#i kept wondering why he was getting matted fur around his neck until i saw him camped out over the water bowl

[climbdraws]

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[malkumtend]

I Like Your Laugh (A SquirrelCrow AU) - Chapter 17.

He’d been here before.

Well, actually, he’d been here all his life. It was on the moors of Windclan territory. On the hills that cascaded over in an endless shape. Crowpaw looked around in bewilderment, the relief of finding home leaving him as soon as he realised a more glaring fact.

He couldn’t even remember how he got here.

Bristling, Crowpaw felt his stomach chill, a searing dread overcoming him. It was night-time, but where the Windclan sky should have been full of bright stars, only a vast, empty darkness hung over the hills. There wasn’t even a moon. Crowpaw turned around again and again, but all that met him was the emptiness of the hills and the ebony sky.

It seemed like Windclan, but it lacked everything that meant anything.

This place was devoid of warmth and safety, only coldness and dread reigned here.

Crowpaw swallowed down his growing fear, his tail stiffening as he remembered the cats he had been with for moons. “S-Squirrelpaw?” He called out hopefully, his voice echoed around him carrying a dreary chant. It sounded wrong. “Feather-” He paused, swallowed again, and took a breath. “Tawnypelt? Stormfur? Brambleclaw?!” Again and again, only the hollow repetition of his growing fear replied to him. He could hear the terror broadening with each call.

Crowpaw’s heart began to race. Something was deeply wrong here. His mind was hazy and he couldn’t find the breath to even think about what was going on. He felt the freezing night all over, as if it were trying to swallow him whole. A deep convicted sense of judgement littered the hills. It was almost like a thousand eyes were glaring hatefully at him, concealed in the dark home; waiting to drag Crowpaw in.

He tried to command his trembling legs to run away, to find whatever help he could, it wasn’t safe here, but his paws kept firm on the ground. The hills held him there, frozen with unknown horror.

Then he saw it.

A black shape in the corner of his eye. A tremble worked along Crowpaw’s neck to his body and then down to the tip of his tail. He inhaled, craving desperately to feel anything other than the scratchy moans rasping on his voice.

He turned and two glowing eyes stared at him.

Even in the darkness, even if the cat’s black pelt was nothing more than a shadow in the night, Crowpaw recognised that stare. A forgotten scent entered Crowpaw and made his jaw drop.

“Deadfoot?”

Deadfoot blinked but said nothing.

Involuntarily, Crowpaw felt the desire, the burning need to embrace his father, to cling to him like he was still a kit and not an apprentice terrified in the middle of nowhere. But he still kept still. Maybe because the cold had numbed his bones.

Maybe because Deadfoot’s stare held him back.

“Where are we?” Crowpaw yowled desperately to his father. “What’s going on?”

Deadfoot said that a mistake had been made.

The voice that came out of his father made Crowpaw’s fur shoot up on all ends. The strands of comfort he had were scratched away and left Crowpaw alone.

“A mistake?” Crowpaw muttered.

Deadfoot repeated himself.

“What are you talking about? What mistake? I- Where’s the rest of my group?”

Deadfoot said that they were fine now. That they were better off now that Crowpaw wasn’t there.

“W-What?” Crowpaw stammered, now failing to muster whatever bravery he had feigned. He just now began to see that behind the hollow glow of his father’s stare, there was nothing but an unimaginable hatred.

Deadfoot claimed that Crowpaw had failed. That he was the mistake that Deadfoot had made.

Crowpaw’s breathing weakened. “I-I don’t-”

Deadfoot screamed that Crowpaw should never interrupt him. Crowpaw cowered as the ferocity shattered the night sky and made a torrent of rain hiss down onto the pair. Crowpaw struggled to raise his gaze again; even when he was alive, Crowpaw had never heard his father yell at him like that. Deadfoot didn’t react to the rain as he continued that he was a fool for ever trusting an apprentice to do a warrior’s job. He bitterly remarked that Windclan was now the laughingstock of Starclan.

Crowpaw felt blame pierce through him like a stone. The kind of blame that could kill. That had killed.

“W-Well why did you choose me in the first place?” Crowpaw yelled, “If I was such a mess, why did you send me instead of a Warrior?” If he hadn’t been chosen, maybe she wouldn’t have-

Deadfoot interrupted the choked sob with a loathing explanation that Crowpaw had a name to live up to, and he was given a chance, and he had failed.

Crowpaw tried to rub the pain off his fur before it ate him away. “I-I did everything you told me to!” He screamed, the scream he somehow remembers from the times his father was alive. “We made it to the sun-drown place! We completed the journey!”

Deadfoot wondered aloud if the journey was complete without Riverclan’s chosen cat.

Crowpaw screwed his eyes until he saw dots instead of the blood and the body. “D-Don’t!” He pleaded.

Deadfoot spoke the truth. It was Crowpaw’s fault. He wasn’t quick enough. A Windclan cat wasn’t quick enough, he spat with a bitter, horrible laugh. He mused whether Windclan would want a cat like that back if they were to ever realise that.

Crowpaw kept his eyes closed but the tears still came. Wet and hot and taunting him with his failures.

A failure. Deadfoot decided. Crowpaw was a failure to his clan, to himself, to Deadfoot, and to her.

The rain still hissed down, scratchy and scraping, but Crowpaw didn’t feel it on his pelt anymore. It wasn’t like he fully realised it. Apologies and begging was caught in the thorns that enclosed around his throat, digging into his tongue as he was bombarded with the images again. Deadfoot’s disgusted, disowning expression. His own cowardly face, pressed against stone, frozen in fear. Then-

A new voice came, withered, forgotten, dying. But it was clear in its decision that Deadfoot was right about Crowpaw.

Crowpaw didn’t know why he opened his eyes, but he did. And he wasn’t in the moors anymore. The shadows of the cave flashed up and away with the roar of thunder. A tail-length ahead of him, a broken body lay in its pool of gore, silver fur matted with dirty crimson, its shattered head was turned up and staring at Crowpaw through pale, bloodshot eyes that once were a brilliant blue.

The Windclan cat felt bile in his throat as the voice he still recognised spoke up again claiming that it was Crowpaw’s fault. As she spoke, she coughed out a wad of blood that flickered on the grey cat’s paws.

Crowpaw didn’t argue. He wanted to open his mouth and beg for whatever mercy he could still hope for.

But the growling behind him made him stop.

Wearily, acceptingly, the tom turned, staring right into the hungry ember eyes of Sharptooth. He knew that what was going to happen was what should have already occurred but, of course, he still closed his eyes and screamed as he felt the jaws lunge forward and claim the prey it always should have seized.

Regrettably, Crowpaw woke up. He shook his head from side to side, seeing no cave anywhere. Instead, his sleeping friends lay all around him. The moon sagged in the dim night; it wouldn’t be long before they all had to continue home.

The tom winced at the images that still stung in his mind. His heart threatened to burst out of his mouth with how hard it was beating. He breathed slowly as he realised that he was safe.

Then the guilt made his throat close up again.

How could he feel any relief that he was safe or alive? He’d seen her in his nightmare.

The cat who would have gladly licked his head like a worried mother if she’d seen him like this. She was gone and was never coming back. And even though that vision of her had been nothing more than some terrible dream, it didn’t change the truth.

It was his fault that she was dead.

He had been the one who couldn’t hide from Sharptooth, he had been the one who she had risked her life for, he was the one that she had died to save. Whether it was ‘prophecy’ or not, she had died because of him. Now Riverclan was without their chosen cat, now they had lost a valiant Warrior, Stormfur and Greystripe had both lost their own family.

All because of some worthless, pathetic, apprentice from another clan.

Stormfur had trusted him. Make sure that she doesn’t get hurt. Crowpaw had promised something that he couldn’t keep. She had been hurt. She had been lost. He could only imagine what the Riverclan Warrior thought of him.

Crowpaw’s head sank onto the cold grass, exhaling like it may cause his own life to fade into the hills. Deadfoot, whether it was him or not, had been right. He’d made a terrible mistake choosing his son.

Death and despair, that was what had come because of Deadfoot’s choice. But then again, he’d probably only wanted to give his son a chance that Windclan never would have approved of. What that nightmare had said, who’s to say it wasn’t what the real cat thought.

If he closed his eyes, Crowpaw could feel the stars burning down on him with disgust.

Crowpaw felt the presence of the cats beside him, each glowing with the respectful title of Warrior. There was a reason they’d been chosen. There was a reason Crowpaw shouldn’t have been. They’d all been right to be on edge when they found out an apprentice was Windclan’s supposed savior. They never would have accepted him if it wasn’t for her. And now, she’d had to pay the price for her kindness.

He’d not even once suspected that she might be the prophesised cat. Was he really that blind? If he’d bothered to just think for one moment, he might have been able to do something to keep her from that fate! He could have refused ever going back there!

But he hadn’t done anything right, he hadn’t been the friend she’d called him. Feathertail deserved better than him.

He didn’t deserve a place here. He should have been the one they’d go home without.

But they were stuck with him. The memories of Feathertail, of Crowpaw’s failure, were stuck with them all. They were better off if the ground would just swallow him there and then. If anything happened to any more of his friends, because of his actions…

Dolefully, Crowpaw turned to his sleeping best friend. She was curled up in a tight ball, her muzzle creased with a disturbed look. Clearly, her dreams were also plagued. Crowpaw’s ears lay tight against his head, sympathy and guilt icing his heart.

I’m sorry, Squirrelpaw. I’m so sorry. She had lost a close friend too. They had become friends because of Feather. His claws retreated into him, soft horror making him ache. The bloody images of his nightmare clawed over him, reminding him what he caused, what he brought.

If he ever saw Squirrelpaw like that…

He’d sooner die.

So much of him wanted to go over to her and comfort her, to tell her that everything would be okay. But how could he dare do such a thing? He couldn’t tell her such terrible lies. She wasn’t stupid, she knew who was to blame, even if she was too kind to show it.

She had stayed beside him the whole way here. Her kindness was poisoning her. If she was put in a dire enough situation, Crowpaw knew how her bravery would make her act, she’d protect anyone she thought of as her friend.

She’d die for them.

Crowpaw would never let that happen.

He hated what he was thinking of doing, but it was for the best. He couldn’t do anything to help Squirrelpaw. He’d seen how she had tried to storm over when Sharptooth was advancing on him, and how her death was only prevented because Brambleclaw had held her back.

Her clanmate had protected her. Her clan was the only thing that could protect her. She would only face pain if she continued on with him. Crowpaw dragged his eyes away from his friend, gritting his teeth as he forced himself to accept the truth. This needs to end. You always knew that deep down.

He was a kit for thinking any different.

If his thoughts were right, they would reach home hopefully by the end of tomorrow. They’d reach the fields first, and then they would find Windclan. Then it would all end. They would separate.

Just like they were meant to do.

Images of the journey, foolish and sickly, mocked Crowpaw. The promise to meet again. The friendship they wished to retain. The happiness of those thoughts now taunted him, laughing at how he could have believed such a fantasy.

But he had wanted it, so much.

Because he cared about them.

He cared about her.

That was why he wouldn’t argue anymore. Crowpaw’s blue eyes dimly gazed up at the overwhelming swarm of stars, the lights that had always been, and always would dominate the sky above them. His face sank down in defeat.

He’d done this to himself.

He knew what was right now. For their sake, for her sake, when they said goodbye, it would be for good.

…

Everything hurt.

No cat hurried along the hill slope, even as the air began to smell more like home. They were all entrapped in the memories of mountains and caves, their hearts and spirits lost with the cat who would remain there for all time, the cat who should have come home with them all.

Every face carried some dark mask, the sting of loss piercing them all. But for Squirrelpaw, that loss clumped to her like thick roots, painfully wrapping around her bleeding, cracked paws, making her yearn to fall into another flood of tears again.

She fought to keep her head up. She told herself that Feathertail would have wanted her to be strong.

But Squirrelpaw wanted Feathertail here with them.

Because now, no cat looked ready to face whatever lied ahead in their journey.

For a while, Squirrelpaw had tried her best to comfort those who needed it the most. Obviously, Stormfur was her first priority. The grey Warrior had been devastated, his usual cheer barren, replaced by the murky weariness that had claimed them all. But for him, it was so much worse. Too many times, the cat had been quietly speaking, clearly trying to make some remark about home to his sister, only to find his side empty aside from the memory that Feathertail would never come home.

The look of utter heartbreak was gut-wrenching to see every time.

Squirrelpaw had done her best, like they all did, sharing tongues and pressing gentle pelts against the cat, but every word of encouragement she offered just felt like empty, dry breath in her mouth.

How could you comfort something like this? It wasn’t like it ever worked. It just reminded Squirrelpaw of those happy memories that were now bitter thorns on her pelt. Every gust of wind that should have told her they were growing closer to the clans just felt like a frosty imitation of Feathertail’s voice, unreachable yet lingering forever.

She didn’t need to look at her friends to know they felt it too.

Squirrelpaw sighed weakly from the back of the group. We should have all been here. That was how it was meant to be! It wasn’t fair! Feathertail had given everything, had been good and kind every step of the journey, more deserving to be called a hero than anyone Squirrelpaw knew; so why did she have to be the one who died?

Why did any of them have to die at all? They had all grown so close over this journey, had overstepped boundaries that the clans were drawn by, to lose any of them was some cruel joke after everything they’d been through!

It wasn’t fair to Feathertail’s sacrifice!

It wasn’t fair to the cats left struggling with her memory.

Especially the cat she loved, who hobbled at the front, tasting the air of his home, but with no spark of recognition at all.

It was so, so painful to see Crowpaw like this. It was clear the cat blamed himself for Feathertail’s death, and he still stuck to that idea no matter how many times Squirrelpaw tried to prove to him it wasn’t true. Her words only seemed to fall on him like rain, just making him more cold with every drop.

It was his eyes that made Squirrelpaw ache the most. A glazed, misty blue. Lifeless. It never left.

No cat could reach him.

But wasn’t that understandable? It was clear that he had lost the cat he loved, to Squirrelpaw at least.

She really was terrible for letting herself be hurt by that as well.

Squirrelpaw watched him sorrowfully as he took in another deep breath, scenting the marsh of his homeland. “We’re getting close.” He muttered, loud enough to be heard, gentle enough to be weak. They had past Highstones a few minutes ago, but the realisation offered no cat any comfort. They were all numb from the loss.

“It’s almost over.” Tawnypelt said, it was unclear whether she was speaking to the group or herself.

Beside her, her brother, Brambleclaw, lifted his head wearily. “I can’t believe it. It seems like just yesterday we all set off.”

Squirrelpaw saw Crowpaw’s tail swing angrily, “We all should have returned.” He growled, “If it wasn’t for Feathertail, we would never have made it back.”

His words sent a wave of grief throughout the cats, but none could disagree. “She saved us all.” Stormfur agreed in a hushed whisper, his eyes drifting off like clouds.

Tawnypelt moved over to the grey cat, pressing her head gently against his. “It was her destiny.”

Crowpaw’s neck stiffened up, and dread coiled in Squirrelpaw. “Destiny?” Crowpaw cursed, “Her destiny was with us! It was with her clan! She shouldn’t have died for another cat’s prophecy!” His voice was dry with loathing.

Squirrelpaw knew where it was targeted.

She pounced up to where her friend was, the aching in her heart was now intolerable. Up close, she saw the bitterness in Crowpaw’s eyes again. “She did what she thought was right.” Squirrelpaw said softly, “That was just who Feathertail was.”

Crowpaw seemed to be straining to look away from her. His scowl fixed ahead, creasing as her words reached him. At his other side, Stormfur crept over and pressed his muzzle to the tom’s pelt. “Bravery and sacrifice are part of the Warrior Code. Would you have wanted her to make any other choice?”

The Warrior Code. The words fell onto Squirrelpaw like a hawk’s talons. Her teeth quietly clashed together. Crowpaw seemed to have the same idea, his eyes widening for a split moment that made Squirrelpaw tremble. The dark tom burst ahead, tasting the air, not giving the other two any more notice.

Stormfur sighed and slunk back to where Tawnypelt was. Squirrelpaw was still watching Crowpaw wistfully, wishing she could know what to say to make him stop hurting. Over this journey, he had changed so much, they had changed so much, but now he seemed to be retreating back into the cold shell that refused any kind of kindness offered his way.

She couldn’t hate him though. She wouldn’t have fared much better if she had lost the cat she loved.

But now, the journey was finally ending. Soon he would be gone. Why did it have to end like this? Yes, she wanted to see her parents and sister again, the thought of their safety had never left her mind one since Midnight had told them about what the Twolegs were doing to the forest. But still?

She could never trivialise how much she would miss her friends. Especially Crowpaw.

For more than a moon, he had been by her side, through the best and worst of times. And now, it was just expected that they would leave that in the past and move on as rivals, like the clans demanded.

How could she ever do that? She couldn’t just pretend that this tom didn’t mean so much to her. Even when ignoring her feelings, they were close friends, she considered him her best friend, she was meant to just act like that was never even a thought?

Squirrelpaw cast her head low. It just wasn’t fair.

A gentle press to her pelt made her look up. Two amber eyes looked at her with mellow sympathy. “He just needs some time.” Brambleclaw purred, “We all do really.”

Squirrelpaw’s whiskers twitched in surprise, but her gaze softened. “You can say that again.” The grass beneath her feet was soaked with dew that seeped into the cracks of her paws, making them sting. She hissed lightly, “I wish I knew what to say to him.”

Brambleclaw made a murmur of acknowledgement, his great shoulders sinking on him as he exhaled. “I’d help if I could.”

Squirrelpaw mewed wordlessly, strolling on.

Brambleclaw chewed on the inside of his cheek, his eyes flickering. “Are you going to be okay?”

He meant it well, but Squirrelpaw still laughed sadly. Oh, if her clanmate only knew. “Probably not.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” She looked over at Crowpaw again, her muzzle scrunching. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I just wish he knew that.”

“He will, eventually.” Brambleclaw meowed.

Squirrelpaw scoffed, “How do you know that?”

“Because I know you won’t stop until he realises it.”

Squirrelpaw twisted to face her clanmate. He looked down at her, a gentle smile on his face. A proud smile. He chuckled faintly, his throat humming like a summer beehive. “He’s lucky to have a friend as loyal as you.” His smile thinned, “She was lucky as well; to know you.”

Squirrelpaw’s ears twitched and her tail flattened, “So much good I did.” She muttered. Feathertail was dead and Crowpaw wouldn’t even look at anyone.

“Of course, it did good.” Brambleclaw assured, “You were their when she needed you, that’s the best any cat can ask for.” He took a small breath, his ears falling flat. “It was better than anything I did.”

“What?” The apprentice’s ears perked up again.

“You were a better friend than I was a clanmate.”

Squirrelpaw’s face loosened, “Brambleclaw…”

“It’s true.” The brown tabby meowed out, an assured strength in his tone.

In a way, Squirrelpaw couldn’t disagree. The way Brambleclaw had treated her at the start of the journey had truly been terrible. She certainly hadn’t hidden the fact she resented him for his actions then. But that had been then. When they had reached the mountains, his attitude had greatly changed. He’d apologised for what he’d done and had promised to change.

And he hadn’t lied. He had changed.

She thought she’d made it clear she’d forgiven him. “Brambleclaw, it’s fine.” She mewed, smiling gently at her clanmate. One eye cocked up a little, “You may still be a mouse-brain, but you’ve done enough to make up for what happened.”

Despite her words, Brambleclaw still looked down, “You may be kind enough to say that Squirrelpaw. But I’d beg to differ.”

Squirrelpaw let out a hurt mew, “Why?”

Brambleclaw let out a low moan, his amber eyes cooling with hopelessness. “I thought that by the end of this journey, I would have been able to prove your father for not trusting me when we left the clans.” His back fur prickled. “But what did I do? I just proved him right.”

Squirrelpaw’s face filled with astonishment, “What are you talking about?” She remembered clearly how Firestar had treated Brambleclaw, and her for that matter, before they left. None of what happened then was fair at all.

“The way I treated you. Let’s face it, I was the cat you trusted the least, me, your own clanmate!” He dipped his head feebly, “Not that I didn’t deserve it. I just wanted to show I could be a good leader, and now one of us is…” His voice broke off into another shattered sigh.

Squirrelpaw remembered that clearly as well, it was true, she hadn’t trusted Brambleclaw then. But that didn’t stop his words from being any less stupid. The ginger molly rubbed her pelt against her clanmate’s. “You’re forgetting yourself, Brambleclaw. You just said it; what happened was not your fault.” She looked up at him, her tail pressing against his pelt. “You apologised for how you acted. I forgave you. That’s it.”

“But I-”

“And believe me, you are better at leading than you think.” Squirrelpaw couldn’t deny that, she wasn’t a liar… most of the time.” Her breath cast off for a second. She reclaimed it, cold and heavy. “If it wasn’t for you, Sharptooth would have got me as well.”

“Are you joking?” Brambleclaw cried, his eyes wide. “You’re the one who saved me!”

“And you saved me too.” She may not have liked it then. But neither had Brambleclaw. He hadn’t held her back to sacrifice Crowpaw, he was just doing his duty. He had to protect who he could. She would have done the same for him. “I think Firestar was more than wrong about you being a bad influence on me!”

Brambleclaw gazed down at the apprentice, his mouth open, and his eyes trembling with gratitude. Squirrelpaw purred, nudging him with her head. She gave him a playful look. “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to put in a great word for you!”

The brown tabby laughed weakly, nudging her back teasingly. “He was wrong about you, as well, you know?”

“Really now?”

“Yes.” His muzzle glowed with an honoured glint. “You deserve to become a Warrior. You’re going to make a great one.”

That was what Squirrelpaw had wanted to hear from him for moons.

“Thank you.” She mewed quietly, somehow overcome. She quickly sniffed up though, cheekily whipping the larger cat with her tail. “What made you finally come to your senses?”

Brambleclaw rose a brow, smirking. “Tawnypelt told me you were keeping a tally on how many times you saved me.”

Squirrelpaw laughed out loud, “Oh that. Well… I might have done. You want me to tell you the numbers.”

Brambleclaw rolled his eyes, walking ahead, “I’m sure you’ll tell me soon enough.”

She’d missed this. This friendship they’d had before they left. The pain in her paws seemed to leave her as she realised, she had her friend back. A friend that would be by her side when they reached home.

Squirrelpaw stilled.

Home.

The molly’s heart oozed with worry again, her breaths deepening. How could she have forgotten? Home; her family! This journey was far from over yet! They still had to find their clan and tell them about what they’d seen.

“What do you think my father will say when we tell him about Midnight?”

The humour drained from Brambleclaw’s expression. “Who knows?”

Squirrelpaw cringed. It was her own dad and she wasn’t entirely sure how he would react to the idea that they needed to run away from this forest as soon as possible. Leaving generations of history was not an easy ask. “Do you think he’ll believe us?”

Brambleclaw’s eyes cast down densely, “He’ll have to. If what Midnight said ends up being true.”

A spike of fear dug into Squirrelpaw. The destruction Midnight had promised would come… No. She had to shake those thoughts from her head. They had come so far now, they had lost too much, she couldn’t afford to lose sight of the future.

