#i miss friends that have drifted and i mourn the losses of never being able to feel certain moments again

[glitterghost]

I miss 24 hour store trips. And late night southern summer drives. I miss sleepovers with friends and late night fangirling and all these things I feel like have been lost in the shuffle of time. I miss going to the movies and excitement to hang out with friends. When we had time to do more things than just try to recharge and unwind.

I feel like I miss and miss and miss this or that and there's never anything to look towards. Like a ghost stuck in nostalgia and I'm barely here because I'm mentally there.

[dayenurose]

Writer’s Month Prompts (written for @writersmonth )

Day 23 - Lodge (Bughead)

(Note: This story is a (surprise) follow up to Day 19′s story - Bubbles and Single Parent(s). Enjoy.)

“Here you are, Juggie.” Betty joined Jughead on the balcony porch. He appeared deep in thought as he gazed out into the tamed wilderness behind the lodge. She couldn’t help but wonder if the notebook abandoned on the chair had anything to do with his contemplative expression.

Despite the crisp autumnal chill, he looked cozy with a plaid blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a mug of steaming coffee cupped in his hands. Back home, as the weather had cooled, he’d taken to wearing a knitted crown beanie. Apparently, he used to wear the hat all the time before they had met. She found the addition charming.

“Good morning.” Jughead kissed her lightly on lips before turning his attention back to the view. Through a gap in the towering pines, they spied a glimpse of the lake. The sun glinted like diamonds off the gently lapping waves. “How’d you sleep?”

“Gloriously.” Betty carefully balanced her coffee mug along the railing, then reached up, stretching long and lean. The stretch raised the hem of the oversized sweatshirt she’d stolen from Jughead ages ago, revealing a strip of bare skin. His mug-warmed fingers traced chastely along her lower back. Still, she squirmed as the light touch tickled.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded as his touch drifted away and the sweatshirt once again covered her skin.

A smirk tugged at his lips as he leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Later, when the kids aren’t twenty feet away in the living room.”

“Tease.” She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder. Unfortunately, he was right. Jellybean was partaking in her tradition of Saturday morning cartoons. The twins were excited to join in this treat. Betty generally tried to limit the about of screen time the twins had access to, but she couldn’t deny it was nice being able to have a proper lie in while Jellybean and the twins amused themselves for a bit.

Jughead hummed a noncommittal response. “I still can’t believe Veronica just let us borrow this place for the week. It’s like a mansion plopped in the middle of the backwoods. Still feels like it must be a dream or something.”

“As I said last night, welcome to Lodge Lodge. Veronica is generous with her friends. She's offered to let me come up here before, but I've never taken her up on it before now.” Betty sipped her coffee, trying to remember the last time she was here. It definitely wasn't this peaceful. “V used to bring the whole gang up here all the time during high school. We’d have these unsupervised parties and do a bunch of stupid stuff. Nothing too dangerous, I suppose, but you wouldn’t believe the number of headaches and fights which followed us back home after a weekend away.”

Shaking her head, Betty struggled to push aside the melancholy she associated with growing up too fast, which surfaced anytime she reflected too long on her carefree past. “This is the first time I’ve been back here since I got custody of the twins. Suddenly getting drunk and fighting about who stole whose boyfriend felt lest important, you know…”

“Betts, stop.” He press a kiss to the crown of her head. “It’s okay to mourn what you loss. It’s also okay to want things for yourself.”

“I know, I know.” She really did, but sometimes it felt selfish. Selfish to still want that life when she wouldn’t trade being ‘mom’ to the twins for the world. “Do you ever miss what your life could have been?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean I’ve been doing this since I was sixteen, so I didn’t exactly have a normal high school experience. Even if I wasn’t taking care of Jelly, I wasn’t exactly Mr. Popular. No one was going to invite me to the high school dance or weekend parties in the woods.”

Despite herself, Betty laughed. “Not to be all gender norms and stuff, but I think guys are still more likely to ask the girls to the dance.”

“Betts,” he voice dropped to that deep rumble that made her shiver. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush against his body. She could feel the thrum of his heartbeat. “You’re the first girl I ever wanted to invite to a dance and I didn’t meet you until recently. So, no, even if I had the opportunity, I wouldn’t have invited another girl to the dance.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you had….” Betty never knew how to respond when he said things like that. He made her feel special, and cherished, and loved by him, but it was also so far from her experiences.

Jughead rested his cheek on top of her head. “I know. Don’t worry about it. I don’t regret any of my decisions. I wouldn’t exchange taking care of Jelly for the world of normal opportunities. Besides, it led me to you. I can’t think of anything better.”

She melted into his embrace. They’d been dating for six months—almost as long as they’d known each other and their lives had almost seamlessly melded together. Suddenly, there was another person in their lives they could depend on. Betty lost track of the times he volunteered to watch the twins while she went to a doctor’s appointment or stayed late for a study session. Likewise, she returned the favor, letting Jellybean stay with her when Jug picked up an extra shift or visited his dad in prison. While they scheduled semi-regular date nights, more often than not, their mutual free evenings were spent together at his or her apartment with all the kids and doing normal family things. Making supper, doing homework, watching moves—that sort of thing.

The twins had quickly taken to Jughead. Following Betty’s example, they called him Juggie. When he was there at bedtime, they begged him to be part of their bedtime routine—reading stories and tucking them in—and were disappointed when he wasn’t there in the morning. Last spring, not long after they started dating, Juni’s pre-school class was having a ‘Daddy-Daughter’ event. Jug hadn’t even blinked when Juni had asked him to come.

On the other hand, Betty wasn’t certain what Jellybean thought of her. While she got along great with the twins—patiently playing with them, reading to them, teaching them new things— Jelly was wary around Betty. Jug’s sister was unfailingly polite and whenever Betty babysat her, the girl seemed to enjoy herself. But, when Jug was around, Jellybean would never talk directly to Betty. She’d always ask Jug first if she wanted something from Betty. He refused to play go-between so Jelly would need to decide between not getting what she wanted or talking to Betty.

“Whatchya thinking about?” Jug broke into her silent reverie.

“Us. Our families. Jelly.” She threaded her fingers between his.

Jughead tensed. She could feel the tension travel through his jaw and down into his arms. “I’m sorry about how she acts. I don’t know what’s gotten into her…”

“It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine-fine. But, it’s normal. I’m the new woman in your life. She’s protective of her big brother who’s always so protective of her.” Betty worried at her lower lip for a moment as she decided whether or not to broach the subject. “Juggie, I think she might be worried that if we…well, you know, move forward with our relationship. Get more serious…”

“Betts, I am absolutely serious about you.”

“And I’m serious about you too…” She swatted at his arm. “Now, stop distracting me.”

“Yes ma’am.” He wrapped her arms around her waist and picked her up. She squealed, but didn’t fight as he carried her over to one of the deck chairs and settled her on his lap. “Go on.”

She cuddled up against him and teased at the bit of hair which snuck out from under his beanie. “I was saying, I think Jelly might be afraid that if you get serious about me, you’ll leave her too. Like your mom and dad. So, she’s making certain you know she needs you.”

Jug swore under his breath. “I thought… I was trying…I wanted her to never feel that way. I was hoping she knew that no matter what happens in our lives, I’ll always be there for her.”

“Shh, it’ll be okay Juggie.” Betty pressed her forehead against his. “Deep down she knows. She’s been your world for so long now that she’s needing to learn how to share you. Remember, while you’ve always been there for her, when big life things happen, your parents weren’t. As much as that hurts you, it also hurt her. She needs time to get used to me and to see that things won’t change between you and her.”

“I’ve got a smart girlfriend.” Jug lifted his face and nibbled at her jawline.

Betty laughed as she stretched her neck to give him better access. “Why thank you. And, just so you know, I have an absolutely amazing and caring boyfriend.”

“Do you now?” he mumbled around the kisses he lavished down her neck. Tugging lightly at the neckline of the sweatshirt, he revealed the edge of her collarbone. He pressed a kissed to the spot, sucking slightly in order to leave his mark on her skin.

Everything came to a sudden and hasty stop as the balcony door opened.

“Jug?” Jellybean called.

Betty was thankful that her back was to the door. Between that and her hair, the kids wouldn’t have been able to see what the adults were getting up to. Suddenly, Betty felt a bit like a teenager again, getting caught in a compromising position. She adjusted the neckline of the sweatshirt so everything was covered.

“Breathe,” Jug whispered as he brushed her hair behind her ear. His lingering caress was light and intimate.

Glancing around his girlfriend, Jug waved his sister over. “All done with your cartons?”

“Yeah.” She stayed beside the door, swinging it back and forth. “Um, I’m hungry.”

“Okay, I’ll get you some cereal.” Jughead started to scoot to the edge of the chair. Betty slipped off his lap and started to gather their abandoned coffee mugs.

“Actually, I was wondering,”—Jellybean studied her fingers and picked at a hangnail—“Betty, will you make pancakes?”

“Of course,” Betty couldn’t stop the thousand watt smile breaking out across her face. “I’d love to. Would you like to help?”

Jelly nodded.

“All right, why don’t you head in and wash your hands. I’ll join you in the kitchen in a moment.”

Jughead squeezed her hand, silently sharing the joy of the moment.

“Okay.” Jellybean dashed inside to follow Betty’s instructions.

Following Jelly inside, Jughead and Betty paused in the living room to check on the twins. Though no one was paying attention to the television, the cartoon continued to play. DJ colored while Juni built with Duplos.

“Go on.” Jug turned off the tv. “I’ll keep an eye on the twins.”

“Can you read us a story?” Juni asked. She looked up at him with large hopeful eyes.

“Of course.” Jug settled on the couch and the twins were soon cuddled against his sides, each with a stack of books.

I love you, Betty mouthed silently as Jug settled in the center of the couch. The twins cuddled up at his sides, each with a stack of books.

Jug winked, and returned the sentiments in an equally silent, I love you.

Knowing her kids were in good hands, Betty proceeded to the kitchen on the ground floor. Jellybean had already started to lay out mixing bowls, measuring cups, and a pancake flipper.

“Thanks, that’s very helpful.” Betty set the coffee mugs in the sink as she washed her hands.

Jelly's cheeks colored at the praise. She hesitated a moment before asking shyly, “Can we have blueberry pancakes?”

Neither the twins nor Jughead were fond of blueberry pancakes, so Betty didn’t make them often.

“Certainly. And, I’ll let you in on a secret,” Betty whispered conspiratorially, “they’re my favorite too,”

In Jellybean’s answering grin, Betty saw a trace of Jughead’s mischievous glint. She also noted the acknowledgment in Jelly’s eyes that the girl recognized Betty as ally and an adult she could trust.

Betty’s heart soared. She couldn’t help but think that they were one step closer to becoming a family for keeps.

[malfoyheartsgranger]

Love You Through It

Summary: In which George Weasley tries to spare his lover.

A/N: I thought this fic was going to go in a very different direction, but as I wrote, I just . . . well, kept writing. And as I did, the story changed in my mind, and this is the product. Don’t even know what else to say.

Warnings: mentions of death, argument, food

Word Count: 3.7k

. . .

George Weasley had not been the same since the war.

This was to be expected, of course. His best friend, his twin brother, had been killed, and how could he possibly be the same with his other half missing?

The short answer was that he could not.

The long answer, however—the real answer,—was that he really did try. For weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, George Weasley thought for sure he would never be happy again. His joke shop was mere metres below his own feet at every moment, and yet he could never bring himself to down the flight of stairs leading to the shop. Instead, someone else took care of the logistics and cancelled the coming inventory when she realized Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes would not be back in business for quite a while. This was the same person who made sure George always had a glass of water on his bedside table and who checked in on him every hour or so just to see if he had found the energy to wake. Each morning, she slipped into George’s room from her temporary sleeping spot on the living room couch, and spread open the curtains that she had drawn the night before, just in case George awoke and reached for the sunlight. In the early days, she did not realize just how long it would be until he would do so.

. . .

It was May 29 of 1998, twenty-seven days after George had lost Fred, when he realized this wonderful woman, his beautiful Y/N, had lost people too. George fancied himself a relatively empathetic person, but in the pain of losing his brother, he had forgotten that his girlfriend deserved the same care she had gifted to him. She never had a chance to mourn: since day one, it was her providing for George, and he was too consumed with his own grief to see it. However, when George awoke on that morning near the end of such a terrible month, he saw the clothes laid out and the window cracked open for what they truly were: Y/N’s love.

She had known not to push him in the beginning. Perhaps just the suggestion of a shower here and there, or an offer of dinner. But recently things had been different. She knew what George needed—she knew better than anyone—and he could not have been more grateful in that moment for the sunlight streaming through the open blinds and the sounds of Diagon Alley slipping through the cracked open window. When he sat up in bed, he could have sworn his head spun around one thousand times.

Maybe it was during this momentary loss of consciousness that George Weasley’s brain opened wide enough to realize he would never deserve Y/N Y/L/N.

He had told her countless times before, of course, but always out of adoration and genuine confusion on how he landed such a perfect woman. She had been there through everything, and George knew that if he did not take action, she would continue to suffer for him. He had been a horrid partner up to this point, and he could not allow himself comfort at her expense. After all, he would never be the same, so what was the point of keeping her waiting around for her George to come back?

. . .

At the sound of creaking floorboards, Y/N instantly shot up from her spot at the kitchen table. She had just finished making breakfast and was enjoying her share of the eggs she made. Her share, George figured, because there was another plate of food sitting at the other end of the table. A brief moment of selfish panic crossed his mind at the thought of her lovingly preparing something for anyone other than himself.

He lifted his gaze from the plate of eggs and toast when Y/N cleared her throat.

“George,” she whispered. Her body seemed to unconsciously back up, sending her chair skidding across the wooden floor. She nearly moved to approach him but thought better of it, deciding to merely gesture toward the empty spot across from her. She knew him well. “There’s food,” she said.

“For me?” George asked with a hitch in his throat at the effort of speaking after so many weeks of silence.

“Of course. Who else?” Y/N replied, shaking her head. “Although I usually bring it into your room and just leave it there, and sometimes when I come back it’s gone, and other times you’ve hardly touched it, but obviously you know that. After all you’re the one that eats-”

George cut off her nervous rambling with a silent nod and took a seat, thinking even further about how he could never make up for what he had put her through. Y/N’s mouth snapped shut, and she stared as he lifted his fork. Apparently deciding he was not going to flee, she sat back down as well. As he took small, slow bites, George noticed that Y/N had not moved from her straight-backed, hands-on-her-lap position. He looked up to meet her eyes and was greeted with a hesitant smile.

George spoke suddenly. “You don’t have to be so tense, Y/N. I’m not going to go feral.”

Without knowing what her reaction should be, Y/N let out a timid laugh that made her lips quiver and moved her hands to the top of the table. “I guess I just wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

“Yes, well, I figured there were some things I needed to talk to you about,” George explained. This was a shock to both of them, George jumping into things right away. Well, he had never been the kind to wait around for things to happen: he always made them happen. While Y/N was surely taken aback, only George knew the true gravity of his words. “After breakfast.”

“Certainly,” Y/N conceded, allowing George whatever time he wanted or needed to take to discuss what was on his mind, even if it was something as simple as wishing for an additional piece of toast or salt for his eggs. Y/N was not the best cook, but she definitely tried, especially for George. She made him the same breakfast she herself ate every morning, along with any other meal she prepared, and when he did not eat it worried her. She had been so incredibly relieved when she entered his room five days after the battle and noticed that he had taken a bite of his toast. It was a step up from eating nothing. And every day, she made him food that she hoped and prayed he would eat. She would do anything for him, just as she knew he would do the same for her.

She could not have known that in his own mind, George was doubting if he ever could have acted out of care for her in the same manner that she had for him. There was a small seed of doubt, and although George Weasley seemed the farthest thing from a worrier, when it came to Y/N, he was constantly and painfully aware of his inadequacies. And he would convince her of them, if it was the last thing he said to her.

. . .

Y/N had stared at him while he ate the rest of his meal, a feat she was both shocked and unsurprised that he could accomplish. He and his brothers had always been big eaters, but the past few weeks had proven just how little George could survive on. Y/N thought that his stomach had surely shrunk in the time since the war.

What had not diminished in even the slightest was Y/N’s complete and utter admiration for her lover. While he scolded himself for being so weak, she marveled at how strong he had remained through it all. Sure, he had taken some much needed time to recuperate, but not even one half of the infamous Weasley Twins could heal from such a heartbreak in a matter of days. And his healing would not be finished, but Y/N couldn’t help but hope that his actions today were a telling sign of what was to come.

Just as she began to smile to herself, George cleared his throat and pushed his now empty plate away, eliciting an ear-shattering screech as it ran along the wooden dining table. His sudden movement shocked Y/N back into reality, and she recalled George’s concerned tone when he had said they needed to discuss some things. Certainly nothing could be worse than what had already happened to them, so why should she worry?

And yet, as sure as she was that nothing could ever hurt her more than seeing her Georgie with a broken heart, his next words came near.

“You know I’m not one to dance around anything,” he began in a timid murmur. When Y/N moved her attention to George rather than his empty plate, she could not see his hands, and knowing him, she assumed they were under the table twiddling with each others’ thumbs, just as he did every time he seemed particularly anxious. What he could be anxious about, she could not know, but she had spent more than enough time around George Weasley to recognize his tells, and the fact that they were apparent led her to jump to the worst conclusions. “I especially don’t when it comes to you, because, well, I just think you always deserve honesty. And this is something I’ve been thinking about- well, not for a long time, I suppose, but for long enough in my mind-”

“George,” she cut him off, causing him to shift his attention from the top of the table to her eyes, which at this point were nervously flitting around the room. Before she spoke her next words, she focused again on the man seated across from her. “What is it?”

George inhaled a deep breath, which, if even possible, made Y/N more nervous, recognizing that he was steeling himself for something. “This past month, you have been so good to me, Y/N,” he said, looking down once more. “So good. And I will never be able to completely express how grateful I am for you. I never would have thought I could be sitting here at a dining table having a conversation only weeks after . . .” George drifted off and threw his arms onto the table, crossing them to create a pillow for his head which quickly followed suit. Y/N had known this situation was too good to be true: of course George would not magically wake up one day and be able to discuss the war. But no matter how long she had cared for him at his worst, she would never feel any less heartbroken at seeing him in a state of devastation. With his hands now in sight, Y/N reached across the table and gently laid one of hers on top of his, and at this, he peeked up at her through his lashes and sighed. George parted his lips and shut them again, and Y/N could see his mind working through his own thoughts. With another exhale, George continued, this time maintaining eye contact.

She deserves at least that, he figured.

With a somewhat stinging smile, George shook his head. “See now this is exactly what I mean. Here I am working up to tell you to leave me, and your priority is-”

“What?”

George ceased his speech immediately, realizing his mistake. He shut his eyes for a moment. “Y/N,” he began.

“No,” she interrupted again. “What the hell are you on about, George?”

“That’s not what I meant, Y/N. If you would just-”

Y/N rose from her chair, sending it sliding across the floor, just as she had earlier, although this time her shock came from a drastically different place than when she had seen George for what seemed like the first time in months. The harsh sound silenced them both, and Y/N stood with a seething stare. How dare George come back to her just to try and get rid of her moments later? He was absolutely unbelievable, and she would stand for no such thing.

