gradually come to accept that the past is the past and this is Sepultura now. And the mild contrast between Sepultura’s output as old late and Max’s creative output through Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy, and Killer Be Killed hasn’t really shown any major gulf in class between the estranged artists. Sepultura may not be putting out successive critically acclaimed masterpieces, but they sure have maintained a greater ambition for grander sounds and concepts than Max, who, by contrast, has come through with some solid projects himself, but has largely repeatedly retread the tribal nu metal ground of Roots and tried to give the death metal he practiced with Sepultura some modern updates, with mixed results. Machine Messiah found Sepultura weaving proggy and orchestral elements into their modern form of death metal with respectable success, and the band’s ninth album with Derek Green is a solid continuation of the styles and aesthetics that the band had been evolving into on and leading up to Machine Messiah. Quadra, though, I think just lacks a bit of that creative spark that its predecessor had. It splits the band’s compounded sonic evolution into its main parts by going through sections of thrashy songs, groovy songs, slightly experimental songs, and more moody melodic songs, and it makes for a nice flow to the album, but it feels like each part is missing some of the others while also not going all-in quite enough to make the splitting up of their stylistic components worth it. Again, it’s still solid, just not blowing me away.

6/10

Ihsahn - Telemark

Kind of an odd one here, just a quick five-track EP: three originals and two covers. The first of two EPs to come this year from the Emperor frontman and black metal progressive progenitor finds him largely continuing in short form the slightly blackened prog-rock he had going on on Ámr. The opening track, “Stridig”, rides this mostly continuous guitar rumble over a few intriguing proggy passages while Ihsahn snarls in classic fashion. On the vocal front, his style is raspy and distinctly black metal, but he keeps the roughness on his throat to a minimum to not overpower the instrumentation around him and to make more potent use of melody with his vocals. The second track, “Nord”, introduces a few little modern Opeth-isms and some subtle horn accents to up the prog factor as the EP gets a little lighter. The title track in the middle of the record really goes to prog town even more dramatically than the previous two and takes with the horns with it. With covers of Lenny Cravitz’ “Rock & Roll Is Dead” (which sounds like it wouldn’t be too far off from a Marilyn Manson cover if he also decided to cover the song) and “Wrathchild” by Iron Maiden rounding the album, Ihsahn continues his use of raspy vocal tones and meager black metal rasp over the rock and metal classics while giving the Maiden cut a sweet extra flair with the brilliant addition of a little horn section. It’s a splendid little addition to Ihsahn’s solo catalog and a continuation of his proggy vision for his brand of black metal.

7/10

Intronaut - Fluid Existential Interventions

I have kind of long seen Intronaut as the heir apparent to Isis, with their spacy, sludgy brand of post-metal taking that of the post-metal godfathers’ into more proggy territories, and the L.A.-based trio have gradually grown more into their skin over the past few records, taking , and with The Direction of Last Things having been released almost five years ago, I was starting to get a little worried about if they’d hung it up for some reason. The band shows that the longer break has not dampened their boldness or creativity as they pick up right where they left off with the marriage of gargantuan sludge heaviness and ethereal post-metal atmosphere. The band get a little Meshuggah-type jazz fusion going on in the song “The Cull” and keep that jazzy flow going on the spacy sections of “Contrapasso”, while getting infectiously headbangingly groovy on “Pangloss”. I love the ways the band finds to shift in so many different directions so smoothly. I’d say though that the repetition of smooth movements in similar directions from song to song continue to be the band’s Achilles heel, sometimes really needing some kind of X factor or some kind of compositional surprise to break their cycles in these songs so as to not feel so circlular. The groovy riffage on “Pangloss” is probably the closest the band comes to diverting from their post-metallic mould, and as much as I love it there, I wish there was more. It’s a strong effort from them nevertheless, but I hope the band don’t take so long to progress in this vein on their next album.

7/10

Napalm Death - Logic Ravaged by Brute Force

With a new record on the way this year, I’m sure happy to get a little appetizer from the grindcore legends in the form of this two-song EP. The first song, the titular “Logic Ravaged by Brute Force” kicks off on a melodic brooding note, but quickly ramps up into the band’s famous high grinding death gear. It’s a pretty solid track, just a bit lacking in aggressive pay-off during the choruses, the verses constantly bringing the tempo down. But it’s definitely the kind of Napalm Death song that fixated on its melodic brooding mood and its titular hook, not necessarily representative of the band’s whole catalog or the album to come. The second track of the two, the cover of Sonic Youth’s “White Kross”, is a bit more of a burner, but it fits quite well into that mould for that kind of Napalm Death track like “Omnipresent Knife in Your Back” that could work as an album closer as well.