She opened her mouth to say something, but Brambleclaw suddenly tensed and burst forward. “Come on!”

Without thinking, she ran after him. Crowpaw had burst off in a sprint, weaving through a rabbit track, Tawnypelt and Stormfur close behind. Squirrelpaw’s heart leapt into her mouth. He must have smelt Windclan!

Squirrelpaw put all her strength into running after the group, soon catching up with them as the thought of home stimulated her nerves and muscles. She followed through the track, not pausing as the wet soil caked over her paws. They were so close to the forest. She couldn’t slow down now!

Following the frantic shapes of her friends at the front, Squirrelpaw began to see a weak light shimmer near the end of the tunnel. Sunlight. She bounded towards it like it was the light of Starclan.

Ignoring the gorse spines embedding into her fur, she pounded towards the light, leaping out to see a wide grassy plain stretch out before her. Instantly, the smells of Windclan took over her senses.

They were here! Alleviation, a small victory, sparked in Squirrelpaw’s gut. They had made it back!

She raced to catch up with the others, leaping through heather and tall grass, not stopping for a moment.

As she pounced through a brush of heather, she just about caught Brambleclaw’s yowl. “I smell Windclan warriors!”

Squirrelpaw smelt them too. She had found one.

She digged her paws into the soil to stop herself from colliding with the cat. The tom was small, an apprentice by the look of it, and stood in the centre of a grassy clearing, his thin pelt bristled with rage as he spotted Squirrelpaw. “I knew I smelt intruders!” He hissed, as he slowly advanced on Squirrelpaw.

Squirrelpaw’s eyes widened with shock, then darkened into rage, her claws unsheathing. Was she really going to need to fight this little runt as soon as she got back? After everything she’d gone through. Her pelt spiked with warning as the cat approached, growling.

Between them, a grey shape cut in. Standing a little over the apprentice, Crowpaw stared down.

“Owlkit!” Crowpaw yowled, “Don’t you recognise me?” Squirrelpaw’s face twisted. This pest was a kit?!

Owlkit stared at Crowpaw vaguely, before he snapped. “I’m Owlpaw now!” He hissed indignantly.

Squirrelpaw scoffed to the side. Was it true that all Windclan cats were as snappy as this?

Owlpaw did seem to recognise the tom however, but when Crowpaw tried to explain their travels and how he needed to see Tallstar immediately. Another pair of Windclan cat approached, their eyes also narrow with mistrust as they saw the other clan cats on their territory.

“Get them off our territory now!” A wiry grey tom ordered. Squirrelpaw stared worriedly at the ribs protruding from his thin waist. They looked like they hadn’t eaten in days! Her worry was quickly forgotten though, as the tom, Webfoot, Crowpaw called him, demanded that they leave!

“They travelled with me.” Crowpaw meowed sternly, “I’ll explain it all when I see Tallstar.”

“You’ll explain everything later! We thought you were dead.” The tone of Webfoot’s voice didn’t sound happy that the thought was proven false. “Now, get them out of here! They don’t belong here!”

Squirrelpaw’s fury raged inside of her, the fool wasn’t even giving Crowpaw a chance to defend himself! She saw Crowpaw’s tail lash in frustration and she couldn’t stop herself from stepping forward! After everything she’d seen, she wasn’t afraid of some malnourished grump.

But Brambleclaw quickly stepped forward, his head dipping respectfully to the glaring warrior. “Of course, we’ll leave.” A stern but pleading look crossed over to Squirrelpaw. Please keep your cool. It seemed to beg.

Squirrelpaw sighed and turned away, “We need to return to our own clans anyway.” She muttered, trying to hold back her hiss.

“Then hurry up!” Webfoot growled, his unkind eyes latched onto Crowpaw. “Come on then, I’ll take you to Tallstar. I’m sure he’ll love hearing whatever you have to say.” The cat said, his stare burning unkindly on the dark apprentice.

Squirrelpaw gaped. This was the welcome Crowpaw got, after everything he’d done for his clan?! Her heart surged to protect her friend, but she paused as she saw Crowpaw take one reserved step forward. A thought that made everything suddenly grow cold.

This was it.

After more than a moon of bonding, befriending and loving this tom, this was where they had to separate. This was where things went back to normal. She watched as Crowpaw continued to speak to Webfoot about the clans, wondering, maybe pleading, that the thought of this was as heartbreaking to him as it was for her.

He didn’t look her way.

Squirrelpaw felt her own fur freeze as reality came over her in a cruel tide. This really was the end. No more walking and talking by Crowpaw’s side. No more nights curled next to him, their warmth aiding each other. No more of their friendship being something they could hide.

Would their friendship even be allowed to carry on?

The molly stared hopelessly after the tom. She could still hear when she had first called him her friend. She could feel his care for her when he hugged her. Where had the time gone since then? Everything had been pulled away from her like an owl stealing a kit from their mother’s paws.

She was just expected to forget all of this.

She didn’t want to forget. She couldn’t forget any of this.

She couldn’t just treat Crowpaw like he was some enemy.

She…

He was her…

Crowpaw looked back, but it wasn’t just at her. His eyes were shallow with thought, a hard line on his muzzle. “Can I say goodbye to my friends first?”

Goodbye…

Why did that word sound so harsh?

“Friends?” A brown Windclan tom meowed, aghast, “Does you loyalty lie with other clans now?” He spat poisonously.

Crowpaw gave the tom a level stare, but his paws clearly trembled in a fight to remain sheathed. “No. But we’ve travelled together for more than a moon.”

Exactly. And so much had changed in that time.

The Windclan cats did not look pleased by his answer, but they kept quiet.

Time seemed to slow down for Squirrelpaw as she watched Crowpaw break the space between him and their friends. His eyes were still thin and hollow, but his touch was tender as her rubbed affectionately between Tawnypelt and Stormfur. Somewhere, Squirrelpaw wished he could move slower.

Each one of his movements was like a drop of rain being swallowed by a voracious lake. Soon the water would spill and Squirrelpaw would be carried away in the flood.

When he stood before Brambleclaw, Crowpaw didn’t even seem to consider their history as he pressed his muzzle against the Warrior’s pelt, his eyes closed. Brambleclaw looked sadly down at the apprentice, his tail wrapping over Crowpaw’s back. It gently touched a line of scars that cascaded across the Windclan tom’s side, scars that had long since dried up and were covered by tufts of new fur.

“We must meet again soon,” Brambleclaw purred as Crowpaw pulled away; the younger tom nodded silently. Squirrelpaw’s heart lightened with hope. “At the great rock, like Midnight told us. It might not be easy to convince the leaders that we need to leave the forest. But if we’ve seen the dying warrior…”

“Why don’t we bring the leaders with us?” Squirrelpaw suggested. “They’ll have to believe us if they see the warrior too!”

The others shared a grim look. “I can’t imagine Leopardstar will agree to that.” Stormfur mused.

“Blackstar neither.” Tawnypelt added with a lash of her tail. “There’s no full moon, so there won’t be any truce between the clans.”

“But it’s important!” Squirrelpaw insisted. Surely the clans could put aside their nonsense when their own lives depended on it.

“It’s worth a try.” Brambleclaw decided. Squirrelpaw flashed him a gracious beam. “Squirrelpaw’s right. That might be the best way to share the news.”

“Okay.” Crowpaw monotoned, “We’ll meet at Fourtrees tomorrow night. With or without our leaders.”

“You can’t meet at Fourtrees!” Squirrelpaw groaned as she turned back to the impatient scowl of Webfoot, then his words caught her like prey. “There’s nothing left of it!”

A terrifying silence took hold of the journeying cats. Squirrelpaw’s entire bloodstream turned to dark ice.

“What do you mean?” Tawnypelt took a heavy step towards the Windclan cat.

Webfoot’s glare darkened, trouble edging into his face. “The clans watched the Twolegs destroy it moonrises ago, when we arrived at the Gathering. The Twolegs and their monsters ripped the trees from their roots!”

Images ripped across Squirrelpaw, the trees she had sat by so many times torn apart like they were just blades of grass. Midnight was right, destruction was on the clan’s path, and they needed to get away quickly!

“Go see it for yourselves, if you’re mouse-brained enough!” Webfoot meowed nastily. His glare twisted back to his returned clanmate. “Are you done?”

“Almost.” Crowpaw mewed, he too looked despaired by the news. They all were. Squirrelpaw’s mind was in a frantic push and shove. Her loyalty screaming at her to find her family as soon as possible, but something deeper keeping her rooted where she stood. “I still think we should meet there, even if the trees are gone.”

That sounded fine. Squirrelpaw certainly wouldn’t argue. The other’s also shared an agreed mrrow.

Crowpaw nodded once, then slowly his eyes were on Squirrelpaw.

The two friends looked at each other, silently. A wounded sensation came over the Thunderclan molly. She was so used to seeing those eyes on a morning, full of life and joy. Now they were distant and dryly grazing her. Had he also realised what this meant for their friendship?

Even if they met again tomorrow, it wouldn’t be any cause for joy.

Those times were over, Squirrelpaw realised, sadness filling her. Reality truly was pulling them back into place.

This moment was the last chance they would have to act like real friends.

Squirrelpaw braced herself to remember it. She stepped forward, ready for whatever Crowpaw had planned. The beautiful blue eyes looked at her tensely, his neck fur prickling a little, but the dark tom approached her.

Squirrelpaw offered him a smile, ready to embrace him.

The side of his muzzle lingered against hers.

In half a second it was breaking away.

In the next half a second, Squirrelpaw didn’t have any control of herself. A brief touch, a passive brush, that was going to be their farewell. She thought of all those moments he had been by her side, laughing, crying, being her closest partner every step of the journey. She thought of the devastated state she had seen him in for days, and how after this he would be left alone like that.

He would be left alone with that empty look still plastered on him.

That would be their goodbye.

This would be the moment she thought of whenever she saw him.

Empty. Alone.

No.

He wasn’t alone. He wouldn’t be now. Squirrelpaw still had that much power.

She hadn’t realised what she’d done until her paws were wrapped tenderly around his neck. She breathed him in, trying to hold onto all of him, as her nose pressed into the crook of his neck. She could just imagine how the others were looking at her, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about their unfair rules. Crowpaw was he friend, that would never change. “Take care of yourself.” She mewed into his ear, beginning to nuzzle into his neck fur.

Then she noticed how stiff Crowpaw was in her grasp, how his paws had slid over her forelegs, gently pushing them off of him. The shock that paralysed Squirrelpaw made her let herself effortlessly uncurl from him. “Squirrelpaw,” A dry voice said, “You need to go back to Thunderclan, okay?”

It wasn’t a question. It was a goodbye.

Once her paws had weakly found the ground again, she stared up wordlessly at her friend, her eyes wide with dreaded disbelief. Her heart truly broke when she saw that empty stare again. The light in the blue was gone, overtaken by a cold, misanthropic aridity. He meowed a quiet, “Good luck,” to them all, and then all Squirrelpaw saw was the dark shape of his back until he had finally disappeared over the hills.

He was gone now.

He hadn’t even paused once to look back.

Squirrelpaw didn’t even feel reality’s claws on her neck anymore.

It had been replaced by true, heartbroken horror.

Squirrelpaw didn’t stop staring until Brambleclaw nudged her. She softly looked at his sympathetic gaze, her mouth still frozen open. “Let’s go.” He mewed.

Quietly, Squirrelpaw obeyed. Her eyes trailed over to the hills again, but they were barren and cold in the air. The grass swayed gently in the growing breeze. A memory came back of tall grass; of her and Crowpaw entangled, pinning each other, laughing, so happily.

The breeze came over Squirrelpaw again, biting and cruel as freezing loss settled itself in her heart.

…

Merry Christmas everyone! Thank you all for filling this year with so much pride and joy for this story! I hope you all have a wonderful new year! Keep safe! (sorry for the angst)

[kettlequills]

prisoner of the skein 3

A03. TW: Morning After, post rough non-explicit sex. Consensual kink, biting, injury, some suicidal ideation, spiders, force-feeding, possessiveness and control, and unhealthy relationships, minors dni. FDB! Laat/LDB! Miraak: a morning in Whiterun.

Miraak woke with a groan. His body was a giant bruise. Sharp pain had him pressing his back flat into the furs before he got too adventurous about moving. Breezehome was dark and still, though Miraak could hear distantly the sounds of another busy spring day in Whiterun through the wooden walls. His silencing spells must have expired and jolted him from his rest, short though his gritty eyes told him it had been.

“Laataaz?” Miraak called weakly. He could not see the First Dragonborn lurking nearby, but that did not mean they weren’t there. It was unlike them to leave him if he was injured, even – especially – when they were the one who had done it.

His voice was raspy and his throat felt shredded. He remembered fragments of their activities, mostly overshadowed by the intensity of the sensations and how close he’d been to repeatedly passing out, but he didn’t remember screaming that much. Or whatever Laataaz had done to him was the sort of thing that felt like an excellent idea at the time, and when morning came, the consequences on his mortal body swiftly corrected the illusion. Well, until Laataaz looked at him that certain way again, all power and command and strength, and Miraak’s better judgement folded like a house of cards to kneel worshipfully at their feet.

With a crumpling sigh, the darkness stepped forward until it resolved into Laataaz, dim, dusty, robed thickly in cobwebs and expression hidden beneath their mournful mask. Miraak’s flicker at relief at the proof they had not left him alone in his vulnerability made his smile when he saw them bright, and Laataaz’s blurry shape wavered towards him like a moth craving the sun.

The bed dimpled under their heavy frame when they sat beside him, and his face turned towards the warmth of their thigh like a comet in orbit. He already knew to breathe through his mouth; no matter how much they washed, Laataaz’s perfume was one of dust, decay, and the strange, foul scent of poison. No matter how much he … felt for them, it was not a pleasant one.

He heard the soft clink of them working off their ancient gauntlets, then their bare hand placed in his hair. Too many fingers smoothed through it, untangling the knots that gritted there with the utmost delicacy. The strands almost seemed to pull loose without their touching them at all, and he shivered as he felt soft brushes against his ear that could have been hair dampened by sweat, or close clinging cobwebs feathered free of Laataaz’s sleeves.

“Can you walk?” Laataaz asked him, and though they spoke in no louder than a whisper Miraak heard the reverberations of their power in their Voice.

"I don't think so," he said. “I certainly don’t want to.”

"Poor dragon-fly," they sighed. They were very careful with how they touched him, using only the pads of their fingers in the lightest of caresses. It was a little ticklish, like the tiny feet of insects on his skin. It made the bruises they had left ache sweetly, and Miraak closed his eyes in longing. "You will have to travel today."

Miraak thought about it and then swore. Yes, he had promised to make another pilgrimage up to High Hrothgar. They’d been waiting for the weather to turn, but Balgruuf had begun to get a little impatient as Miraak’s craving for books read him out of house and hall, and his gentle reminders had become increasingly frequent. So Miraak had told Lydia to get ready, and they were set to leave that afternoon.

“What time is it?”

Laataaz ran their fingertips over the lit nerves of his neck, fascinated, as always, by the way the apple of his throat bobbed in a swallow. It was red and ripe from a sucked kiss and stung with the faint itchiness of venom that had escaped their cleaning efforts.

“Do I have time?” he pressed, and they nodded a slow assurance.

Miraak cursed himself for his indulgence in agreeing to have sex last night. Laataaz was never gentle (and when they were, it was worse) and had been loudly clear about their desire to push him far. It had been thrilling, at the time, as Miraak wondered with the vague excitement of sub-drop whether they were actually planning to kill him, or whether it might simply be a side-effect of whatever torturous pleasure brewing behind their onyx-chip eyes. He’d known they’d needed to leave the next day. And yet.

"Could you bring me some potions?" he asked, feeling very sorry for himself indeed and certainly not in a hurry to face Lydia’s judgemental gaze. Oh, she’d never said a word about this bad habit of Miraak’s, but a simple stern look was enough to redden his cheeks.

"Why not?" Laataaz murmured, and rose slowly, so the movement did not jostle him. They left their gauntlet by his side. Putting his hand under the blanket, Miraak edged it away from himself until the empty fingerholes punching through the gauntlet, where Laataaz’s knuckles should have been, stopped staring at him soullessly like dilapidated windows.

While they were gone, Miraak cast healing spells on himself. Even his magicka felt tired, and Miraak felt the tips of his ears warming as he recalled Laataaz commanding him to exert his magic to keep himself conscious through increasing overwhelm until he was so full, so flooded with it, that every nerve in his body thrummed gold and sharp. When they sunk their teeth into him then, it felt like their poison burned his very soul and he’d howled until he’d tasted iron. How they’d smiled with his blood running down their lips, and bit down harder.

Miraak wanted more than anything to feel it again.

Laataaz was worth any amount of Lydia’s stern looks. Who else could surprise him so consistently, teach him the things his body was capable of, time after time? It was like Laataaz had a secret map to the limits a Dragonborn’s body could reach.

Some souls do not take to the eating lightly, they told him when he dared to ask once, and he hadn’t known enough of what to do with that to bring it up afterwards.

Miraak bundled the blankets around his hips and sat up, cautiously. He flexed his magic and his wrists and hoped he’d remembered to pay the cart-driver in advance. He heard Laataaz’s heavy step before he saw them, and he was smiling again as they came in the door.

Pausing there, hands full of bottles and more dangling from threads of web, Laataaz looked at him for a long moment. They had to squint to make him out, he could tell from the way their body bent forward, the searching sadness of the mask’s face hiding their narrowed, light-stung eyes. They still hadn’t really recovered their vision, struggling to see in any-place brighter than candlelit caves, and Miraak suspected that whatever distance vision they once might have had was gone.

“Over here, and take that mask off,” he said, “Why are you in all that anyway? I thought you liked the other clothes I got you. You have worn them before.”

It came out a little more insecure than Miraak wanted it to, and Laataaz only tilted their head in response.

They approached the end of the bed and let their arms fall open so the bottles rolled free there, tussling with Miraak’s feet among the blankets. The slits of their mask never leaving his eyes, they lifted one hand and slowly, deliberately, unmasked themselves.

Miraak felt himself hold his breath, like he did every time, when the fabric of the hood slipped away down the slope of the horns and bared them to him.

Uncovered, Laataaz blinked rapidly, their eyes stinging with tears even with no candles lit. He ignored the scurrying speck of a spider hiding itself hurriedly under their collar and drank in the sight of them. Their face was taut with scars, their skin was ashen, and their eyes glittered with a cold violet darkness that reminded him of the frigid gaps between the stars. They had one brown eye left among the six on their face, their middle left. It was solemn in the dimness. The other four, two below, two above, normally kept closed as simply shadows, delicate bumps Miraak would feel if he traced over their scarred face. There were still clumps of hair nestled around the spearing wattle of the horns that ridged from their skull, but it was all so thickly matted with cobwebs that it seemed even unmasked they wore a grey veil between them and the world.

He leant forward to grab one of the bottles, but Laataaz stopped him with a small gesture. Instead, they moved to his side and with one hand cupped the back of his head, the other taking a bottle of healing potion from the bed, all without looking away from him. They popped the cork with their teeth and Miraak felt himself bite his tongue at the look of their enigmatic gaze.

“I can drink it myself,” he said in something even smaller than a whisper. A whimper, possibly, though Miraak would rather die than admit it.

Laataaz’s eyes narrowed, and their hold on the nape of his neck brushed to encircle his jaw instead. Firmly in place, Miraak hissed a breath that Laataaz leant forward to draw into their own lungs.

With that stolen breath, they agreed, “It would be a shame to lose this.” Their thumb dug into the knot of his jaw muscle and Miraak gulped around a moan.

Meaning clear, Laataaz held the cool glass of the bottle against his lips and encouraged his head to fall limply against their other hand. Miraak’s eyelids fluttered halfway shut as he yielded to it. His hands clenched and then smoothed in the blanket, rhythmically, like they belonged to someone else.

Staring up at them through his eyelashes as Laataaz fed him the potions, tipping them so he had to swallow quickly or choke, he lost himself in the searing galaxies of red, violet, black and brown of their eyes. He could see a droplet of welling venom at the corner of their parted lips, knew there must be more pooled in their mouth, for Miraak, from the picture he made as he obeyed them, and felt his own dry out. He wanted the burn of their kiss so badly he wanted to weep.

When the potion was gone, the last of it warming through his body, they tilted their head back to the potion bottles covering the bed as if to ask if he wanted more. He shook his head, then pressed the back of his hand against his eyes, struggling not to cry.

It was such a quintessentially Laataaz way to fulfil his request that it made him feel strange and dizzy, distant, like the soft cotton of their power had come over him and peeled him back to the creature Laataaz could always find in him, desperate, sensitive, longing. But it was not that which overwhelmed him, no, it was the way they knew exactly how far to tip the bottle so he could keep up, how patiently they watched him, the caution in how their hand left his hair without pulling out a single feather-fine strand on their ancient edges. It was odd look on their face, vaguely pained in a stunted echo of something he could only call care.

Miraak did not know why it brought tears to his eyes to see the ancient Dragon Priest attempt it, but he swallowed them manfully, and cleared his throat when Laataaz exhaled a sharp breath.

Pride forbade him to show them his face when they settled down on the bed next to him, soft and solid and warm where he was small and shaky. They reached out, and when Miraak’s stiff body only twisted away from them with unbearable embarrassment, Laataaz’s spine softened and they chased him with their own. Nuzzling their forehead into the crook of his neck, they surely parted their mouth, because Miraak felt venom drip sparks against the edge of his collarbone.

He gasped, and pinpointed the moment they absorbed the sound by the strange rumble of their chest. Their lips dragged in long, ragged, open-mouthed kisses that smeared searing fresh venom over his reddening skin. It burned like tingling fire-ants under the flesh, and he writhed, eyes screwed shut in the discomfort-near-pain that he prayed would never become easier to bear.

“No, Laataaz,” Miraak managed to get out, “No – we have to leave today, and neither of us will want to stop.”

Laataaz withdrew, but not far, an unreadable look in their eyes. Their arms curled round him and their veils kissed his cheek as they rested the side of their head against his own, pressing into him part of their weight. He closed his eyes and tentatively placed his hands over their shoulders. Laataaz tensed, and he held his breath. They exhaled in a silent puff of air. Very slightly, they leant into his touch, in tacit permission.

Feeling like he was petting a wild creature, Miraak stroked curiously, but carefully, along the lines of their neck, the tangle of the webs, the horns. After a moment, Laataaz pushed into him like an affectionate cat, and he squeezed the bony tips of the crest of horns. They were smoother than they looked, and felt neither cold, nor warm, like the tusks of mammoths. The leathery webbing between them was tough but flexible. He felt small spiders dance around his hands and kept his movements slow, not wanting to hurt any of them or provoke them to bite him.

Miraak still wasn’t sure to what extent Laataaz was connected to the spiders that lived on, and sometimes, he thought, in, their body. It was better, he felt, to err on the side of caution. Just in case, there was antivenom in the dresser table. He had learnt that lesson very quickly.

He had just begun to relax, thinking pleasantly of how nice it felt to have their warmth against him, the soothing burn of the venom on his neck, when they spoke. Still cheek-to-cheek, their voice made his tongue vibrate distractingly in his mouth.