During an eternal minute of silence in which both parties considered their next move, Y/N’s brain ventured across a horrible thought. The most horrible one she had ever encountered, to be quite honest. And in a moment of vulnerability, she voiced it.

“Do you . . .” she whispered. Cleared her voice. Tried again. “Do you not love me anymore?”

“No!” George replied, shouting out his answer before Y/N could even finish her question. “No, no, of course it’s not that, darling. It’s anything but that.”

Her anger returned. “Then what could possibly be the issue? What more could we ever need?”

George at least granted her a sympathetic look, tilting his head to the side, perhaps attempting to shake around his thoughts in the hopes that they would come together to form a sentence. But when it came to Y/N, George Weasley’s brain was always mush.

“I just can’t be the man you need me to be anymore,” he decided to respond.

“George, you must know I don’t expect you to go back to normal right away,” Y/N reasoned, with much more compassion in her voice and demeanor than before.

George stood abruptly. “No, Y/N, I mean ever. I’ll never be the same, and that’s not fair to you in the slightest. If I can spare you any more pain than I’ve already caused . . . Well, I have to. I owe that to you.”

Without responding, Y/N collected her and George’s dishes from the table and brought them around to the sink. George stood still, simply watching her movements, completely mesmerized as he was by everything she did. Even in this moment, when he knew that although he was trying to do the right thing and was failing miserably, Y/N still responded with just the right amount of grace and fire.

After dropping the plates and silverware into the sink and allowing them to clatter for a moment, Y/N gripped the edge of the porcelain, and even from across the room, George could see how the bumps of her knuckles turned white. She sniffed once and tilted her head back to look at the ceiling of their flat.

“You once told me you’ve loved me since third year,” she whispered. But George could still hear her. He always heard her.

The redheaded man nodded, not disagreeing at all with her statement. “And I have.”

“And do you think I haven’t changed since then?” With a deep breath, Y/N twirled around and crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you think I’m the same as I was when we met?”

George gave a slight shake of his head, yet still replied, “It’s not the same.”

Y/N raised her eyebrows and let out a mirthless bark. “It’s not the same?” she asked. “Of course it’s not the same, George, but what could be? Do you forget that Cedric Diggory and I were friends? That I told him to ask Cho to the Yule Ball because I knew them both so well? That I cheered him on during every Triwizard event? Do you not remember that yourself and Fr-” she paused, trying not to let her passion outweigh her empathy for George’s condition. “When yourself and your brother had to distract me with pranks because his death took such a toll on me, and not even gifting the nastiest batch of Puking Pastilles to Draco Malfoy could cheer me up?” Y/N looked down at the floor, recalling just how difficult that time had been for her, when Harry Potter had returned with the corpse of one of her best friends, and the world seemed to move on while everything around her came to a standstill. When she introduced herself to young Harry, simply because they shared such a horrible similarity. When she convinced her friends that Voldemort was back, for how could anyone else have defeated someone as powerful and just as the brave Cedric Diggory? When her broken heart was healed by the mischievous George Weasley, and she realized that perhaps her love for him went a bit past that of a friend. “Nothing could compare to what you’ve gone through, George, to the loss that you’ve suffered, but how dare you pretend I know nothing of the heartbreak that comes with losing someone you love.”

George felt horrible. Of course he remembered that. As awful as what happened to Diggory was, it brought him and Y/N together, and a part of him would always hold some twisted sort of gratitude for it. “Of course that’s-”

“That’s not what you meant, I know.” She waved him away. “But my point is, George, I have changed. Not just because of Cedric, but because of so many other things. And you have loved me through all of them.” Y/N brushed her hair behind her shoulder and stepped away from the kitchen sink to approach George. Taking both of his hands in hers, she begged him, “Let me love you through this.”

As George’s eyes brimmed with tears, he could not help but think of how his brother—how Fred—would smirk at him in the moment, but later, in private, admit that he was glad he found Y/N.

“Even if she was best friends with both of us and chose the worse twin,” he would say with a cheeky wink from across the counter of their joke shop, probably while he restocked love potions or some other form of hijinx, “I still think she’s good for you. Amazing, really.”

And then he would spike George’s drink with a crushed up hiccough sweet for him to drink right before his date with Y/N, and George would curse him and love him for it all the same. It would be irritating, but he and Y/N would laugh about it, and that was always Fred’s way.

And in that moment, perhaps only that one, George realized that as hesitant as she was to say it, Y/N missed Fred, too. After all, they had once been a trio, and she had lost him just as much as George had. George had grasped earlier that morning that she lost people in the war but had been too focused on his own pain to understand that they had lost the same people.

When George looked up at Y/N from his previous gaze on their linked hands, he noticed that she was looking at him with tears in her own eyes. She had been thinking the same thing, that while her world had been revolving around George’s wellbeing, she had not been as kind to herself as she deserved. Fred and George would always have a relationship unique to themselves, but that didn’t mean Y/N wasn’t a part of their friendship. In fact, she was a big part, and therefore she was missing a big part of herself. So at the same time George exited his nightmarish reverie, Y/N too reentered reality. And their hands were still linked. As they had been through this all, even if they had not known it.

“I couldn’t leave you, Georgie,” Y/N murmured. “Even if you pushed me right out the door and down the staircase.”

George laughed for what seemed like the first time in years, and he was surprised at how genuine it sounded to his own ears. Standing in the kitchen of the flat he used to share with his best friend in the whole world, George was reminded of Fred in the best way possible: laughter.

Y/N seemed to think the same thing, for despite the wetness pooling in her eyes, she smiled up at her lover and gave him a small nod. “You’re going to be okay, George,” she assured him, only because she knew so herself.

“We’re going to be okay,” George corrected her. He squeezed her hands and spun them around so that Y/N could sit on the kitchen chair while George kneeled on the ground. He lowered her down with his hands and then placed them on the top of her legs. As he traced small shapes on the knobs of her knees, George muttered, “I’m never trying to do the noble thing again.”

Y/N laughed, this time with real humor. “Promise?”

“Pinky swear,” George said, hooking his pinky finger around hers.

She cupped his face in her hands. “And even if it’s the evil thing to do, never try to get rid of me again, okay? Nothing could ever make me leave you. Nothing could ever make me stop loving you.”

“And if something dreadful happens in the future?” George asked with a serious tone.

“I’ll stay. I’ll never leave.”

With a much lighter voice, George wondered, “What if fifty years from now, when we’re old and grey, our favorite cat runs away and we find out some nasty little boy found it and kept it for himself? Or maybe a dog, I haven’t thought that far ahead, to be completely honest with you. I’d even be fine with a hamster if that’s what you wanted-”

“George,” Y/N said. “Even if something as foul as that were to happen to us, we could figure it out. Together this time. No more making decisions by yourself.”

Pushing his joke aside, George leant forward as hastily as he could to place a lingering kiss on Y/N’s lips. He poured every ounce of love he possibly could into that kiss, and as Y/N sighed into him with the relief of his mouth on hers once again, George Weasley knew he was the luckiest man alive. Because he knew that in the coming years, they would each face more heartbreak. It was inevitable. But neither of them would be alone. And they would always have someone to love them through it.

. . .

my stories

[mkakki]

The Things I Couldn't Say

Inumaki is one of the best boys, and I adore him. He deserves so much after the Shibuya incident

I can't wait to see what updates Gege has once back from haitus

Until then, sweet boy ಥ‿ಥ

I listened to this because I like to break my own heart

Manga spoilers below if you aren't completely up to date.

Broken, utterly defeated, useless, unable to perform. All of these vicious words chipped away at his already fragile soul as he stared blankly up at the ceiling. Sure, he had done a relatively good job at evacuating civilians, there were more survivors because of him. Yet he couldn't help protect his friends, his underclassmen.

He couldn't help to protect you.

The guilt that continued to flake away at his mind prevented him from opening the door whenever you came to visit. He pretended to be asleep, listening to your soft words from the other side of the door. Promising to come tomorrow, that you missed him, and that you wanted to help. He flexed his hand at his side, mouth paper dry.

Your relationship had always felt so one-sided, he knew you could do better. He couldn't even tell you that he loved you without worrying about possibly hurting you.

He couldn't tell you how your smile lit up his world.

That he would do whatever it took to make sure you were safe.

"Toge, I know you're awake in there. Panda told me he was here not too long ago." He couldn't bring himself to wince at the way your voice trembled, muffled by the door. The most he could manage was to turn his head to face it, already knowing what you were doing on the other side.

Trying to keep a brave face while wringing your hands in front of you with worry. You had always been a bit of a cry-baby, but you always insisted that you weren't. It never bothered him that you mourned so freely, that you didn't allow this twisted world to take that piece of innocence from you.

"Why won't you let me see you?" Your voice cracked under the pressure on the last syllable, which made part of his heart crumble.

He wasn't sure how many days it had been, or how much was changing outside of that door, but he felt that this was his penance. Despite his age, he knew that you would be the person he wanted by his side for the rest of his days. It was never a question to him. From day one, his soul had touched yours and felt immediately at home. Whether it was some sort of weird phenomenon with cursed energies, or just his brain convincing itself that this was fact, he didn't care. He would face down a million special grades to prove his worth to you, even though you would never want him too.

"If it's something I did- something I said, or maybe even something I didn't do, just- just please tell me Toge."

Pulling himself free of his bed was nearly impossible, but he managed to push himself up with one arm, trembling the entire time. He crossed his darkened room, knees ready to buckle the entire time, and contemplated.

This might be his penance, but he wasn't alone in it. You were suffering just as much as he was, and it wasn't fair to you. He remembered the pit that had opened in his chest when they pulled you from the hole, unconscious, and bleeding from injuries he couldn't keep track of. The panic he felt when you stopped breathing for a moment, hand cold in his.

"If you want me to leave, just tell me."

Someday, you would die, and he wouldn't be far behind.

The doorknob felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds as he tried to twist it open.

There you stood, his angel, his light, the person who held his heart. He thought giving it to you might leave him feeling empty, but that space was filled with so much love that it never made him second guess his decision.

"Toge." your lips trembled at the sight of him, bruised and battered. Bandages still bulked around his left shoulder. You weren't in much better condition, bruises in various stages of healing peppering your face. Your lower lip still swollen and scabbed slightly.

How scared were you when you woke up, and he wasn't there? Blood loss had made him drift off into peace shortly after you both arrived at the hospital, despite how hard he had tried to fight it off. He didn't want to allow himself to possibly miss your last breath.

He was careful when he pulled you to his chest, mindful of the bandages wrapped around your torso.

Panda had told him how hard you had fought. How a curse had run you straight through, and that the patchwork-faced curse nearly ended you.

He tried to open his mouth, for any sort of comfort to come, but all he could do was produce a weak and pained noise.

"I'm so sorry Toge," you sobbed against him, hands bunched in the front of his wrinkled shirt.

What did you have to be sorry for?

"I should have listened to you- I shouldn't have tried to do more than I could." You tipped your chin up to look him directly in the eyes, only to pause.

Tears fell from his eyes with no hesitation.

When your hand came up to cup his cheek, it felt like warmth being pressed back into his weak soul. It only made a wet sob rack his chest, his guilt finally dissolving into a semblance of relief.

"It's okay, we're both okay, I promise. I'm out of the woods now, I promise."

How could you switch it up so quickly? How was it so easy for you to go from needing him to comfort you, to you comforting him as if it was the most natural thing in the world?

He might not be able to speak it, maybe not now, but he could write all of the words he couldn't say.

He swore as you drug him back into his dorm that this wouldn't be it. Even as you quietly began the electric kettle he kept ready, he began to harden his resolve. He would do whatever it took, go through whatever hellish training he needed too, just so that someday he could safely tell you everything that you ever made him feel.

"I understand that you feel bad about everything that happened, but next time you need to think about me too, Toge." You sat a chipped mug on his bedside table, eyes downcast. "You weren't the only one hurt and scared."

He watched the tea leaves bleed flavor into the steaming water, a lump forming in his throat. The way you put up with his selfishness was astounding.

"Next time, I'll just have Panda break the door down."

He grasped one of your hands in his, a silent plea.

Love of mine, some day you will die, and I'll be close behind. I'll follow you into the dark.

[everlarkficexchange]

Magic as Always

Written by: @alliswell21

Prompt 71: Magic of Ordinary Days AU: 1940s, Katniss is a single pregnant girl. Desperate for her daughter not to have a child out of wedlock, Mrs Everdeen contacts a priest who in turn knows a young man who just may be willing to help. Sweet, kind and shy Peeta stayed home to take care of the family farm when his beloved brother went to war to never come back. He’s always wanted a family but rural small town life gives little chance to court. He hears of Katniss’ plight and graciously offers to marry her and raise the child as his own. He does everything he can think of to make a home for Katniss and the baby. How does Katniss take it? How does their relationship develop? Will they fall in love? [submitted by anonymous]

Rating: this chapter is rated Teens and Up  

Tags: Historical!AU; WWII; 1940’s Era views on marriage, sexism, pregnancy, etc; Katniss/Marvel relationship; Non-graphic Unprotected Sex; Unplanned Pregnancy; Arrange Marriage; Miscellaneous Religious views; Grief/Mourning; Canon Characters Death; OOC!Mrs.Everdeen; Somewhat OOC!Katniss; Everlark is Endgame; Other tags to be added.

Notes: Thank you Anon for this prompt. I must confess, I’ve never seen the movie ‘The Magic of Ordinary Days’ or read the book the movie is based on. I did a quick skimming on the plot of the movie and then dug up all kinds of reviews on the book, most of my plot points come from a combination of movie and book (which apparently differ only in a few parts), besides what the prompter asked for. I just really loved this prompt, and see the potential of this story, which will be a few chapters long, cross posted to AO3 and I already have a good chunk written ;) The rating will be adjusted too, because there will be explicit Everlark smut in the following chapters. Anon, I hope I don’t disappoint you, this story will be only loosely based on the source material, and adapted to fit THG characters in the narrative, I will try to stick to the main plot points as much as I can, but I’m also taking several liberties with the story. I hope you still like it though. 

KPKPKPKPKPKPKPKP

Prim died on a Tuesday, after a very long, strenuous battle with poliomyelitis. My sweet little sister’s face looked as fresh as a dew drop even in death. 

  “Come now, Katniss,” my mother calls from the open door of the mortuary hall, where visitation took place an hour ago. 

  The mortician has arranged for the coffin to be taken to the cemetery and put in the ground this afternoon. There will be no graveside mourning. It’s all we could pay for, but then again the war has left everyone penniless nowadays.

  A big, rotund man comes to close the coffin, and offers a curt nod. 

  That’s it then. The very last time I’ll ever set eyes on Primrose’s sweet face. 

  “Katniss,” Mother whispers, insistently. It’s probably all she can muster before breaking down in tears.

  I look on at the box my sister’s body lies in, numb and heartsick. I bring my 3 middle fingers to my lips and then rise them in the air. My last salute to my beloved Little Duck. I step away from the coffin and shuffle towards mother. 

  Up close, I can see the deep, dark bruises under my mother’s eyes. She used to be beautiful in her youth— according to friends and old photographs— but now she just looks tired and defeated. I guess having to bury first her husband and then her 15 year old daughter, in less than a year, would have that effect on anyone.

  Prim would’ve looked like our mother, with their soft blonde locks, almond shaped blue eyes and alabaster skin. She had a softer spirit though, she enjoyed music and loved animals. She always said that if she was older, she would’ve joined the Red Cross and signed up to serve as a nurse to our boys in the Pacific, like Father did… Father wasn’t a nurse though, he was a chaplain. 

  It’s funny to think that I inherited so much of my father, like my dark hair, gray eyes and olive skin. We both also share the same aversion to human pain and blood that moves my mother and Prim to action; but unlike Prim, my father’s calling to help the soldiers in their worst situations, passed me and went directly to my baby sister. 

  I sigh… Prim would’ve made a terrific army nurse, if only she hadn’t wasted in bed with that odious disease! If she had been given the chance to live, I’m sure Prim would’ve had so many boys trailing after her. She would marry at some point and have a beautiful full life. 

  I don’t plan on marrying and having a family. If the acute pain in my own chest wasn’t enough warning,  watching my mother walk silently from the funeral home to our apartment, with her head bowed and listening to her quiet sobs at night would be enough evidence that there’s too much sorrow in losing one’s husband and children. 

  I think my efforts will be better spent in cultivating my mind, and getting my degree in botany, like my father always dreamed, anyway… plus, I’m not much of a looker… not like Prim at any rate. 

  We finally arrived at our modest home. Mother drifts ghost-like into the door, and then we both shuffle quietly into our separate bedrooms. There won’t be a meal at the table tonight, but I make sure Prim’s old tomcat gets fed and watered, and after he meows in distress at my sister’s door, I open mine, and let him strut inside my bedroom and hop into my bed. The hideous fur ball and I distrust each other, but he understands his mistress is never coming back, and he’s the last thing I have from her… so he lets me pet him and he cuddles close to my chest as I fall asleep, crying. 

——————————-

Mother and I walk slowly through the busy streets of town, mostly ignoring the bustle and disarray around us. People shout, cars honk horns, a baby cries in the distance, and the few young men rush back and forth in the busy sidewalks, like they’re being lashed by invisible whips.

  “We should stop by the grocer and see if we can pick up some eggs.” Says my mother, pulling her “Sugar Book” out of her handbag. 

  Because of the war, everything is being rationed, from sugar to shoes.

  I could care less about food and clothing, though. But I still go into the shop, dutifully. 

  I’m so immersed in my own thoughts, I don’t see the lanky man walking towards me with his arms full of vittles. 

  We collide. The man’s groceries fly up in every direction, raining over me, as I sit on my rump on the floor. 

  My mother is nowhere to be seen. Typical.

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there!” Says the man, pulling a packet of oatmeal from the floor, while extending his other hand to help me up. 

  “No… it’s alright, I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “Well, let’s agree that we’re both klutzes, and leave it at that?” The man offers.

  I’m on my feet, dusting my skirt off and righting my blouse, “Sure, let’s do that.” I scowl at the skew state of my clothes and finally look up at the man. 

  He’s smiling down at me, and I must admit, his smile is dazzling. He’s got short brown hair, greenish-brown eyes, and a smattering of freckles over his nose. He also towers above me. 

  “My stars! If it isn’t Katniss Everdeen!” The young man says, unexpectedly excited.

  I blink owlishly at him, and try to place his face, but I’m horrible at remembering people. Or their names. 

  “Marvel Quaid,” he offers genially, unfazed by my lack of response, “we went to grade school together?” He prompts, “My pa used to sell luxury goods in District One?”

  “Oh, I think it’s coming back now,” I say smiling for the first time in what feels like months. “You used to throw sticks, pretending they were spears or something,” I tell him, showing that indeed, I do remember him.

  Marvel scrunches his nose, “Javelins, actually. I was pretending I threw javelins. I saw a fellow doing it for the Olympics in a film, and then he won a medal for it. I thought to myself that making a victory lap with the good old American flag flapping after oneself looked like fun; well, I wanted to be a victor too!” He chuckles, then deflates. “But as everything, those dreams are gone now, crushed to dust under the weight of the war.”

  As is the norm, once the war gets brought up, gloominess settles on, dampening the cheeriest of spirits.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m all too familiar with the sentiment.”

  Marvel nods, grimly. 

  “We lost Father in France.” I’m not sure why I said it. “We put my sister in the ground last week, too.” I avert my eyes. 