It’s just two songs and you want a number? Come on./10

Anvil - Legal at Last

The long-running Canadian outfit’s previous album, Pounding the Pavement, served little more than a reminder of why they never ascended to the heights of thrash metal during that genre’s peak of cultural relevance, and I have not revisited that record since re-listening to it to figure out exactly where to place it on the year’s worst-of list. The bar has never been super high for Anvil, and Pounding the Pavement really made it seem like the only way to go was up. The corny cover art to this follow-up here, though, didn’t give me much hope, and it sure isn’t much of an improvement. As with any Anvil project, the lyrics on Legal at Last are malignantly atrocious, and any attempt to enjoy the album is going to have to overcome the serious hurdle of tuning out some of the dumbest lyrics that sound like they were lifted from a high-schooler’s math notebook. I, again, kind of went into the project not expecting much, and knew I was going to hear some truly cringy bars. The “Chemtrails” song, nevertheless, manages to astound me with its ridiculously stupid lyricism feeding into the titular conspiracy theory seemingly unironically. Nice one guys. I’ll say, the band at least kind of redeem themselves with their pointing out the obvious corruption surrounding the fossil fuel industry and government surveillance. Anyway, predictably shitty lyrics aside, the band channel the same Motörhead-esque proto-thrash they’ve channeled their whole career with similar compositional predictability and lack of imagination, and it tires really quickly. And there really isn’t much to say about it musically. The riffs here, I’d say, are marginally better than those on Pounding the Pavement, and this album at least slightly more tangibly fun than its even more bumbling predecessor.

4/10

Sylosis - Cycle of Suffering

For some reason I didn’t quite like this album when I first heard it, and what an idiot I was in that moment, because damn this album is solid! Blending thrash with some technical death metal much like Revocation and knowing when to inject a little metalcore rhythm, Sylosis have come through with a ferocious and pummeling, but melodically nimble record that channels pure thrash aggression in every direction it travels. The band works in rewarding thrash breakdowns in songs like “Arms Like a Noose” and gripping harsh vocal melodies on songs like “Idle Hands”, and all sorts of little touches that only make the compositions more and more intense; I think this may be their best effort yet!

8/10

God Dethroned - Illuminati

The trajectory of blackened death metal has really been impossible to separate from Behemoth’s highly influencial landmark album, The Satanist, with bands in the field all aware and taking cues from the Polish juggernauts on how to size up the already-mammoth-y style to biblical proportions. And while they still have their instinctive old-school death metal war-like brutishness showing through on songs like the title track, God Dethroned seem to be more willingly working in ethereal choirs and . Songs like “Spirit of Beelzebub”, “Eye of Horus”, and “Gabriel” show a clear Behemoth influence wrapping itself around the band; the intro of “Broken Halo” is perhaps the clearest tribute or rip-off of “Ov Fire and the Void” I have ever heard, and the song only continues to expound on the integration of Behemoth’s style into God Dethroned’s. As nice as the alternating mesh of old and new for the band is aesthetically, there are a few too many bland, filler cuts on here like “Book of Lies” and “Satan Spawn” weighing down the more excitingly volatile tracks with dragging performances that can only sound so good over such dry compositions.

6/10

Five Finger Death Punch - F8

Ivan Moody did a little phone interview with Loudwire prior to this album’s release and his assessment of his band’s recent output was actually pretty sober and realistic. Along with detailing the mental health benefits that have come with his newly committed sobriety (which I am genuinely happy about for him) Moody admitted that the band’s past two albums (And Justice for None and Got Your Six) have not been very special, and he’s right. He even said that the band’s double album pair was bloated and should have been trimmed down to one album, and he’s definitely right. He stated that he felt that the band has been in a rut for awhile and expressed a rejuvenated desire to make music that isn’t so here-today-gone-tomorrow, and he’s right about that. And he said that on this album, F8, the band really stepped it up and improved their craft to finally make something special again, and that’s where his hot streak of correctness ends. Don’t get me wrong, he’s partially right about F8 being better than the past two albums, but that’s not a very high bar to clear. I was very critical of And Justice for None when it came out in 2018 and I agree that it and Got Your Six are without a doubt the band’s worst albums, and that is saying something because they were on a downward slide for a long time and it wasn’t very surprising the way they bottomed out so badly on those two albums. While I don’t think the improvement was quite as dramatic as he made it out to be, I will say that I can see what Moody was talking about with the refined songwriting on F8, it really does seem like the band tried to inject a little more boldness into their writing and their performances have a bit more of a sense of purpose this time around. The band gives us a few glimpses of their younger selves with returns to The Way of the Fist heaviness on a couple songs, and even though they still don’t have the best track record for ballads, the few mellow tracks on F8 are certainly better than the past two albums’. On that subject, the track sequencing on F8 isn’t quite so disjointed and awkward as it was on And Justice for None. But again, the improvements still aren’t as dramatic as Ivan Moody might see them. The band still don’t really break out of their box too much; it’s not so much an album of them finally getting them out of their creative rut as it is an album of them slowly making their way out of that rut or getting them more capable in that rut. Again, it is a noteworthy enough improvement over the past two (or four even) albums’ drivel, but it’s not quite a full return to form. Hopefully this gets them back in the right direction though if it’s not too late.