“You should leave me here.”

“Leave you?” Miraak pulled back to look at them. They went unwillingly, shoulders stiff under his hands, and did not meet his gaze. “Why would I do that?”

“Your allies will not hearten to see me,” Laataaz said, quiet as web in the wind, “You will lose their loyalty if they know you resist consuming my soul.”

“The Greybeards won’t say anything, and I certainly don’t care if they do,” Miraak told them firmly.

He grasped their chin, thinking to redirect their eyes to meet his to reinforce his point, but their grip leapt to his wrist. They squeezed his wrist, too tight to be playful – painful enough to warn. All six of their eyes opened and stared at him, dared him. The intensity of the sight too much, Miraak let them go. Their face glittered like it was set with jewels with all six eyes open, chasms to the void where the spidersnare waited, and Miraak found himself focusing on the brown eye he secretly thought of as their human eye to avoid looking away entirely. He was not foolish – but he would not be weak either.

“Paarthurnax and his monks yet believe me dead, and none will be pleased to be corrected. My bloody hands are traitor to all they stand for. Friend he was once, but I do not believe Paarthurnax, of all Dov, mourned my fate.”

“You don’t know that,” Miraak insisted. Laataaz’s glimmering eyes drew him in, in, until he almost forgot to watch their mouth, curving in a bitter smile lips wet with poison.

“I would also kill them for their disrespect of you,” Laataaz added.

“They do listen to me,” Miraak pointed out, feeling compelled to defend, if nothing else, himself. “Most of the time. They called me Ysmir.”

Laataaz’s smile grew more secretive, more genuine. Four of their eyes closed, and Miraak’s lungs unclenched. “Yet,” they murmured, “I have tasted your Voice.”

“Are you calling me weak?!”

“No,” punitively, they squeezed his wrist, as if to forbid the very notion, “inexperienced. They chain you with rules that were never made for your dovahsil. You will be strong in spite of them, hunter of Al-Du-In. But if I hear them chastise you for your might when by right they should be at your knee, not even blood will remain to mark their fate.”

Miraak’s lips pursed into an unhappy line. “Will… you be safe while I am gone?”

“I will not kill the ones you love,” Laataaz promised, and now they were definitely amused, “unless their death wins great reward. My Prince lingers here, I would see her work.”

Miraak scowled at the rumpled blankets. “Why are you still loyal to her after this? You’re free now. You don’t have a Prince anymore.”

“For now,” Laataaz agreed. They tilted their head, catching his attention, and asked him then in a voice that could have been, if it was anyone else, tender. “Could you kill me, little fly?”

“No,” said Miraak at once, aghast, then rethought and added, defensively, “I could. But I wouldn’t!”

Laataaz breathed out a laugh at his pride. “Then if you will not, one day I will belong to my Prince again.”

Their grip loosened enough for Miraak to pull his wrist free, but he left his hand on theirs. He wanted to hold, to grab on, to reach into Laataaz and shake the part of them that did not believe, for all their words, that Miraak could protect them from the Princes that wished to use them. But he forced himself to leave his hand lax. Laataaz observed the movement, then sighed, silently. Their humour drained, left them with a sudden great weariness, as if they felt, all at once, every hour of their tremendous age.

“I have lived for a long time, against my will,” Laataaz told him as heavy as they were sincere, “All paths lead back to the Webspinner.”

“Not this one,” Miraak insisted, and he couldn’t resist grabbing their hand then, feeling the bones beneath it, the muscle, the surprise that nearly jerked it free, their wide eyes. “This one stays with me.”

Surging towards him, Laataaz kissed him. It was more a bite than a kiss, more punch than bite, and barely had he choked on the venom that flooded his mouth then they had withdrawn, forehead pressed fiercely to his.

Like a love confession, Laataaz whispered, “I pray my soul dies in yours, I pray you kill me.” Their touch roved over his body, digging in nails, had Miraak fighting not to hiss. “I would like to think of nourishing you. How close we would be, in the same chest, trapped no longer by these… mortal forms.”

Impossibly, Laataaz pushed even closer into him, their veils falling around his face, their bodies, and Miraak bit down on a groan, a plea. His skin was awakened by their touch, their closeness, their desire. The venom he had inadvertently swallowed was working on his empty stomach, nausea clenching in the pit of embers there.

“Must we fight?” he said, thinking of the look on their face as they tried to care for him, “Is it truly so inevitable that we kill each other? Why do you always talk of death?”

“Why does the spider snare the fly?” Laataaz answered his question with another. “Hunger, of course.”

“There are other ways to learn the shape of a person,” he said, meaning to quote them, but the double-meaning of it with their marks bold on his body wrecked with the aftermath of Laataaz exercising exactly that hunger hit him, and he blushed.

“It is what I am,” Laataaz said, and soothed the red marks they’d scratched with cool lines of silk. “I am Laataaz, executioner, soul eater. We did not have a word for Dragonborn when I walked Nirn. I understood only that I hungered, and when I struck something, it stayed down. I learnt the lust of inevitability. Is it the end, that gives us our meaning, I wondered, but I did not know. All I knew was no food would sate me. My hunger is as much a part of me as your questioning mind.”

Laataaz tilted their lips against his, and all six eyes opened to watch his face. Greedy for Miraak, and he could not pretend their attention did not make him preen, warm, thirst for the pain of their kiss. With how sweetly they called him to endure the agony of their poisonous touch, their sadism, how could he pretend that anything else ever mattered?

“We are dragons, sweet little fly. We desire, or we die.”

---

And so it was Miraak turned up at the stables, very late, pink-cheeked, and limping. Lydia was already waiting, arms crossed over her sturdy chest, perpetually-foul expression not relenting in the least when a guilty Miraak skid to a stop next to her with a spray of pebbles. There it was, the look.

Miraak wilted.

“Where is he?” Lydia said, “That creepy fellow. We need to leave, my Thane.”

“Oh,” said Miraak. His shaking arms gave out and he dropped his bag with a thunderous thud. Lydia eyed it suspiciously and he fought the urge to rub the back of his neck. “Laat’s not coming.”

Lydia reflected on this, hefting Miraak’s heavy bag one-handed and threw it up on the back of the cart. There was no sign of the driver, but the horse was already hitched, grazing calmly at the tuft of weeds lining the cobblestones.

Miraak skirted the horse with a shudder. These burly-shouldered beasts always looked at him with malice in their eyes. Lydia had tried to get him to learn to ride, but Miraak wasn’t that stupid. Give him a good chaurus any day.

“It will be good to not have to fight everything from here to Ivarstead,” said Lydia, “we will make better time. I did tell Farkas we were leaving this morning. …All of us.”

She extended a hand to help him into the back of the cart, and yanked him up bodily when he took it. Miraak rubbed his burning shoulder and tugged his hood down further over his face. The sun was fierce. He glanced back at Whiterun, a little regretful, imagining Laataaz alone in Breezehome. There was going to be so many spiders in his house when he got back.

“Well,” said Miraak, weakly, “… He’s a Companion, he’ll be fine.”

[madsmikkelsenschesthair]

Blood of the Dragon ch. 8

Summary: Freyja meets the Mad Grandfather and has a strange but prophetic dream.

A/n: yaaaallll I am so sooo sorry but our dear Danny won’t be in this story. I will be using her to make my aesthetics so technically y’all are kinda her? But not really her HER? Get it? No? Me neither! Enjoy! Remember to send me a message for comments, questions, and concerns. Like I said before, Keep it nice.

Warnings: insults, uncomfortable situations, mad Grandfather, one sad papa Rhaegar, fluff, cursing, violence, angst, a hint of death of character

“Look sister! That’s Dragonstone” Little Robb pointed excitedly towards the grey castle that nearly stood on the edge of a cliff. Freyja couldn’t believe it! She had never seen such a big castle in all her life. According to her books and her father, Dragonstone was where her family first settled when they fled Old Valyria. Hundreds of generations have lived in that very same castle and gave birth to new generations and now here she was! This was far too exciting! Freyja could only imagine how big and beautiful Kingslanding was. She couldn’t hardly contain herself her body was jittery and she was grinning from ear to ear until she could no longer feel her face. Little Robb coughed into his cloak breaking Freyja out of her daze, it had been getting chillier these past few weeks and her little brother seemed weaker than when she first met him. On the other hand, Fenrir was growing fast and strong and his puppy eagerness was gone replaced by the adulthood overcoming him. He was ever so faithful as well always by her side, 

Freyja took off her own cloak, red with black fur trim and gold dragons, and put it around his shoulders. “Go back to your chambers,” she told him, “I think we will be there in an hour or so. Stay warm” The cold wind brushed against her cheeks reminding her to do the same, Freyja was far too excited to go back to her own chambers though. Today she will meet her Grandfather Aerys. Her father had not told her much about him or his other brother and she wondered why. Anytime Freyja asked about them the conversation was immediately changed to another topic or her parents would ask her about her day. Freyja kept a mental note of that for later. 

Little Robb stopped midway to the stairs that lead below deck and stared at her, “Are you coming? You’ll get sick too” Freyja kept her eyes on Dragonstone, she could feel magic swarming in her blood as they grew closer. This would be their first and last stop before they left for Kingslanding. She looked down to her wolf, “Come on, Fen” and the pair followed her little brother below deck.

After sailing for so many weeks, the Targaryen fleet stopped and the family got back on the little boats and sailed to the shore. Freyja had no problem stepping off the boat and getting her boots and dress a little wet but her family looked to be in anguish to have their fine clothes soiled. She was used to it after so many years of fishing with her boys. Looking at it now, Dragonstone castle was bigger that it loomed over them. The closer they walked to the entrance the more nervous she got. Freyja saw a group of people waiting for them at the top of the grey steps all of them wearing dark clothes. Her hand closed around the Thor’s Mjolnir on her neck homesickness tightening her stomach. She followed her father and his guards close behind enclosing them, protecting them. The leader of the group that was waiting for them was a short man, an imp, with curly dark hair and a beard and he smiled at her.

“Welcome home Your Grace!” he said his smile growing wider. 

Her King Father’s face broke into a grin, “Lord Tyrion, such a pleasant surprise we thought you would be back in Kingslanding”

“There is no ‘we’ my love” Cersei intervened, her voice cold, “what are you doing here? You should be helping father at the Red Keep”

Freyja was surprised by how much malice there was in her voice towards the little man but he didn’t seem so phased, he only smiled sweetly at her.

“Good to see you too, sweet sister,” Lord Tyrion answered, “but I couldn’t wait to see my new niece” Freyja smiled shyly at her new uncle and she stepped forward. “Look at you!” he gushed “Pure Valyrian beauty! You look just like your father, Princess Y/n” He took her hand and gingerly placed a kiss on top.

She flinched at her new name and her smile almost disappeared but Freyja managed to compose herself after all Tyrion seemed like such a kind man, “Thank you, Uncle Tyrion. It is very nice to meet you and I can’t wait to meet my grandfather”

The grownups gave each other wary looks. Even Uncle Tyrion’s smile faded, “Speaking of,” he turned to Rhaegar, “Your father wishes to speak to you, Your Grace even you Cersei. In the meantime, I will help the children settle and get to know my new niece”

Her parents wasted no time and hurried up the steps with Uncle Jaime and a group of knights following. Freyja watched them, dumbfounded. What were they hiding from her? Why did everyone grow quiet when her grandfather was mentioned? She would have to ask her Uncle these questions.

The interior of Dragonstone was as breathtaking as it was outside. The was seemed to be made of some rare dark stone, the torches on the wall gave it a hint of red golden streaks. That wasn’t all; carvings, drawings, and statues of dragons stood on almost every corner and wall. It truly lived up to its’ name. It was also surprisingly warm, so warm that Freyja took off her cloak. 

“I can’t believe I’m really here,” she said smiling her eyes still wandering up and down the walls and ceiling. “The home of my ancestors” 

Tyrion watched her facial expressions, how happy she looked and even the sparkle in her eyes. And there was something else but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. All he knew was that he was glad the rightful heir to the throne was home Even with her Valyrian looks, Y/n looked Viking or at least a small one in the making. Still, she carried the heavy and dreadful burden of homesickness. Tyrion could see it. 

A woman came in making Freyja lookup. She had on a plain grey dress along with the same colored wimp on her head covering her hair. Little Rob instantly lit up when he saw her. “Ah, dear Septa please take my nephew to his room,” Tyrion said and the woman curtsied. The pair left them alone. He smiled at his niece. “Come, you and I have much to talk about dear Niece. Tell me about Kattegat, your home” 

Freyja’s throat began to close, she followed her uncle down a long corridor it took a bit for her to find her words. “My home”, she began to say slowly, “is very beautiful. There is so much green everywhere and it rains a lot. During the winter it gets really cold but I love it”

“It does sound like paradise” Uncle Tyrion commented with a smile, “I hear you worship different gods”

“We do! We worship Odin, Frigg, Thor, Baldur, Loki, Freyja” her eyes had that sparkle again, “I was born during the wrath of Thor and that’s why I’m Thorsdottir”

Tyrion chuckled. “And you were named Freyja after your mother. It was a nickname Ragnar Lothbrok gave your mother”

Freyja’s smile faded. She missed her family so much and prayed to the Gods Ragnar was safe wherever he was. Uncle Tyrion led her and her wolf to a room that was more elegant than the one she had on the ship. Like the rest of the castle, there were beautiful soaring dragons on the walls and ceiling but in the middle of the ceiling, there was a painting of a man with short pale hair and a beard his gaze hard and intimidating. By his side, two beautiful women; one feminine and the other wearing armor. Both of them with the same pale hair and violet eyes as the man. 

“Who’s that?” 

Tyrion followed her eyes, “Ah! That my sweet niece is Aegon the Conqueror and his sister-wives Visenya and Rhaenys”

“Conqueror?” she said full of wonder and curiosity.

“Yes, he is Aegon the Conqueror. Many Targaryens were named after him” Tyrion explained as he poured himself a cup of wine, “Many of them not as brave or sane as him though”

The painting was beautiful but her favorite part of the room was the window. She could see the dark ocean from here and smell the sea salt that was stronger than any pungent smell. Freyja was about to open the window when a knock on the door brought their attention. Uncle Tyrion opened the door to find a knight.

“Pardoned me Your Grace but your grandfather has asked to see you,” he said.

There was that look on her uncle’s face again and now Freyja knew that this meeting with her grandfather was not going to end very well. How she wished Bjorn was here to protect her. Even Ragnar. Suddenly the halls of Dragonstone were no longer welcoming and Freyja wished to be anywhere else but here. The whole way to her grandfather’s sickroom, they were quiet not making the situation any better. Finally, they reached two heavy double doors guarded by two more knights. Before they could go in, Tyrion turned to Freyja. 

“Be careful, sweet niece, Your Grandfather is not right in the head.” And the guards opened the door before she could even open her mouth. They were all waiting for them, Father, Stepmother, Uncle Jaime, and...grandfather. He was laying in a large bed with many pillows to keep him propped up, his pale white hair long and matted, lilac eyes sickly and frail or at least what she thought was frail. His nails were longer than hers and the room smelled heavily of illness. Her father motioned her forward. Even the air was uneasy. 

“Father,” King Father said gently, “Y/n is home. This is your granddaughter”

Aerys Targaryen’s eyes studied the girl, “Rhaella? Is that you?” Freyja looked at her father and he gave a dry chuckle. “No father, It’s Y/n. Your grandchild”. Her grandfather’s face molded into a bitter twist. “Come here, girl let me take a look at you”. Freyja gulped and inched her way closer to him. She gasped when he suddenly snatched her wrist gripping it tightly. Aerys’s pulled her closer until she could smell his foul breath. He didn’t say anything only his eyes wandering her face. Freyja’s heart pounded loudly against her chest. The more he stared the angrier he got. There was no illness in those eyes only madness and he was swimming in insanity.

“You smell like the Norse,” he said harshly, “You smell like your bitch mother”

“Father!” Rhaegar hissed and stepmother gasped, Freyja only stared at him dumbfounded. 

“You little wench! Your mother was the one to cause that Rebellion! You are exactly like her. You look like the dragon but you have the stench of a wolf!” Her grandfather roared startling Freyja and everyone else in the room. She then felt a sharp hot sting on her cheek and she fell to the floor from the harsh blow. Stepmother shrieked next she heard the wrestling of men and through watery eyes, Freyja watched her father fight his own. He called for the guards and immediately they busted in holding back the Mad King from hitting her more. Fear shook her entire body. 

“I’ll burn them all!” he screamed, his face red and eyes on fire. “I’ll burn them all starting with you!”

Freyja ignored Uncle Jaime’s strong arms and Stepmother’s desperate cries, she fled from that room as if fleeing from the wrath of Hel. She ran, ran all the way to her room slamming the door behind her. Freyja collapsed on to her bed sobbing inconsolably. No one in her life had hit her. Ever. Everyone had always treated her kindly, her home was full of love and laughter and here she didn’t have that. She missed her Bear, Kraka, Lagertha, Athelstan, her boys. Everyone! It wasn’t fair that these people had to take her away from her family! 

“Freyja? It’s us, Uncle Jaime and Uncle Tyrion, can we come in?” 

She didn’t wipe away her tears or respond. Freyja was far too heartbroken. Her uncles came in anyway. 

“I want to go home!” she wailed “I want my family! I miss my bear!”

Uncle Jaime sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing her back. “Don’t cry, little Freyja. Your grandfather will not burn anyone” She sat up still sobbing. Jaime put her head against his chest, letting the tears run down his armor. 

“Hey, hey now,” Uncle Tyrion said, his voice soft and kind “Let’s get your mind of that, hm? Tell me about your family, about Bjorn and Ragnar”

“They would have killed that monster!”

Jaime shot his little brother a look and Tyrion’s eyes went wide. “Alright let’s not talk about that! Please, tell me about Bjorn. You talk about him a lot” Jaime took out a handkerchief and wiped away her tears.

“His name literally means bear,” Freyja said, she touched her necklace, “I call him bear because he is protective of me. A bit overprotective, really. He loves me a lot. I am like his daughter”

“Are you?”

“Yes, and he is like my father” Talking about Bjorn made tears swell in her eyes again. “I really, really, really want to go home. I miss my family”

Uncle Jaime got on one knee taking her hands in his, “I understand, little one but I cannot take you home. We don’t have that power”

“But we can speak to your father,” Uncle Tyrion said, “we can tell him how you feel. In the meantime, you have us to come to for anything else”

Freyja thanked them with all her heart. Stepmother came in after her face was back to its normal bright self and she was laughing at a funny story her Uncle Tyrion was telling. Her stepmother comforted and told her she loved her but her King Father did not come in to talk to her. It stung her. Such coldness from a man who had not seen her once, nonetheless this being the first time as a family. Her supper and dinner were brought to her room and she spent most of her time avoiding her father as much as he had been avoiding her. Freyja spent her time with the rest of her new family, She played with Little Rob, had tea with her stepmother, took a long walk on the shores with Uncle Tyrion and Uncle Jaime. Still, Freyja couldn’t help but have a tiny bit of hope that her King Father would speak to her. 

Thunder roared through the skies, dark clouds covered the blue sky and sun. Waves crashed against the cliffs dangerously. Every time lightning struck, Freyja was seen walking through the corridors of Dragonstone. The dragons on the walls and their statues looked more terrifying than they did during the day. Yet Freyja was not scared, she could hear her people’s music through the thunder. In between those flashes, she saw the familiar woods of home or at least she thought was home.

“How the little piglets' would grunt if they knew how the old boar suffered?” A voice boomed. He sounded familiar but Freyja couldn’t name the owner of the voice. 

A heavy door with the Targaryen sigil opened by itself, creaking. Freyja grabbed a torch from the wall and entered.

“It gladdens me to know that Odin prepares for a feast. Soon I shall be drinking ale from curved horns. This hero that comes into Valhalla does not lament his death!”

Freyja walked down the stone steps, the smell of humidity hung heavy through the air. Thor’s wrath pounding the sky. As she walked, the images of home came flashing back. Somewhere an eagle screeched. The sky was too cloudy for her to see where it was. Freyja followed several more flights of steps until she stumbled on a trap door. She almost missed it through the very dirty floor. Freyja struggled to open it and the door hit the floor with a loud clang. It was very dark down there, she grabbed the torch and squinted to see.

“I shall not enter Odin's hall with fear. There I shall wait for my sons to join me.”

Freyja finally found felt a wooden step and she went into the darkness, careful not to fall. Another image. This time she saw a cage hanging from a tree, sturdy enough to hold a man. Something dreadful will happen here. The closer she got to it the more afraid she was and the more her heart dropped.

“And when they do, I will bask in their tales of triumph. The Aesir will welcome me!”

When she reached the bottom, Freyja was shocked when she came face to face with rows and rows of eggs. All of them as large as a child's head and all of them came in different colors. Their shells scaley and weathered they almost looked to be made of stone. A thousand years old. Freyja put the torch where it could help her see and she picked up an egg, admiring it. Back home, crows circled above her cawing. She braced herself for what she was about to see. There, surrounded by serpents of all sizes, laid her Ragnar. Dead. In the dungeon, the dragon egg burned into glowed but it did not harm her, boiling until it cracked and a baby dragon with golden eyes screeched at her. With Ragnar, Freyja’s screams of terror and anguish turned to the roars of a dragon.

“My death comes without apology! And I welcome the valkyries to summon me home!”

Freyja lurched forward, cold sweat sticking to her skin and her heart pounding. Fenrir padded to his mistress sniffing her to see if she was alright. The princess stroked her wolf’s fur and she was stunned to see that the window was wide open. Thor pounding his hammer furiously.

@lettersofwrittencollective @mellxander1993 @faeeiiry @blonddnamedhandz @-thatgirloverthere- @wanderlustimagines @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction @colie87 @whatwhyc-c

[stereksecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @gryvon!

Merry Christmas! If this fic seems to end a little abruptly, that's because I had to cut the ending (roughly 3k more words) but when the gifters are revealed, I will add more when posting to my own archiveofourown account. <3

Read on AO3

*****

Cold as Ice

Derek raced past Peter and Laura, kicking up snow and snorting the powdery fluff out of his nose.

Cora snapped her teeth at his flank, making him skid through the snow to the left and nearly plow into a tree. She coughed a laugh and skipped away when he tried to bite her foreleg.

Laura and her wife Clara were ahead, keeping pace with Talia; Laura was eight months pregnant and had only been permitted to run with them on the condition that she kept out of the rough housing that usually accompanied pack runs.

Derek pounced on Cora’s back, using her flank as a springboard to leap onto Nick.

He yelped, all four legs going in different directions as Derek’s considerable bulk flattened him. He twisted enough to dig teeth into Derek’s foreleg, but he didn’t pull back. He whined loudly, high pitched around his mouthful of leg.

Derek growled and bit the scruff of his neck, giving him a hard shake until he let go.  He climbed off him and sat in front of his snout, huffing smugly.

Cora crept up behind Nick, her belly almost touching the snow. Her eyes danced. She lunged and snapped her teeth around his tail.