  “Aww, geez, Kit… that’s truly awful. I’m so sorry for your loss,”

  I’m mildly surprised I don’t immediately recoil at his little pet name. I guess the fact that he doesn’t sound condescending while delivering his condolences, helps. 

  “Oh, well, as my father would’ve said, at least their toils in this world are over. They can finally rest in peace.”

  After a moment of heavy silence, Marvel shares, “I’m being shipped out tomorrow morning.”

  I scowl, “Oh,” I bite the inside of my cheek, wondering how he’d manage to evade the draft for this long? Marvel is my age, 19 going on 20… boys get sent to the front lines at 18. “I… I could write to you… if you wanted?” I offer shyly. 

  Isn’t that what young women are being told to do, in order to keep our boys’ morale from plummeting?  

  Marvel grins, showing slightly crooked teeth, “That would be swell, Kit!” He stares at me for a long moment, then sighs, “I should go back to my shopping, before they miss me at home. Lord knows when will I have the chance of doing something as mundane as picking up my mother’s weekly grocery allowance.”

  These days it is not only uncommon seeing men doing grocery runs, but simply seeing young, able-body men around, period. All of our boys are either in Europe or the Pacific, fighting to keep the devastation of the World war from reaching our shores.

  “Well, for what is worth, I hope you get to return home safely… you know, so you can do all the boring tasks your mother tells you to do. And when I say safe, I mean, I hope you don’t run anymore into spaced out girls, like me,” I smirk. 

  “Oh, Kit, if only you knew how much I’ve enjoyed our accidental skirmish. It’s like a gift from above, seeing you after all these years. Your smile and the color of your eyes will forever be branded in my mind, to give me a reason to fight. To have a dream,”

  I’m momentarily floored by Marvel’s florid little speech. Nobody has ever said anything nearly as sweet and gallant as that to me, and for a moment, I forget all about my dead sister and father, the war, and my own sorrow. 

  I avert my eyes, bashfully, as he finishes picking up his vittles off the floor.

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” I lean over to pick up a can of milk, and put it on top of his pile. 

  “I only speak the truth,” he smiles brightly. 

  My mother chooses to interrupt at the exact moment I bat my lashes at him, “Katniss, there you are! I’ve been waiting for you by the counter.” She shakes her head. 

  Marvel wobbles on his feet, rearranging his load, and then greets my mother, warmly, “Mrs. Everdeen, how nice to see you again,” 

  My mother eyes him, unimpressed. “Good afternoon, young man,” she answers. 

  “Ma’am… pardon my forwardness, but, would it be too troublesome to ask Miss Katniss to accompany a soldier about to be shipped out, to supper in the town?” 

  My mother narrows her eyes, distrust dripping from her voice as she speaks, “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. My daughter and I are in mourning, you see,”

  “Oh, this won’t be an untoward celebration of any kind, ma’am. With the war raging on, we’re all in mourning. All I ask for is one last night of normalcy, a chance to reconnect with an old grade-school mate,” he smiles, hopefully, “For old times sake?” 

  I’m watching my mother’s face closely, with bated breath.

  “Very well,” Mother sighs, “You may ask Katniss out to dinner. But have her home by 9 sharp!”  

  I don’t hesitate to step up and give him directions to my apartment building in District 12. 

  I spend the rest of my day giddy and nervous, pressing my best Sunday suit, the gray one with the matching jacket, and polishing my only pair of leather shoes. There isn’t much I can do about my hair… the thing can’t be fashioned into the favored waves, not even putting it in curlers overnight, so I let it be. 

  I briefly wonder if this was all Prim’s doing? Meeting Marvel and mother’s somewhat easy aquiciscent. Prim hated seeing me sad, and constantly talked about how she’d love to help me get ready for dates with a beau. She couldn’t wait to be of courting age and date a strapping, young man herself… but of course, that would never happen for her, but she would probably still want to see me have those things. 

  Maybe Marvel is right, and our serendipitous encounter is a gift from above, to heal our wounds… at least for the night. 

  ————————-

  Marvel arrives at my house in his father’s car at 5:45. Riding is now such a luxury, with gasoline being rationed and all. He takes me to a quaint little dinner in the middle of town. We share malts, a greasy burger, and a small portion of fries and onion rings. 

  We talk about baseball:

  “You’d look good in a baseball uniform, Kit! Can you still run as fast as you did in school?” 

  I laugh. “I’m not much for sports,” I demure, “but I’ve heard playing in one of the new teams pays alright. Anyway, I’m gonna be starting my second year of college soon. I put my studies on hold while Prim was at her worst, but now that it’s only just me and mother… I’m anxious to go back to study.”

  “Wow, beautiful and smart!”

  We talk about cars:

  “I loved driving… but Mother sold our car when my sister took a turn for the worse. She didn’t want to at first, saying that Father saved up to buy it, and it held sentimental value to her, but I had to push to sell it. We needed the money and gas was a nightmare to come by, anyway,”

  “The only reason we still have ours,” says Marvel, “is because Pa is too stubborn to let go of the things that still made him feel wealthy.” He scowls, “He’s trying to get into the ice business now, since it’s pretty much the only thing one where the raw material is plenty and relatively cheap, and there’s guarantee that people will buy the product… everyone still needs ice for their ice boxes, right?” 

  No one can afford luxuries anymore with every penny going out to support our boys in the battlefields.

  We talk about many other subjects: his sister’s wedding; my father’s unit getting pinned and killed by Germans… We didn’t get a body to bury, but I got a medal on his behalf as his eldest child. 

  Marvel lets me sniffle against his chest, and then kisses my lips slowly. 

  I’ve never been kissed on the lips, and I feel my face heat up. 

  “Would you… like to take a drive with me, Kit?”

  We drive all the way to the city limit. It’s exhilarating to be in a car again, and sitting at the overlook, at twilight,  alone with a handsome boy, feels positively forbidden! 

  I’ve never done anything remotely injudicious all my life, and this whole moment feels… magical… exciting! 

  Tentatively, I initiated our next kiss, but he takes over in a rush of caresses and flitting touches. 

  “Beautiful, graceful, Kit. You have no match!”

  “Marvel…” I kiss him again, not knowing how to answer his sentiments with words.

  His hands are restless, groping my shoulders and elbows. “I wished he had more time! I would’ve loved to marry you before departing. I would’ve show you so much passion and love!”

  “You still can show me, Marvel… you absolutely can!” 

  It’s all the permission he needs to dive into a frenzy. He doesn’t stop until the deed is done, and we’re a sweaty, tangled mess of limbs in the back seat of the car, only partially clothed. 

  A deep feeling of lethargy pours over me. My muscles are sore and heavy, and wished I could fall asleep in here. 

  “I intend on coming back to marry you, Katniss,” Marvel says, stretching his lanky, long legs to zip up his pants. 

  I sit up and start finger-combing my ruined hair, hoping my mother won’t notice the strands are extra frizzy. “Um… I guess we should after this,” I say shyly, gesturing between us. 

  “You could still go to college while I’m away,” he offers with magnanimity.

  “You… wouldn’t mind that?” I ask incredulous, college women are so rare, unless they’re trying to become nurses or teachers. Most girls start courting right after high school and get married in the span of one to two years, and their husbands don’t normally encourage an education beyond what their wives came into the marriage with; so to hear Marvel say that wouldn’t mi d me stay in college is just about the greatest thing possible!

  “My darling, Kit, I don’t want you to be one of those girls pining and wasting away for her beau. I’ll be busy at war, it’ll be unfair to keep you from occupying your own time while you wait fir my return. Go to college, my clever girl!”

  I smile indulgently at him, leaning closer to slip his necktie around the collar of his shirt, “You are truly a generous, loving man,” I say.

  Marvel beams, circling my waist with his arms pulling me against his body. “It’s all inspired by you, sugar plum!”

  I giggle, kissing his cheek, “I’ll write to you every day!” I promise. 

  “That’s nice… but just so you know, I might not be able to write back right away. It’ll be a while before I get settled enough to write. But you’ll be in my thoughts every minute of every day, and that’s the honest truth! I’m serious about marrying you when I return, Kit,” he kisses me again. And then, he looks at his watch, sighing. “It’s 8:32. We should get on going, gotta keep in my future mother-in-law’s good graces!” 

  We share a carefree laugh, and finish tidying ourselves up to drive back to my house. 

  He walks me to the door, takes me in his arms, and kisses me passionately before promising he’d be back to officially ask for my hand in marriage, and for my part, I swear I’ll write to him every day until he returns home safe and sound. 

  But neither of us keeps our promises in the end, although I tried. 

  ————————-

  Three weeks go by and I keep my word of writing daily letters. I receive no word in return from Marvel, but think nothing of it… Europe is far and traveling by sea is tedious and time consuming; Marvel will get in touch once he’s settled down. 

  Another week goes by, still without news from my would-be fiancé. I still don’t worry. I’ve been busy with university, and the few other girls attending school with me keep me busy, but my heavier workload is starting to get to me.

  I’m usually so tired and moody after school that socializing with my classmates becomes a chore. I barely eat supper before I’m passing out in bed, and my letters to Marvel start to get shorter and simpler with every passing day.

  I skip writing one afternoon altogether, and take a long nap. Buttercup— Prim’s ugly cat— perches on my bed like a sentinel to watch me sleep. I believe he’s worried about me… stupid, clingy cat thinks I’m sick.

  But the feline’s intuition proves right, because just two days later, I shoot out of bed and run into the washroom to spill every last ounce of last night supper into the toilet. I must’ve caught a bug or something! 

  I feel queasy and lightheaded every morning after. My appetite wanes and it seems my delicate stomach can only tolerate pears, and broth. 

  I visit the post office to place out my letters to Marvel almost everyday; Every time I come, the nice old mailman comments on how sweet it is to see all the young-uns holding romance strong. Marvel has yet to respond to one of my letters, so I just smile tightly and demure. 

  I’ve been thinking though; the longer I go without news of my supposed future husband, and despite the whirlwind night of romance with him, I start questioning my actions, my promises. I never wanted to marry before, and suddenly I was okay getting a hasty, unofficial engagement with a virtual stranger, I barely remember from grade school… maybe it’s better if Marvel never writes. 

  My plans on earning a college degree and finding a well paying job will go unencumbered— I’m aware women in prominent working professions are as rare as snow in July, but women’s presence in the working forces keep growing as industries need laborers to keep up producing while the men fight in the war. Educated women are almost becoming less rare. 

  At the two month mark since I last saw Marvel, I become weepier than usual… is to be expected in my opinion; Prim’s been gone for a little over two months and she was the only person I knew I loved. But now I’m worrying about my health on top of everything.

  One morning, while I’m kneeling on the cold, hard floor in front of the toilet, feeling miserable and tired, my mother calls my name from the open door.

  “Katniss, I think it’s time to get a test.” She states evenly, and then enters the room to fetch a damp washcloth to wipe my face clean. “I hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid you may be with child,” she sighs. 

  I squirm. “No,” I gasp. “I— I can’t be with child. I just can’t!” But the thought has crossed my mind a few times already. “It’s not supposed to be this way!”

  “I know, child,” My mother pats my head, “there’s only one way to know. Get dressed for the day, I will call the most discreet physician I know, and have him pay us a visit.” 

  ————————-

  Doctor Aurelius— a physician my mother has helped deliver babies and treat maladies with— confirms the pregnancy with a grim face. 

  I sit at my kitchen table numb and despondent. My mother writes a check to the doctor for his services, while talking in no so hush tones in the other room. I listen to their whole conversation, as if submerged in water.

  “I blame myself for this, doctor. I should have kept a closer eye on her,” 

  “Don’t blame yourself Ms. Everdeen, it’s that war business bringing out all sorts of evil into the world! It’s unfortunate the rise of these cases in our community. Young ladies— from good families!— engaging in acts ought to be saved for marriage. Youth do things without thinking, guided by fear. Our boys fear they may not return from that senseless, awful war, and settle down properly, and I don’t blame them one little bit.”

  “The only solace I have right now, is that my poor husband is not here to see the shame that’s fallen over our family,”

  “I understand the sentiment, ma’am. There’s no telling how Preacher Everdeen would’ve taken this blow. But I’m sure things will work out as soon as young Katniss hears from the father…” 

  I dissolve into silent tears then. My mother escorts the doctor to the door and then there’s silence. 

  My pinky finger curls into the soft fabric of the table cloth, and I try to ignore the urge to vomit boiling in my stomach. There’s one thought circling mi mind: my college days are over.

  ——————————-

“Ah! Miss Everdeen, I have something for you.” Says the mailman as soon as I reach the desk. He smiles, but rather sadly, like he’s about to give me bad news. 

  I’ve come to the post office with urgent letters every day for 6 days, and he’s never looked at me this way. 

  The old man digs around for a moment and almost reluctantly, passes a parcel tied up in twine. An envelope is attached to the top of the parcel, and with a sinking feeling, I realized it’s a stack of my own letters. 

  “It came in today, miss.” Says the man, voice laced with pity. “Sorry for your loss.” He says. 

  At first I don’t understand what he could possibly mean by that; he’s offered his sympathies fir my dead father and sister already; it makes absolutely no sense to repeat himself randomly after so long. 

  Then it hits me like a ton of bricks. 

  I gasp, and press the parcel to my chest. “Oh no! Marvel!” I whisper. I give the man a hasty wave, thanking him, and rush out of the post office like mad. 

  Tears run down my cheeks, while I dash home, imagining the worst. “Poor, Marvel!” Is all I can think.

  “Katniss, what’s wrong?” My mother calls, alarmed, when I rush to my bedroom, sobbing. She follows me in, and watches me tear into the envelope at the top of the stack. 

  I frown in confusion when I’m met with handwritten, chicken-scratch scrawl, instead of a formal missive typed in official US military stationary. 

  My scowl deepens as my eyes rove over the flowery vocabulary, and then I screech, “What?!” 

  “Katniss, what’s going on?” 

  I ignore my mother when she approaches to read over my shoulder; I step around her, shaking the piece of paper in my hands and stand by the window, as if sunlight will make the words change their meaning.

  I smooth the creases and folds on the page over, and read out loud, “Dearest Kit, sorry it took so long to write, it’s been a wild time since we arrived and finding time to correspond with everyone back home it’s been hard.

  “At times, your letters have been the sole source of light and hope in the darkness of this conflict. Is for that reason, and with a heavy heart, that I must come clean to you now. I truly meant it when I swore to come back and make you my wife, but as the Good Book says, the Lord works in mysterious ways, and love has sprouted out the most unlikely place! Kit, I’ve fallen in love and married a lovely gal here in England…”

  I stop reading. He goes on talking about the why and how, but I sincerely don’t care. 

  “That good for nothing, virtue dasher, future crushing… liar!” My mother bleats to the ceiling, raising her palms over her head, dramatically. 

  I’m angry too, of course. I feel used and disposed of like a dirty rag, but my mother’s reaction is borderline hilarious. Except, it isn’t. 

  I’m pregnant, unmarried, and soon— once my still flat stomach starts rounding— I’ll be socially ostracized for my condition. My only saving grace was the promise of marriage that bastard Marvel had given me. But that’s gone now. 

  “I knew that boy was bad news the second I laid eyes on him! He never even introduced himself to me, the little weasel! This is my fault. My fault! I should’ve never allowed you to run amok with the likes of him…”

  “Mother, will you please?” I nearly growl, gesturing at the open bedroom door.

  She stares at me uncomprehendingly for a moment, before pursing her lips in disapproval, and stalking out of the room muttering her aggravation under her breath. 

  I sink into my bed with Marvel’s stupid letter crumpling in my fist. A single, hot, angry tear rolls down my face, and for the first time since finding out of its existence, I hug my midsection and address my child, “I’m so sorry for dragging you into this mess. I know you didn’t ask for a mother like me, but I’m all you got now, little one. I promise we will be alright… I’ll try not to let you down.”

  ———————-

  My mother has been unbearable for the last two days. She cries in her room worse than when Prim died, and when she sees me, she starts lamenting my poor choice, like I’m not even standing there… as if I don’t feel discouraged enough. 

  I keep myself busy with my education. I will need to earn this diploma now more than ever before, and I need to do as much as I can before the baby arrives and my studies get put on hold. 

  In the meantime, I scout the newspapers for possible work options to sustain me and my mother. Our savings keep diminishing and the small stipend my mother got from the Army since my father passed away is becoming more insufficient by the day. 

  There’s a knock on the front door, and I push out my chair unhappy by the interruption. 

  “Afternoon Miss Katniss! Would you let your mother know she’s got a telephone call down in the lobby?” Says the building’s doorkeeper. 

  “Of course, thank you. She’ll be right down!”

  Telephones are yet another luxury we had to give up when moved to this small place after losing my father. 

  I go back to my job hunt, and my mother descends to the lobby, quickly. 

  She returns after only 10 minutes, almost running through the door, excitedly calling my name. Tears wet her face, but her smile is so blinding, even without knowing what sort of news she’s heard to cause her such joy, I stand from the table with nervous anticipation. 

  “Oh, Katniss! Katniss my dear daughter, you’re saved!” She exclaims, hugging me tightly. 

  I’m confused. I step away from her embrace, “What do you mean?” 

  “It’s the best thing possible ever, I tell you! The Lord has answered all of my prayers!”

  “This is all so exciting and all, mother, but… could you please share this great news already?” 

  My mother cups my face in her hands, and beams at me, “You need to pack your things, darling! Your father’s good friend, Reverend Undersee, has found a husband, and you are to wed, in three days time!”

  —————————

Reverend Undersee and his daughter, Madge, meet me and my mother at the rinky dink bus station, in the equally tiny town my mother has banished me to.

  “Katniss! How long has it been?” Says Madge, hugging me enthusiastically.

  I bite my tongue to keep the acidic retort of “not long enough!” to leave my mouth. 

  “Welcome to Panem,” says the reverend, soberly, shaking my mother’s hand in greeting.

  “Thank you, revered. We appreciate your hospitality and your understanding,” my mother responds, then gives me a pointed look and a wordless command. 

  I nod and mutter, “Thank you, sir. Madge,” 

  I scowl at a crack in the pavement, not feeling an iota of gratefulness for this charade! 

  Any man agreeing to this questionable union has to either be desperate, or be hiding terrible, ulterior motives to go along with all of this. Nobody in their right mind would willingly marry a girl pregnant with another man’s baby, and be happy about it… unless that’s the reason! 

  I shudder at the thought. 

  But it is a very real possibility that my intended is a simpleton, who can’t find a wife otherwise… or worse! It could be a man very advanced in age, looking for a supple, young body to leech off. Gross!

  My mother had been too excited about the news that a man offered to marry me (as if I asked for, or even wanted a husband!) to bother to ask his name. 

  Reverend Undersee coughs daintily, clears his throat, and starts, like he’s giving a lecture at the university. “It is our Christian duty to lend a helping hand to widows and orphans in their time of needs. Same way it’s our duty to keep the memory and honor of an old friend from being dragged into the mud.”

  I wince at the harsh words, and let my face fall lower, if that’s even possible. 

  “Well, it’s a good thing that we are all recipients of the abundant grace of the Lord, which covers multitude of faults, and it’s never hard to reach,” a deep, velvety, masculine voice cuts into my embarrassment. 