4/10

Blaze of Perdition - The Harrowing of Hearts

The Polish quartet’s fifth full-length is another set of solid modern occult black metal with just enough of a sense of atmosphere and emotional rawness lifted from blackgaze. I certainly wouldn’t call this an atmospheric black metal album, but the band does venture into those more ethereal realms of black metal too. They do well to maintain their intensity throughout it too, as the atmospheric elements serve to create a more expansive and grand feel to the music rather than just breaking up and diluting the darker, heavier aspects.

7/10

Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog

After a pretty big past few years for them, Lingua Ignota mastermind Kristen Hayter, The Body’s Lee Clifford, and Full of Hell frontman Dylan Walker teamed up for a seemingly casual dark-ambient-noise-venture to kick the decade off. I’m contrast to the extreme abrasiveness most of these artists peddle through their main projects, Grave of a Dog remains predominantly ambient until Dylan Walker’s distorted-noise-backed screams on “Drunk on Marrow” usher in the industrial noise of “Miles of Chain” and “Whom the Devil Long Sought to Strangle” being the standout exceptions. I enjoy Kristen Hayter’s ever-languishing operatic vocals across the album, especially on the minimal, piano-driven closing track and on “Violent Ruin”, on which the trio play with some autotune on her voice that actually comes out nicely. But for the most part, this album is so casually below all these artists’ punching weight, it’s no doubt just a quick bonus album project for all three of them that I’m sure pales in comparison to their past and future releases.

6/10

Insect Ark - The Vanishing

With clear influences from avant-garde elites like Sumac, Deathspell Omega, and Neurosis seeping through the pores of this album, Dana Schechter continues to refine Insect Ark’s spooky, psychedelic brand of instrumental doom metal with the help of newly-recruited drummer Andy Patterson’s well-tempered percussive accents to give the brooding songs more than just a steady anesthetized heartbeat, but also a newly percussive sense of punch. And the two gel in artistic partnership in such an seemingly innate way you would think they’d have been bandmates for years. The Vanishing, again, continues to hone the spacy, darkly ambient metallic psychedelia Insect Ark has carved out a niche for, floating from unnerving oppressive heaviness to eerie drones of dark, brassy ambiance with ease and confidence. I definitely respect and recommend this one highly.

8/10

Godthrymm - Reflections

Godthrymm is the offshoot project of a couple of former members of My Dying Bride, and Reflections is the trio’s first full length project together after a couple of EPs (from which a few songs on this album are pulled) that gave me mixed anticipations for this full-length. A Grand Reclamation in 2018 sounded very prototypic and derivative of Candlemass without the crucial bombast to back it up, but the band made some strides on 2019’s Dead in the Studio that clearly piqued Profound Lore’s interest, with much more melodically compelling songs like “We Are the Dead” and “Cursed Are the Many” making it into this LP. The band had a more I like the emotive Spirit-Adrift-esque guitar melodies that “The Sea as My Grave” incorporates and the more straightforward funeral dirge of “The Light of You”, and the band even improved the originally amateurish “The Grand Reclamation” from the first EP greatly with a more professional vocal performance and better drum accents. Still, much of the melody on here is not enough to really conjure any strong emotions and the grand doom the album shoots for isn’t quite as epic as it should be as a result. The band did well to improve upon their first efforts together, but I think they do still have a way to go.

6/10

The Amity Affliction - Everyone Loves You... Once You Leave Them

I didn’t totally hate The Amity Affliction’s pop-oriented direction on 2018′s Misery, but I didn’t like it much either (granted they’ve never really been my style), and I wonder if fans felt similarly about the stylistic drift because Everyone Loves You... Once You Leave Them is a definitive return to the band’s roots that, while still not entirely for me, I can definitely appreciate more than Misery. The band’s older sound that makes its way into this album is proportionally much more metalcore than the sound they trended toward on Misery, and even though I still don’t find the pop-punk-ish vocal style and melody writing to be a very fitting compliment to the early 2000’s metalcore the band rides instrumentally, I can much more clearly see the appeal this time around and enjoy a greater portion of the tracks here.