He yowled and shot straight into the air; his paws actually left the ground as he spun to snap at her.

She danced back.

Nick tackled her, growling and snarling as much as he could. He’d been putting up better fights lately, but he was still the youngest of the four of them, and had never managed to get the upper hand.

Derek watched them wrestling eagerly, pacing back and forth.

His cousin Layla pounced on Cora’s back, only to get knocked aside by Nick. She skidded to Derek’s side. She rolled onto her stomach and whined loudly, annoyed they wouldn’t play with her.

Derek nudged her to her feet and lowered his front legs, keeping his tail in the air. He mouthed at her leg, not quite biting.

She was only fourteen, had only just started joining the older kids in the play fighting instead of tagging along with her parents, so he figured he’d go easy on her.

A few yards away, Peter and his sister Marissa were wrestling while Talia watched. Grant, Marissa’s husband, was chasing Bryan, Derek’s father.

Derek felt a rush of affection for his family and sighed, content.

Layla tackled him, her teeth digging into his shoulder so hard she drew blood. She yelped louder than he did, scrambling back and tripping over her own legs. She whined and crawled toward him on her belly, licking at the wound tentatively.

Derek snorted and nudged her back. The wound healed up on its own within seconds. He wagged his tail at her to let her know he wasn’t upset.

He managed one, halting step toward her when the air became charged. The fur on his back rose; he saw Cora and Nick’s doing the same. He turned in a circle, looking for the cause.

Peter went still, one paw on Grant’s chest, ears tipped forward. His entire body went tense.

Derek’s lip pulled back, baring his fangs. He felt Cora step up behind him, blocking Nick and Layla.

Something popped; the woods filled with the scent of ozone and blood.

A man stood in front of Derek, three feet away. He had blood on his mouth, throat, and left arm. He blinked at Derek but he looked more dazed than afraid. He grinned, baring bloodied teeth, held up two fingers, and rasped, “Hey,” in a voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used in weeks, before collapsing straight down in a dead faint.

Derek growled when Nick tried to creep forward. He bumped him back with his shoulder. He snarled when he tried to go around him again.

Cora whined and nudged Nick behind her, ignoring his irritated huffing and stamping.

Derek stepped forward, ignoring Peter’s warning growl, and bumped his nose against the man’s leg, but he didn’t move. Relaxing slightly, he sniffed. Fresh blood made his nose wrinkle. He shuddered and shifted back to his skin. He checked the man’s throat first, but the blood there was only smeared, most likely from his mouth.

Around him, the family had shifted back, too, and while he could hear them arguing, he wasn’t listening to the particulars.

He turned the man’s chin and checked his teeth—human, no fangs in sight. He moved on to the guy’s left arm, rolling the sleeve up until he found the source of the fresh blood. It was coming from a ragged wound on the tender flesh of his inner arm.

The man started shivering, but didn’t wake.

“Derek, take him to the house,” Talia called.

He looked up.

She was standing in front of Laura and Nick, while Peter and Marissa were blocking Layla and Warren.

“Talia, we can’t!” Peter snapped. “He’s a stranger.”

“He’s hurt.”

“He’s magic!”

Rona stepped closer, inhaling sharply. “Derek, pick him up and take him to a second floor guest room.”

Derek shrugged and scooped him up.

“Mom, the kids,” Marissa blurted anxiously.

Rona looked them over. “Laura, Clara, why don’t you take Layla, Warren, and Nicky out for some hot chocolate and lunch?”

“Grandma!” Nick protested. “I’m nineteen, I’m not a baby-”

“Oh, and I am?” Warren snapped.

“Boys,” Grant intoned.

“Nick, I need you to come with,” Laura said. “I’m too tired to walk around with everyone.” She grimaced and rested a hand on the swell of her stomach. They all knew it was an act, but they were all also mush when it came to the baby.

Nick sighed. “Fine,” he muttered.

“Derek, go take him inside,” Talia said.

“This is stupid. No.” Peter moved to block Derek’s path.

Talia caught him by the scruff of his neck and knocked him to the snow. “Stop that. Derek, now. Go with him, Cora,” she added. Her fangs were already out again, eyes flashing.

Peter snarled.

Rona sighed.

“Just let them fight it out, love,” Bennett said casually.

The air filled with snarls and snapping jaws.

Marissa sighed, too.

Derek shrugged at Cora and headed back to the house. He tried to keep the guy tucked in close to him, to warm him up, but he was worried about hurting his injured arm, too.

“Where’d he come from?” Cora opened the door for him, wiping her feet on the mat automatically.

“Thin air, as far as I can tell.” He wiped his own feet, too.

“I’ll get you some clothes.”

“Him, too, and some towels, if you can, please.”

“Sure.”

Derek chose the guest room furthest from the stairs for the moment. He set the guy on the bed and carefully stripped his wet, stained sweatshirt off. He stepped back; the guy looked pretty beat up.

He appeared badly dehydrated; he had dark circles under sunken eyes, and his lips, beneath the blood, looked chapped.

Derek couldn’t help that while he was unconscious, so he focused on his other problems.

The ragged wound wasn’t alone. All up his forearm were similar wounds in various stages of healing. It looked like someone with blunt teeth had been biting him.

Derek’s gaze snapped up to the guy’s blood stained mouth. “What the hell…”

Cora was approaching, muttering to herself about the laundry; she threw the door open. “Here, get dressed. If he wakes up and finds some naked guy hovering over him, he might freak out.” She’d thrown on sweats and a hoodie already; she had a pile of cloth in her hands.

Derek accepted the shirt and pants she’d brought him. “Could you get a bowl of water or something? And maybe some peroxide?” He pulled the shirt over his head. “If we have any.”

“We have rubbing alcohol from Andrew and Sophie’s kids, will that work?” She set the other things on the bed, next to the guy’s leg. She glanced dubiously at the wound.

“Uh, sure. They used it for the kids’ skinned knees, so it should be fine.”

Cora nodded and left to get it.

Derek used one of the towels she’d brought to dry off the man’s feet; they were bare and bright pink from the cold. He wondered where his shoes had gone, where he’d come from…why he’d been biting himself.

He observed his features, his bony, somehow delicate joints, the slight upturn at the tip of his nose, and tried to judge whether he’d be dangerous when he woke.

Cora returned with a bowl of water and the bottle of rubbing alcohol. She set both on the nightstand. “Need any help?”

“Maybe. Let me get the blood cleaned up, first.” He wet one of the towels and started with his throat. He paused when all the blood was off, towel hovering. “Hey, Cora,” he said as calmly as he could, “what does that look like to you?”

She leaned round his shoulder and hissed in sympathy. “Like a burn.” She moved closer. “Like a really…intricate burn.”

Outside, Peter’s voice raised enough for Derek to hear that he was still arguing against keeping the guy around.

The burn looked like spellwork, actually, burned into his skin. Derek tried to be gentle as he wiped the blood away, but it had seeped into the curving lines of the symbol and was proving hard to remove.

Downstairs, a door slammed open as the rest of the pack trooped into the house to get dressed and go wherever Rona and Talia had decided was best.

Derek moved on to his mouth, wiping blood from his lips, chin, and jaw.

‘Huh,” Cora said. “He’s kinda cute when he doesn’t look deranged.”

“He looks sick,” Derek said flatly, so he didn’t have to agree with her.

He looked young, too, maybe Nick’s age, or Cora’s, if he was being generous.

“Whatever.” She prodded his arm. “Wonder what happened.”

Derek grunted noncommittally and set to wiping blood off the wound. He checked the guy’s face frequently, but he didn’t so much as twitch. He frowned, but reasoned that this was probably due to dehydration.

“Here.” Cora opened the alcohol bottle for him. “Looks nasty.”

He took the bottle, wrinkling his nose at the scent. He looked at the bottle, then at the wound, and shrugged. He poured it over the wound.

The guy jack knifed up into sitting position. “What the fuck!”

Derek’s hands flew up automatically, sloshing more alcohol on the man.

He jerked his arm in protectively, his unfocused gaze falling first on Cora, then Derek. “Who…who…” His eyes fluttered and he slumped backwards.

Derek looked at Cora.

She raised her brows. “Okay.”

“Go get him some water, please.”

She stuck her tongue out at him as she left.

Derek got to work changing him out of his wet, bloody clothes, and into the sweats and sweatshirt Cora had grabbed from the dryer. He figured being changed by a stranger was better than being hypothermic, and worked briskly.

He was just finishing getting his ridiculously long legs into the sweats when Peter walked in.

“I have water,” he said sourly. He lifted the pitcher and glass he was carrying.

“I asked Cora to bring it.” He pulled the sweats up and huffed. He could only imagine how the shirt was going to go. “Thanks. You can set it over here.”

Peter crossed the room slowly, his gaze locked on the man.

“I thought you liked magic.”

“So I should automatically trust magical strangers who appear on our property? Of course.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Just set the water down. The guy can’t even sit up.”

Peter scoffed and slapped both pitcher and cup on the nightstand. “He’s older than I thought.” His gaze roved over the man’s bare chest.

“Jesus, Peter,” he muttered. He got to work putting the sweatshirt over the guy’s head.

“He could be dangerous.” He stayed back, arms crossed.

Derek tipped his head, listening as Laura grumbled and grunted her way into the car. Layla and Warren were bickering, and Nick was talking to Clara about where they should go. Doors slammed, an engine revved, and wheels crunched over gravel.

“Peter!” Talia snapped. “They’re gone.”

“So?”

“So get down here and help with dinner.”

He made a face. “She only wants my help because she can’t cook,” he muttered.

Rona said, “Peter Bennett Hale, get your tail down here now.”

He cast one last suspicious look at the guy before leaving the room. He was probably going to argue with Talia some more.

Derek was more than happy to stay up here and out of the way of the shouting. He and Laura used to fight like that, but they’d mellowed when they got older. Now it was Nick and Cora at each other’s throats all the time.

Derek sighed; he was pretty sure the wound on the guy’s arm should be bandaged, but they didn’t have anything like that on hand. He settled for wrapping one of the hand towels Cora had brought around it. It was still bleeding a little; he wondered if that was normal.

He shrugged and picked up the bowl of bloody water. If it was still bleeding later, he would look up what could be done about it. He turned to take the bowl to the bathroom.

A harsh, rasping gasp made him freeze. The man’s eyes fluttered open. He launched himself to his feet, running before Derek could stop him.

He waited, blinking as the man hurled himself at top speed through the first door he found. Derek pursed his lips and set the bowl back down, in exchange for the glass of water Peter had brought. “Hey,” he said in as low and soothing a tone he could manage. He walked toward the closet where the man had hurled himself, making sure he was seen and heard. “I’ve got some water here, if you want some.”

Wide, terrified brown eyes flicked up at him. He was breathing harshly, like his short journey had exhausted him.

Derek held the glass out.

After a moment of suspicious glaring, he snatched the cup. He sniffed at it before drinking.

Derek grimaced.

Someone who’d been lost wouldn’t run from help, wouldn’t check for poison in water.

Someone who had been held captive might.

“There’s more.” He gestured toward the pitcher. “You look like you could use some more.” He stepped back so he wasn’t crowding him.

The man stood, wobbling slightly, and stumbled for the bed.

“I’m Derek,” he said carefully, pouring more water into the glass. He watched as he guzzled down that one, too, and poured a little less the third time.

Peter was coming up the stairs, having slipped away from Rona.

Derek considered locking the door, but figured he’d just snap the lock and come in anyway.

He stepped in already glaring. “This is private property that you wandered onto.”

The man swallowed his next gulp of water. “Sorry,” he mumbled. He was clearly more afraid of Peter than Derek; he’d shifted almost unconsciously closer to him, keeping his face turned away.

Derek glowered at Peter. “It isn’t a big deal.” He looked at the guy. “What’s your name?”

“Stiles,” he muttered.

“Stiles should be more careful,” Peter said forcefully. “It was a big deal, since he almost ran into our dogs.”

Derek scoffed at the implication. The guy had fainted immediately. There was no way he’d seen any of them shift.

Stiles was staring at Peter with tired, sunken eyes. “I did magic to get here. I know you’re werewolves.”

Peter’s eyes flashed as he snarled.

Stiles cringed a little, but was clearly too tired to do more than that.

“Where did you come from?” Derek asked quickly. “Why’d you come here?”

He shrugged.

“Why were you biting yourself?”

He stiffened, then sighed. “I had to.” He closed his hand around the freshest wound. “I needed the blood for a spell.”

“Blood magic?” Peter turned wary, reaching out a hand to drag Derek away.

“It’s different; it was my own blood.” He touched fingertips to the burn on his throat. “My voice was taken away, so it was my only choice if I wanted to get out.”

“What did the spell do?”

“It took me to where I’d be safest.” He shook his head. “Couldn’t go home, my dad is human. The spell brought me to the next closest, safest place.”

“I’ve never heard of a blood spell like that.”

He glared, drawing himself up. “Using your own blood makes the magic and intentions purer, protective. Go look it up, if you know so much.”

“I will.” He glared, too, and swept out of the room.

Derek blinked. “Wow. I’m going to have to remember that. I’ve never been able to get rid of him so quickly,” he explained.

Stiles smiled a little, licking his chapped lips.

“Oh, here.” Derek poured him more water.

“Thank you.” He took a slow drink. “Could, um, could you tell me what day it is?”

“It’s the eighteenth.”

He jerked, fumbling the glass.

Derek lunged to catch it before it could hit the floor; Stiles scrambled back, cringing, as he caught it.

“You’re sure it’s the eighteenth? Of December?” he asked briskly, as if pretending he hadn’t flinched would erase the moment.

“Yes. If I had my phone, I’d show you.”

He yanked a hand through his hair, looking shaken up. “Gods, the eighteenth. That must’ve been her plan,” he muttered, almost to himself. “She was going to kill me in three days.”

“What? Who?”

He looked at Derek, eyes shuttering. “No one,” he mumbled.

Derek set the cup on the nightstand and straightened up. He didn’t want to be a dick, but if his pack was in danger, well, he would be. Anyone being a jerk was nicer than Peter being Peter, he reasoned, so he let his face half-shift, fangs and all, and lunged forward. He slammed his hand into the headboard next to Stiles’s face, snarling and baring fangs. “If someone is after you, you just endangered my pack, my family. We deserve to know who it is,” he growled.

Stiles’s heart hammered so loud Derek almost couldn’t hear it when he hummed, quiet and slow in his throat. His eyes flared bright green.

Derek flew off his feet, his shift melting away as he slammed into the wall opposite the bed.

Stiles stood. “I wasn’t trying to lead anyone here.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “She doesn’t want your pack—just me.”

“What was that?”

“Magic.”

Before Derek could try again, Cora came in. “Good morning, sunshine.” She had a sleeve of crackers in hand. “Mom says you shouldn’t intimidate guests, even magical ones, and that Peter is a bad influence.”

“I heard that!” Peter shouted from somewhere downstairs.

She shrugged and tossed the crackers on the bed. “What’s on your throat?”

He slowly sat down on the edge of the bed. He ripped open the crackers. “It’s a silencing curse. My…the person who had me took away my voice.”

“Why?”

“So I couldn’t do spells.” He carefully took a cracker out, but he didn’t eat it.

“Are they like Harry Potter spells?” she asked eagerly.

He smiled briefly. “No, there aren’t any magic words. Spells are…sounds.” His face flushed a little. “Humming and whistling are the most common ways to do magic. I never…I mean, I can’t whistle. I never figured it out, which was why I was such an easy target. Can’t do magic if I have no voice.” He stared down at his lap, reeking of shame and fear.

Cora pretended not to notice. “That’s so cool. Can you show me?”

His lips twitched up again. He held a hand out and hummed something quick and sweet, a tune Derek found strange but pleasant. A yellow rose bloomed in his palm, the stem curling out between his fingers. He held it out to her.

She took it, running her fingers over the edges of the petals. “It’s real,” she said with some surprise.

He smiled for real, a wide, happy thing that had Derek struck by how attractive he was, when he didn’t look hunted. “Of course it’s real!”

“Cora,” Talia said from the bottom of the stairs, “please come down here. Derek, stay up there. I’m coming to ask some questions.”

Cora sighed. “Well, see you later,” she said with a limp wave. She carried the rose with her, still admiring it as she left.

“Your sister is nice.”

“How’d you know she was my sister?”

Stiles made a gesture around his head. “Your auras. Siblings have a specific color around each other. Affection and annoyance at once, or something.”

“Huh.”

Talia stepped into the room.

It was strange; there was no way for Stiles to know she was an alpha, the way another werewolf would have, but he reacted as if he did anyway. He immediately closed his mouth and straightened his shoulders, dropping his gaze respectfully and waiting.

“Mom, this is Stiles,” Derek said, though she’d most likely heard already. “Stiles, this is my alpha, Talia Hale.”

“Hale.” He repeated it like a prayer.

She lifted a brow. “Have we met?”

“No, but we’ve probably passed each other. I’m Stiles Stilinski.”

“Like Sheriff Stilinski? From Beacon Hills?”

He nodded. “That explains why my spell brought me here.” He plucked at his borrowed shirt. “Look, I really didn’t intend to endanger anyone. She’ll kill my dad if I go back to him.”

“So you won’t go back,” Talia said simply. “You need to tell us what’s going on. We can’t help if we don’t know what happened.”

He hesitated, then nodded slowly. “She took me to drain my magic for herself on the winter solstice.”

“On the twenty-first?”

He nodded again. “I knew that was probably her deadline, so I was desperate to get away the closer it got.” He held up his left arm, shaking his sleeve back. “I saved up blood until I had enough for the blood spell to get me out.”

“How’d you preserve the blood?”

“I’m good at freezing stuff, even without doing spells.” He glanced at the mostly empty water pitcher; the water inside froze solid. “All I had to do was keep it frozen until I had enough.” He thumbed the older bites. “I didn’t have anything sharp, she wouldn’t risk it, so…”

“You bit yourself.”

He shrugged. “I improvised. I figured the ugly scars would be better than being dead.”

Talia nodded. “I see.” She looked around and took a deep breath. “This place has protections, but not very powerful ones. She’ll be able to track you eventually.”

Terror washed through the room, so strong and quick that Derek’s heart started pounding automatically.

“Now that I can do magic again, I can beef up the security,” he rasped.

Derek wondered what he wasn’t telling them about the time his kidnapper had had him. “How did that happen?” he asked. “If she silenced you, how’d you…how can you talk?”

“By the time I was doing my blood spell, I was too exhausted to do anything anyway, but the blood spell must have cleansed the curse while carrying me here.” He glared at his hands. “I tried using a little blood to get rid of the curse at first, but it never worked.”

“There wasn’t enough blood,” Talia said. She studied him. “You should rest more before you try any magic again.” She must have suspected he wasn’t telling them something, too, but she just went on, “I’ll have someone bring up some food, so you can regain your strength.” She looked at Derek before leaving the room, her expression unreadable.

“How long did she have you?” he asked, listening to Talia pause on the steps.

“Today’s the eighteenth? She…the…” He rubbed his eyes. “I was at school last on the sixth. She must’ve grabbed me then.”

“Did you know her?”

Stiles nodded. “She was posing as a substitute.” He finished his cracker and grabbed another.

Derek shuffled his feet. “Sorry for, um, for earlier.”

He smiled briefly. “Then I’m sorry for throwing you.”

Derek nodded. “You’re in school? How old are you?”

“Just some light classes. I’m twenty-three,” he added with a smirk. “I plan on doing something with magic, which colleges don’t exactly have courses for, so I’m taking a mixed bag of useful classes. Or I was. I’ve missed…several.” He grimaced, looking haunted.

“I’m sure they won’t fail you for getting kidnapped.” Derek lowered himself to the floor and sat cross-legged, because it was uncomfortable looming over him.

“Heh, yeah,” Stiles mumbled, and went silent.

Peter brought up some food and the message that Talia wanted him downstairs, so, reluctantly, he left Stiles under Peter’s care.

Talia, Bryan, Rona, and Bennett were waiting in the kitchen.

“He was being held captive by another witch,” Talia said. “I think he’s young, hurt, and needs help.”

“Doesn’t negate the fact that him being here is dangerous for us,” Bryan said. “We’ve got Laura to think about, plus the kids.”

“He hasn’t threatened anyone, but he might bring danger here.” Rona lifted her hands.

“He’s the son of the sheriff from our town.” Talia rubbed her eyes. “I’ve dealt with Sheriff Stilinski before. He’s a good man.”

“So you think we should help him?”

“Yes.”

“What if he goes after one of us? Laura?”

“He won’t.” Derek winced when they looked at him. “I don’t think he would. He seemed happy when he realized we were werewolves. He doesn’t think his kidnapper will bother us.”

“He liked Cora,” Talia added with a smile. “He’s afraid of Peter, he respects me. He’s not sure what to make of Derek.”

“He hasn’t felt threatened yet,” Bennett concluded.

“He felt threatened by me,” Derek put in. “I scared him.”

“He flinched.” Talia nodded.

“But still—you’d been taking care of him until that point. Let’s see what he does when someone he doesn’t know threatens him.” Bennett straightened his shoulders. As far as werewolves went, Derek had yet to meet one as intimidating in appearance as his grandfather. He was broad shouldered and muscular, with powerful arms and a stern resting face. On top of that, he stood at six and a half feet tall.

“Grandpa, I don’t think-”

“Let him go,” Rona said. She wasn’t keen on macho intimidation tactics, which she referred to as a disease of humanity, but she liked to let the men figure out they were being dumb themselves.

Bennett went for the stairs.

“He’s a witch,” Derek whispered. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to freak him out.”

“Hmm.” Rona didn’t look inclined to share her opinion on the matter.

“Where’s Aunt Marissa and Uncle Grant?”

“Checking the perimeter.” Bryan leaned against the counter, his shoulder pressing into Derek’s. He looked exasperated.

Upstairs, a door slammed open. “Dad, what-” Peter began.

Bennett roared. Stomping feet, then a bang! He yelped and the walls shook.

Derek ran for the stairs, tailed by Talia and Rona.

Bennett had plaster dust all over him; he’d gone partially through the wall across the hall from the guest room. “Non-lethal energy bolt,” he grumbled.

Derek looked in the guest room.

Stiles was swaying but on his feet, wide eyed and heaving for breath.

“Sorry,” Derek said quickly, crossing to him. He elbowed Peter out of the way and gently eased Stiles back onto the bed. “I’m sorry. They wanted to see if you were a threat to us. They won’t do that again.” He rubbed his shoulders automatically, feeling the chill through the sweatshirt.

Stiles’s gaze was dazed and empty, turned toward the door but clearly not seeing.

“Serves you right,” Rona said. “Scaring that boy like that. You’ll be fixing the wall, too.”

Derek stepped toward them, intending to close the door. Something tugged on his shirt, stopping him. He glanced back.

Stiles was gripping the edge of his shirt. He slowly lifted his eyes to meet his gaze.

Derek sat beside him on the bed. He stayed until he stopped shivering.

Cora, Peter, and Derek moved their stuff to the second floor that night. They were the best options, just in case anything went wrong. Plus, Stiles was most comfortable with Derek and Cora, and even Peter, to some extent.