  I lift my eyes from the ground, to find a man striding confidently in our direction. He smiles kindly at me, his eyes fixed on my own, like I’m the only person still standing in the station.

  He finally cedes our staring contest, to take in the rest of the group.

  A knot forms in the pit of my stomach, because I recognize him from years past when my family used to visit this town, and I’m afraid I know exactly why he’s here. 

  “Good afternoon, all. I apologize for my tardiness, I had a last second detail to take care of before leaving the house,” he nods in our general direction, taking his hat off; a riot of ashy blonde curls falls onto his forehead, before bending forward to shake my mother’s hand, “I’m Peeta Mellark, at your service, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” 

  “Likewise, mister Mellark,” says my mother, her lips twitch tersely, “Widow Everdeen, and this here is my daughter Katniss… your bride.” 

  Peeta Mellark’s baby blue eyes slip back to mine, and the left side corner of lips curls into a shy, earnest smile. “Welcome to Panem, Katniss, I’ll sure do my best, so you’d like it here.”

[bnhayyy]

Burning In Carolina

Wordcount: 3.9k

Ao3 Link: Click 

Notes: I wrote this fic for @bnhatraumazine ! Leftover sales are currently open, so go check them out! And if you enjoyed the fic, maybe consider buying me a Ko-Fi? I do all my best writing when properly caffinated!

Summary: Despite the success of the initial interrogation, further attempts to pry information or recognition out of the villain known as Kurogiri prove fruitless. Aizawa keeps trying anyway.

It was possible to miss someone to the point of physical pain. This was a truth that Aizawa had learned long ago.

The pain never left him—not completely. It threatened to consume him. But he did not curl up and cease to function, no matter how tempting it was at first. Instead, he forced himself forward, even as that pain followed his every step, echoing in his actions, his appearance, his demeanor. It molded who he was. And, eventually, it became a part of him. Eventually, he reached a point where he could sometimes forget that the ache in his chest, the bleakness that coated the world, the empty space in the fabric of his life was something born of loss and not just the way things were. He didn't remember it unless he was actively thinking about it. For the most part, he tried not to think about it.

Then everything changed. There was a call from Tartarus, a horrible revelation, and suddenly he had no choice but to think about the things that made him who he was. The person who made him who he was. The one who would have been ten times the hero he could ever be.

It was one thing to be haunted by the past. It was another entirely to try and bring it back to life.

Aizawa slid into the cold metal chair. He was familiar with the ache it sent up his spine by now. In a different situation, he would slump forward to provide it with some relief, but his muscles were too tense for him to slouch even if he wanted to. In contrast, the figure on the other side of the glass didn't show any tension at all. He seemed to rest easily in his restraints, eerie yellow eyes staring unwaveringly at Aizawa.

His mouth felt dry. Only seconds in the room and he already felt as if a lump had formed in his throat. Yet when he pushed himself to speak, he took care to ensure that his voice would be calm and steady. Ideally, he would be able to keep it that way this time.

"Kurogiri," he said. The name was a lie. Even so, he did not let himself say the one that he wanted to—not yet.

"Eraserhead," the prisoner returned. There was a slight shift in the black mist around his head. With it came a hitch in Aizawa's heart, but no, it must have just been an indication of movement. Unsurprising. The miasma of darkness that composed Kurogiri had not once parted since that first fateful meeting.

There was a moment in which neither of them spoke. Then, before Aizawa could muster himself to continue the conversation, Kurogiri asked, "Do you have any news regarding Shigaraki Tomura?"

This question again. It was always one of the first things he asked. Distantly, he supposed he could understand, but that didn't erase the wrongness of it. He never should have even known Shigaraki, let alone been programmed to care for him. Maybe even come to genuinely care about him. But he did. And that meant Aizawa had to answer the question, over and over again. He could say something that might stop him from asking again. He could tell him the truth: there hasn't been any news on him in months.

He wouldn't say that. Partially because he wasn't supposed to. Partially because...

He wouldn't say that.

The villain patiently waited for his response. Aizawa sighed. "No," he said.

There was another minute shift in his mist. Another moment that gave Aizawa pause even though he shouldn't. A soft 'hm' reached his ears, only just managing to penetrate the glass even with the speakers installed on either side of the interrogation room.

"Why are you here, then?" the villain asked. "You must know by now that I won't give you any information."

Aizawa's hand twitched, a small, unintentional spasm that came in time with the phantom compression of his chest. You already did, he didn't say. We're investigating the hospital. Similarly, he didn't give in to the burning behind his eyes that urged him to point out, I came anyway. You would have. Instead, his lips thinned as he tried to find the right words. Again, the captive waited patiently. So silent in his patience, so unlike the energetic chatter that once filled the air, ready to offer a push when it was needed and content to just be there when it wasn't.

"What do you think?" Aizawa slowly asked.

The man behind the glass gave a tired sigh. "Aren't my insights trivial in this situation? The most the musings of a prisoner can offer is more ammo for their captors, and we have established that you will not be getting that." He said one thing, but after a few heartbeats with no response, he sighed and added, "Perhaps it is some misguided sense of heroic perseverance."

There was no pain like losing someone you held dear. Except, perhaps, mourning them when they were right across from you.

Aizawa felt something sinking in his chest, like blood from an internal injury. Except blood was never so cold. "Oboro..." he murmured.

"I do not know who that is," the prisoner responded. "I am Kurogiri, the caretaker of—"

"Shigaraki Tomura," Aizawa muttered in time with the other speaker. He knew this song and dance. But he also knew, he knew, that there were more steps than this. He dropped his gaze down to his hands for a moment. When he raised it back up, something was burning behind his eyes. Maybe passion, maybe desperation, he didn't know. Whatever it was, it gave him the power to force out words that, while true (always true), threatened to get lodged in his throat. "I'm here because I am your friend."

They had all been friends once, him and Oboro and Hizashi and Kayama. And now… 

Black mist writhed and twisted, agitated, but didn't dissipate. "I am a villain."

"No," Aizawa asserted, "you aren't." You are a victim.

"You appear confused. I am Kurogiri of the League of Villains. I—"

And so it continued. Perhaps he should have been more forceful, broken down like he had the first time. However, even if he got through to him for a moment, it was impossible to have a conversation when the other party was unconscious. And if it caused any permanent damage... no. There was merit in trying a gradual approach.

When he made his departure after ten more minutes of fruitless attempts at conversation, his thoughts drifted back toward what the prisoner had said. Heroic perseverance, huh? In different circumstances, he might have chuckled at the irony of it. If he had any heroic sense of perseverance, it was only because he had learned it from Oboro.

And look at how that had worked out for him.

*

The fruitless visit echoed in his dreams for the next several nights.

*

Aizawa followed Hizashi toward the interrogation room at a slower pace than the Voice Hero. He was meant to be moving slowly because he was calm and steady. However, the way Hizashi's eyes flickered toward him as they came upon the interrogation room told him that he had noticed the extra drag to his feet, as if metal chains had been wrapped around his ankles to make every step that much harder.

With the door to the interrogation room only a few steps away, Hizashi came to a sudden halt and swung around to face him. Aizawa withheld a sigh. It wasn't hard to tell what was going through his mind and he had hoped to avoid something like this. No such luck.

"Hey, man," Hizashi began, "you don't have to do this if you don't want to."

Aizawa pursed his lips in an attempt to stop a more active frown. "I know," he said.

Hizashi shook his head. "No, really." His voice was low, by his standards, but it grew a little higher with every syllable that left his lips. "This might not go well, and—"

"Hizashi," Aizawa cut in. "I'm fine." It was a blatant lie. As much as he might want to think that this situation hadn't emotionally compromised him, they both remembered their last visit. He'd had more time to process it, but that didn't mean that a fresh reminder wouldn't hurt. Hell, Hizashi probably didn't even need it as a frame of reference. He knew how close Oboro and Shouta had been. He knew how much he meant to him. There was no way he could see him without it feeling like a knife being driven into a wound that hadn't had the chance to heal. It simply wasn't possible.

At the end of the day, it didn't matter that it hurt to see what was left of Oboro. He wasn't going to abandon him again.

When Hizashi began to open his mouth, Aizawa shot a glance at the guard standing uneasily a few feet behind them. Hizashi followed his gaze and tightened his jaw. His gaze bounced between the two for a moment before settling back on Aizawa. He took advantage of the temporary silence to remind him, "I saw him alone last time and was fine."

Hizashi snorted, sharp and abrupt, before lowering his voice to a much lower tone. "You shouldn't have done that in the first place."

"I can make my own decisions." Even as he spoke, he was aware of the almost defensive edge that had entered his tone and he hated it. There was no reason for him to be defending his choices. It wasn't something that needed to be defended, nor would his words do anything to put his overly worried friend at ease.

"I know," Hizashi said. "Believe me, Shouta, I know. But..." His fist clenched as he floundered for words, a mix of desperation and dismay etched upon his face. "You shouldn't need to go through that alone!" he exploded. It sounded like trying to keep his voice from escalating into a shout was causing him physical pain. His voice fell lowered further and the pained air grew even worse, although Aizawa got the distinct impression that it wasn't from trying to control his volume this time. "You don't need to go through it alone."

Once again, Aizawa simply said, "I know." Oboro's presumed death had not affected him alone. Hizashi and Kayama had been Oboro's friends as well; he was not alone in this. Yet taking the time to visit Tartarus on his own was... something he had to do. 

Just because Hizashi had done a better job of holding himself together didn't mean that Aizawa couldn't tell just how much the situation was hurting him. The thought made him examine his friend a little closer. He took in the frayed edges of the spikes of his hair, how unnaturally tight his jaw was even when held loosely, the bluish-black marks of bags forming under his eyes and the strain around their edges.

A pang of guilt echoed in his chest. He wouldn't cut off the arms of his friends just so he could hold their hands whenever it was time to confront the brutal truth. Voice low enough that it hardly carried at all, he said, "You don't have to do this either." He knew just how useless the offer would be, but he had to say it anyway. Aizawa hadn't spent the last fifteen years making his friends carry his weight. He wasn't about to start now.

Hizashi laughed, the sound utterly humorless for all that it was bright. "Don't act like you're okay and then start fretting over me," he chided. He managed to infuse a degree of lightness back into his voice despite the weight of the strain that could be heard lurking just below the surface. He really was an incredible actor.

They fell back into their previous actions as if time had merely stalled for a bit. The guard hurried forward to unlock the door as Hizashi closed the distance between himself and it, his eagerness to escape that moment the only real sign that their conversation had even happened.

"Hey, bud," Hizashi called as he swung the door open. He entered the room with all of his usual swagger and dramatic flare, Aizawa slinking in behind him.

The villain behind the glass wall didn't so much as blink. "We are not friends," he pointed out, his voice as impassive as usual. "Nonetheless, I must ask: do you bring news of Shigaraki Tomura?"

And so, the tone of their meeting was set.

Despite how much it must have worn at him, Hizashi spent the entire time trying to remain bright and energetic. It made Aizawa wonder if he was acting that way in an attempt to remind him of old times, of the hyperactive teenager Oboro used to be friends with. If he was, he wasn't having any success. The overt reminders he tried to sprinkle in didn't have any effect either. No wavering, no hesitance, no sign of Oboro —only confusion and dismissal.

With every passing second, the barely visible weight pressing down on Hizashi grew worse.

With every instant where something could have happened and nothing did, Aizawa felt his heart sink lower and lower.

And he found himself wondering if they were only moving backwards.

*

The next week saw Aizawa visit with Kayama. They spent an hour in that interrogation room, spoke new words, but ultimately found themselves repeating the steps to the same painful dance. Even when Kayama pulled out a reminder that she'd hoped would be a trump card - the cat that had helped solidify their friendship - they found themselves unable to change the routine.

Aizawa had made a point of maintaining his composure during the fruitless meeting. He liked to think that he was getting better at it. However, upon stepping outside the room, he couldn't keep his shoulders from drooping. A soft thud made him glance to the side, where Kayama leaned heavily against the wall. She cradled Sushi's cat carrier close to her chest, causing its occupant to let out a surprised mew. He noticed the way her fingers slotted through the mesh in the front. It was a small detail, but one that made the motion resemble a hug more than an attempt to use the feline as a shield.

If he were a better friend, perhaps Aizawa would have hugged her himself. As it was, he just watched with an uncomfortable lump in his throat. His concern was marred by the cruel gratitude that he wasn't the only one who couldn't completely hide his fractures.

Haunting silence floated between them for well over a moment. Some errant thought eventually drove Kayama to hunch her shoulders in on herself. It made her look so much smaller than she was, so unlike herself. (Like she had on that day.)

Aizawa cleared his throat.

Kayama looked up, a smile as delicate and deceiving as spider-silk weaving across her lips. She stayed slumped against the wall as she said, "It's... a lot."

"I know," Aizawa said. Even if he wished he didn't.

Kayama let out a gusty sigh. "Do you think he'll...?"

Aizawa's gaze dropped to the floor. Something in his chest clenched, froze, and began to crumble, flecks of stone breaking away from an already-tarnished whole. The flecks morphed into a tingling numbness that ran down his arms and legs, settling into his fingers and toes.

If she had asked him after that first meeting, he would have said 'yes', that they would make him remember, cling to those lingering shards of Oboro and put him back together. Now...

"I don't know," he croaked.

He missed his best friend. He missed his best friend and had gotten used to it. But the discovery of the warp gate's identity had made him see echoes in the care he showed for Shigaraki. He was seemingly indifferent to everything else, and the contrast brought the old hurt back into searing definition. The echoes, that glimpse he had actually managed to catch of Oboro, it had ignited a damning spark of hope, and maybe that hope was still rattling around in the back of his mind. But...

The quiet that had begun to envelop them once more was broken by Kayama saying, "We need to keep trying."

Aizawa thought about the continued questions as to Shigaraki's well-being. Of the subtle wisps of annoyance that sometimes leaked into Kurogiri's voice at his questions. His confusion over his continued visits.

"Yeah," Aizawa murmured.

Truly, the worst thing about hope was feeling yourself start to lose it.

*

The end of the school day had brought with it another solo visit to Tartarus.

Another pointless visit.

Aizawa held back a heavy sigh as he stepped into his apartment. The television could be heard faintly echoing down the hall. He allowed himself to close his eyes for half a second before strapping his usual neutral expression into place and striding into the living area, where he could see a head of blonde hair peeking up over the top of the couch. Hearing his approach, Mirio turned to look at him. There was the gentle rustling of blankets and squeaking of couch springs, then Eri's head peeked up beside him, her hands braced on the back of the couch as she leaned against it.

"You're back!" she cried.

"I am," Aizawa confirmed. To Mirio, he asked, "Did everything go well?"

"Of course!" Mirio said. He stood up and made his way to Aizawa, only to, as always, decline the offer of payment.

"You don't need to pay me to babysit, sir! Spending time with Eri is hardly a chore."

Aizawa tried not to let himself think of who Mirio reminded him of. (After all, Aizawa had seen Kurogiri only moments ago and he hadn't reminded him of the boy he once knew much at all.)

"If you're certain," Aizawa relented.

From there, it was a simple matter of Mirio saying goodbye to Eri and heading home. He was a kind boy who had sacrificed and suffered much, one whose presence Eri enjoyed. Nonetheless, he found the tenseness of his shoulders lessening once the boy closed the door. He allowed himself to sigh, too softly to be heard, and turned around.

He was greeted by the sight of Eri standing in front of the doorway, eyes wide and face creased in concern. His heart dropped into his stomach at the sight. However, before he could say anything, the little girl blurted out, "What's wrong?"

Aizawa felt his brows furrow. "I'm not sure what you mean," he said, slowly crouching down to her level as he spoke.

"You keep coming home sad," Eri said. She took a few cautious steps forward, paused for a second, then walked the rest of the way. Aizawa remained still as she reached out to place a gentle hand on his cheek. "It's not every day, but sometimes you come home really tired and sad. You don't say anything, but... I notice it. It's like..." Eri glanced down and nibbled on her lower lip. "It's like you forget how to smile," she finished, the words barely more than a whisper.

Somehow, Aizawa's heart managed to sink further. It was accompanied by cold tendrils of guilt squeezing at his chest. He had thought he was doing a decent job of hiding his emotional distress from Eri. A foolish assumption to make. Children, for all of their naivety, were not stupid, and Eri in particular was a very empathetic girl—especially when it came to loss. He should have known that he would have to try a lot harder if he truly wished to hide the situation from a child so familiar with things such as this.

"I'm sorry," Aizawa said. "I didn't mean to worry you." He lifted his arms up and, after a moment of hesitation, Eri dove in for a hug.

"Where have you been going?" she mumbled into his chest.

Aizawa shuttered his eyes for a second. There would be no escaping this conversation, it seemed. "Let's talk in the living room."

*

"I've been visiting... a friend."

Once again, Aizawa walked into the interrogation room alone. He sat down in the uncomfortable chair and looked directly into the luminescent yellow eyes on the other side of the glass.

"And it made you sad?"

“Eraserhead,” Kurogiri greeted. “I don’t suppose you bring news of Shigaraki Tomura this time ?”

"Yeah. You see, he was a hero. But a mission went wrong and he was... hurt. Really badly."

“I don’t,” Aizawa confirmed. “And I’m not looking for information, either.”

"Like Mirio?"

The captive made a noise that came surprisingly close to a scoff. “In that case, you have a peculiar way of spending your time.”

"...Sort of. But in a different way. And... he doesn't seem like he's been getting better. We don't know if he will."

A corner of Aizawa’s lips twitched up into the faintest of smiles. “Perhaps,” he acquiesced. “How have you been?”

"Oh. ...Mr. Aizawa, have... have I been getting better?"

Aizawa would not claim to be an expert at reading his friend’s altered features, but he could have sworn he caught a hint of surprise at the question. “I am a captive,” Kurogiri said.

"Eri. It is truly incredible how much you've healed since I met you, and I could not be more proud of you."

“I know, but you must do something to pass the time,” Aizawa pressed.

"But it's taking so long."

In some ways, the visit played out the same way as the others. In other ways, it didn’t. Kurogiri didn’t spontaneously profess to remember his life as Shirakumo Oboro or give new information about the League of Villains. At the same time, Aizawa didn’t press him to. They simply… talked. And once an hour had passed, Aizawa sighed, “It’s time for me to go.”

"You can't force recovery, Eri. You went through a lot and need to get better at a pace that's right for you."

Kurogiri nodded placidly. “Of course.” He hesitated for a moment, or at least, the way his mist momentarily stilled made it seem as if he were hesitating. “I suppose I will be seeing you again soon?” he eventually asked. The first time he had said anything of the sort.

"But what if it takes too long?"

Something in Aizawa’s chest flickered and then flared. Hope, its flame reignited by a passing breeze. “You will,” he confirmed, swallowing down every other word threatening to fight its way past his lips. There would be time.

“It won’t.”

Maybe it was foolish to hope. Maybe it wasn’t. What mattered was that Aizawa was willing to take that risk, just like Oboro would have for him.

“How do you know?”

Kurogiri nodded again, probably in dismissal. Aizawa stood up to leave. However, before approaching the door, he looked the warp gate in the eyes once more. And, just for a second, he could have sworn he caught a flicker of blue. “I’m not giving up on you, Oboro.”

"Because no matter how long it takes, I'll wait for you."