5/10

Kvelertak - Splid

Norwegian alchemists Kvelertak have been eccentrically fusing punk at varying degrees of hardcore and rock ‘n’ roll with black metal for four albums now and they’ve been pretty damn successful at it the whole time so at this point it’s a matter of what the band do with their established style, how far they can take what they already, and how much expanding they have to do to keep it sustainable. Splid shows that the band’s answer to all those questions is “yes, we can”. While much of the vibrant novelty of the self-titled debut and Meir has worn off, what’s left is a band showing that they are indeed more than an attention-grabbing novelty act and can keep their style going beyond that initial excitatory period. Stylistically Splid only occasionally draws from new-ish territory, occasionally going significantly light-spirited and even dancy, but otherwise it’s pretty much the Kvelertak we know and hopefully love, maybe some of that initial charm is a little worn and sensible through the compositional repetition, but sure as hell not to the point where it’s not a good time.

7/10

Frigoris - ...in Stille

Germany’s Frigoris continue to struggle to set themselves apart from the ambient black metal pack, which they present themselves as little more than a statistic in the growing homogeneity of the genre with all the baseline competence to pass but nothing stylistically or compositionally unique or forward-thinking.

5/10

殞煞 Vengeful Spectre - 殞煞 Vengeful Spectre

Blending ambient elements of traditional Chinese folk music into the atmosphere of Deafheaven-esque blackgaze (the vocals being some of the closest I have ever heard to George Clarke’s) this anomaly of a self-titled debut from 殞煞 Vengeful Spectre is a fantastic way to enter the fold for the Guangdong outfit, establishing a signature style early and with impressive genre-blending competence. I am eager to hear what this band has in store for the future.

8/10

Tombs - Monarchy of Shadows

A pretty sizeable EP from the Brooklyn-based four-piece, Monarchy of Shadows gives a pretty concise and tasty portrait of the band’s crushing Gorgoroth-esque black metal that sacrifices hardly any heaviness for its dissonant atmosphere. The compositions get a little repetitive as the EP draws on though, which does do a harsh number on the project’s otherwise consistently solid aesthetic. Luckily the more death metal-infused portions of the album like “The Dark Rift” and “Once Falls the Guillotine” kick some needed energy and compositional life into the project. I’d say it’s worth a go for anyone with a hankering for black metal with unrestrained distorted heaviness and occult vibes more than shoegazy ambianc; it’s not a mind-blower, but it’s a good quick dose of it.

7/10

Delain - Apocalypse and Chill

After being thoroughly disappointed by Within Temptation’s writer’s-block-ridden LP last year, I was honestly not in much of a mood for any more pop-oriented neoclassical symphonic metal this year, but after hearing a lot of praise for this new Delain project, I thought I’d give it a try, and Delain sure did change my appetite for the genre. The band sound so much more cathartically vibrant with their willingness to depart from the neoclassical norm into synthetic and other diverse stylistic territories, incorporating adrenaline-fueled downtuned guitar riffs, upward key shifts akin to alternative metal and power metal, and resounding melodic choruses into modern symphonies with big but tasteful production bolstering, and the Lacuna Coil-esque vocal trade-offs across it all are executed brilliantly. And even when the band go more traditional they show they can accomplish similarly invigorating results with a more bare production pallet, a truly impressive display of symphonic versatility and creative courage.

8/10

Suicide Silence - Become the Hunter

After the calamity that was their ill-fated attempt to branch out into Deftones-imitation and clean vocals on their self-titled album, Suicide Silence show that they thoroughly learned their lesson with their gruff, classically deathcore groovy sixth LP, Become the Hunter, which finds the band playing much more to their instrumental strengths and their signature style of deathcore chug (there is a lot of thicccc, delicious chug on this project), finds them taking their riff-writing style back a bit to The Cleansing and No Time the Bleed and feels more natural than what they were trying to do on the self-titled record. Eddie Hermida got the memo about his vocals on the self-titled; it’s all screams and growls here, not a “tee-hee” in sight. Unlike the aforementioned albums with Mitch Lucker behind the mic, Become the Hunter isn’t quite as productionally rough around the edges or as horror-movie eerie and menacingly evil. It’s all about the crunchy guitar rhythms all across the album, which finds the band repeating themselves a bit, but not so much that it feels more like derivative writing rather than convergent compositional tactics across the song. While it could certainly be seen as a run through the motions or a retreat to the band’s safe zone, this was definitely the return to form Suicide Silence needed after the misfire that was the previous record, and definitely a more exciting album for Hermida to showcase his deathcore vocal talent than You Can’t Stop Me. For me though, it’s definitely an improvement on the band’s meager first album with their new vocalist and its subsequent creative dry heave, and it sets a much more convincing tone for Suicide Silence going forward with Eddie Hermida.