Derek was walking back to his and Cora’s shared room from the bathroom when a small, wounded sound stopped him. He listened for a moment, then followed the noise to Stiles’s guest room.

He was asleep but restless, muffling cries into his pillow. He was curled up in a tight, protective ball. When he clamped down on another cry, Derek went to the bed and shook his shoulder.

“Hey, wake up. It’s okay, you’re just dreaming,” he whispered, rubbing his shoulder with his thumb.

Stiles shuddered and woke, opening eyes still streaming tears. “S-sorry,” he stammered. “Sorry, I was just…”

“Dreaming.” Derek looked around. “Do you want me to stay?”

He wiped his face. “No. Thanks.” He sat up and pulled his knees to his chest.

“I’m going to stay.” He sat on the floor, leaning back against the wall.

Stiles huffed but didn’t say anything at first. He picked at his sleeve, sighed, and said, “You could ask.”

“It isn’t my business.”

He glared at him.

Derek smiled.

He sighed and flopped backwards.

“If you want to talk about it, be my guest.”

He lifted his head just enough to glare again. “I feel stupid.”

“Why?”

He grumbled incoherently. “She used magic to torture me,” he said to the ceiling. “So she didn’t actually hurt me, but…it hurt.” He laid his palm flat on his chest. “She wanted to test my magic before she took it. Get a…a taste of it. So she tortured me to bring it to the surface and it just…feels like I didn’t really get away.”

“I’m sure that’s normal after an event like that.”

He nodded. “I guess.” He swallowed loudly. “I didn’t mean to…endanger your pack. I thought the spell would take me to other witches or something.”

“How could you know? You were just trying to survive. We like survivors.” Derek certainly did. He liked that this lanky, exhausted guy in front of him was a fighter, had gotten himself out when he saw no escape. It was just the wolf in him, he guessed, to appreciate people who fought and clawed for their right to live.

Stiles sat up. “She had me for days.”

“You still got out, by yourself, after all that.”

After a long moment of silence, he asked, “Where are we?”

“Oregon. My grandparents live here.”

“Not with the pack?”

Derek smiled. “No. The pack house was getting a little cramped, so they moved here. Now there’s two pack houses; the rest of us use this one during the holiday season.”

Stiles nodded. “Your grandfather was the alpha before your mother?”

“Nope, my grandmother.” He flashed a grin. “Size doesn’t mean much with us. Plus, Grandpa’s a teddy bear. Grandma’s the scary one.”

“Hmph.” Stiles clearly didn’t agree.

Derek shrugged, since that was fair.

After a while, Stiles started talking about his classes, his friends, a little about his father.

Derek wasn’t sure when he’d drifted off. He woke with Stiles’s head pillowed on his leg, curled up under a blanket he must’ve dragged from the bed.

Derek yawned fiercely and gathered him up. The sun hadn’t quite risen, so the room was still pretty dark. He stood, wincing as his stiff muscles stretched, and took Stiles and the blanket to the bed.

Stiles whimpered as he set him down.

Derek rubbed his face and crawled onto the far side of the bed. He was too tired to worry about awkwardness or whatever rules there were about sharing a bed with a stranger.

The next time he woke, Stiles had curled up against his side in his sleep; the sun had fully risen. He didn’t move for a moment, just breathing.

Downstairs, Laura was convincing Uncle Grant to make his specialty French toast to go with breakfast, and Warren and Layla were arguing over who forgot to shut off the Xbox the night before.

Derek inhaled slowly. He had always liked this part of holiday season, everyone crammed together with nothing more pressing than recipes to worry about. Members of other parts of the family—Bryan’s sister Sophie and her family, Grant’s three younger siblings, even Rona’s brother and his grandkids—would pop in now and again for a visit, and it always felt…good. Crowded and noisy but just where he wanted to be.

Stiles grumbled in his sleep, rubbing his cheek against Derek’s shoulder unconsciously.

A powerful surge of want had his stomach swooping. It wasn’t even physical, though he did find Stiles attractive; it was this: waking up with someone all warm and comforting beside him, with his pack just downstairs.

He sighed and gently nudged Stiles away.

He opened his eyes slowly, shooting Derek a groggily confused look.

“Good morning.”

He grunted.

He couldn’t help smiling. “Well, I’m sure it’ll get better once we go downstairs. My uncle is making French toast and there will definitely be bacon. Possibly pancakes.”

Stiles rubbed his cheek against the pillow. “Mm, I prefer waffles.”

“Heathen.”

He laughed, looking shocked at the sound.

“Come on, we’ll feed you.”

He sat up, yawning and running a hand through his hair. “How many people are here?” He looked wary.

Derek grimaced. “Oh, about thirteen, plus me.” He held up a hand. “My parents, my older sister and her wife, my two younger siblings. My mom’s younger sister Marissa and her husband and two kids.  My uncle Peter, who you met yesterday, and my grandparents.” He smiled weakly.

“No pressure,” he muttered.

“You’ve met Peter and survived. Everyone else is cake.”

Stiles didn’t look convinced.

Everyone was still in pajamas when they got downstairs. They pretended not to notice them, which Derek appreciated. Stiles’s nerves were thick enough to choke on, so crowding him probably wasn’t a good idea.

“Good morning,” Talia said, brushing a hand over Derek’s head as she passed with a platter of eggs.

Nick came pounding in the backdoor, scattering snow all over the kitchen floor.

“Nick!” Bennett boomed.

Stiles shrank behind Derek.

“Wipe your feet!”

“Sorry, Grandpa,” he said breathlessly. “But look what I found!” He waved a piece of damp paper around with one hand while messing with his phone with the other.

Talia snagged the paper.

Derek leaned over to look at it. “Oh.”

It was a missing person flyer, for one Mieczysław Stilinski. There was a picture of Stiles in the center and several phone numbers below asking to be called if anyone had any information about his location.

Stiles made a low wounded sound. “My dad is probably so freaked out, this is awfu-”

“Nick,” Derek barked. “Hang up. Hang up your phone.”

“But it says-”

“Hang up the phone!” Cora shouted.

“We know wh-”

“Hang up,” Talia ordered.

Nick hung up on the third ring, looking confused. “What’s the problem? We found him, he’s missing, he just said his dad-”

“Is human,” Talia said. “He could get hurt. For now, we don’t contact him.”

Stiles sagged with relief. “Thank you.”

“Where did you find this?”

“Well, there were a lot of them scattered everywhere when I was walking around.”

Bryan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where were you walking around?”

“Just past the edge of the property. They were all over Edgewood drive.”

He sighed. “Nick, we asked you to stop wandering off the property without telling us where you were going.”

He shrugged. “Sorry.”

Derek rolled his eyes and led Stiles to the table.

Breakfast, even with a guest to put them on their best behavior, was chaos. Layla and Nick had both decided that Stiles was the most fascinating person they’d ever met and spent most of the meal chattering at him, until the food was gone.

Stiles didn’t seem to mind.

“But how do you know what song to hum for each different spell?” Layla asked.

“We have to learn them from books. Really, really old books.” He wrinkled his nose. “It’s not too bad.”

“Can you show me?”

He smiled. “Sure.” His gaze flicked around, stopping on the chandelier above them. He held his right hand out, palm up, and began to hum. It was a sweet, high pitched melody that lasted longer than the other spells Derek had witnessed him do. The lights flickered and shifted.

While they watched, the glow of the light flowed out of the fixture like a liquid, pooling in his palm.

Layla’s jaw dropped.

“Oh, cool. Can I touch it?” Nick asked, already reaching out.

“It’s hot, hang on.” Stiles touched a fingertip to Nick’s palm and hummed again, low and gentle. Then he poured the light into Nick’s hand.

He laughed delightedly, making Derek smile.

Bryan sighed from the kitchen. “Those were brand new bulbs.”

Stiles winced. “I can put it back,” he mumbled, flushing.

“Dad, come look at this, it’s so cool.” Nick grinned at Stiles. “Do you have to put it back?”

“Ah…no, but it would fade eventually.” He smirked and hummed again.

The light began moving, forming shapes from Nick’s cupped palms.

Layla gasped.

Stiles sat back in his seat, looking pleased.

Derek smiled at him, grinning wider when he flushed.

Cora returned from doing her portion of the dishes. “Oh, cool. Man.” She made a face. “I wish I could do magic.”

Talia sighed from the living room.

“You can,” Stiles announced.

The whole house fell quiet.

“Uh…what do you mean?” Derek asked gently, wondering if Stiles had hit his head at all.

Stiles smirked and held his hands out. The light in Layla and Nick’s hands shot back up to the chandelier. “Come here. I’ll show you.”

Cora put her hands behind her back. “Show me what?”

“How you can do magic. It’s okay. It won’t hurt.” He held his hands out.

She glanced at Nick, who nodded eagerly, before sighing and approaching. She eyed him warily before putting her hands in his.

He smiled and flipped her hands over so they rested palms up on his. “Okay, just hum this.” He went high, then low sharply, followed by a slow rise to high again for three seconds.

Cora looked slightly panicked. “But I can’t sing—or hold a tune.”

“That’s okay. Just do what I did.”

She nodded. “Okay.” She blew out a breath and inhaled slowly.

Stiles nodded encouragingly at her.

She started humming. It was off-key but otherwise mimicked the sound Stiles had made. Sparks shot into the air, just above their heads, pink and green and yellow. They twinkled and fell, disappearing like fireworks.

Stiles hummed again; orange, blue, and gold shot up.

Cora laughed and hummed, too: purple sparks joined Stiles’s. “Oh, my god! I did that?”

“Yep.”

“I did magic?!”

“Yes.”

“Can I go next?” Layla asked eagerly, elbowing Cora out of the way.

“He isn’t an amusement park ride,” Laura snapped. “Clara, can you bring me some oranges?” she asked sweetly.

“Sure.”

Stiles, who looked pale, winked at Layla and held out a ball of light to her. “Throw it at your brother,” he whispered.

Delighted, she cupped her hands protectively around the ball and ran to find him.

“That was either really mean, or really nice,” Derek said. “I can’t decide.”

“It’s just the magical equivalent of a snowball. It won’t hurt him, no matter how hard she throws it.” His eyes were a little glassy, like he’d overexerted himself.

“Come on, you should lay down.”

He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“You’re exhausted again.”

“I’m fine.”

Derek crossed his arms.

“He’s an adult, Derek,” Laura muttered. “Can someone get me an ice pack? I’m hot. I’m melting.”

Stiles grinned and stood. He waved Clara off before she could go back to the kitchen. He followed her to the living room.

Derek lifted his brows and followed a pace behind.

Laura was stretched out on the couch; her hair was indeed clinging to her temples with sweat. “Hey.” She grinned weakly. “I’d say I’m usually much nicer than this, but that would be a lie. I’m more consistent usually, though.”

“That’s okay. I’m not usually very nice either.” He held a hand out. “I heard you needed cooling off.”

She lifted a brow.

He wiggled his hand.

She lifted her own. Her brows flew up when they touched. “Oh my god.” She grabbed both his hands and pressed them to her cheeks. “Oh my god,” she moaned.

Clara laughed. “Alright then. Here’s your oranges, babe.”

Derek snorted. “I’ll go get you some ice water.”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled distractedly.

He shook his head and went to the kitchen.

Peter was leaning against the island, arms crossed. “Should we be letting him near Laura?” he muttered. “In her condition?”

“She’s pregnant, Peter, not terminal. Plus, Mom’s out there. She isn’t going to let anything happen.” Derek hunted down the lid for Laura’s favorite cup.

“Something bad is going to happen.” Peter shook his head. “This is a terrible idea.”

“Go take a walk. I think you need some air.”

He scoffed and went to the living room.

Derek finished making Laura’s drink, thinking about it. Peter usually had a good reason to be paranoid, but he trusted Stiles.

Talia liked him, which was normally enough for him anyway, but in this case, his gut was enough, too. Stiles wasn’t there to hurt them.

Derek ended up in Stiles’s room again that night. “You’re safe here,” he whispered, holding onto him as he sobbed unreservedly against his chest.

“I know,” he gasped. He shuddered. “It’s like you’re warding the nightmares off.” He gulped in air until his lungs stopped working so hard. “I’m sorry.”

Derek squeezed him a little tighter. “S’okay. Want me to stay?”

Stiles answered, “Yes,” in a small voice.

The next day passed like the previous, almost identically; at dinner, Bryan had to hunt Nick down since he’d wandered off again. For dessert, they had homemade pie and Stiles, having regained more strength throughout the day, made tiny ice sculptures for everyone.

“So what can you do with that power, besides art?” Bryan asked. His sculpture was a tiny convertible, set on top of his plate. He’d been admiring the details for a few minutes already.

“I can freeze almost anything,” Stiles answered carefully.

“Even people?” Warren asked eagerly.

“Ah…I’ve never tried anything alive. Once in high school I froze the pool so we didn’t have to swim.”

“Cool.”

Grant rolled his eyes. “Finish your pie, kid.”

The only people Stiles didn’t speak to were Bennett and Peter; Bennett, he was still sort of wary of, and Peter…Derek wasn’t sure, but they seemed to be regarding each other as dangerous but not exactly immediate threats.

“It’s our turn to do dishes,” Stiles announced. “You let Derek and me skip dish duty yesterday and all day today, and I’m pretty sure we both ate.” He tapped his thumb against the edge of his plate pointedly.

Talia laughed. “Well, if you’re that eager, be my guest.”

“Thanks a lot,” Derek joked.

Stiles snickered and jostled him with his elbow.

“I’m going to get the fire pit going,” Rona said, standing with her plate.

“Can we do s’mores?” Layla asked.

Grant gaped. “Are you a bottomless pit?”

“Just like her momma,” Marissa said proudly.

“You boys join us when you’re done,” Rona said with a grin. “I promise to protect you from Bennett.” She ruffled Stiles’s hair as she passed.

Bennett said, “For god’s sake, Rona! I was protecting the pack! Stiles, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Okay.” He didn’t say anything else or move, though, proving that an apology wasn’t quite enough.

Bennett sighed.

While the rest of the pack trooped outside to “start the fire pit” which was Hale-speak for throwing sticks into the flames and acting like idiots, Derek went to the kitchen.

“You don’t have to help,” he said when Stiles joined him at the sink.

“Sure I do. Why haven’t your grandparents invested in a dishwasher?”

Derek shrugged. “Probably to give people something to do when there’s too many Hales.”

“Is there such a thing?” he teased.

Derek snorted. “Sometimes.” He set about filling the sink with hot, soapy water. While it was running, he got out a stack of towels. “For drying,” he explained.

“Ah. I’ve heard of this practice.” He ran his fingers back and forth across the counter. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being…safe.” He made a face. “For helping me. You guys could’ve just called an ambulance and been done with me.”

“Well, you are a witch. We magical beings should take care of each other.” He smiled.

“Should,” he murmured. “Sink is full.”

Derek shut off the faucet and started scrubbing. The rhythm was nice, side by side like this. It wasn’t as easy and familiar as it was with his siblings, but it was nice anyway. He liked listening to Stiles talk, even though he was obviously trying to distract them both. Something about the whole moment felt right, and Derek wanted to keep it forever.

“-and I don’t even really know you,” Stiles was saying, “but I just…” And then he turned Derek’s face with the hand holding the damp towel and kissed him.

A plate thunked back into the full sink, sloshing water across his shirt. He sighed and kissed back, and yes, this felt right, too, this was exactly where they were supposed to be.

Derek let Stiles drag him to his guest room when everyone was turning in for the night. He’d have ended up there anyway, drawn to the sounds of fear and pain, so he considered this just saving time.

They were kissing before the door closed all the way. He let himself be tumbled onto the bed, but caught Stiles’s wrists gently before he could grab for his pants.

“Sorry,” he said instantly, easing back.

“That’s okay. I just don’t…really do casual sex.” He shrugged. “I like relationships.”

Stiles nodded. “Okay.”

“But we can keep kissing, if you still want to.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I still want to.”

They made out languidly on the bed until Stiles slipped into sleep. Derek covered them with the comforter and curled up around him. He pressed a kiss to the top of his head and wondered what he’d say if he asked him out on a date. He smiled as Stiles snuggled closer. He’d say he had a pretty good chance.

[thepartyresponsible]

Do Every Stupid Thing

listen. you are all amazing. i have all these prompts and asks now, and i am just stupidly happy.

this one is for @arsenicjade who asked for pets in the do every stupid thing verse. it’s, uh. it’s maybe not as light as you were hoping, but there is a dog.

warnings for vague, grim references to human trafficking, violence, and general Red Room horrors. but this really isn’t as dark as that makes this sound, i promise. there’s a puppy.

The job doesn’t go so poorly that she forgets who she is. But it goes poorly enough that she forgets who cares about her. She misses the pickup time, abandons the rendezvous point. She’s four hours and two countries away by the time she remembers SHIELD, and Coulson, and Clint.

She’s crouching in the back of a truck, hidden among stolen cargo, and she has to touch the edges of all three of her knives, count every one of her bullets, before she can reach into the hidden pocket in her jacket and take out the paper bird Clint gave her years ago.

The first one. The luckiest one.

She breathes out, runs her finger along the worn edges. She remembers.

Winslow, she thinks, is going to have a hell of a time explaining this mission to Coulson.

She abandons the truck the next time it stops, walks the city for fifteen minutes before she knows where she is. Vilnius. Lithuania. The nearest SHIELD base is in Germany, and her pickup team is probably still prowling the streets of Moscow looking for her.

Her mind is a stuttery mess. She does her best to marshal it into order, but her fingertips keep twitching toward her knives, and she can’t be trusted. She tells herself, as harshly as she can, that there is no danger here. There was no danger left in that warehouse she fled. There is nothing but meat and blood in that warehouse, and, below it, a basement full of girls, safe and whole, caught early enough that they can still go back to their families, if their families deserve them.

The warehouse hadn’t been anything like the Red Room. The girls there had been dulled, not honed. The processes have their similarities, but that is not enough to justify the way she lost control.

No one on the team will blame her for this. If Jason had been there, he would have left just as many bodies, and he would have set the whole place on fire before he left. If Bucky had been sent, there would be no fire, no bodies, but none of those men would ever be seen again.

And Clint.

If they had sent Clint...

People fall into the trap of thinking Clint is too softhearted for their work, but he isn’t. What he wants to be and what he is are separate things. The sweetest, brightest thing about Clint is how fervently he dedicates himself to being better than he is, and how readily he swallows those hopes, when he has to, when someone needs him to.

Natasha has made peace with what she is. There is no shame in being a weapon, not so long as she is directed by noble hands.

There is no direction now, though. She’s a falling knife. She’ll cut anything that gets close.

She takes herself to the worst part of town, stands in front of a streetlight camera long enough for it to catch her face, and then she curls up behind a nearby dumpster and waits. Tony will have the image in half an hour, and Clint might have it sooner than that, if he asks Oracle for a favor.

Mission complete. New pickup location set.

She waits, shutting her brain down until it’s nothing but an alarm system, waiting for a trigger.

The trigger comes sometime later, when something squirms behind the dumpster, and she nearly stabs a dog in the heart.

The dog flinches at her movement, presses itself back against the grimy wall, and whines, quiet and uncertain. She stares at it.

They kept hungry dogs in cages around one of the training compounds they sent the girls to in the spring. Some girl would risk running, every year. Natasha remembers the dogs. And she remembers the girls. And she remembers what the dogs had done to the girls. She remembers why it was only ever one girl a year who risked it.

This dog is a different kind. Yellow and underfed, with a soft mouth and ears that flop over. This is the kind of dog that lures Clint in like a fish on a hook, pulls him off sidewalks and into strangers’ front yards. This is the kind of animal that can brighten Clint’s whole face, just by lolling out its tongue and tipping its head to the side.

This is the kind of dog that Clint always tries to get her to pet. She does it, sometimes, because it makes him smile, but, every time she runs her hand through their soft fur, her eyes catch on their teeth.

“Go,” she tells it, and then tries it in Russian, and Lithuanian.

The dog whines at her again and then settles to the ground and wags its ragged, dirty tail.

The dumpster is not big enough for two to hide behind, and his tail must show, sticking out for any passersby to see.

“Go,” she says, again, sharper, harsher, and the dog blinks at her, some kind of dim, simple worry crossing its face.

There is something about the dog that reminds her of Clint. She’s not sure if it’s the cornsilk color of its fur, or the lazy, friendly shape of its smiles, or the way it moves toward her when a creature with better instincts would be running away.

“You are a stupid thing,” she tells it. “You are going to get yourself killed.”

It settles next to her, and then, as the night gets colder, it crowds closer, lays its filthy head in her lap and makes a grumbly noise of approval when she tangles her fingers in its matted coat.

She feels the raised, filigree pattern of scars under its fur, traces the places where it has been hurt. She thinks about those scars, and how easily it had trusted her, and the echo of all that rage she’d felt earlier gets caught in her throat.

She’s not like Jason. When she’s angry, she doesn’t yell. She doesn’t shout. Threats and flares of temper are for people who have been graced with the mercy of enemies who can, sometimes, be frightened away.  

All that rage builds quietly inside her, and she swallows it down until the job is done, the mission is over. And then, sometimes, she makes a mess.

She is not small anymore. She is not weak. She remembers, always, what it was like to be both.

She wishes that Clint were here. She misses him. She misses the way she can be when she’s around him, the way she can watch him be kind to strangers, gentle with children, friendly with stray dogs. If she watches him closely enough, it’s almost like she’s doing it herself. Secondhand sweetness, with none of the risk.

She is better than what she was. She is. Usually.

But there are days, like today, when she is not. And if it’s growing harder to accept days like this, then she knows - from Jason, and Clint, and Coulson, and all the therapists she’s seen – that it is some kind of progress.

“I could break your neck,” she tells the dog. She could. Easily. So very, very easily.

The dog huffs out a quiet, sleepy breath and licks at the skin of her wrist. She curls around it, pulls it to her, holds it tighter than she should. Hurts it, maybe, because she doesn’t know how to hold anything that isn’t her team.

But the dog just squirms in tighter, settles warm and heavy against her chest.

  Hours later, the dog leaves. She’s still picking its fur off her clothes when it comes trotting back, holding a pizza box in its mouth. It drops the box in front of her and barks triumphantly in her face.

She’s feeding it, hoping idly that pizza isn’t poison for dogs, when Bucky’s metal hand curls around the side of the dumpster and pulls it away from the wall.

The dog turns, quickly, and Natasha watches as the fur along its spine stands up, and it growls, crouched over the pizza box, positioned between Natasha and Bucky, teeth bared like it’s willing to fight even while its tag wags, half-hearted, hopeful. Wary.

“Widow,” Bucky says, ignoring the dog. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Over Bucky’s shoulder, Natasha catches the feral flash of Jason’s mission-grin. “Thanks for making the trip,” she says, a second later. “I’m a little far from where we agreed.”

“Don’t mind a bit of a road trip,” Jason says, peering curiously at the dog. “Don’t want to be anywhere near Coulson right now, anyway. I don’t think anyone’s making it out of that briefing alive.”

It’ll be awhile, she thinks, before Coulson loans any of them out to any other handler again.

She has no objections to that. She doesn’t want any of the others working for anyone who isn’t him.