Kurogiri watched the pro hero depart with a placid gaze. Yet, spurred on by an undefined haze pulsating through his heart and head, as ShoutaEraserhead walked through the door, he whispered, “I know.”

[mind-reader1]

All of Me (Jake x MC)

This is for @princesstopgunswife 

A/N: The Jake and MC reunion that everyone wanted. 

Find a link to my masterlist here

Warnings: angsty, fluffly. 

Word Count: 2,743

Five years, none of them could believe it had been that long since they’d all been together in one place, since they’d all left the island...well almost all of them. 

Everyone had mourned the loss of their friend, the person who brought them all together and of course the one who saved them all. Despite mourning her, they still moved forward with their lives, graduated college, got jobs, reconnected. Grace and Aleister got married, Sean and Michelle decided to give it another chance. Even Estela worked to move on, accepting that she could have a life without vengeance. That wasn’t the be all and end all of her existence. 

Then there was Jake. He’d lost Mike, he’d lost his wife all in the course of 24 hours. Lundgren was dead, eliminating all his hopes of clearing his name; of going back to the states to see his family again. He stayed in Costa Rica after flying the newfound group of friends off La Huerta. The first few months he would drink himself into a stupor every night, replaying her voicemail until he fell asleep, desperate to hear her voice again. 

They had all come to visit him at one point or another, worried about him and how he was coping. Especially Diego, he’d lost Varyyn, he understood Jake’s grief. Diego tried to convince Jake that Taylor would’ve wanted him to find happiness with someone else, but Jake never did, he couldn’t do that to her. Even if they didn’t get to spend their year and one day together, they’d had thousands of lives together on La Huerta and they would always be connected. No one would ever fill that hole in his heart and he didn’t want anyone too. Diego didn’t push, he felt the same way about Varyyn, connected forever. 

The five year reunion was upon them now though, Jake leaned against Deliah trying to play it cool, but he was nervous to return to the island, unsure of what to expect. He’d thought so often about going back there himself, about trying to find any trace of her but he’d never been able to bring himself to do it. 

“How does he get to look the same after all these years baking in the sun when he doesn’t even use moisturizer!” Jake cracked a smile, he’d recognize that voice anywhere. 

“I think it’s the rum Maybelline, you should try it.” Michelle rolled her eyes. 

“Good to see you Jake.” 

“Cap.” Sean came up and dropped Michelle’s bags before clapping Jake on the back. 

“Caught your last game. Talk about a hail mary, guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks though.” 

“Chyeah! Only because I made it possible for him.” “Drax.” Sean and Craig had gone pro and been drafted together, the dynamic duo of the NFL. 

“Don’t you nerds have anything to talk about besides football?” 

“Skrillex. Hack any foreign governments recently?”  Zahra smirked. 

“Whenever you want that record cleared, you better have my money.” Jake smiled, Zahra had offered to hack the government and clear his record so he could return home to his family. He felt like he would only be a burden though, were Taylor still with him, things may have been different.

 “...the laws of quantum physics clearly state-“ 

“Malfoy, brain trust! Heard y’all got married. Congratulations!” Grace beamed at Jake and pulled him into a tight hug. 

“Thank you Jake!” Grace swiftly hit Aleister on the arm. 

“Yes, thank you Jacob.” 

“Let’s see, still missing Petey, Ariel, Julio Child and Katniss.”

 “I’m right here.” Jake jumped and turned to see Estela staring at him, Diego walking up behind her. 

“Dammit! You don’t need to sneak up on me like that.” Diego chuckled as Estela smirked and climbed onto the plane. 

“What are you laughing at Petey?” Diego innocently held up his hands and boarded the plane.

 He heard the laughter of the last two before he saw them, Raj was licking something off his fingertips, no doubt something that had come from the container Quinn was carrying. 

“Jake, dude, you have to try one of these cupcakes.” Raj happily rubbed his belly. 

“I’m sure they’re great Ariel, but I don’t want to get frosting all over the cockpit. Save one for me once we land?”

 “Of course!” Quinn also wrapped him in a big hug and kissed his cheek before boarding the plane. 

“All right. Well we’ve got the whole Brady Bunch now….so let’s do this.” 

The plane was eerily silent as they flew over the water, their minds inevitably drifting back to the first plane ride they’d taken together. Diego made his way up to the cockpit and took a seat, Jake was rigid at the controls, a death grip on yoke. 

“Jake...how are you?” Jake didn’t take his eyes off the horizon, his body trembling softly with adrenaline. 

“I’m fine Petey. It’s an island. Been here probably a hundred times.” 

“Jake, you know what I mean.” He hated being vulnerable, sharing his feelings, anyone he opened up to he inevitably lost. Diego was the closest connection he had to Taylor these days, he was the sole reason Taylor had even existed. 

Talk to him Jake. He could hear her voice in his mind, encouraging him to keep making those connections.

“I miss her Diego. So damn much. I thought I could do this with you all but I’m not sure.” It was the first time Jake had ever called Diego by name. 

“I miss her too. I think this will be good for us Jake, maybe we can leave the ghosts behind.” 

“I don’t want to forget, I never want to forget.” 

“You never could, I’m just saying...maybe it’s time to leave behind the guilt that keeps haunting us.” He had a point, Jake felt guilty still, like he hadn’t done everything he could’ve to make her stay. Deep down he knew that was wrong though, he knew it was her decision and she was a selfless person. She chose the world over herself, so that he could have a life to go back to, maybe it was time to stop feeling guilty about living that life. 

“Thanks Petey. Now get back to your seat so I can land.” Diego smiled softly and returned to his seat as Jake made a smooth landing on La Huerta.

 Since Rourke’s arrest, Aleister had taken over the Celestial resort. When the world had returned to normal, so had all the guests and the island had continued to operate as if nothing happened. For this weekend though, Aleister closed the entire resort to outside guests and staff. It would be the eleven of them alone. 

They all collected their room keys, staying in the same rooms they’d had before, except for Jake. He stared for ages at the honeymoon suite key, it was the room where they’d spent their first night together, something he would never forget. He wasn’t sure he could face it again though. Taking a deep breath, he steeled his nerves and swiped the key, riding the elevator up to the room, it seemed to move at an agonizingly slow pace.

He entered the room and sucked in a breath, flooded with memories of that night. 

Hey you. 

Hey. 

Jake wandered over to the large pane windows overlooking the island. He remembered every moment of that night, this is where they’d kissed each other, he’d pushed her back up against the glass, desperate to feel her body pressed against his for the first time, what he wouldn’t give to feel that just one more time. 

“I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want you.” He whispered in longing. 

Then have me. She had said that back to him their first night together and that was the beginning of the end for him. He was hooked. They’d thrashed that room and didn’t give a damn, it was strange to see it put back together. He opened the window to get some fresh air but he could swear he smelled her perfume drifting to his nose over the ocean breeze.

 He slammed the window shut and laid down on the bed still in his clothes, staring at the canopy. The bed felt cold and foreign to him, he tried turning on his sides but he couldn’t fall asleep, every time he closed his eyes he would see her beside him in bed only to reach over and find it empty. He slipped out of the room and went down to the beach, snagging a hotel towel on his way out. Maybe a night out under the stars with the ocean waves could help him clear his mind. 

\\

Vaanu had been made whole again and should have felt at peace, but there always seemed to be something keeping it from its eternal rest. Just a sliver that felt like it was missing, the feeling only grew the closer the 5 year anniversary of becoming whole came. 

Why do I feel as though I am still broken? Vaanu bellowed in despair. Desperately searching for the beacon from its missing shard, it followed it to a well known place, La Huerta. Vaanu summoned the physical manifestation of Taylor that had been created by one of the shards, it could sense that she was the part of itself that was still missing a piece.

 “Where am I?” 

Why am I still broken? Memories came flooding back to Taylor like a tsunami, saying goodbye to Jake and the others, then it was all black until waking up here. She could hear its voice in her mind and feel exactly what it was talking about, she felt a sense of emptiness. It took her only a moment to realize why. 

“Jake.” That feeling of emptiness only grew, she longed to see him again, to hear his voice. She could feel the ghost of his touch on her skin, lighting it on fire with pleasure, a feeling only he could give her. Something she couldn’t live without. 

Jake?

“Jake and I fell in love over 1,000 times in different timelines. I promised him a year and a day, a part of my soul will forever be with him.” Taylor wondered how long it had been, wondered if he moved on, if she still felt this broken though she knew he hadn’t and that somehow hurt her more.

 Broken. 

“Let me be with Jake. If we’re together then the shard is together, you’ll be whole again.” She didn’t know how, but she could tell Vaanu was thinking. “Please, you know you won’t feel whole until he dies and that will be years. Years you could have spent being whole again if you just let me go to him.” She pleaded, desperate. 

There was a bright flash and when Taylor opened her eyes she was on the familiar beach of La Huerta, there was a towel on the beach, void of an occupant. She needed to get her bearings, find a way to get in touch with Jake. She was back! 

\\

Jake had been unsuccessful trying to sleep on the beach as well, he’d turned to his last resort, alcohol. He’d found some rum but what he really wanted was the good stuff, some strong whiskey that would knock him right out. 

Someone poked him in the shoulder and he turned to see who it was, it was Taylor, smiling at him in her blue tank top and khaki pants. He must’ve been hallucinating another memory again. 

“Help ya with something Princess?” He turned away, his focus back on liquor, he didn’t notice her frown. She thought he’d be more excited to see her, like she was him. Maybe she’d been mistaken, maybe he had moved on. 

“Just seeing what you’re up to.” She said deflated. 

“Trying to see if we got any good whiskey left so I can stop reliving all these damn memories. Like this one of you asking me to come to your room. You?” 

“Jake...this isn’t a memory.” 

“Must be dreamin’ then. Guess I did find the good whiskey.” 

“Jake look at me! I’m actually here!”

“You say that in all my dreams and then I wake up Princess.” He whispered heavily, sounding emotionally tired, it would go away if he’d just listen to her! She hit him in the arm and scowled at him until he looked at her. 

“Ow!” 

“Jake, please. It’s really me.” He shook his head, she could see the pain in his eyes. 

“No. You went with Vaanu and that was it. My wife is dead!” He was fighting back tears. 

“Jake, what do I have to do to prove to you I’m real, that I’m here?” He turned and grabbed both sides of her face, their lips meeting in a fiery kiss with years of longing poured into it. Taylor melted against Jake and he pulled away, breathing heavily his eyes still closed. 

“If I open my eyes, are you still gonna be here Taylor?” 

“Yes, Jake. Now please, open your eyes and look at me.” She whispered, cupping his cheek. Her touch felt so real, Jake didn’t want to risk it. He wanted to stay in this moment for just a little longer.

“I can’t Princess. I can’t.” Stubborn ass, she thought to herself. 

“Come with me.” She had one last idea up her sleeve to convince him, dragging him to the elevator, she kept their hands laced together as she pulled him to their room. 

“I’ve got to give myself credit, this is my most elaborate hallucination yet.” 

“Jacob Lucas McKenzie. I am right here, right now, with you. Your wife. Your naked wife. So help me god if you don’t open your eyes to look at me I will go back to Vaanu.” Taylor had in fact stripped down to her red lacy bra and underwear set, she knew it was Jake’s favorite and if this didn’t convince him, nothing would. “Dammit Princess.” Jake opened his eyes and stared. There she was. Still there. In front of him. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He rubbed them and blinked a few times but she was always still there. He was overcome with emotion. He didn’t know if he should cry, kiss her or give into the desire coursing through him. 

“I have never wanted anything as badly as I want you right now.” 

“Then have me.” 

They came together and years of pent up energy came pouring out. Sure they’d wrecked the room the first time, but this was 5 years of pent up sexual energy between newly-wed soulmates, it was a whole new level of destruction before they finally made it to the bed. 

As they laid there after, Jake couldn’t stop staring at her, tracing every line of her body. 

“I missed you so much Taylor.” He whispered. 

“How long was I gone Jake?” 

“5 years.” Her heart sank, imagining him alone for 5 years, they could’ve had kids by now. 

“I’m sorry Jake, I’m so sorry. I'm never going to leave you again.” He pulled her close and pressed his forehead to hers, their noses gently brushing. 

“I wouldn’t survive it if you did Princess. I don’t understand though, how are you back? I would’ve sold my soul if it meant getting you back but I didn’t think it was possible..” 

“It’s because of you Jake.” His eyes shot open in confusion. “When we got handfasted, after spending all those timelines together and falling in love every time, a part of me is literally in your heart Jake.” 

“I don’t follow.” 

“Vaanu wanted me to return so it could be whole, but we’re soulmates Jake. A little shard broke off and resides in you. When we’re together, we’re whole, because we’re whole, so is Vaanu.” 

“So you really are back for good? You’re staying forever?” 

“Forever top gun.” Tears of joy began to stream down Jake’s face and Taylor wiped them away as Jake wiped hers. 

“Good, because it’s going to take a long time to catch up on those five years of married life we missed.” Taylor let out a soft laugh. 

“I guess it’s a good thing we don’t have to leave this bed until morning. Now, tell me everything.” Jake laid on his back and Taylor rested her head on his chest, looking up at him as he told her about everything she’d missed. 

Finally, I am whole again. 

@drakesroyalromance​

[prettywordsyouleft]

Forsaken | Part 15 (Final)

Summary: As one of the Forsaken, Jinyoung had no right to covet anything as his own. When he stumbles across you standing in the middle of the village he had plundered, the memories of old make him risk it all, clutching at the past in hopes for a better future.

Pairing: Park Jinyoung x reader

Genre: warrior au / star crossed lovers / angst / romance

Warnings: death, kidnapping, cursing, a myriad of emotions - this is a really sad love story. 

Index: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

Lying upon the cart, you wished to be dead. It was ironic that in the beginning, this very cart had transported you into this world as Jinyoung’s treasure. Now, he laid beside you, unmoving. Fresh tears soaked through his shirt, your head strewn across his chest, hoping for a glimpse of his heartbeat.

Tired eyes lingered at the body next to him and you reached out for Jackson, shaking as the wound continued to stain through any bandaging Jaebum had done. You wondered if Jackson’s body would ever dry up.

Jinyoung’s only seemed to maintain what blood he had due to the sword still embedded in him.

The remaining fight had ended once Argo was dead, his men looking between each other for guidance.

“Should we kill who remains?”

“Let’s say they’re all dead, they might as well be,” another decided, backing off and holding his hands up in surrender. They soon departed the battle site, leaving behind their fallen leader and men, and you to mourn your losses.

“Don’t remove the sword from him,” Jaebum said in all but a whisper, cutting Argo’s limb away and freeing him from the hunter.

You had been numb to the whole procedure, unable to help the three men pick up what you still had, merely stumbling along with Jinyoung’s body as they carried it to the cart now attached to Jinyoung’s horse. You had silently climbed up then, curling up beside Jinyoung and had laid there ever since.

You wished for something or someone to rid you of the excruciating pain that burdened your heart and mind. Flashes of your life shared with Jinyoung played out one by one, tormenting you further.

You already longed to see him smile again.

Eventually, you grew aware that you were no longer on land. The sea breeze was brisk and the waves choppy. You ignored all offers from the others to eat, and you lost count of how many times the sun rose and set.

You pleaded for an emptiness to overwhelm you instead of the constant memories, the ghost of Jinyoung’s lips upon your skin.

It was bittersweet when the cart finally stopped moving. You had no energy to get yourself down, Mark scooping you up and carrying you inside a small cabin.

You hated how much you relished the comfort of a bed, and the warmth of a blanket, soon drifting off into a dreamless state.

“It’s time to get up now,” Youngjae called when he finally found you awake, offering you food.

“I don’t want to eat.”

“Tough, I will force you if I have to,” he retorted, coming over to your side and holding up the spoon to some porridge. You glared at him yet he only shot one back. “How dare you not eat!”

You merely stared back at him.

“That’s what he would say, you know. He would scold you for being foolish.”

Tears slipped down your cheeks as you lowered your head. “He’s not here.”

“How do you know that? He’s always been in here,” Youngjae mentioned, reaching to touch your chest softly. “Can’t you hear him in your head telling you to get up and live on?”

“I’ve lived on without him once. I don’t want to do it again.”

“Have we held a funeral? No, now start eating or we’ll have to but for you!”

Glowering at Youngjae, you took the spoon from his grip and swallowed down a mouthful.

Your friend eased his stern expression. “There, that’s what you need to do.”

Days after awakening, you were pulling yourself up with the sun, helping Youngjae plant a vegetable garden and setting up your new home. You had no idea how you had acquired such a place but you were certain Jinyoung would have loved it here with you. It was a small farmstead, with two simple cabins. So far, you and Youngjae shared the one you had woken up in, whilst Mark and Jaebum set up in the other.

With Jackson and Jinyoung.

You hadn’t been brave enough to enter the place yet, unsure if you would be able to handle seeing his listless body again. You couldn’t seem to will yourself into death, no matter how much you had tried to. You missed Jinyoung and still cried yourself to sleep every night. Yet, you regained your strength, healing from your injuries well and soon felt back to usual self physically.

You wondered just how selfish a human could truly be to continue to survive in this world without the one person who you wanted to do everything with. You felt a coward, to still be breathing in the air that Jinyoung and Jackson should be doing as well. It bothered you when you stopped to think about it, which with your returning energy, you tried not to allow to happen often.

There was a lot to be done around the farm. Mark helped where he could, but it was Youngjae who you saw the most of each day.

Still, despite living, eating, and doing chores, you weren’t in connection with the world anymore. You hardly spoke, never smiled, and tried your best not to look too much at your remaining friends.

Each time your gaze lingered on their faces was enough to bring back the pain again, causing the air to be knocked out of your lungs and you struggled to breathe through.

“She’s having another panic attack!” Youngjae shrilled as you bent down in the garden bed, gripping at your chest with one hand and planting yourself in the soil with the other. You felt the wind brush passed you as Jaebum arrived at your side, trying to help you breathe properly again.

It was in these moments where you would see Jinyoung instead, his dark eyes etched with concern as his words of comfort fell into your hair, willing you to breathe for him again. You would watch him painfully, knowing he wasn’t there and yet your hopes would rise, all the same, your breathing returning. And then when you blinked after your ordeal, Jinyoung was no longer there, Jaebum sighing in relief that you were recovered instead.

He said it was part of the trauma you had faced with what happened that day. You wondered if that was why you started to see Jinyoung more often as well. Much as you had when living with your Grandmother, you started to talk to him as you did your chores, fond of the image of him helping you wash the vegetables you had fetched with Youngjae from the nearby village, or hanging out the washing and peeking around the corners at one another.

Even though you knew it was detrimental, you welcomed the visions.

Still, it was deep in the night where you realised just how alone you were. No image of Jinyoung could substitute the warmth of his arms that were lacking within this bed. You despised the night now, the moon and all the stars in the sky. They had lost their beauty the same time you lost the man who whispered sweet nothings upon them.

You willed for the sun to arrive quickly.

“Y/N, are you going to come in for breakfast?”

“I’m going to hang out the washing first!” you called back to a grinning Youngjae, the man looking at the cabin and then back at you.

You paid him no mind, picking up your laundered items to hang up and make the most of the drying sun. Reaching for a blanket, you struggled to hoist it over the line.

“Here, let me help you.”

“Jinyoung, don’t be silly, you’ve never hung out a single thing in your life.”

“There’s always time to learn, don’t you think?”