8/10

Neaera - Neaera

Despite their fluctuating quality across the first run of their career, I was a surprised and disappointed when Neaera disbanded back in 2014, but equally enthralled to hear the band return to the fold thankfully not too long after. With this self-titled record being the German act’s first after returning from the grave, the band rose back up in the most emphatic way I can imagine. As self-titled albums are generally meant to, Neaera represents Neaera at their essence, blending Swedish melodic death metal with modern NWOAHM metalcore as they always have throughout their career. Indeed, the fascinating thing about this self-titled album is that it’s really not significantly stylistically different from the band’s previous efforts aside from some minor production tweaks. But Neaera really found the sweetest balance for themselves between the menacing blend of death metal urgency with a thrashy metalcore sense of rhythm and the cathartic guitar leads of melodic death metal, and I can’t honestly think of any other project that makes a better case for the intermingling of these styles than the case this album makes. While plenty of metalcore out there incorporates some elements of melodeath, Neaera’s brand that they crystallize on this album is the other way around, primarily melodic death metal but with the raw pounding drive of metalcore to provide a more punchy dynamic to a style that often finds itself in great need of it. And the band manages to mesh these genres in a manner that, rather than diluting them both, brings out the best in both of them. I could seriously sing this album’s praises for much longer, but I think I will leave it at it being the best album I’ve heard so far this year.

9/10

Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man

I’ll admit that I don’t really follow the public life of the original Black Sabbath frontman too closely or intentionally, but it is pretty hard to avoid as well so it’s not like it’s even possible for me to be completely ignorant of how he’s doing. It goes without saying of course, but Ozzy Osbourne is a bonafide icon and singular figure for heavy metal that very very few, if anyone else, can compare to, and with his career and musical output kind of petering out over the past decade as his old age begins to get the better of him, there seems to be a greater sense of awareness in the metal world that we probably only have a few years more with Ozzy, if that. And it’s going to be a very profoundly somber day when the vocal godfather of heavy metal is gone. That being said, this is quite possibly the last album we will get from the prince of darkness and yet listening to it doesn’t quite feel that way. In the weeks leading up to the album, Ozzy’s supporting tour was postponed (or maybe just cancelled), and the man himself said that he does not have his health as is not happy. Yet the album sounds like a very stale, yet modern take on Ozzy’s doomy and classic heavy metal sounds with some modern rock production updates that honestly sound a few generations younger than its seventy-one year old apparent creator, and Ozzy himself sounds uncannily clear, coherent, and healthy. I saw a little bit of dismissal of this album as not being a profound conceptual contemplation of mortality like David Bowie’s, Leonard Cohen’s, or David Berman’s last albums, and while I definitely enjoy those artist’s swansong albums more than this and while I do feel like Ozzy deserves a proper album that better represents his importance to and impact on metal and culture at large, I don’t know if that’s the kind of album Ozzy wants to make. The man is struggling with Parkinson’s disease and based on his music leading up to this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if he just wants to make fun rock music therapeutically to get his mind off the pain rather than honing in on it and intensifying it. Going back to criticism of the album though, Ozzy still sounds so checked out in his performances despite his suspiciously healthy-sounding voice that I can’t help but wonder how touched up it is, the exception being the title track featuring Elton John on which Ozzy does get a little introspective about realizing his ambitions and cementing his legacy as a music legend. Ozzy also sounds more enthusiastic in his performance with Post Malone on the galloping, blood-pumping closing track “It’s a Raid”, but for the majority of the album, it really sounds like he doesn’t even want to be there, and I just hope this wasn’t something people around him pressured him into. I really do want to reiterate my utmost respect for Ozzy Osbourne and all that he has done for the music I love so much, and I would love to hear him round out his legendary career in a more fitting manner. But if he needs to end it here to rest and heal, which it really seems like he does, I won’t begrudge the man or take anything away from his legacy and what he’s accomplished for music. Thank you forever Ozzy, and whatever you do next, as always, go fucking crazy.

5/10