“Ready to go?” Bucky asks. His voice is quieter than normal. She wonders if he saw the warehouse. She wonders if he’s the one who found the girls, huddled together in the basement, hands probably still cupped over their ears, just like she showed them.

“Yes,” she says. When she stands up, the dog stands, too. She curls her hands in its fur, and she means to say some kind of goodbye, but, when the dog follows her to the car, she doesn’t send it away.

  There are regulations, she’s told. Policies. The dog is supposed to go into quarantine. But Coulson must feel guilty for the work she was made to do, because, an hour after a SHIELD agent takes the dog away from her, he’s returned, washed clean, wearing a red collar and a startled expression, like even he’s not sure what to make of himself, now that he’s brushed until he shines and smells faintly of oranges.

She takes him home, to the house she shares with Clint, who comes out onto the porch with a mug of coffee in either hand. He’s still wearing his pajamas, even though it’s nearly noon.

Soft, she thinks, in a way that aches in her chest.

He is exactly as soft as he thinks he can get away with. If he has any sweetness left, it’s because he’s fought to keep it. In so many ways, he’s stronger than any of them.

“Hey,” she says, as the dog gambols around on the porch, hopping up onto his back legs and trying to shove his whole face into the coffee. “I brought you something nice.”

Clint’s confused expression clears, like clouds breaking at sunrise, and a smile spreads over his face, as fresh and bright as the first gasp of air after she’s pried hands off her throat.

“You brought me a dog?” he asks, laughing, glowing with easy, uncomplicated happiness.

“I wasn’t talking to you, Barton,” she tells him, as she swoops both mugs out of his hands. “I was talking about you.”

She hops up the porch railing and settles, burying her smile in the coffee she drinks as she watches them rolling around on the porch together, a mess of blonde hair and dopey grins, sweetness buried under scars.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Okay, so you know about Nekos right? Well, Inus are the dog version. So, the reader finds a badly injured Inu!Anti on their doorstep and they take him in and nurse him back to health. They thought he would want to leave after he got better but he instead chooses to stay, now loyal to a fault to the person who was nice enough to take of him in and take care of him when they didn't have to, not used to kind humans. I think he'd be part husky or malamute, or really any dog that resembles a wolf.

Awwww I love Inus!

Hope you enjoy the story! *cough* This does count as a Soft!Anti fic *cough*

(Although as a warning this story will mention past abuse)

.......

Of all the sounds you’d expect to hear on a quiet Friday night…one of them certainly wasn’t the sound of scratching at your door.

Confused, you got up from the sofa and made your way over to it, checking through the window on the side, although all you could see was the tail of what appeared to be a husky, slightly ripped and matted with blood.

‘Is…this dog hurt?’ Your eyes widened in alarm. 

No matter if somebody owned it or not, you couldn’t leave the poor thing out there by itself.

So you opened the door, only to freeze as you realize that it wasn’t a dog, but rather….a man that had dog features?

At first you thought it was some weirdo in a cosplay that was on drugs, although when he heard you gasp, his ears automatically perked up, and you could see that it wasn’t some headband.

They were real husky ears.

But then you saw that his arms were littered in yellow and purple bruises, some of which didn’t seem to come from accidents. When he raised his head up, you could see some kind of scar on his throat, blood smeared all over his neck and palms.

“H-H-Help..me..” He whimpered softly, his nails digging into the cracks on your doorsteps. “I..d-don’t wanna die out here..”

After hearing him speak, you returned to your senses and helped him off the ground. “Don’t worry. I won’t let that happen. C’mon.” Then you led the stranger inside, shutting the door behind you.

……..

“So…what’s your name, buddy?” You asked, sighing softly as you scrubbed the man’s tail, trying to clean off the sticky blood.

When you brought him in, you weren’t sure why, but you had a feeling that he would need a warm bath…even though this was a total stranger who was around the same age as you. 

Then again he seemed to be freezing to death outside, and you just thought this would be the best way to help him before he caught hypothermia.

“A-Anti,” he mumbled shyly, gazing down at the foamy bubbles covering the entire surface of the water. “But..M-Master calls me “demon” o-or ”freak” or..Anthony when we’re i-in public. Ye can call me whatever ya like.”

You frowned slightly. So this guy had an owner who called him hurtful names…and you wondered if it was the same person who gave him those bruises and that scar. 

But that’s something you’ll ask him later.

“I like the name Anti.” Your smile returned as you gently set his tail back into the water. “So are you..suppose to be like a werewolf or-?”

“A-An Inu.”

You blinked in surprise. You’ve heard about Nekos and Inus before in the world of anime and Japanese mythology. And here you were taking care of one.

“I-I’m sorry for interrupting ya! I-I didn’t.. mean to…”

Hearing a whimper, you saw Anti’s eyes watering up. “Hey..it’s okay,” you reassured him. “I was just..in shock that you’re an actual Inu. I’ve only ever heard about them in stories. So it’s awesome to see one in person.”

His eyes widened slightly. “Ya think I’m…awesome? But…” Then his ears drooped and he stared at his claws for a moment. “…I’m a freak…Master said-”

“Listen…whatever your master said was wrong.” You moved so that he was looking at you. “You’re not a freak even though you may be different.”

He gazed at you in shock, his bright blue eyes wide. But a tiny smile soon appeared on his face as he nodded in understanding. “Th-Thanks..I..you’re the first human to call me somethin’ nice..”

You smiled back at him, before you got another cloth and began to scrub the blood off his neck and chest, being careful of the scar. “You want me to bandage up that scar for you?”

“I-If…it’s no trouble..I’d appreciate it..”…

……

While you waited for Anti to get changed, you sat on the sofa and watched some news. 

About five minutes later you heard the shuffling of feet and looked to see him enter the living room, wearing a clean black shirt and black sweatpants you offered him. Of course you had to cut a hole in the pants so that his tail was able to be free.

His tail and ears were dry and fluffy, too, being clean of blood.

You smiled and moved aside, patting the spot next to you in invitation. But you were confused when he just stood there awkwardly. “You can..sit down here if you want.”

“R-Really?” His eyebrows furrowed as he looked at the sofa. “But…M-Master never lets me sit on the furniture. My fur gets everywhere..a-and-”

“Anti. Your master isn’t here,” you frowned. “I don’t mind if any fur gets on the couch. It’s okay.”

After some hesitation, he walked over and sat down beside you, his tail immediately flopping onto his lap. With a tiny sigh, he slowly sat back and gazed at the T.V.

For a while, neither of you said anything. But then you glanced over at him, seeing him smile at a cute story on a rescued dog that the news program was covering. His tail wagged ever so slightly, which you thought was adorable.

Overall, though, he looked a lot better now that you gave him a bath and took care of his wounds. His bruises remained, although you knew that they’ll be there for quite some time.

However, there was a thought that was nagging at you. Even though he looked happy here, you didn’t want him to feel like he was being kept prisoner.

“You know..” Anti jumped a bit as you spoke, looking over at you. “You… don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. In the morning I can make us breakfast, and then you can-”

“I wanna stay..”

You blinked in surprise, but before you could say anything, he continued.

“..y-ya took me in and took care of me when ya didn’t have to,” he mumbled, turning to face you fully. “I-I use to think..humans were always cruel….u-until I met ya and ya showed me more love a-and care than my..old master ever did. And for that I’m..eternally grateful a-and all I can offer to ya is..my undying loyalty. I promise I-I’ll be good to ya. I promise I w-won’t get in the way…o-or..”

You could tell from his watering eyes that he wanted to cry. So you shifted closer to him, and wrapped your arms around him, being mindful of his bruises, allowing him to lean against you.

He whimpered as you then kissed his forehead, before tears finally streamed down his cheeks. 

Pressing his face into your chest, he sobbed softly into your shirt, clinging to you and not wanting to let go. You simply stroked his hair and ears, reassuring him that everything was going to be okay, and that he was safe.

“M-My..old master..h-he..”

You fell silent, your heart pounding as you waited for what he was about to say about his former owner.

“..he tried to..s-slit my throat w-with a knife when I-I told him I was gonna run away. He wanted to silence me so I could..j-just follow his dumb orders without question. I-I escaped but..I-I was so scared that I was gonna die..”

“But you didn’t,” you told him softly. “You escaped him and showed him who was boss. I’m so proud of you for standing up for yourself, Anti.”

Although you couldn’t see it, the Inu was smiling, hiccuping as he nuzzled into your chest. Your simple, encouraging words made him feel a lot better.

After some time, his sobs died down into sniffles, and he looked up at you, then at your damp shirt. “I-I’m sorry for ruinin’ your shirt, Master..”

“It’s okay, bud,” you smiled, rubbing his back. “You don’t have to call me “Master”. Considering we’re about the same age it sounds kinda….weird. Just call me [y/n].”

He nodded in understanding, relaxing a little as he laid his head on your chest again, this time looking at the T.V.

You then decided to scratch behind his ears just a bit, and your smile grew as you saw his tail wagging even faster.

A soft sigh escaped your lips. This guy was such a sweetheart. How could anyone in their right mind want to harm him? Let alone say anything cruel to him?

Once you stopped, you heard him yawn. “You must be tired, huh?”

“Mhm,” he nodded once more. “C-Can I…stay here with ya?”

“Sure.” You chuckled, reaching up to grab the blanket that was on the sofa, before you brought it down so that it covered both of you.

Adjusting your positions, you laid down with Anti on top of you. You turned off the T.V and held him close, still stroking his hair. “Is this fine?”

“Yeah..th-thank ya so much, Mas…. [y/n].”

“Of course, Anti.” You kissed the top of his head, before you turned off the lamplight. “Sweet dreams.”

“G’night.”

Soon enough you both drifted off to sleep, ensuring that the Inu was safe in your arms, and that he had nothing to be afraid of anymore.

Because you were going to show him the love and care he needs and deserves.

[letdecemberburninflames]

Alternative Tactics

Peter Pan x Mermaid!Reader | Part 7

Summary: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6  Part 8

Fic Type: Peter Pan x Mermaid!Reader Series

Warnings: Kissing, but seeing as this is Tumblr I feel like it’s kind of useless to warn you guys about that. Pan being devious, but that’s all.

Author’s Note: (As always, comment or message me to be added to the tag list.) Mumblety-peg is a game played with knives. Players take turns throwing knives at the ground, and the one who gets the knife closest to their foot wins that round. If you actually hit your foot, you win the game.

Pan wasn’t planning on letting Devin’s little comment slide. Not by a long shot. But, for the time being, he wanted to see just how far this little charade would go. After dinner, he sat by the bonfire, playing his pipes, deep in thought. He wondered if Y/N could hear them. She had gone to bed early, claiming to be tired. Well, it wasn’t really a claim. She was tired, but even so Pan was reluctant to let her go. She had basically become a mother figure for the younger lost boys, like Aravis and Caspian. He liked having her around to watch them.

He had had the lost boys build her a treehouse, and she spent a great quantity of her time there. It was far above camp and was furnished with a hammock, chair, desk, and a trunk. In the trunk, Pan had provided extra clothing and even a linen dress. There were pillows, and furs, and a woven mat on the wooden floor. When he had shown her the treehouse, she had simply thanked him without meeting his eyes. God, she was infuriating! What did she want? Why was she so hard to understand?

Later that night, after the lost boys had gone to bed, Pan decided to pay his favorite mermaid a visit. He snuck into her treehouse, stepping from the small balcony into her bedroom. There she lay, curled under the thin linen sheets, body trembling. He had hardly noticed until now, but it was fairly cold out. Normally, the nights in Neverland were comfortably warm. The kind of night that would make you want to sleep out under the stars. But not tonight. Tonight was chilly, and frost nipped the island air. A cool breeze rustled the curtains of the treehouse, and Y/N shivered in her sleep. A pang of sympathy resounded through Pan’s being, along with a sharp intake of breath. The feeling was foreign and unclean. So unfamiliar in fact, that he could hardly name it. He hadn’t felt sympathy for anyone, ever, under any circumstances. But sympathy was what had tempted him to rescue Y/N in the first place, though at the time his actions on the feeling had gone unrecognized because of his sheer curiosity. Yes, that’s all this feeling was. It was not sympathy, for he was incapable of feeling that. It was intrigue. He simply wanted to take Y/N apart like a clock. Figure out what made her tick. She was an enigma, a riddle, a puzzle to solve. His tactics thus far had proved unsuccessful, so perhaps it was time to develop a different ploy…

---

Y/N breathed deeply then exhaled, feeling her body relax as she snuggled into the source of warmth that was keeping her in that comfortable place between waking and sleep. She nuzzled deeper into the close space, vaguely aware of the morning sunlight streaming through the curtains. She once again took a deep, contented breath, enjoying the scent of pinewood and fresh dirt, fresh and clean like a forest after a rainfall.

Her smile vanished. E/C eyes snapped open, only to see a hues of blurred tan and green. In her disoriented state, she tried to move backwards from the very human shaped source of warmth, the face obscured by a pillow. An arm slithered around her back, moving upwards, stopping once the fingers were tangled in her long, H/C hair. They gently gripped her head, pressing her back to the body and what she could only assume to be a neck. The other arm slid around her waist, keeping her from moving.

She was panicking ever so slightly, but counted slowly to ten, trying to get her wits about her. A plan. She needed a plan. Presently, she realized that her left leg was tangled between two others, and this, she realized, could be used to her advantage. She shifted her body ever so slightly, and placed her hands on bare shoulders. With one swift motion, she flipped them both over so she was straddling the boy. The hand that had been tangled in her hair fell to shield cruel green eyes from the morning sunlight streaming through a window. It was only then that she realized that she was not in her treehouse.

“What the actual hell, Pan!” She yelled at the boy beneath her, resisting the urge to slap him.

“Get off.” He pushed her, sending her tumbling from the hammock to the ground.

Y/N scrambled to her feet, glaring at Pan. Their refusal to say a word to each other had flown out the window and a tirade from either, or possibly both, parties seemed imminent.

Y/N hissed, “What am I doing here?”

Pan smirked. “You’ll see.”

With a dissatisfied huff, Y/N turned on her heel and stormed out of Pan’s tent. The moment she crossed the threshold outside, she immediately regretted it. The lost boys were all up, and the second they saw her walk out of Pan’s tent in her disheveled state whispers caught up like wildfire. It got even worse when Pan followed her out, still shirtless. It took Y/N all of a half a second to figure out Pan’s game. She could see very clearly how this situation must of looked to the lost boys. The sound of firewood clattering to the forest floor, brought Y/N’s attention to the real problem at hand. Devin had just returned from gathering firewood for the breakfast campfire. Behind her, Y/N could practically feel Pan’s broad smirk. That tricky bastard.

---

“Want to tell me why you were with Pan last night?” Devin’s voice was bitter as he pushed back branches. He and Y/N had been sent to go hunting for the night’s dinner.

“I told you earlier. I wasn’t. I woke up in his tent.” Y/N’s brow furrowed as she studied the ground for tracks of the boar they were after.

Devin whipped around, anger blazing in his eyes. “Bullshit.”

Y/N stared at him, caught off guard. Devin had never acted like this. He had been put off ever since this morning, for reasons unknown to her. She had tried to explain that she had never intentionally gone to Pan, and never would, but Devin didn’t believe her. And worst of all, he just wouldn’t let it go. He kept bringing it up, as if by asking her to tell him the truth she would magically slip up and tell him that yes indeed she had been fraternizing with Pan. But no matter how many times she reassured him that she had no idea how she had ended up there, Devin never believed her.

“Tell me the truth.” Devin demanded.

“I did.” Y/N brushed her hair back from her face. “And, just so you know, I’m leaving. Tonight.”

She was fed up. With Pan, with Devin, with everyone. She wanted nothing more than to leave; to escape the trap that was Neverland. It was a game of chess, and Pan constantly had her in check, surrounded by his pawns. She hated him with a burning passion. The one sense of hope she had came from remembering. Remembering her father. Remembering that she wasn’t lost. Remembering that as long as she knew she was trapped, she still had a chance to escape.

Devin shook his head, watching her storm away. She was uncontrollable, uncontainable like the ocean itself. She had the sea in her veins, that much was evident. He was growing weary of not being able to bottle the storm. He was sick of being treated as though he was insignificant in her decision making. He wasn’t some pawn to be played with, by Y/N or Pan, for that matter. Pan. He was beginning to despise the boy king of the island. He took everything for himself, and now it seems that he had even tried to claim Y/N. Pan had done nothing to deserve his place of leadership. The others blindly followed him, just because he said they should. Devin was having none of that. What exactly made Pan better than him? Nothing. And if he could eradicate Pan, Neverland would be his.

---

Felix sat next Peter, who was clearly deep in thought. “I thought you would have killed Devin by now.” He laughed, lifting a spoonful of the rabbit stew Y/N had made to his mouth.

“He’s a coward. He’ll never pull through with his threats.” Pan said, running a sharpening strop along the blade of his knife, his bowl of food sitting uneaten. “And as for Y/N… It’s only a matter of time before she breaks.”

“Or runs away.” Felix said pointedly.

Pan shook his head. “She wouldn’t get far. The mermaids would kill her.”

“Maybe that’s what she wants.” Felix took a breath. “She hates it here. That much is obvious. Maybe she would do anything for freedom. What would you do then?”

Pan couldn’t answer. What would he do? He hadn’t even considered that. Sure, she wanted to leave. But surely she wouldn’t be suicidal enough to try and escape. There would be pandemonium if she killed herself. The lost boys had grown accustomed to having her around. The younger boys in particular, loved her. She looked after them, and in a way had become an older sister to them. Besides- he glanced at his steaming bowl of rabbit stew- she made great food.

On the other side of the campfire, Devin sat next to Y/N, and the two were getting along famously once again. Devin seemed to have finally accepted that Y/N was indeed not cheating on him and was all the better for it.

“Want more stew?” He asked as he rose to refill his own bowl.

“Sure.”

She handed over her bowl, and Devin flashed her a wink. “You’ll need your strength if you’re gonna cross realms.” He murmured.

Y/N bit her lip. There was no guarantee that she could even make it. She might give her life trying to escape. Devin returned, and silently handed her the bowl of soup. She took a spoonful and chewed thoughtfully on a piece of rabbit meat. Devin’s hand had found it’s way to her thigh, and she felt grateful for the touch of reassurance. He understood. He had accepted the fact that she needed to leave. She only wished he had agreed to come with her. He didn’t want to leave, but she acknowledged that he needed to stay in the same way that she needed to leave.

---

Y/N slipped away from the circle around the campfire early, heading to her treehouse. She took a deep breath as she looked down at the lost boys laughing and chatting happily. James, Rufio, Owen, and Felix were playing mumblety-peg while some of the younger kids like Timothy and Flynn watched with wide eyes. Y/N turned from the balcony, and grabbed her cloak from where it hung next to her desk and fastened it around her shoulders. Quietly she climbed down from the treehouse, and slipped into the woods.

She had only just gotten out of earshot of the camp when she heard a twig snap. She whipped around, only to see Devin stepping from behind a tree. “Don’t do that!” She hissed.

“Sorry sweetheart.” Devin grinned, “You thought you were jus’ gonna leave without saying goodbye?”  He wrapped his arms around her waist, smirking.

“I-” She was cut off by Devin’s lips brushing hers. It was not an innocent kiss by any measurement, but their kisses had never been that way. It was intense, hungry, and the breath was knocked from her lungs. She hardly had a moment to react before he pressed his tongue to the seam of her lips and, at her grant of access, delved inside her mouth. Y/N could nearly feel the lust as it rolled onto her tongue and seeped down her throat with every push of his tongue against hers, spreading through her body.

Devin pulled back, panting ever so slightly. “Good luck.” He said, his smirk still painted on, a mischievous evil glinting in his eyes. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye…” Murmured the girl as she turned and fled into the woods.

Y/N hurried through the underbrush, barefoot. She had left her boots behind because the extra weight would only slow her down and she wouldn’t need them once she reached the ocean anyway. She ran down the beaten trail leading to the beach, her path lit only by slivers of moonlight slipping through the canopy of leaves overhead. Abruptly, a sharp pain twisted through Y/N’s stomach and she clenched her teeth in a desperate attempt to keep from crying out. She stumbled to the ground, pain surging through her body. She writhed and twisted in pain, near tetraplegic. The scent of earth helped ground her, and she grasped tightly to the roots of a tree, her fingernails digging into the bark. Up ahead, she could see the moonlit water. She dragged herself to her feet with what felt like magma pulsing through her veins. She stumbled across the beach, then waded into the water, sighing in relief as her legs melded into a glistening sapphire tail. The pain was searing, but bearable for now. The relief was short lived, however. 

After swimming for awhile, the pain returned, worse than before. Y/N’s body convulsed. She feared that the splashing would alert the mermaids to her presence. She writhed, twisting in the ocean, trying to overcome the nigh unbearable agony. Saltwater washed into her mouth, and she accidentally inhaled the liquid. Coughing and spluttering, she tried to keep fighting despite the nausea that was washing over her in waves. She was rapidly losing strength consciousness, and she was fighting to stay awake. Her body was fatigued, and wracked with pain beyond measure. Y/N fought the disabling surges of twisting pain, her teeth gritted and head swimming. Her muscles spasmed, and with no warning, Neverland faded to black as she slipped from consciousness.

Tag List: @masters-madness @truestbeliever28 @dreamsandtropics@gunnergirl117@sarcastichater @myfandomismyreality @sneakered-salamanders  @fulltimeoncer @nyckiss 

[natsuhikoshidou]

Invisible Ch. 7 - This Thing, That Thing (Summary)

souhei meets an old acquaintance 

Read Chapter 6 | Read Chapter 8

Souhei proposes to Haruka that they should move their meeting place to the secret shrine. This is because it probably looks weird to other people when they meet. Luckily Othello isn’t there, so Haruka’s glad.

Haruka asks Souhei where he’s staying and reaches out to grab his hand. She says it’s because she can’t see him, so she knows where he is if she does this. 

Souhei tells Haruka that ‘it’s a city where invisible people live’ and ‘it’s hidden in this town’. He also says that they’re pretty self-sufficient, Haruka says it’s like a town from a fairy tale.

Haruka then looks down, and asks Souhei to come back. She wants to look in his eyes and talk to him again. Souhei’s glad that Haruka said that, but then says he can’t.

When asked to elaborate, Souhei tells Haruka that everyone is doing well without him, and that he only made things uncomfortable for the class and his aunt. Haruka shows no response, but when asked by Souhei, she explains that the police told her about the bullying. She apologizes for not doing anything. He also tells Haruka about his relationship with his aunt.

Haruka suggests he goes back once more and sees the situation for himself: "Though you won't get a full explanation... maybe auntie and school won't be in accordance to what you think."

Back in the Invisible City, one day when Souhei was having a walk through one of the barns in the city, he saw a cat out of the corner of his eye. Wondering whether this was a normal occurrence, he goes to <<JIRO>> to ask Jirou and Shibata.

They say that a dog managed to get inside once, but Shibata and his skateboard friends led it back outside; It happens occasionally.

Thinking about what Haruka said and wandering around the city, he then sees the cat again. It has black and white fur and a red ribbon around its neck- it looks just like Othello.