You smiled sadly. “It would have been nice to see you do laundry.”

“Let me try now.”

“It’s fine, I’ve got it,” you replied, blinking back your tears. You stretched up on the tips of your toes and hoisted it over the line, cursing Mark for having hung this section of the washing line too high for you to easily reach. Once the blanket fell over the line, you let out a triumphant huff of air and then spun to grab the next, losing your footing and ending up in the arms of a man you hadn’t seen in weeks.

Jinyoung smiled. “Always falling for me. It’s a bad habit of yours. How would you be able to cope in this world without me catching you each time?”

You merely blinked, trying to decipher if you had truly gone mad. His grip felt too real around your waist and there as an unmistakable level of warmth that had never once come from your hallucinations.

Shakily, you reached up for his face, gasping when you connected with his cheek. “You’re alive.”

“Well, I sure hope so. How could I leave this world whilst you’re still alive in it?”

“But you … you…”

“Later,” he murmured, his lips curling up into a delighted smile. “We can talk later. Right now, there’s something I need from you.”

“What is-”

You knew he was truly back when his lips pressed into yours, caressing you right down to your soul.

“You all tricked me!” you exclaimed later over dinner, even glaring at the pale Jackson who merely shook his head at you.

“Now don’t go adding me in this, I think I really died.”

“Then how are you sitting at this table with us? Are you a ghost?!” Jaebum huffed, looking at his hands and then held them up at him. “I worked tirelessly on you both! Don’t underestimate my efforts to bring you back from the brink of death, brother!”

Mark chuckled as he pulled off a piece of the fresh loaf of bread you had made. “In all fairness, we did try to tell you, Y/N. You just didn’t want to hear anything about either of them.”

“She’s someone who needs to see things with her own eyes to believe in them,” Jinyoung mentioned, chewing on his food before grinning at you. “It was more effective that she found me alive than you telling her I was recovering when you didn’t know how long that would have taken.”

“I’m right here, you know,” you grumbled and Jinyoung nodded.

“And she’s really impatient so Jaebum would have gone insane with her hanging over his shoulder looking for new signs of life.”

“Enough!” you exclaimed, slapping your hands down on the table. Looking at each man to see if they dared to talk, you then nodded. “Let me get this straight. You discussed a plan like this?”

“It wasn’t one we wanted to take but if anyone got gravely injured we needed to put them into another world to heal.”

“You all acted like they were dead to me!”

Jaebum nodded. “They were close to it. But I gave them both a tonic to keep them going until we got here so I could start the treatment properly. You weren’t functioning no matter how often we tried to bring you back to the present so you didn’t realise I had purposely slowed down their breathing.”

“I was mourning the loss of the love of my life.” You turned to glare at the evidently healthy man beside you. Jinyoung sheepishly shrugged at you. “Clearly, I wasted a lot of emotions on you.”

“I’m touched, really.”

“Did you cry for me?” Jackson wondered as you rolled your eyes, now looking at everyone around the table. “Anyone?”

“I did, don’t worry,” Youngjae offered hastily, which made the men all laugh.

“I’m still ridiculously confused!” you announced and stood up, storming off outside.

Jinyoung joined you a moment later, reaching for your shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. Glancing at the wounded arm that was strapped to his body in a sling, you grunted. “Will you be lame in that arm forever?”

“You did a good job with that sword, I doubt I’ll ever be able to fully regain strength to it.”

Your annoyance eased and you spun to look up at Jinyoung worriedly. “Really?”

“I’m grateful to have been blessed with a spare,” he mentioned cheekily, holding up his other arm. You hit it as he laughed heartily and you stopped to smile, listening to the bright sound. It was the first time he had truly laughed with so much ease.

“You’re different.”

“I feel like I’m the same.”

“No, you’ve never been like this,” you told him, stepping to his side and gazing up at him adoringly. “You’ve always been looking for the invisible threat. You’re relaxed right now.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret.” Jinyoung beckoned you closer. “Jaebum gave me a very strong pain relief this morning. It’s still working its way through me.”

“You’re being very playful, so it’s not just the medicine. You’re not the same Jinyoung I’ve ever known.”

“I played with you when we were children!”

“Well, yes, but I mean even then you carried a hardness in your eyes. You never showed your emotions easily. All day long you’ve been laughing, smiling, and sharing everything with those handsome eyes of yours.”

“Do you not like it?”

“No, I love it.”

“Good.” Jinyoung kissed the side of your head. “Because I don’t have to hide anymore. No one is looking for me.”

“You’re free.”

Jinyoung nodded happily. “We all are.”

You finally got your wish. Every day, you woke up in the warmth of Jinyoung’s arms, soft kisses starting the morning before going off to prepare breakfast together for everyone. After that, you did chores on the farm, now raising your own animals to further live off the land. You were also building a third cabin since word had reached you that BamBam and Yugyeom were alive and were on their way to join you all.

Each day was full of activity, though you didn’t mind working hard. There was constant laughter and the youth you had all been robbed of from the Rebellion returned through playful water fights and endless teasing. And when you found yourself growing tired from being the only woman on the farmstead, you would go into town to spend time with your friends you had made there. In turn, they visited your home, though you were certain it wasn’t just to see you.

You hadn’t realised just how charming the men you lived with were until you watched them in action.

Looking at Jaebum sweet-talking a cat he had found hungry in the neighbouring fields instead of talking to Bethie who was interested in him, however, showed you that some of them had a long way to go before they could fully be free from the shackles of their upbringing.

But each day brought them one step closer.

Falling onto your bed exhaustively later that evening, you groaned when Jinyoung climbed in beside you and gestured for you to move. “I’m too tired.”

“You need to get under the blankets, it’s the middle of winter.”

“You know that being pregnant makes me feel hotter than normal.”

“Still,” he said with a warning tone and you sighed, picking yourself up only to pull back the blankets.

By the time you were about to slip back into bed, Jinyoung had extended his arm out for you and was waiting. You smiled, though took your time gently nestling into his side.

Not for your sake, but for his.

“You always offer me up this arm to rest upon.”

“Well, considering we go to sleep on the same sides of the bed each night, how am I meant to give you the other?”

“I’ve offered to swap but you never accept,” you pointed out, glancing up at him. “Why?”

“You freed me with this arm,” Jinyoung mentioned, shifting his head so he could kiss your temples. You closed your eyes with sheer delight that tingled throughout you from his soft gesture. “You see it as something awful.”

“I would never wish to harm you.”

“I see it as you setting me free from the Rebellion. Having you lay upon it is my way of showing how grateful I am.”

“But it hurts you.”

“A small price to pay to still be here at your side,” he reminded and you nodded, lifting your head to kiss him.

“You followed me here to Nowhere.”

He grinned. “There’s no better place than to be nowhere with you.”

“We have quite the adventure to tell this child that I’m growing,” you said, rubbing at your slightly protruding belly. “What should we keep to ourselves?”

“How about we skip the ten years we were apart for.”

“Why? That’s the best bit!”

Jinyoung balked a little. “How is that the best part of our story?! The best was obviously when I kidnapped you.”

“And I hated you.”

“You could never hate me.”

“I hated you until I saw your face,” you corrected with a giggle and Jinyoung shook his head.

“We really have been through a lot. Maybe we need to think about how we share this tale with our offspring in the future.”

“I’ll write a book!”

“If you do that then it will be greatly exaggerated.”

“Says the man who wrote an entire love letter about comparing me to the moon and stars.”

Kissing you to silence your teasing remarks, you soon fell into a heady embrace, parting when you were certain your soul was about to burst out of your body and jump into his. You smiled and Jinyoung kissed you briefly before nodding. “However we tell it, let’s make sure we do it together.”

“Well, I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

“Anywhere might be nicer than nowhere,” he offered but before you could respond, Jinyoung was sizing up your lips again. “No matter where you go, I’ll follow you.”

“Of course, you’re mine.”

“Mm,” he hummed, a satisfied smile tugging his plump lips up. “I’m yours.”

_________________

Thank you for enjoying this series. There may be an Epilogue shared at a later date in 2020. 

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[the-hypno-den]

To A Day of Mourning, and A Final Farewell

It hurts to think about, I can’t believe it’s been a year already... Can you? It still feels like yesterday I got that phone call from Kayte and all I wanted to do was scream and cry and just throw my head into a wall. I know pain, I know grief, I know loss. But that, that is a pain that stung like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I’ve met a lot of people, with that I have lost a lot of people, and it’s hurt. I’ve shed tears and I have mourned. I have done the same for you many times in the past 12 months. Thinking of you, talking about you, remembering everything we’ve been through. Times I’d know you’d call me an idiot for the things I’ve done or laugh along with me. Even just given the things I’ve gone through now and how much I’ve changed. I can image the things you’d say and the way you’d act. I’m still as stubborn as I was when you were still around, I can promise you that. Remember back when we first met? When you came back to Australia... I do. Better than anything. I never thought a pen pal would become my best friend; and from Japan of all places. I hope to go there one day. See the things you’ve seen, wonder what it must have been like for you. From the stories you told me, it sounds like a lot of fun. I also hope to go to Kinsale one day, see the town you saw. The place you grew up. You’ll never be able to see Kempsey and the joys it brought me in my childhood, but I hope I can see some of the places that made you smile, the places you called home. Though, I remember you saying you found home in other people. It wasn’t a specific place, nor was it a specific location. They were places, nothing more. That’s probably one of the biggest things you always told me. But funnily enough, it’s only something I’m starting to learn recently. That home isn’t a place. I always used it very loosely after moving so much. I’m also understanding that family is more than blood. After the fallout with my ex, it’s not something I understood for a while, but I’m learning. I hate that can’t go on the top of Mugga Hill. Timing didn’t suit well. I promise I will as soon as I can, then we can talk again. I remember those conversations fondly. You’d just type away on that little tablet of yours and we’d just stare up at the stars as time drifted by. It was slow. I enjoyed those moments. You always were my stargazer. I’ve been through a lot since I lost you, and I can assure you, I have mourned. I’ve been through many cases where I’ve sat and thought to myself ‘I wonder what you would do?’ or ‘I wish you could see this/be here.’  There are so many things I have found that I absolutely love and adore, and I know you would too. I’ve found a crowd of people you’d get along with so well, and you’d have a lot of fun. I’m learning what it means to be at home, I’m finding people I can call family. I hate that it hurts to not have you here. But at the same time I understand what that pain means. Grief is just the result of something good, you helped me understand that. There is beauty in the pain. It means what we had was good. And the memories I have with you are good. I may never forgive him for what he did to you. But I will do my best to bring him kindness if I see him. I don’t want to, but I know how you feel about family, and I respect that. Despite what he’s done to you, it comes with a rough past. I will do what I can to help him heal, I promise you that. I’ll do my best not to cry, but I can’t say I won’t shed any tears. I can, however promise you not all of them will be tears of sorrow. Bittersweet, if you will. I’m sad because what we had was good. There is a great deal of joy in the memories we had together. It’s what you’ve left behind and I’m grateful for that. I find solace in knowing that my pain is the result of something good. I may have abandoned my religion. But I have faith in knowing that wherever you may be, that you are safe.  I have hope that whatever death brought you is good, and that it has given you peace. I promise I will pray for you today. Your name will echo through the cathedral, and god will know that you are the result of something good. And I love you. I love and miss you. My beloved brother. My best friend. If there’s anyway to know that family isn’t blood, it’s through you. Because even though we didn’t come from the same mother nor father, I love you like family. I will protect you like family. I will hold you dear like family. And even in death, this will remain. Even in death, I still love and hold you dear. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever prevent this from being true. And that, Maxwell Avery O’Sullivan, is a promise. One I will hold close to my heart, and never let go. Just like you. I hope we can reunite again one day. One that day, I will never let you go. Rest in Piece, my dearest friend. Maxwell Aoife Avery O’Sullivan 06/02/2001-16/03/2020

[imagine-darksiders]

Part 1: Imagine there being a baby born in the Maker Tree. Strife can't bring himself to be near the huddled group of humans all cooing over newborn, he feels that it isn't his place to be with them. One of the humans notices that Jones is sitting so far away from the group, and walks over to ask him if he's okay. When Jones brushes him off saying that he shouldn't be up there, they assume it's because he's mourning the loss of his own child. They offer to simply sit with Jones and keep him

Your lips stretch into a knowing smile and you tip your head to one side, casting a curious eye over Jones’s hunched shoulders and the dusty, orange hood that’s pulled down low enough to cover most of his rugged features, yet not low enough to keep him from observing the peaceful scene playing out on the other side of Ulthane’s latest piece of stonemasonry. 

“What’s the matter? Don’t like kids?” 

Jones gives a start at the unexpected intrusion of a voice in his ear and he swiftly braces his hands on the ground, ready to push himself to his feet. A second later however, he looks up and finds a familiar face smiling down at him. 

“Y/n? What-?” he blurts out, letting his shoulders go slack once more as his body recognises that you aren’t a threat. 

Your lips stretch even further whilst you turn and lean against the tree wall, sliding yourself down the wood to sit beside this strange but friendly man. In a flash, Jones is getting up to lend you a hand, though you’re quick to wave him away, eventually settling down next to him and letting out a puff. “I asked what the matter was,” you say again.

Jones leans back and twists his head to regard you curiously. “What d’you mean?” He always did wonder how some humans have the innate ability to just....know when one of their own nearby is troubled. 

Then again...He isn’t exactly one of their own, is he? 

You spare the man an amused glance before jutting your chin at a group of humans gathered in a small circle on the opposite side of the tree. “Well for starters, you’ve been staring at Ingrid and her baby for like, twenty minutes.” 

Jones opens his mouth to argue, only to let it snap shut again once he realises you have a point, and it irks him that he hadn’t even noticed he was being observed. Swallowing down his pride, he turns his attention back to the gaggle of humans. A few of them have made ample room for Elanya to squeeze herself in among them where she sits cross-legged with her elbows resting across both knees, a luminous beam plastered on her face. 

A small part of Jones envies her that wide-eyed wonder. He still remembers how he’d been the very same that first time he laid eyes on a human newborn. 

His smile that had blossomed at the memory fades as he takes in the group. 

A young woman - Ingrid - sits among a throng of other humans, each of whom are marvelling over the tiny bundle she’s cradling in her arms. The baby had been born just last night, and its arrival sent the entire tree into an excited frenzy. 

Jones himself had even been caught up in the giddy energy, so much so that he’d actually forgotten that he wasn’t one of them, even if it was only for a few minutes. Soon enough however, he remembered himself, what he is and what he’d done to this species. Like the flip of a switch, he grew uncharacteristically quiet and withdrew from Ingrid’s bedside while the humans who had all piled inside to offer her help and congratulations were herded out by Ulthane, with a gruff order that the new mother be given time to rest. 

Everyone was so busy over the course of the following day that nobody noticed the lonely figure observing them from the back of the tree. Nobody, that is, except you.

“Not a big baby fan, are you?” you murmur suddenly and cause Jones to flinch yet again. He hardly seemed to notice you’d been next to him whilst he was busy drifting off. Gathering himself, he glances at you. “What? Oh, no, no. It’s not that. It’s.......” He trails off, working his mouth silently around words that had almost come out. Eventually, he drops his head and sighs. “It’s...something else.”

“Cryptic,” you chuckle but once he’s turned away, the smirk falls from your face and a crease appears between your eyebrows. There’s such a look of despondency plaguing Jones’s features that you find yourself wondering what he’d really meant by ‘something else.’ It suddenly occurs to you that there might be a very unhappy reason as to why he seems to be avoiding the baby. Everyone in this tree has lost somebody, mothers, fathers, siblings, friends....children. Perhaps Jones belongs in the latter group. 'Shit,' you think, pressing your lips together, 'No wonder he's so upset.' You imagine you'd be upset too if you'd lost a child and had to watch somebody else love theirs, knowing that just holding their baby is something you'll never be able to do again.

A sudden weight lands on Jones's shoulder, solid and firm but uninhibiting, he can easily shrug out of it if he wants to. 

He doesn't. 

Slowly, he swivels his eyes around to look at your hand where it rests in the space between his metal pauldrons and the collar of his coat. And then he looks up and meets your pleasantly guileless gaze. For a split second, you look as if you know, and he nearly balks at the horror of somebody finding out about his past.

But how could you know? How could you possibly know that half of Jones’s head is here in the tree whilst his other half is going over events of the past. The group of humans in front of him are......Well, they remind him of another group - now long since dead - but only because they’re entirely the antithesis of one another, polar opposites in human form, and it both throws and makes him proud to see how much the species has grown and overcome the effects of the Animus and learned to manage their anger, fear and everything else Lucifer had unleashed upon them....

....Everything Strife had helped to unleash....

The hand on his shoulder gives a comforting squeeze. “It wasn't your fault, Jones,” you whisper.

Creator, he nearly comes undone then and there. You're guessing, of course, caught under the impression that he's most likely blaming himself for the loss of a child. In a cruel way, he almost is. How many humans had died because of him, children among them?

Jones clenches his jaw and taps a finger restlessly against his bent knee. He doesn't say anything back to you, just turns away and watches as Ingrid passes her baby off to another human, who appears nervous, yet delighted at the same time, if their mile-wide grin is anything to go by. In seconds, those nerves are gone, and they’re gazing down at the baby in their arms with as much adoration as the mother herself is. In fact, all of the humans gathered are changed somehow. The worry shadowing their eyelids has lifted, their lips turn up at the corners instead of down and they all have an air of serenity about them that even Strife can’t understand.  Memories of the hatred he'd once seen all those years ago is being slowly replaced by faces filled with love and compassion. He had watched humans tear each other apart, spilling the blood of friends and of family members without remorse, be they grown adult or small child. It had been a massacre.

Now, he's seeing that very same species stand together without a shred of animosity between them. Just love. Nothing but love.

And the trust-!

As if she'd read his mind, Ingrid turns abruptly towards Elyana, asking, “Would you like to hold her?”

Jones has to stifle a laugh at how quickly the maker's face can go from joyous to downright terrified.

“You know, kid?” he murmurs, feeling your hand slip off his shoulder and pretending he doesn't miss the gentle touch, “You didn't have to come and check up on me. You ought to be over there -” He nods at the others. “-with them.”

You follow his gaze, idly watching as the baby is placed in Elanya's trembling hands. Even from here, you can see the maker's throat bob and her fingers slowly curl around the precious lifeform, her eyes wide as saucers. After you allow several seconds for a flutter of warmth to come and go at the sight, you reply, “Oh, I've already said my hellos, and besides, they all have each other as company for the time being.” Carefully, you cast a sidelong glance at Jones. “But you? You were out here all by yourself. And....and I don't know. I was worried about you.”

Jones stares at you like you've grown another head. Before he can stop it, a question slips from his tongue and comes out sounding far more perplexed than it was meant to. “Why?”

You huff out a laugh and shoot him an incredulous grin.

In response, he merely continues to stare and raises a brow, wondering why his question had been so amusing for you.

After a while, you lose your smile when the realisation hits you that he's being serious.

He doesn't have any idea why you'd worry about him.

“Well....Why not?”

It's such a simple reply, one that has a thousand answers but none that he can voice aloud because his throat is suddenly clogged up and he finds that air isn't getting down as easily as it once had. 'Why not?' Those two words hold a revelation for an aspect of humanity that Jones hasn't ever considered before. You worry by default. Care comes as naturally as breathing. It's just....automatic. Like a reflex.