When Souhei approaches it, the cat then runs off. It runs off inside a building where there are things laying around all over, but the real thing that catches Souhei’s attention is a staircase that leads underground.

Souhei goes down the stairs, his guard high. He remembers that Shibata told him about a well in the corner of the city, so maybe this is that. As he remembers that, the stairs open into a large space.

The space looks like a 50 meter pool. In the inside of the open space, some adults are drinking alcohol, dozing on mats and playing shogi. The atmosphere reminds Souhei of the rooftop; it’s likely this is a meeting place for adults in the city.

He can see Othello going down a path on the other side and follows after him. Down the dark path, there’s various items laying about. One item is a glass cup that Souhei almost stands on, but he places it in a corner so it’s not a danger.

Othello hits a dead end. When Souhei calls out to him, he’s hit with shock: there’s a man there.

The man looks old and tattered: his hair is unkempt and messy, his clothes are ragged, his skin is wrinkly. Right now he’s petting Othello.

Souhei calls out to the man. He gets up slowly and looks at Souhei, his face looks thin and his eyes are smokey. For some reason, though, there was something about this man that Souhei remembered... though it was impossible.

"Why are you... over here? There's nothing here."

"What are you doing here?"

"I came here a little while back. Is that your cat?"

"It's a similar cat to one I used to take care of in the outside world... Um, it might be rude to ask something like this... how long ago has it been since you came to the Invisible City?"

The man's muddied eyes looked at Souhei. Though they hadn't even exchanged a few words of conversation, already the man's stamina looked like it was at the bottom. 

His breathing was disjointed.

"Pardon me. Saying something like that on a first exchange..."

"...It's strange. I don't remember every detail, but I think at least ten years have passed."

Souhei's breathing became disordered. I should check this instinctively, he thought.  

As he thought that, the name of the person floating in his head left his mouth.

"...Are you, Youichi, Shima-san?"

The man's shoulders moved in shock.

There's no way it can actually be that- as he thought that on the one hand, a long time ago, Souhei's memories -who gazed at the photograph placed on his desk-  were screaming.

The man in front of you is your father, they said.

"You're Youichi Shima-san, right?".

The man cleared his throat loudly once, and spoke.

"...Who are you?"

"I'm..."

Souhei spoke.

"I'm Souhei Shima..."

In the space of a moment, the man's eyes opened wide. The peeled open whites of his eyes were dirty and yellow, but now they seemed to be dripping and falling with water.

"....So, Souhei...."

The man raised his neck, his mouth which soon began to drool moved shakily.

"Is it.... really you.....? Are you really Souhei? What- Wh, why are you.... here? Aah, why....."

This man is Youichi Shima! His huge structure crumbled with a gigantic noise, Souhei heard from behind his ears. The legs that supported his body while he was conscious now seemed to become weak. What the hell is happening? Shouldn't you be dead? Why was I able to meet my father in this place?

Holding down his shaking body, Souhei opened his mouth.

"W, what happened? You died... even though I heard you had died...."

Youichi Shima didn't hear, but was only groaning "Aah" and "Uuh".

Before his eyes became bright red.

"-What happened!" Souhei raised his voice, Othello jumped off, and ran off somewhere.

"Please tell me!"

Youichi Shima put both his hands on the ground, and rubbed his forehead against the ground.

"I'm sorry..."

"...What?"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, honestly..."

"P, please stop! Please answer my question!" Not understanding at all, Souhei felt like heaven and earth could be turned upside-down.

Raising his head, Youichi Shima spoke nervously.

"Since...Since my body disappeared, who has been taking care of you...?" "...My aunt." "Kazuho- right, I told her I had died. I thought that was fine. It certainly was... I didn't want to bestow my strange wish onto you. It was the correct decision..."

His tone of speaking earnestly while nodding was much more irritatingly bestowed onto me.

"Why are you in the Invisible City...?" Souhei asked.

But Youichi Shima shut his mouth. His gaze fell to his feet like he was embarrassed.

Souhei felt like he wanted to grab him by the collar.

"-Please answer me!

Suddenly, thud- that hard sound rang out behind him. Souhei reflexively turned around.

The path shining in the thin fluorescent lamp was empty.

Souhei turned around to his father again.

"...What happened?" "I became tired..." "Huh...?"

Youichi Shima continued speaking.

"Back then, when I lost my wife, your mother, I was alone... I couldn't raise a child alone... I was tired."

Souhei slowly shook his head.

"What..." What's this man saying?

The man before his eyes closed his eyes shut tightly, like he was enduring pain, and spoke.

"It was like I was being crushed..... before long I couldn't handle my job... but, you were still alive..... Even so I somehow kept you for several years, but I really just couldn't hold on any more... when I felt like that...."

-You mean you became an invisible person?

Souhei held his tongue with as much strength as he could muster, and thought. He was saying he raised him for several years as a baby, but in the end he abandoned him- then he turned into an invisible person, that's what he means? 

Did his aunt create that story? So that he wouldn't know the truth? That she brought up this person's son until now?

He understood why Youichi Shima wanted to apologize. But he shouldn't get something like forgiveness.  

Souhei finally exploded.

Gripping his father's rag-like clothes, in those muddy eyes, his own close-by son was reflected.

"You! You don't understand anything like responsibility! Abandoning your own child, you troubled your family! How long have I suffered... why the hell did you... do that? What kind of person are you? I can't forgive you for something like that!"

Souhei rudely let his hands go. Anger and shame were running around the inside of his head, he seemed like he was about to cry. However, he couldn't cry in front of this man. Souhei endured it.

"Responsibility...." Youichi Shima muttered. "You're right. I have a responsibility. But it's no use. I'm a useless person..."

His father rubbed his forehead against the ground again, he spoke loudly.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry.... it's truly inexcusable! I'm bad..."

-A man like this is my father...

Looking at his body, which didn't feel that it's pride had been broken, Souhei was dumbfounded.

He was driven by the impulse to tread on the back of his miserable head, wanting to crush his nose into the ground. It would definitely make a satisfying noise. However, he couldn't bear watching his body cry out and try and escape. If he saw his father like that, he'd rather die on the spot.

Aah, speaking of that, he suddenly remembered. The photograph of the hot spring somewhere. When he looked at the photograph that captured that man, it gave him daily encouragement- he remembered that and found it hilarious, now he wanted to laugh. How stupid- he thought. Arbitrarily, he wanted to make up the image of his father in his head. He was playing hopelessly alone.

Souhei chuckled, and before he knew it Youichi Shima raised his head and muttered.

"You should leave the Invisible City." "...Excuse me?"

A cold voice came out that surprised himself to an extent. Youichi Shima seemed to flinch too, and was silent for a short while.

"What? Is there something you want to tell me?" "...I'm telling you, if you just came, then you should leave right now. This city isn't a paradise." "...Do you plan to tell me about yourself, apparent-father?"

However, Youichi Shima continued talking, nevertheless.

"This isn't a good place for people. You'll surely regret it."

For a moment, every feeling inside Souhei gave off sparks again.

"-Bullshit! You're only talking about yourself! If you stayed in the outside world, I would have been completely fine in the first place, you know? Or do you regret it? I've had enough of you being such an idiot! Everything is your fault!"

Souhei took a deep breath. As the whirled up dust was about to calm down to the ground, a long silence passed.

After a short while Youichi muttered a little.

"I'm sorry..."

Don't say that any more. He turned his face down again, like he couldn't look at his son's face anymore. 

Like a shellfish sinking in the ocean, he didn't move.

It's over. That's what Souhei sensed. The conversation died here.

Leaving this dirty cellar basement, his lone, miserable father, and his similarly miserable son.

Souhei turned back on the path he came. He couldn't run as his knees didn't have the power, but nevertheless he was still fast.

In any case, he was fast for a minute as he ran away from that dark place.

But where the path bent, he saw a curved piece of glass by his feet. Looking at it, worried, he realized it was the cup placed on the corner of the floor.

It had broken somehow.

-Was somebody there?

Souhei got chills down his spine.

Tomorrow morning, Souhei decides to visit school as Haruka suggested. Though he remembers it well, he feels like a completely different person visiting it.

He looks into the classroom. It seems they’re currently in lesson. Souhei’s desk is still there in the back of the class. Naturally, it’s empty. Then it turns into lunch time. A group of people fly out the classroom door, Souhei waits for them to pass, and then enters.

Hijiri is there. He’s laying on his desk like he’s asleep. Surprisingly, none of his friends are with him. They all left.

Overhearing a conversation from two girls in the class, it seems everyone has begun to see through Hijiri’s righteous attitude; they think it was mean of him to pick a fight with Souhei. 

It also seems like Hijiri has been distancing himself from his friends. He doesn’t talk in class anymore. Though, one of the girls says, if he tried to talk to her, she would ignore him.  It seems like the blame for Souhei’s disappearance was all pushed onto Hijiri.

Souhei becomes confused. He thought everything was supposed to be going well since he left. But now it seems like he and Hijiri have swapped places, and Hijiri is now being isolated.

After that, Souhei goes home to see his aunt. He carefully opens the steel door and takes off his shoes. He sees his aunt working, it looks like she’s working on a cover for a book. Everything seems normal, so Souhei is about to leave when...

The phone rings. Kazuho gets up and answers- "-No, because I haven't been able to get in touch with him or anything at all. I don't have any confidence in the police."

Suspecting this is about himself, Souhei waits. 

It turns out Kazuho is talking to her uncle. She tells him that ‘it’s not possible for me to contact him’ because ‘he’s gone’, and begins to cry.

"When that boy grew up, gradually, I started to have no idea what he was thinking... He wasn't a boy that spoke honestly about what he thought. Also I just had no clue how to raise him up... When I talked to him, he would just say "It's nothing" and "Not really."- it was like we were getting more distant. Speaking of which, I felt like, in the end, I really couldn't be a mother to him... up until recently, I couldn't speak to him at all either"

"...Stop." From Souhei's mouth, a wrung-out voice spilled out. "Aunt, stop."

However his aunt didn't hear it. She only conversed with the person on the phone.

"...I know. The truth is I can't get to the bottom of it more strongly now, can I? So I'm useless... I'm not his mother, I feel like I shouldn't have been so pushy until now. But, But I made a mistake... Did I tell you about what was happening in his class before? Things like the bullying, I didn't notice it at all until now... I noticed on the day Souhei went missing... He came home with injuries all over his body. Though he told me... his bike had been hit somehow.... It was all my fault."

After hearing his aunt blame herself, Souhei decides that he wants to be able to talk to her face to face. But he can’t stand hearing it anymore, so he leaves the apartment.

After standing outside for a little while, Souhei remembers somewhere else he has to go. 

Today he and Haruka are meeting at Hachiougi park. She said it’s for something she had planned today. She’s already at the bench, reading a book. Souhei taps her on the shoulder, she reaches out to hold his hand.

When they hold hands, Souhei feels overwhelmed with everything and begins to cry. But he tries to endure it.

Haruka senses something’s wrong and asks him. Souhei writes that nothings wrong. Haruka says that she wants him to tell her, but Souhei feels like the time to tell her everything hasn’t come yet.

Then, Haruka turns to the path behind Souhei. “You came.”

It’s Hijiri.

"...Yo"

He had a frankly unenergetic voice. As Haruka looked like she was lost for a response, her body shifted slightly to the side.

"Sit down"

In the space between Haruka and Hijiri, who sat down, there was a space opened for a single person. Souhei stood exactly behind it and watched over the course of events.

This was also something Haruka proposed. As she said, what Souhei imagined about the state of the Grade 11 Set 5 classroom and his aunt was completely different.

After calling Hijiri here after school she wanted him to watch them, she said.

But what the hell did she want me to watch. Souhei didn't have any expectations.

Hijiri, who hung his head in silence until now, spoke.

"Let me apologize, for what I did......"

Haruka glanced at Hijiri sitting next to her, then returned her gaze in front of her.

"You haven't finished apologizing." For Haruka, it was a voice as cold as she could make it. "Sorry." Hijiri said again.

Souhei observed, they were talking about their kiss.

"That was a surprise attack." "...Sorry, really."

Haah, Haruka sighed and then was quiet. However, she wasn't angry anymore, Souhei realized. Her personality rarely had discontent for other people in the first place. You can't help what's already happened, she probably accepted it.

"Well... enough about that-" Haruka crossed her arms. "-Hey, I want you to tell me about Souhei, and the class."

Hijiri's body shook slightly.

"Tell me the truth, please?" she spoke with a remarkably gentle voice.

What is she trying to do? Watching Hijiri and Haruka alternate. She probably wants me to see something.

Souhei was agitated.

"I'm useless..." Hijiri murmured. "It's all because of what I did. I'm horrible."

Souhei doubted his ears.

"...What did you do?" Nervously, Haruka asked Hijiri.

After that, as Hijiri stumbled here and there, he revealed his behavior to Souhei. Breaking, ignoring, laughing and hurting. Then he was frank about how he was the mastermind behind those. He also revealed about the assailant's plans Souhei didn't realize, minutely in detail. Accurately.

However what Hijiri said wasn't everything. He hid several horrible actions of harassment. Confessing to all his sins to the girl he likes must be unbearable. However, it's possible that there might be things he doesn't remember.

But Souhei hadn't forgotten a single one of the things that they did to him. The assailants casually hurt a person, to the victim it's strongly etched in their mind. He wanted to tell Hijiri that.

Haruka swallowed a breath at hearing every single thing Hijiri did to Souhei. After Hijiri finished speaking, it seemed she couldn't speak for a short while.

"...Why, why did you do something so horrible?" fearfully, she opened her mouth, and spoke to Hijiri.

From the bottom of her heart, she couldn't understand his actions.

"I think it's sad that you were hurt, Hijiri. But you were Souhei's best friend, right? Weren't you talking about going to the national tournament together? So... why did your relationship turn into something like that?"

This is the story from middle school. He was hurt because of Souhei's carelessness, and suffers from light after-effects in his foot.

Hijiri was silent as he hid his face. Haruka was struck by his figure, she seemed slightly pitiful.

"...How is your foot?" she asked.

However, Hijiri suddenly spoke.

"-I lied."

"Eh?" Both Haruka and Souhei said that.

"I lied, about the after effects..."

Hijiri closed his mouth again. The noise of the water fountains became awfully loud. Like they rang inside the head.

"...What do you mean?" Haruka said.

Souhei looked at Hijiri too. No matter what he said it didn't make any sense.

"It's the truth that I can't run... It still hurts to sprint at full speed. But that's not my ankle-"

Hijiri's injury was an ankle fracture. Souhei, Haruka and the other pupils saw his cast. They clearly remembered it.

"-It's my shin. My tibia... That was a stress fracture."

Full of agitation, Souhei stirred on the spot. Bouncing, the thicket by his feet shook slightly. Haruka looked towards him for a moment, and nodded slightly. However, he and Haruka seemed to be approximately equally shocked.

"... I talked to a doctor a little before that accident. It's a stress fracture from over-training, they said. It was the worst feeling. But I thought I'd endure it and go to nationals. That was when the accident happened."

As a result of the whistle Souhei dropped, Hijiri fell over.

"The fracture was just as I wanted. I thought, it can't be helped if I have this. I thought, if Souhei's the cause, then there's nothing I can do."

"I don't understand." Haruka shook her head. "What are you talking about? Hey, Hijiri, can you go through step-by-step once more?"

Souhei also swallowed and waited for his story. Hijiri moved his body, putting weight on his back, and began his story.

"When we entered middle school I entered track and field club, do you know why?" "...Because Souhei entered it, right?" "Because you entered it, Haruka."

Hijiri spoke.

"Souhei's legs were fast. So I thought it was only natural that he would enter track and field, I thought I should enter too. If I did, I said I would become a manager with you. I thought, ok then, I'll enter too.  I didn’t want to lose to Souhei. But that guy had exceeding motor reflexes, so I didn't stand a chance. So I thought I'd try a different route. I chose the 200 meter sprint, though I didn't have a particular reason...

That guy was really amazing. Since we were first years, he made it into the top ranks in city tournaments, right? I honestly thought he was amazing. I knew he had something that I didn't. So because I hated losing, I really kept at club activities and voluntary practice. I trained without ever taking a day off. But no matter what I did, I could never overtake Souhei. And then, because that guy had a kind of narrow field of vision, I took leadership. Thanks to that I was appointed as head of the club next year from senpai.

But when it became winter in our 2nd year I got the stress-fracture diagnosis. Though you know this, Haruka, it's not something you can heal from easily. But I wasn't going to give up here. I couldn't just watch Souhei's efforts without doing anything. So I thought, I'll do it. That was when I fell over."

Haruka and Souhei were silent. Hijiri continued his story.

"I thought, that can't be helped. Souhei was the cause, Haruka, you saw that moment too. It was convenient in lots of different ways."

"-Wait. What, it was convenient? What do you mean, It can't be helped?"

Haruka interjected, Hijiri breathed in slowly and at ease, and then spoke.

"I liked you, Haruka, since a really long time ago. So I entered track and field club so that I would persist, and not disappear from your line of sight. I practiced a lot to get the best results possible. But... you liked Souhei, didn't you?"

Souhei returned his gaze to Haruka. But without saying anything, her back didn't move in the slightest.

"Injured, after-effects remained from my stress fracture, I felt like that responsibility had been left to Souhei. It's fine if I can't do hard practice with this, I thought if I don't do it out of self-responsibility, that's fine. I finished, so I didn't end up becoming an unattractive guy- wasn't it convenient? I got sympathy from you. Then after all that, Souhei didn't get good results at all in the nationals. That was because he felt in debt, mentally, I'm sure. I caught up with him...

But back then I felt guilty. Souhei was my best friend. When I worried about how I could make it up to him afterwards, we went into high school together, and I thought about becoming his coach. I wanted to be a manager like Haruka. Then close to graduation, Souhei came and said to me "I can't do track and field in high school". I... just, for some reason, got angry. He had so many things compared to me. If he practiced more genuinely I felt like he would have gotten much better results in track and field, and he was smart too. Above anything else... I was always jealous of him, because you liked him, Haruka. That guy said he was giving up track and field because of household circumstances and stuff. I knew there was no reason for me to be angry... But I was super angry, and there and then I just abused him, calling him shit. And yet he always seemed to take it without fighting back, like a man. After all I still feel miserable about myself. But still, after that he didn't lose his nerve."

Haruka finally opened her mouth.

"...That's when you bullied him?"

"I didn't plan to at first. Just when I myself saw Souhei it would piss me off, so I just stayed away from him. I was glad we were in different classes in our first year. But because we were in the same class when we went up into our second year, immediately everyone around me noticed, with a little momentum they talked about my injury. Then they got mad for me... for me too... when I saw those guys getting mad, I reconsidered and thought Souhei was bad after all. The circumstances were good for me. And then..."

Hijiri's shoulders trembled. Sitting next to him, Haruka was crying quietly too.

"I ran him down... I want to apologize to Souhei..."

It was a voice that seemed to drown out the noise of the water fountains.

Souhei shed tears too, watching the two from behind.

After shedding the first tear, they simply wouldn't stop. Maybe he should be angry at Hijiri, who had hid the reality from him until now. Maybe he should beat him up. However, somehow he didn't feel mad at his best friend that confessed everything until now. If he could, he wanted to stand face to face, look in his eyes and talk to him.

But he couldn't. Now tears just overflowed, he couldn't do anything.

[aidanchaser]

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Everyone Lives Au

Table of Contents beta’d by @ageofzero

Chapter Nine A Grim Defeat

The cold, wet weather didn’t let up over the next month. It rained constantly, and Harry wondered if it was the fault of the dementors or if it was just a bad year for weather.

On the day of the Quidditch match, Harry was woken up incredibly early by a very cold feeling on his neck. It was still dark out. The cold got sharper and he sat up straight. He found Peeves hovering over him, blowing cold air over his neck. With a grunt, Harry threw his sheets at the poltergeist and got up for a drink of water. Peeves disappeared through the tower wall, cackling softly.

Harry tried to go back to sleep, but even though it was only 4:30, he was too awake and too anxious about the oncoming match. He looked out the window, hoping for a clear day. He could see a few stars, but thunderclouds loomed on the horizon. Harry’s heart sank. They’d get blown around so easily in those winds. At least Draco’s advantage on his Nimbus 2001 would be marginal. A bit more speed or sharper turns wouldn’t help much against the elements. It was going to come down to skill, which Harry was sure he had plenty of, and a lot of luck. He wasn’t too sure about that one.

Since he couldn’t sleep, Harry decided to wait in the common room, where there was a warm fire, until it was time to head down to breakfast. When he reached the door he found Scabbers scratching at the heavy wood.

Harry picked the weasel to return him to Ron’s bed, but Scabbers bit his finger.

“Fine, what do I care if Crookshanks gets you?” Harry snapped in a low whisper. But he was careful to keep Scabbers in the dormitory before going down the stairs to the common room.

Harry sat down on the couch beside the warm fire. He thought he’d better enjoy the warmth while he had it. The wind was already picking up outside the tower. He got up to close the window and saw Crookshanks sitting at the foot of the stairs to the girls’ dormitory. Llewelyn sat across from him. They were staring at each other in a way that sort of reminded Harry of the way Malfoy looked at him across the table at mealtimes.

Hermione had said that cats were solitary creatures who didn’t share space well, but Harry never saw any other cats at Hogwarts fight the way Crookshanks fought with things.

Harry picked up Llewelyn and took him to the couch. “We don’t need Ginny and Ron teaming up on Hermione. She seems stressed enough as it is.”

Harry didn’t think the cat understood him anymore than Scabbers had understood him, but Llewelyn didn’t go back to stare down Crookshanks, at least. He sat next to Harry and curled his paws up under his chest. Harry vaguely remembered his mother saying that when a cat did that, it meant rain was coming. At least in this case, it was one divination that seemed true.

Ginny had cleaned Llewelyn up a lot since Halloween. He was no longer dirty and matted. She’d bathed him and brushed him and she gave him plenty of food. His fur was now thick and sleek, and now that all the dirt was gone, you could see a clean white stripe down his chest, breaking up the solid black coat. He didn’t look as skinny anymore, either.

Harry scratched Llewelyn’s ears. The cat cooed at him, but didn’t move. Crookshanks still sat, steadfast, at the base of the stairs.

Hermione was the first one downstairs in the morning. She scooped up Crookshanks and sat down next to Harry.

“Nervous about the game?” she asked him.

Harry wondered how tired he looked. But he only shrugged his shoulders. “Weather’s going to be awful.”

“I saw.” She held Crookshanks in her lap and pet him while he purred. “Are your parents still coming?”

“I expect so. The match won’t be canceled, anyway.”

“Did Mr. Black say he was coming?”

“I haven’t written to Sirius, still. And he hasn’t written to me. But Professor Lupin — er, Uncle Remus — Which one do I use?”

Hermione laughed a little. “I expect you can just do it like you did with your mum. ‘Professor’ in class, and ‘Uncle Remus’ outside of class.”

“That seems strange somehow.” Harry laughed at himself for a moment. It felt good. He felt a little better about the match and about Sirius. “Well, Uncle Remus said that my parents will probably make Sirius come.”