“It's not just me who's worried, you know,” you tell him matter-of-factly, “Ingrid noticed you weren't your usual self, and Jack, and Ollie...They mentioned it and I realised I wasn’t imagining things, so I came to make sure you’re okay.”

Crossing your arms behind your head, you gaze out over the tree and thusly miss the way Jones's brows are knitted together and he's looking down in a daze, mouth slightly agape. He avoided them, didn’t seek to be part of their group and they....cared? They noticed that a member of the tree wasn’t among them and they found a wrongness in it, enough that they’d send someone over to ensure he’s alright. He - in spite of his own feelings - is a part of their group, at least so far as they’re concerned. 

One of Jones’s hands flies up to his chest and he presses the palm flat against it, feeling around desperately for the odd yet familiar thudding that’s suddenly gone off with a fervour underneath his skin. You continue to ramble on, your voice drowned out by the pounding in your companion’s ears. ‘What’s happening to me?’ he asks himself. 

“Jones?” 

His head snaps up and finds you’ve ventured closer, leaning around to peer into his face. 

“You sure you’re okay? Now you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

“Oh, I’m fine,” he shoots back with that cocksure grin firmly in place. “Uh, just...wandering what the kid’s name is.”

“Oh, you haven’t heard it yet?” You give him a meaningful look. “Ingrid’s decided to call her Hope.” 

Jones releases a breathless laugh, his chest squeezing. “It’s perfect.”

Nodding your agreement, you fall silent for a time, content to exist simply basking in the tree’s warm atmosphere. Then...

“Do you want to go meet her?” At the question, Jones stiffens, so you add, “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

However, he surprises you by shaking his head and saying, “No, I - I do want to, I just...” One of his knees begins to bounce rapidly in place. “I just don’t know if I should.” 

“Well of course you should,” you exclaim, “You’re one of the few humans she’s ever going to meet!” 

“But, what if-?” 

“Jones.” You give his side a nudge with your elbow, cutting him off. “She’s going to love you.” 

He lowers his eyes to the ground, not feeling even half as sure as you sound. At that moment though, you shift at his side and he glances up to see you’ve gotten to your feet. “Listen,” you tell him, “At the end of the day, it’s your decision. You don’t have to go anywhere near that baby if you don’t want to. But just know that whatever you’re....going through, you don’t have to go through it alone. We’re all here for you.” 

And without another word, you spin on your heel and meander over towards the new mother and child. 

It only takes a few seconds of hesitation before Jones gets up and follows you.

[anxiouslymalicious]

Losers Club Plus One Part 8

 A Richie Tozier x daughter!reader series

Read the previous part here or go here for the complete Masterlist!

A/N; Hello everyone, I’m sorry for the long wait, but I have been struggling with this one a lot and still don’t feel like it’s as good as it could be, but this is the happiest I have felt about any of the versions I have written for this chapter.  Anyway, this is about 3.8k words. I hope you enjoy!

“What do you mean you don’t know? Weren’t you there when she was born?!” asked Ben, stressed out beyond belief over the whole situation. He, Bev And Richie had settled in his room while Eddie got cleaned up and Bill sat in front of Y/N’s and Richie’s room, trying to get her to open up to him. He had arrived not long after the situation escalated and had been sat before the room ever since he heard what happened. Well, after giving Richie shit for never bothering to find out. Richie wasn’t mad at Bill though. He was giving himself shit for never bothering to find out, for taking her with him, for being so careless.

“I mean that I never made a test. There was a birth certificate with her, the mother’s name wasn’t readable anymore, but it had my name on it. So, I assumed…” Richie drifted off, another painful sob racking through his body. His chest was aching more and more with every sob. He hid his face in his hands again, like he had countless times in the past half an hour. The shame was too much for him. 

Richie felt the bed dip beside him as Bev sat down on his right, laying a hand on his back, her head resting against his shoulder. She was shaken up to say the least, not expecting anything like that. When she first encountered Y/N, she had thought about how little physical similarities there were between the girl and her father, but she never would have thought that there might be a bigger reason to that than genetic randomness.

Ben, meanwhile, was still pacing the room, not sure what to think of the whole situation.

“Do you want to get tested?” Beverly asked carefully. Her voice was soft and hesitant, eyes travelling from Richie to Ben and back to Richie as helplessness took over her. And not only her. None of the Losers knew what to think of anything that was going on.

Richie looked up a little, chin and mouth still covered by his hand that he never fully lifted from his face. Then, he shook his head vigorously.

“I’m scared.” He finally uttered, voice cracking and barely more than a whisper. The two Losers easily heard how rough his voice sounded, like his vocal cords had turned to sandpaper. Beverly sighed, along with Ben who ran his hand through his hair before settling his hands on his hips. He had stopped his nervous pacing and instead stepped closer to the two Losers on his bed.

“Listen, Trashmouth. You really fucked up. We all know that. But sitting here and wallowing in self-pity won’t make anything right again. You need to do something.” Ben said, kneeling down before his friend. Richie nodded as yet another sob escaped his lips.

“I’m just so scared. Did I just lose my little girl?” Richie asked, teary gaze moving from Bev to Ben. Both of them felt tears of their own stinging in their eyes. Beverly shook her head.

“I don’t think so.” She replied, trying to put as much confidence into her words as possible although she really wasn’t sure if she believed herself. Ben nodded a little, agreeing with her.

“You’re shit, Y/N knows that too. She’s hurt but I don’t think she hates you.” Ben rested one of his hands on Richie’s knee, hoping to provide some form of comfort as he looked up at the broken man. Each of the Losers had witnessed the others breaking down before. It was completely out of character for most of them, almost like an out-of-body-experience, but Ben and Beverly silently agreed that they had never before seen Richie that low.

It was hard on the other Losers too, though. It wasn’t only Richie whose heart was breaking.

Beverly was actually deeply worried for the girl. After all, Bev had never had a good relationship with her father. He had been abusive, good for nothing, but she still loved him. She still came back time and time again. And she saw herself in Y/N. She knew that Richie never meant to hurt her and wouldn’t ever dare to lay a finger on her, but if Y/N felt that being hurt by her loved ones was alright, would she find herself in a relationship like Beverly’s in the future?

Ben’s heart was aching for her. He knew what it was like to be the outcast. He knew what it was like to find people you adored dearly only to be ripped away from them again. He was sure Y/N felt that way now. Like her safe place, for both alike, the Losers Club, would be taken from her, but most importantly, the man she thought was her father, her only family, was in some ways taken away from her. It was cruel and Ben was scared that she would feel equally lost as he did when he had to move away as a kid. He never really recovered from the hurt his mother caused him back then.

Eddie was silently breaking down in his bathroom. To him, Y/N was such a little sunshine and she didn’t deserve any of this. She didn’t deserve a hurt relationship with her father like he had with his own mother growing up. Richie didn’t deserve that either, but Eddie knew just how much this loss of reality can affect someone. He himself had felt as though he had lost his grip on reality when he spent time in the hospital after breaking his arm. When he pushed his mother to her limits. When he too felt as though he was about to lose the only biological family he had left.

Lastly, Bill was desperate. He had pushed Georgie away and never got the chance to apologise. Time was ticking. What if she or Richie wouldn’t find back together? Bill couldn’t let that happen. His mind was set on saving them the eternal heartache of knowing that it was your fault that a loved one died, the heartache of knowing that the other died feeling unloved. He felt that this was his opportunity to make things right. To not give IT the satisfaction of tearing another family apart.

Which was why he was still, after half an hour, hammering against Y/N’s room door, trying to argue with the girl who mostly replied with hums and groans.

“Y/N p-p-please… This is n-not real. I p-p-promise you.” Bill tried, now growing desperate. Impatient. He felt like he was running out of time. His back was leaned against the door, teeth gnawing at his lips.

“How can you promise that?” Y/N sobbed. The hurt she felt was inexplicable. It was just too much. Her world had been torn apart, nothing made sense anymore and she felt like she just couldn’t go on.

“B-because I c-can.” Bill said, then sighed, knowing just how stupid he sounded. “W-what are we t-to you? W-w-what does the L-Losers Club mean to you?” That sounded better in his ears.

Silence. Then, “I appreciate you.”

“W-we do too. And t-the second R-R-Richie introduced you as h-his d-daughter, I d-d-decided that, to m-me, y-you are a part of this f-f-family.” Bill replied.

“I’m not Richie’s daughter though.” She said, followed by another heart-wrenching sob echoing through the door. Bill winced.

“W-What is a f-father to you?” Bill missed Stan terribly in this situation. He would have done a much better job. He had usually been able to clear everyone’s head out, bringing people closer together again, or at least he was able to talk some sense into them. A single tear managed to escape Bill’s eye, rolling down his cheek until he caught it, wiping it away with the back of his hand. He was mourning for his friend.

“I-I’m sorry, k-kiddo. Stan w-would have been much b-better at this. Sorry. I’m t-trying here, please b-bear with me.” A dry chuckle escaped Bill’s lips. “J-just… what does a p-p-person have to do t-to be a father?”

“I don’t know.” She replied. “I really don’t know. Be there for their kid, I guess. Be honest. Take good care of them. Love them and show them that they’re loved every day. Spend time with them… That stuff.”

Bill smiled a little. “D-Didn’t Richie do m-m-most of that? I mean b-besides the honesty-part.”

She sighed. “But it’ll change so much…”

“W-what exactly would it c-change?” Bill knew that he had finally cornered her. He knew that he had Y/N exactly where he wanted. Suddenly, he felt the door move, but he wasn’t quick enough to adjust his balance and fell flat on his back, met with Y/N’s tear-stained face peeking at him shyly from behind the door. Hastily, he got up as Y/N pulled the door a little further open to grant Big-Bill access to the room. He didn’t waste a second and embraced Y/N tightly, closing the door behind them.

It felt good to be held. Y/N whimpered and winced, broken sobs and shallow gasps racked pained her airways and throat, but she felt. And that was nice.

“Shhh… Y-you’re safe. E-everything will b-be alright.” Bill mumbled, hoping to calm her, but not only her. He, too, needed some support, he needed to hear those words, even if they were his own. Otherwise he knew he would go insane.

“Promise?” Y/N mumbled. She knew it would be a lie, but just for a moment, she wanted to embrace the naïve trust of the child in her. She wanted to blindly follow what the adults told her to do and what they told her would be the truth. She didn’t want to think and decide for herself, but rather go back home, to the safe distance that separated Derry from LA, that separated Derry from the rest of the world, really.

 “I p-p-promise.” Bill replied. He looked at his best friend’s presumed daughter and felt utterly helpless. Could he really promise that? He wanted her to be alright, yes, but were lies the right way?

“Can you… uh…”

“Want m-me to call R-R-Richie over?”

Y/N nodded. Bill, feeling a little at ease, grinned and left the room only to reappear a few minutes later, a shaking Richie under his arm. Dried tear streaks besmirched his paler-than-usual cheeks. Richie looked tired. Mentally exhausted, yes, but it seemed almost as though he has aged about two decades in the past hour.

“I’m r-r-right outside if y-you n-need me.” Bill told the two before stepping out, closing the door behind him. Y/N remained quiet, just like Richie. He was slumped over, hands balled in the pockets of his jacket. Y/N could see how hard he was gritting his teeth, trying not to let more tears fall. Richie looked defeated.

Y/N, however, was ready to fight. Her body was rigid, tense, and Richie thought that not even that stupid bitch of a clown would survive a fight with his little girl. Not in that very moment. There was blood on her thumb, Richie assumed she had excessively bit down on it, accidentally tearing it. Richie saw the unshed tears in her eyes and dried tear streaks stained her angrily blushing cheeks.

“Y/N, I,” Richie started, but the words caught in his throat, “I’m so fucking sorry.”

She remained quiet.

“I just… Someone left you on my doorstep. They rang the bell and just took off. I had no chance of finding out who it was. But there was a letter. I still have it at home. Couldn’t throw that stupid piece of shit paper away.” A dry chuckle escaped Richie’s lips as he stepped closer to the bed, where Y/N was standing.

“It was from your mother. I can tell you what it said, or I can give you the letter once we get home. But something about it made me want to trust that unnamed person. And you were crying. So loudly and desperately, it made me cry too. I was so fucking scared. I mean, I still am, but back in the day, everything happened so suddenly and I was still living in my fucked up one-room apartment. Fuck, I still wrote my own shit.” Richie ran a hand over his face, up to his hair, then looked at Y/N. Her arms were crossed in a defensive manner in front of her chest.

“But you looked at me with those fucking huge eyes and it was like you told me that we could do this. And I trusted you. And when you grew older, you were so much like me. I never felt the need to do a paternity test. I’m so fucking sorry, Y/N.” Richie couldn’t hold his tears back any longer. His voice sounded shallow, pained, even. Y/N just sighed, but she could feel her own tears fall, shoulders relaxing in the slightest.

“If you want me to, I’ll take the test the second we get back home. But to me you are and will always be my daughter. Fucking biology can’t change that. Please, please forgive me, little one. Please. I’m so fucking sorry.” Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier was full-on pleading now. Pure fear had taken over his body, fear of losing the most important person in his life. The little girl he had taken care of, taken in, cared for and given all his love for the longest time of his life. He couldn’t lose her.

“It’s okay, Richie. I’d just like to know if you’re my biological father too on top of being my psychological dad.” Y/N muttered before finally letting loose, allowing her body to break down again. She knew that it wasn’t just okay. She, as much as Richie knew that it would take time to rebuild their trust, to get back to where they were. She knew that she couldn’t just forgive him for basically lying to her all her life, but he couldn’t help it. He had been blind with trust and now he would have to pay the price. 

Richie hesitated for a moment, not knowing if she wanted distance between them to sort out her feelings or if she was craving the comfort from the man she considered her father throughout her whole life. Ultimately, he decided against his gut-feeling and shot up from the bed, wrapping his arms around her crumbling frame.

They cried. It was raw and real and painful, but it was just as relieving. Wet, desperate sounds of hurt and heartache crawled up their throats, echoing in the room. Struggling breaths and hurried gasps. Cries for help from above. Cries for the past.

Eddie, in his room, could hear the wailing sounds. They pained him. They made him want to cry as he cleaned himself up. Eddie didn’t want anything more than for the two to be alright. He wanted the man he loved to be alright and he wanted for that man’s daughter to be alright. Eddie’s creeping hopes of going home with them rather than going back to Myra felt as though they had been shattered. He felt guilty for not wanting to go back to her, but Eddie wanted to be happy. And he felt more than just happy when he was with the Tozier-Trashmouth-duo. He felt free and accepted and loved whereas with Myra, he felt oppressed and stuck in the same vicious circle every day of his life.

He appreciated her, he appreciated how she cared for him, how she reminded him of all the meds he had to take and how he could unwind a little with her after a long day at work. Eddie did have actual romantic feelings for that woman years and years ago, but now, he felt that all those feelings had faded and since arriving in Derry, the thought of going back to Myra made him feel uneasy more than anything.

He would much rather go home with the chaotic Toziers. Get to know how they live. He could help Richie manage his life. He could help Y/N whenever she was struggling in school. Maybe, just maybe, Eddie could stay at home, make sure that everything was cleaned and cared for, cook and plan out little weekend trips. Maybe he could pick up a small job to support the duo, or he could keep working at his job, it wasn’t something he couldn’t do elsewhere, and save whatever was left of his income for Y/N’s later education.

Eddie smiled, a blush on his cheeks, as he wet the cloth, trying to get the dirt off himself. Only seconds later, his happy daydreams were rudely interrupted by the most terrifying nightmare.

Ben had checked in with the Toziers as the cleansing cries ebbed off and were replaced with soft, uneven whimpers and whispers.

“We need you two right here with us.” He had told them, eyes moving from one tear-stained face to the other. Ben looked closely, examined their faces in the most detailed way, searching for similarities between the two and ending up a little satisfied as he found a few. Like the way their noses were curved. The fine lips, the gentle eyes. Ben found that they had more in common than they might have seen. He hoped that it wasn’t just mother nature and his own mind playing tricks on him.

“We’ll stay, don’t worry.” Richie replied as he watched Ben. Little did Ben know that neither Richie nor Y/N planned on staying in Derry. Ben had closed the door behind him, his steps outside growing quieter as he was on his way downstairs, unintentionally interrupting the kiss between Bev and Bill before proudly explaining to them how he managed to get Richie and Y/N to stay.

“Let’s leave.” Richie said hurriedly, back in the room. His heart was clenching in his chest at the thought of leaving his friends, most importantly Eddie, behind to fend for themselves, but fixing his family was more important to him. The blankness of Y/N face, the emptiness of her eyes, the lack of emotion in her facial features scared Richie more than IT ever could.

Y/N nodded. She was too exhausted to interact with Richie any longer. She felt empty, almost as though with all the tears she cried, she had cried out her heart and soul and every last emotion in her brain. She felt like something had been ripped away from her. Like she was incomplete. Although she knew that Richie wasn’t really gone. He was still there, still her father, but she still felt… Strange. Because everything she had believed as she grew up might have been a huge misunderstanding. And that was a lot to take in.

 Richie smiled a little. Then, he gave her a gentle clap on the shoulder, the last non-frantic movement he would make for the next few minutes. What ensued was Richie, a constant stream of swear words leaving his lips, hastily searching the room for any items that might belong to them, carelessly throwing what was left in the room into the bags. He then grabbed both bags, gently pushing his daughter to the window where a fire escape led them outside, to the comfort of the expensive car.

Y/N climbed into the back, stretching her legs across the seats while Richie threw the bags in the trunk, slamming it close, then struggled to get in and start the car. The second the motor started, Richie seemed to be a little at ease, his shoulders relaxing further the more distance he put between his little family and the hotel of horror.

Richie had turned on the radio, a random rock song was playing, and he anxiously bopped his head along to the beat. The song sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t be bothered to strain his brain for the name.

Y/N had curled up against the backseats, legs spread out over the seats. She wasn’t comfortable, but it felt better than facing the world and sitting up. She felt too tired to do that. Instead, she looked out the window, simply watching as the world passed by.

The car came to an abrupt halt, shaking the girl halfway out of her trance. She sat up a little, confused as to where the pair might be. She spotted a synagogue and let her eyes travel to Richie who now seemed to be in a little trance himself. His vision blurred with tears and he suddenly looked back at his little girl.

“Uhm… Would you- do you mind if we-“ Richie sniffled a little, pointing at the synagogue just outside. Carefully, Y/N shook her head, silently telling the man that it would be alright. And so, Richie parked the car and climbed out, leading his daughter inside. He hadn’t been there in years. Not since the bar mitzvah. Not since Stanley’s speech.

His nose filled with the typical, slightly musty smell of the place. He knew that warm but kind of old smell from the time he supported Stan when no one else would.

Richie and Y/N sat down on one of the benches and Richie’s gaze wandered through the room. In his mind, he tried to think of how it had looked back in the day. He tried to remember the decorations, how he and his mother were dressed, what Stanley wore.

How he acted. Richie’s mother had felt embarrassed that Richie couldn’t keep his Trashmouth in check for once. But not only how Richie himself acted, admittedly quite tame compared to what his teachers usually heard from him. This was about Stanley.

How he acted up against what was expected from him. How we said that he was and would always be a Loser.

How Stanley reminded Richie of who he was and would always be. That he was alright just the way he was. That he didn’t need to be afraid of who he was.