“Do you want that?”

“I think I’ll be sad and happy either way.”

Hermione didn’t seem to think that was very strange.

The common room started to fill with people as morning arrived. At least, Harry assumed it was morning. The skies outside were as dark as they’d been since he’d awoken.

When Ron came downstairs, the three of them went down to breakfast together. Eventually the rest of the Quidditch team made it downstairs. Oliver Wood looked ready to be sick. He didn’t even touch his breakfast.

“You’ll need something to keep up your stamina,” Katie Bell said.

Oliver nibbled at a piece of toast.

“It’s just a bit of rain,” Alicia Spinnet said. “We’ve played in worse.”

Angelina Johnson stifled a laugh. Harry was inclined to agree with Angelina. They’d played in some pretty bad weather but this was absolutely miserable.

There was a shout from the end of the Hufflepuff table. “Professor Potter!” and a crowd of seventh years ran for the entrance to the Great Hall.

Harry looked up to see his parents and Sirius standing in the large double doors, soaking wet. Sirius shook his hair out and a few nearby girls yelped.

Harry left the Quidditch team to greet his parents.

His father gave him a large, wet hug. “Ready for your match?”

Harry glanced up at the ceiling of the castle, which was deceptively calm and gray. “Er — I guess so. Why were you all outside?”

James sighed and took off his glasses. He wiped the lenses with a corner of his shirt. “Had to come in through Hogsmeade. Didn’t want the school set up on the Floo Network like usual. Too many security risks and all. Honestly, these last few months have been a nightmare.” He put his glasses back on, but they were only smudged from the wet clothes.

Harry noticed how tired his father looked, and he looked over at Lily, who seemed equally weary, though she smiled at her former students and politely inquired after their studies. Harry was pleased they all had positive things to say about Remus, even the Slytherins.

“Had to walk past the dementors and everything,” James said with a sigh. He looked back at Sirius, who was still shivering. Harry guessed it wasn’t the cold.

“Where’s Remus?” asked James.

“Probably sleeping in,” Harry said. “Because it’s… Saturday.”

James nodded and glanced out the windows at the storm. “Maybe it is better he sleeps through your match, rather than be out in this weather.”

“I wouldn’t miss Harry’s match because of a little rain.”

Uncle Remus appeared just behind Sirius. He looked tired, and a little thin, but he smiled at them. His eyes lingered on Sirius for a moment, then he reached into his cloak and handed Sirius a bar of chocolate.

“Lily gave me some already,” Sirius mumbled.

“Have some more,” Remus insisted, and pressed the chocolate into Sirius’s hand. He handed another bar to James, who accepted it almost eagerly.

“Shall we head down?” James asked.

The minute they stepped outside, they were soaked to the bone. Harry could barely see through the rain. He didn’t know how he was going to be able to see the Snitch with his drenched glasses, much less catch it.

Harry was just about to go out into the locker room when his dad caught his arm.

“Just a sec, Snitch.” He had to shout to be heard over the wind. He pulled Harry’s glasses off of his face. He muttered a spell over them, and when he gave them back, the water bounced right off the lenses. “Now you’ll be able to see.”

Harry grinned. It was the best thing he’d heard all morning. “Thanks!”

He ran into the locker room, careful not to let the wind knock him over. While he changed into his scarlet robes, he expected Oliver to give one of his usual rousing speeches. Instead, the weather seemed to have blown the thrill of Quidditch right out of him.

Fred and George clapped him on a shoulder each before they trooped out onto the Quidditch pitch.

Even with the spell on his glasses, Harry could barely see in the rain. The Slytherin team was a collection of emerald statues with hazy edges, and Harry saw why Wood was so out of sorts. The Slytherin captain, Marcus Flint, seemed to have stocked his team for size rather than skill. Normally, Harry would’ve scoffed at such a decision, but in this weather it would prove an advantage.

At Madam Hooch’s whistle they kicked off and it took all of Harry’s strength not to be blown straight into the stands. The wind only got worse the higher they went.

He was soaking wet and freezing before Gryffindor scored their first goal. He hovered over the match, but his usual strategy of hang back and observe wasn’t very useful in this weather. There was no way he’d be able to see the tiny Snitch unless it was five feet in front of him.

Last year, Malfoy’s strategy had been to stay on Harry’s heels and try to overtake him for the Snitch. This year, the strong gusts of wind kept them from staying very close to each other. It was hard enough to fly straight, much less fly after someone.

Harry noticed Malfoy flying low, so he also dropped, and nearly got taken out by a Bludger, before Fred whizzed past him and knocked it back at Slytherin.

Madam Hooch blew her whistle to call a foul on Slytherin, and Harry wondered how many fouls she was missing due to the low visibility.

Gryffindor scored and the game play resumed. Harry couldn’t hear the announcer over the wind, so he wasn’t sure what the score was. There was no way, at least, that Slytherin was more than a hundred and fifty points ahead. He needed that Snitch. He could tell Gryffindor was getting worn out from playing in the awful weather.

There was a crack of lightning overhead and in the sudden brightness, Harry saw the glinting of the Snitch. He zipped toward it, but as much as the wind was throwing him around, the Snitch didn’t stand a chance. A gust of wind whipped it to his left and Harry had to bank hard to go after it.

Malfoy came alongside him, so close their knees were bumping against each other. Harry tried to elbow Malfoy off of him, but Malfoy only shoved him back.

Thunder echoed through the stadium and another bolt of lightning streaked overhead. Harry wondered if they would cancel the match for the lightning, at least. Gryffindor couldn’t afford to forfeit to Slytherin. They needed this win.

He lowered his head against the wind and tried to outstrip Malfoy. But before he got very far, an eerie silence settled over the stadium. Harry realized he could no longer hear people cheering, the rain pelting, or even the wind roaring in his ears. It became deathly silent, though the storm didn’t cease.

And then the familiar cold gripped his chest. Harry panicked. His hands slipped off his broom and he heard someone screaming.

It was the scream he’d heard on the train, and the scream he’d heard in his nightmares. He was sure it was his mother.

“Not Harry, not Harry!”

“Stand aside, now.”

“Not Harry! Kill me instead —”

Harry felt like he was drowning. He knew he was falling but he felt like cold water had filled his lungs and he needed to get to his mother before —

There was another scream and an explosion and Harry felt everything inside him stop working.

—————————— ✶✶✶——————————

He thought he recognized his mother sobbing. He heard his father say something softly. Harry couldn’t make out the words, but they somehow made him feel better, even though everything in his body still hurt.

“I thought he was dead for sure,” came Angelina’s voice.

“Lucky the ground was so soft,” Fred said.

“He didn’t even break his glasses,” said George.

“That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Katie.

Finally, Harry managed to open his eyes.

He was lying in the hospital wing, surrounded by his parents, the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and Ron and Hermione. Everyone was drenched in rain and mud.

His mother was the first one to his side. Her face looked as pale as he felt, and she held onto him the way Harry had gripped his broom when fleeing giant spiders in the Forbidden Forest.

“How are you feeling?” asked Fred.

And Harry realized everyone looked miserably pale. The memory of the dementors came flooding back to him, and Harry tried very hard not to be sick all over his mother.

He pulled himself out of her arms, but kept a hold on her hand. “What happened?”

“You fell,” his father said, in a tight voice.

“We thought you died,” Alicia said.

Lily stifled another sob, and James put an arm around her shoulders.

“The match….” Harry was afraid to hear the answer. The Quidditch team looked at their feet. “Malfoy didn’t….”

“He did,” George said. “Just after you fell.”

Harry looked around at the team’s glum faces. He felt horrible. He’d never lost a Quidditch match before. “Where’s Oliver?” he asked suddenly, realizing their captain was absent.

“Still in the showers,” said Fred. “We think he’s trying to drown himself.”

Angelina elbowed him.

“He’s taking a shower,” Fred amended, “and trying to get warm again.”

Harry realized he still felt quite cold, even though they’d probably been indoors for a while.

“Everyone has to lose at some point,” James said, and gripped Harry’s shoulder. “You hadn’t lost a match yet. It’s just one. And your first loss is always the hardest.”

“It’ll be alright,” Katie said. “We only lost by a hundred points. We can make it up.”

“Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are really good this year,” Fred said. “If they can beat Slytherin by two hundred points —”

“Then we’ll have to beat them by another two hundred.” said George.

“But if Ravenclaw flattens Hufflepuff —”

Madam Pomfrey appeared and shooed the muddy Quidditch team out of her infirmary. At Harry’s request, she let Ron and Hermione stay behind.

Harry realized suddenly Sirius and Remus weren’t there. “Where’re Sirius and Uncle Remus?”

“Professor Lupin caught a fever in the rain,” Hermione said quietly. “Madam Pomfrey put him in her office. Mr. Black is with him.”

Harry didn’t know he could feel any worse than he already did, but knowing he was the reason Remus was feeling worse than he usually did before a full moon did it.

“He wouldn’t have missed you play for anything,” Lily said, as if she could read his mind. “And it’s a good thing he was there. We had a couple strong patronuses to keep some of the worst of the dementors at bay.”

“Dumbledore was furious they’d come onto the grounds,” Hermione said.

“They had no right to be there,” James agreed.

“It’s unthinkable they’re even allowed this close to the school,” Lily said sharply. “I don’t know what the Ministry is thinking, interfering with your education and your safety and —”

James squeezed her hand. “The Ministry is keeping them safe by keeping Regulus Black out of the castle.”

Harry wanted to talk about anything other than Regulus Black and dementors. He glanced around the room and realized his broom wasn’t nearby, even though he was still in his muddy Quidditch robes.

“Did someone get my Nimbus?”

His father looked like he was going to be sick.

“When you fell, it got blown away,” Ron said.

“Professor Flitwick brought it in just a bit before you woke up,” Lily said.

Harry didn’t like the way everyone was looking at him, like he was about to be told he was dying of dragon pox. “What happened to it?”

“It hit the Whomping Willow,” said Hermione.

“And you know the Whomping Willow,” said Ron. “It doesn’t like to be hit.”

Hermione picked a bag up off the floor and handed it to him. Inside were broken twigs and splintered bits of wood — all that was left of his Nimbus 2000.

Now Harry really didn’t think he could feel any worse.

“We’ll get you a new one,” James said quickly.

“But this one was from Sirius.” His voice cracked as he said it, and he realized just how much his fight with Sirius was bothering him.

Lily quickly hugged him. “It’ll be alright.”

But Harry honestly didn’t see how it could be.

Ron and Hermione were sent off to dinner; his parents were allowed to stay a little later. Sirius and Remus emerged from Madam Pomfrey’s office to have dinner with the Potters. Harry asked how Remus was doing, and Remus promised that he was fine.

Sirius was unusually quiet. Harry had no way of knowing if it was because of the dementors or because he was still upset with Harry over Regulus Black.

Madam Pomfrey shared a handful of particularly funny stories about Remus’s many stays in the infirmary. Most of them involved Sirius doing something ridiculous. The laughter seemed to be as good a medicine as chocolate. Even though Harry still felt miserable about losing the match, losing his broom, making Remus sick, and fighting with Sirius, he didn’t feel so cold.

Snape came by to deliver Remus’s potion. James and Sirius eyed it suspiciously, but said nothing. Lily smiled politely and asked how he was. She even invited him to stay, but he declined. Sirius looked relieved.

After dinner, Ron and Hermione came back to check on him, this time with Ginny in tow. Madam Pomfrey reluctantly let them in, on the promise not to over-exert her patients, and gave everyone cups of hot cocoa.

Ginny was carrying her new cat and an envelope, one of which she thrust at Harry shyly.

Harry took the card and peeled back the Spellotape holding the envelope shut. When he opened the card, it sang shrilly at him, so he closed it suddenly and politely thanked her. Lily told her it was lovely, and Harry wasn’t sure if Ginny blushed more because of his compliment or his mum’s.

When Madam Pomfrey decided it was time for her patients to get some rest, Lily kissed Harry’s forehead. Hermione, Ron, and Ginny said quiet goodbyes and returned to Gryffindor tower. James ruffled his hair and repeated that everything would be alright. Sirius mumbled a goodbye and an apology.

It wasn’t much, but it was something. Harry managed to say something like, “It’s okay,” before Sirius left with his parents.

He wondered if they would stay in Hogsmeade, or if his parents had Ministry business to attend to. He wondered if they would be there for Remus on Monday, or if just Sirius would stay behind. Harry just hoped that Remus wouldn’t be alone.

—————————— ✶✶✶——————————

Madam Pomfrey finally let Harry go Sunday night, just in time for him to finish up his homework. Harry checked with Remus three times to be sure he didn’t need anything brought back to him before going back to the Gryffindor common room.

Class on Monday went as usual, except Harry worried about Defense Against the Dark Arts. It was the day before the full moon, and if Madam Pomfrey hadn’t let Remus out of the infirmary yet, she certainly wouldn’t for an afternoon class. He thought about not going, and asking Ron and Hermione to ditch with him, but he thought that Remus wouldn’t be very proud of him for that.

When the Gryffindor class trooped into Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry’s worst fears were confirmed. Snape stood at the front of the classroom. A few of the students whispered to each other in surprise, but Harry took his seat rather glumly.

“It seems Professor Lupin has not left any record of the topics you have covered so far.”

Hermione’s hand shot into the air, but Snape ignored it and continued to leaf lazily through the papers on the desk.

“It seems a rather terrible —”

“Please, sir,” Hermione interrupted. “We’ve done boggarts, Red Caps, kappas, and grindylows.”

“Quiet,” Snape snapped. “I was merely commenting on Professor Lupin’s lack of organization.”

Harry bit back a sharp word, but Dean Thomas, thankfully, did not. “He’s the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we’ve ever had.”

The rest of the class murmured in agreement. Snape stared down at them.

“Lupin is hardly overtaxing you. I would expect first years to be able to deal with Red Caps and grindylows. Today we will discuss werewolves.”

Harry might’ve jumped out of his seat if Hermione hadn’t spoken. “But sir, we’re not supposed to do werewolves yet, we’re due to start hinkypunks —”

“Miss Granger, I was under the impression that I am teaching this lesson, not you. And I am telling you all to turn to page 394. All of you. Now.”

Harry’s hands were shaking as he turned to the back of their textbook. He thought about walking out of class, but he knew it would only upset Remus. Instead he glared sullenly at Snape.

“Which of you can tell me how we distinguish between the werewolf and the true wolf?” Snape asked the class.

No one had an answer, except Hermione, who’s hand shot into the air, as always.

“Anyone?” Snape asked, completely ignoring Hermione. “Are you telling me that Professor Lupin hasn’t even taught you the basic distinction between —”

“We told you,” Pavarti interrupted, “we haven’t got as far as werewolves yet. We’re still on —”

“Silence,” Snape snarled at them. “Well, I never thought I’d meet a third year class who wouldn’t even recognize a werewolf when they saw one.”

Harry lazily raised his hand. He didn’t know if Snape would ignore him like he did Hermione, or give him the chance to answer, but he didn’t care either way. He was intent only on making Snape embarrassed in front of the class, rather than letting him continue to embarrass Remus this way.

Snape noticed Harry’s hand, and his upper lip twitched. Harry wasn’t sure if it was a sneer or disgust.

“Mr. Potter, you know the difference between a true wolf and a werewolf?” He sounded like he didn’t believe Harry, but his eyes said he was challenging Harry.

Harry took the bait. “Werewolves have shorter snouts and tufted tails. Werewolves also have longer hind legs, and their eyes are different.”

“It sounds like, Mr. Potter, you are quite familiar with a werewolf.”

“Contrary to what you may think of me, Professor, I have been known to open a text book.”

Ron, Neville, Dean, and Seamus were all staring at him with their jaws practically on the floor. Hermione was looking at him like he’d grown a second head. Lavender Brown stifled a giggle.

“Five points for your cheek,” Snape snarled. “All of you are to take notes on the chapter. You are to each write an essay, to be handed in to me, on the ways you recognize and kill werewolves. I want two rolls of parchment on the subject. I don’t want to hear another word out of you for the rest of class.”

Harry couldn’t care less about the points. Even as the class groaned about the essay, he felt quite smug and proceeded to write the most thorough answer to Snape’s assignment he could imagine, complete with a lot of snide remarks about the hypocrisy of werewolf research and a handful of references to werewolf legislation. Two rolls of parchment, for the first time in his academic life, wouldn’t be nearly enough.

[malkumtend]

ILYL Ch. 15 extract - Different Perspective.

So an anon suggested a re-write of a small scene from Ch. 15 of ILYL, this time from Squirrelpaw’s perspective. Usually I don’t respond to requests. But it is only a small moment, and it is an unbelievably fluffy moment. Truth be told, I’ve not had the best week, so I do think it would help to write a little fluff and angst.

So thanks anon.

...

Squirrelpaw let out a low moan of disgust. It was going to take moons to get this stuff out of her fur. With every move she made, she felt the wet sludge sink into her pelt, sickly wiping against her skin. Yuck. She shivered at the coldness.

Why did I even consider this? Admittedly she had been proud of the idea, she really did believe the mud would cover their scents from the Tribe guards. She could smell it enough now to realise how much it stunk! She hissed, cursing how thick her fur was. Usually she would be smirking from how much it kept her warm in the cold mountain air. But covered and matted with slimy, smelly mud? Ugh. She didn’t look forward to cleaning this off.

She sighed. She had to remember what this was for. Stormfur needed them. They had to make it there, for him. They would not leave him behind.

Squirrelpaw felt the sharp points of rock underneath her paws. The path was certainly becoming more rough and steep. We must be close. She opened her mouth, scenting the air around them, but only retched when the rotten smell of the muck came over her again. Maybe I didn’t think this through. She thought crossly. With how bright her pelt was, she’d had to envelop herself with the stuff to get hidden. 

Oh well, if the others smelt anything they’d probably-

Squirrelpaw suddenly felt herself being dragged off her feet as a tight hold on her scruff pulled her to the side. She could barely let out a surprised squeak as her paws left the path with a hasty pull towards a large rock, embedded in shadows. Squirrelpaw felt two paws gently push against her chest, as well as a body slightly squeeze against hers as her companion hid themselves in the shadows with her.

Squirrelpaw’s eyes narrowed as she glared up. What is this mouse-brain doing? Had they ever heard of personal space? They were lucky her jaws weren’t already digging into their throat! She had the perfect opportunity to do so! Whoever this was had better give her an explanation quickly?

In the slight gleam of the moon, she saw who it was.

The anger paused, instantly replaced by an overwhelming burning in her cheeks.

Crowpaw was against her. His paws were on her chest. His chest was practically pressed against her nose. His gleaming blue eyes were fixed to the side, cautiously watching as his ears were up, twitching. Clearly focused on something.

Squirrelpaw was focused on not losing her mind.

She was stiff in his arms. Unable to escape his delicate, seemingly protective, prison. Sure all she had to do was just push him off and she’d be free to swipe at him.

But then everything hit her again.

His paws, fixed on her shoulders, firm but soft as they held her in place. He wanted to keep her secure, not trapped, and he certainly wasn’t hurting her. By all accounts, she knew she was safe there. Safe in those soft paws that held her close. Close to him.

Beneath the smooth shape of his body, she could feel his heart beat with warning vigilance. It lightly hit her chest again and again, a reminder that he was a close as he was. Squirrelpaw held her breath at the thought that Crowpaw could definitely feel her own heartbeat; she prayed to Starclan he mistook it for surprise rather than hysteria.

And then there was his scent. Squirrelpaw’s throat tightened in horror. He was covered in mud as well, he was buried in the same stinking mess that she was. She knew that he smelled as bad as she must have. SO WHY! Why was it that underneath the rotten, wet earth, the smell of rain soaked hills, of new-leaf lavender, of him, why were those smells she loved so much stronger?

Abruptly, Squirrelpaw began to feel happy for the mud covering her. She was sure her face was burning so much that her fur was falling off her cheeks.

She couldn’t move even if she wanted to.

She could hear the guards after all.

She remained still, flushing and silently gasping, until she heard the guards voices fade into the distance, and she felt Crowpaw slacken on her. Her eyes darting up, she saw him let out a breath of relief, before looking down at her. His eyes immediately widened in surprise. Squirrelpaw’s brow raised.

“Oh.” He sighed, a small laugh on the edge of his tone. He stepped away from her, his paws up in nervous relief, giving her the space to move again. Squirrelpaw’s pupils shrank at the hint of surprise she caught.

Did-Did he not know that was me? Squirrelpaw thought, her neck fur prickling. She knew that she’d been giving him some space for... reasons she didn’t like to think about, but surely he must have been able to tell it was her! Did he think he was saving someone else? Did he think he was saving-

Squirrelpaw’s teeth slowly came down together, grinding quietly.

Crowpaw sighed again in alleviation. His eyes found hers, dimming into a teasing smirk. “That’s twice I’ve saved you these days!” He smiled.

Was he... making fun of her?

Hiding the growl in her throat, Squirrelpaw shoved him out of her way, ignoring his astonished grunt as she began to pace back to the group. “Don’t expect any favours from me!” She spat, “I would have heard them!”

“Well you didn’t need to!” Crowpaw snapped back, his tone reminiscent of how she remembered from the beginning. “Thanks to me!”

There was the arrogant runt she’d hated! Squirrelpaw ignored him, her tail lashing back as she walked, hot and embarrassed, away from him. Her eyes narrowed in frustration. How could any cat be as stupid as he was? Did he really not realise? Could he not see for a second how he made her feel?

How had she fallen for such a mouse-brained tom?

“But,” Squirrelpaw’s eyes widened as Crowpaw’s tone calmed. “They would have found us if it wasn’t for your mud plan.” He mewed softly, the hint of a purr on his voice. “That was really brilliant, you know.”

Squirrelpaw breathed in, daring a small glance at him. He was smiling at her. Smiling so beautifully.

Oh right. That was why she had fallen for him.

Whenever those compliments came out of his mouth, or whenever that mouth curled with glowing luminesce, Squirrelpaw felt happier than she ever thought she could believe. 

She could see that smile a thousand times and never lose the warmth in her chest.

She wanted to see it every day she woke up.

But that was a dream. Because he wasn’t hers, and she wasn’t his.

Because someone else deserved that smile over her.

That was why, alongside the warmth, that smile now stung her with an impossible pain.

That was why it was so hard to turn away from him. “Thank you,” Squirrelpaw meowed, not at all shocked by how ragged she sounded. “But now isn’t the time for compliments.” Her eyes screwed shut. Truth be told, his compliments were fine, they were just directed at the wrong cat. “Come on, we can’t let Stormfur wait on us.”

That was right. Focus on the mission, focus on the prophecy, focus on your cl-

She breathed in like she was holding a log on her back. Her eardrums vibrated with a constant, fatigued pounding. Her jaw slackened as the tightness began to hurt.

Her paws ached as her steps quickened and heaved. She needed to get away from those soft paws, from that sleek body, from that gentle heartbeat, from those calming smells, from that wonderful smile,

She never looked back at him. She didn't want to see his reaction; it would hurt her whatever it was. She let out another long breath, shattered, furious and so so sick of all of this. I am doomed.

...