How Stanley reminded Richie that his friends needed him.

And how much he needed his friends. ‘Because Losers stick together’.

“Thank you for showing up, Stanley.” Richie sniffled in the quietest voice he could muster

And with that, Richie grabbed Y/N’s hand and pulled her outside again, ready to go meet Mike at the library. Ready to stand by his friends. Ready to fuck the bitch up who dared to lay a finger on his little girl and tried to tear them apart. And, lastly, ready to face Eddie. Because Richie really needed Eddie to know how he felt about him.  

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[museflight]

The Call (1)

Chapter Title: Slayer

Wordcount: 4.1k

Ao3 Link: Click

Notes: Written for day one of @aot-au-week , since a Buffy AU very technically counts as a College AU, and because it's the least I owe @cookietonwrites for convincing them to take on another fic. As you can see, the idea quickly spiraled into a multi-chap, for which I am not even remotely apologetic.

Summary: There is only ever one slayer at a time; the chosen one, a girl strong enough to fight against the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness.

 Mikasa has accepted that for her, being the slayer means living a reclusive life, haunted by the image of the first person she failed to save and unable to ever truly let anyone in. However, everything is called into question with the arrival of Annie, a girl who claims to also be a slayer. Mikasa's life becomes much less solitary seemingly overnight, but friendship is followed by a deadly conspiracy, and with it, the threat of loss and heartache.

Mikasa's world consisted of a haze of blurred vision and the gentle buzzing in her ears. She blinked, and the figures on the paper before her solidified into numbers for a heartbeat before fading out once again. Trying it a few more times didn't yield any better results. It only made her aware of how much her eyes burned and how heavy her eyelids were. How heavy her entire head was. How easy it would be to just slip forward and… 

The buzzing reached a crescendo. A hand reached out to grab her shoulder. She jerked back upright to find Armin sitting across the table from her, one hand still extended and a worried expression on his face. 

Mikasa faltered. Words played at her lips, semi-contradictory things like 'it's fine' and 'what's wrong', but none of them felt right enough to actually be voiced. Instead, Armin was the one to break the silence. 

"When's the last time you slept?" he asked. 

Mikasa sighed. He must be really worried if he was cutting straight to the point like that. 

"Don't worry about it," she said, even though she knew it wouldn't work. 

Armin's frown deepened as a hint of disapproval trickled onto his features. He pitched his voice into a whisper to say, "you don't need to go out every night. You can't- you shouldn't be doing this alone."

"I do," Mikasa countered. "I'm the only one who can. You know that, Armin."

There was one girl in the whole world charged with keeping the forces of darkness at bay. She couldn't cast that duty aside just because she was tired.

It was with that thought that she realized that her gaze had begun to drift back toward the table. She snapped it back up as Armin asked, "does Erwin know how thin you're wearing yourself?" 

Mikasa pursed her lips. "Erwin's only been here for a few weeks. He'll get used to it."

"You shouldn't be used to it," Armin insisted, the softness of his voice warring with the rapidly mounting undercurrent of anxiety. He was still talking, too, about how Erwin wouldn't approve and she would be more productive if she wasn't dead on her feet. She didn't absorb any of the actual words, his voice fading back out into that gentle, incoherent buzzing.

Then there was a flicker of movement as something faded into sight in the corner of her vision, and everything Armin said became utterly doomed to sail right over her head.

Mikasa very determinedly did not look at the figure. She didn't turn her head and didn't allow her eyes to move in his direction beyond that first involuntary twitch. It didn't matter. He leaned forward, and she caught a glimpse of the green eyes peering out from what she knew would be a placid-yet-piercing expression.

"He's right, Mikasa," he said. "You need to take better care of yourself."

She allowed her eyes to flicker shut even though it did nothing to block out the man's voice. The voice of her own imagination.

"You've always been like this," he sighed. His voice had a whisper of warmth in it today, a touch of fondness tucked within what sounded like age-old resignation. "But you shouldn't. You're at your best when you have our friends with you."

Something flickered within her at the comment, although she was pleased to note that she managed to keep it within. There was no need to remind the hallucination that she didn't have any friends. Not even Armin, truly. Because for all that they were fond of each other, no amount of fondness could ever make up for-

"-kasa?"

It was the hint of iron intertwining itself with the worry in Armin's voice that got her to open her eyes. Mikasa forced herself to look at Armin and only Armin, who was leaning halfway across the table at this point.

"You really need to get some rest," he said. She moved to open her mouth, but he cut her off by asking, "you don't have trigonometry for five more hours, right?"

Mikasa nodded.

Armin gave one short, decisive nod, which appeared to be more for himself than anything. "You should take a nap, then."

The shift in her expression was subtle, just a faint downward turn to her lips, but apparently still enough for him to catch, because he quickly added, "you're going on patrolling again tonight, aren't you? Even a couple of hours would be better than nothing. I promised to meet up with Annie in a little while, but. I could walk you home?"

Mikasa didn't bother asking who Annie was, but she didn't protest either. She could see the logic in his argument, even if it felt painfully like a waste of time. "No, it's alright," she said. "I can walk myself."

Armin frowned. "Okay, but you will-"

"Go home and take a nap. Yes." She was already standing up as she finished agreeing. If she was going to keep her word, then it would be better to get it done sooner than later. The earlier she left, the sooner she could return. "I'll see you tomorrow," she promised.

With that, she turned around and left without taking another look at the boy who maybe, in another world, could have been her friend.

Or the distorted memory of Eren Jaeger.

*

Mikasa laid in her bed and closed her eyes.

*

Thud.

"Clear!"

Thud.

"Clear!"

Thud.

"Cl-"

Coughing. Choking, sputtering, straining, a strain in her chest that turned into an ache resonating throughout her entire body. A pain worse than anything she had ever felt in her fourteen years.

Shouting. Rushing. Urgent voices talking rapidly. Not to her, with her aching body and spinning vision, but to each other. White coats and flashing lights. They were talking, talking, and there was something she had to say, something more important than the flashing lights or the unreal pain or the whisper of strength that shouldn't be there. There was something, someone, she had to ask about-

Her voice cut off in a hoarse croak when she tried to speak. Her throat stung, like it had been worn ragged by- by-

Salt.

Memories flashed by her in a dreadful kaleidoscope. The parents. The men. The boy. The other man, the one they'd thought would help. The sea - he'd thrown them in the sea, her and-

A jolt of energy. Mikasa forced herself upright and grabbed the wrist of the first person she saw. Surprise was on his face. Surprise and discomfort; her grip was stronger than it should have been. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was-

"Eren," she croaked.

"Eren." The white-coated man's voice was softer than she needed it to be. Focused on her. He needed to be focused on not her. "Is that your name? Eren?"

Through parched lips and a throat like sandpaper, she croaked out, "where's Eren?"

The man gave her a long, sad look. No. No. He shouldn't be looking at her like that.

"He saved me," Mikasa pressed. "Then he- the-" monster “- we went in the water together."

One faltering moment that lasted for an eternity.

The man redirected with talk about her. What's her name, can she describe what she's feeling, she's okay, it'll all be okay - it didn't matter. It didn't matter and it wouldn't be okay. It didn't matter, because in that moment, he didn't need to answer.

His expression spoke only of death.

*

She woke up feeling more awake, but just as tired as she had been before.

*

Mikasa didn't even try to pay attention during trigonometry. The nap may have refreshed her to some degree, but not enough for that. Besides, she still had a solid C. Spending class zoned out was... admittedly detrimental, considering that she had been in a similar state for her last two classes, but not so devastating that she wouldn't be able to recover from it. She would just have to cram as hard as she could once she had the opportunity to spend a few nights on her classwork. It wasn't a pleasant routine, but it had gotten her through her first two semesters of college. She could make it work for this one as well.

Besides, she had more important things to spend her brainpower on.

A girl had been marked absent during roll call. Mina Carolina. A single absence was not unusual in and of itself, but although Mikasa couldn't claim to know Mina well, she had not seen the girl take a day off before. That didn't mean that she couldn't - she could be well and truly sick, or an emergency could have popped up. People took days off all the time, even those who normally didn't.

The trouble was that there had been a marked increase in people turning up absent lately. Most of them never returned. There were no bodies found or hints as to their whereabouts. They were simply never seen again.

Mikasa didn't want to feel a sense of distant mourning. She wanted to hope that Mina would show up at their next class with some excuse for the teacher about how she can sick or had to deal with an unignorable situation. However, that same part of her had also wanted to hold out hope for Franz and Hannah when they disappeared from her American Literature class, and now they were nothing but faces on missing posters.

The semester had only been in swing for a month and a half. Mina would be the third victim person she had shared a class with. Not third overall - just that she had shared a class with specifically. When she scaled the radius up to encompass the entire campus, she would be the fifth disappearance.

According to Erwin, Paradis' level of supernatural activity was on the low side of average. She suspected that that was the reason he had been hinting that they should relocate. He felt that she was wasted here, and as her Watcher, he wasn't comfortable doing nothing about it, no matter how new to his position or unwelcome he was. And truthfully, five people disappearing off of a college campus during the first semester and a half wasn't unusual. College was stressful. She didn't know the details regarding two of the disappearances, and even with the couple who had seemingly disappeared off the face of the like, a human culprit was just as likely as a demonic one, if not moreso.

So why was she so certain that Mina Carolina had met her death at some point since she had last seen her?

Why did she feel like she had failed to stop it?

Once the feelings of dread and guilt grew strong enough for her to be actively aware of them, Mikasa decided to redirect her attention to the students who were there. 

Armin probably would have been one of her classmates if she hadn't insisted that he not take any classes that run past sunset and directed him to the morning trigonometry course instead. However, it wouldn't have been a large class even with him and Mina. 

Four of the students scattered across the room were unknown to Mikasa. However, her seat near the back of the room allowed her to keep an eye on them with relative ease. That, in turn, allowed her to be fairly comfortable in her assessment that they were normal human students. 

She could say the same of her four other classmates as well. They, however, were a little higher on her radar. 

Closest to her, his desk seated directly in the last few rays of evening sunlight, was a muscular blond man. Mikasa thought that his name began with an 'R', but didn't know much else about him. He'd caught her attention with a loud, outgoing personality and general demeanor that made him seem like an odd fit for the class. At the moment, it looked like he wasn't paying much more attention than Mikasa herself, fiddling with the ring on his left hand and only occasionally glancing up at the teacher. 

The blonde next to him was as much of a stranger, but she at least looked like she was focusing. She had gained Mikasa's attention by joining a week after classes had started. Since then, however, she had proven quiet and distant, only interacting with her classmates when she glared at the man next to her for trying to talk to her while she was working.    

Jean Kirstein, meanwhile, clearly didn't want to be a stranger. Over the past year, he had made a few attempts to reach out that she could admit were enduring. If she didn't have her duty, he might be someone she could consider a friend. As it was, she couldn't bring herself to do anything but brush him off, for his own sake. He didn't pay her much attention in class though. That wasn’t to say that he was completely focused, even though he had claimed a seat at the front of the class. She often glimpsed him speaking to the student next to him. There’d also been enough instances when she’d heard a frustrated comment from him regarding the course for her to get the sense that trigonometry wasn't particularly easy for him. However, she also suspected that he was hardworking and dedicated enough to make up for it.

The student next to him was Marco Bott. Cheerful and painfully earnest, he was honestly mostly notable to Mikasa because he was Jean's friend. He seemed like a good person though. That meant he was a reminder of why Mikasa couldn't let Jean become her friend no matter how hard he tried or let herself rest no matter how much Armin tried to insist. If she faltered, if she slowed, there would be consequences.

Mina used to sit behind Jean and Marco.

The sound of chairs being pushed back and writing implements being put away drew Mikasa out of her stupor. Rather than look at the clock, she glanced out the window.

The sun had already begun to set.

She quickly stuffed her textbook, pencil case, and notebook in her bag, feeling only a brief pang of guilt for the blank sheet of paper that stared back at her. The items landed haphazardly, and she knew that if she looked, they would likely only partly obscure the stake, crossbow, and knife that laid carefully arranged at the bottom. She zipped it shut before anyone could get curious and try to sneak a peek; a reflex even though she knew that no one would be bold enough to try that with her.

Despite being the last one to start getting packed, she was the first one out of class. Just like she always was. From there, it didn’t take long to get off the campus.

The first two blocks of Mikasa's walk went like she was heading home. It was as she reached the third - the one that would have lead back to her apartment - that she took a sharp right. From there it was four blocks straight on, then one block to the left. A simple route, but one that had come to haunt her nightmares.

Dusk had descended on the cemetery by the time she reached it.

Logically, she knew that she wasn't likely to run into anything for several more hours.

Instinctively, she knew that Mina Carolina wasn't likely to return to class.

This wasn't a night to take risks.

Mikasa wandered deeper into the graveyard, where she was less likely to be spotted by any passerby, and pulled out her stake. There, she began to wander.

It wasn't a small cemetery by any means. That was what made it the ideal hive for demonic activity. Not only were cemeteries where the majority of newly turned vampires rose, but large ones were also rife with additional dead bodies and crypts. This one was even separated into several different sections, which made it easy to get lost.

Getting lost made it easy to watch the time slip by.

A couple of hours into her patrol, a familiar figure flickered into existence at the edges of her vision. She didn't say anything to him, and he followed her silently, gaze occasionally flickering to one side or another as he took in the graveyard. As if he might notice anything before she did. Technically speaking, she supposed that he might. He had "caught" things a few times in the past, when she was subconsciously aware of something but hadn't been fast enough to process it with her conscious mind. It was the only thing that made sense, for all that she desperately wished that it wasn't.

A slayer whose hallucination needed to point things out for her couldn't mean anything good for the world.

She forced herself to look away from the figment and focus on her surroundings.

Not five minutes later, the sound of shifting earth caught her attention. Mikasa turned and strode toward it, her grip on her stake tightening and her gaze fixed straight ahead. Within seconds, she had spotted it; a grave with the earth beneath it stirring. As she watched, a hand punched up and out of it, grasping desperately at the ground. The head came next - an unfamiliar man, his face distorted by lumps across his forehead and nose, slitted yellow eyes, and fangs. The visage of a vampire prepared for predation. It glared at her as it struggled and snarled, eventually freeing its other arm. Once that was done, it had a much easier time dragging itself to the surface.

It never got the chance to free itself fully. The second its chest was completely exposed, Mikasa sprang into action. She grabbed the thing by the lapels of its dirt-stained tuxedo and dragged it upward. Fear flicked across its face, causing the predatory features to fall away and leaving a normal face behind. A face that could have been human if she didn't know better. She didn't allow herself to look closely.

In a blink, she had rammed her stake through the vampire's chest and into its heart. It dissolved into dust a few seconds later. Mikasa stood and watched the flecks flutter back down to earth.

She was drawn out of her reverie by a firm, "you shouldn't be patrolling tonight."

Mikasa grit her jaw. "I already rested," she pointed out.

"It isn't enough. You've been exhausting yourself, one little nap isn't going to make up for that."

"You just saw me kill a vampire."

"Yeah, and it took way more out of you than it normally would."

Mikasa whirled around to face the figment. Something in her chest threatened to hitch as she allowed herself to look directly at him, just as it so often did, even years after he first manifested.

The thing before her almost could have been a ghost. It wasn't though; god knew she had done enough research on the subject. Ghosts, when they visibly manifested at all, took the appearance they wore at their time of death or at another point in their life.

Eren Jaeger had been fourteen when he died. Even if he responded to the same name, this grown man with distant, unreadable eyes couldn't be him.

He wasn't anything. She'd run all of the tests as she learned more about the Supernatural. She wasn't haunted, there weren't hints of a demonic presence lingering around her - there was nowhere he could have come from other than her own mind.

He was nothing but a manifestation of her guilty conscience. She had come to terms with that years ago, yet she was still wasting time arguing with him.

At that instant, it was suddenly very tempting to look away. However, she forced her gaze to remain steady as she coldly said, "leave."

The figment blinked. "Mikasa-"

"No," she interrupted.

Something flickered in the illusion's eyes. It was difficult to identify, caught behind that distorting wall that so often covered his emotions, and she didn't even bother to try. He opened his mouth again, but she didn't let him get another word in.

"I'm not willing to put up with you tonight," she said. "Get out."

His expression finally came together into something real and visible. Alarm. "Mikasa, move!"

Mikasa lunged to the side just in time to avoid being grabbed by the shoulder.

She spun around to find a burly vampire standing over the ashes of the one she'd just killed. He was musclebound and bulky enough that he might be somewhat difficult to face in hand-to-hand combat - but not so much as to stand a real chance against her. "Slayer," he snarled. "I am going to grind you into dust."

Mikasa didn't bother responding. He lunged forward and she spun to the side, ducking beneath his flailing fist to get behind him. As she moved, she noticed that Eren had disappeared. Good. She sprang forward, stake in hand, only for the vampire to swing back around at the last moment and grab her wrist. He squeezed, a horrible grin on his face, and she had to fight to keep from automatically releasing her grip on her stake.

As the vampire leaned forward, she twisted to punch him in the sternum with her free hand. It only made him falter for a moment, but it was enough for her to wrench her wrist out of his grasp. It was also enough for her to come to a terrible realization.

Her blows weren't as hard as they usually were and she was moving slowly.

Eren was right.

There wasn't any time to ruminate on that. The vampire lunged forward, and Mikasa dove to the side again. She leaned into the momentum and swung her leg out to land a kick to the vampire’s side. He stumbled, a curse on his lips.

It didn't bring her any sense of victory, for as she brought her foot down, it landed on uneven ground. Not observant enough.

Pain shot up her ankle and the world began to tilt.

Eren still wasn't anywhere to be seen. Funny. If her mind was going to conjure up even a distorted version of Eren Jaeger, she would have expected it to happen when she died. She had thought that he would watch.

Mikasa hit the ground, the side of her head slamming hard against a flat gravestone. The world continued to spin around the sound of the vampire chuckling. She clenched the hand holding her stake, only to find that it must have fallen out of her grasp during the fall.

She forced herself to sit up, hands pushing hard against the ground to make up for the way the world was spinning around her. When she looked up, the vampire was glaring down at her. She tried to stand up, to scurry back, but her ankle gave out when she tried to bear weight on it. A sprain - just a sprain - nothing that wouldn't heal in a couple of days with her abilities, but even a sprain couldn't bear weight immediately. The vampire was saying something now, but she couldn't make out the words, couldn't hear anything past the buzzing in her head, couldn't feel anything but the sensation of warm blood oozing from the cut in her head.

The vampire was reaching for her.

She hadn't wanted to take a risk, and because of that, she was going to die tonight. And Eren wasn't even there to see it.

Maybe that was fitting. She hadn't witnessed his final moments either. Maybe he wanted her to die alone as well.

The vampire's hand closed around her neck. She forced herself to look up, to at least look her death in the eyes-

- and the vampire exploded into dust. In his wake stood the blonde girl from her trigonometry class, stake in hand and gaze locked on Mikasa.

The girl said something. Mikasa blinked, hearing her words, but unable to process them. The girl frowned, and Mikasa grit her teeth, just to give herself another sensation to focus on.

"Repeat that," Mikasa ordered.

The girl extended a hand. "I asked how badly injured you are," she said.

Mikasa ignored the hand and moved to force herself to her feet. Her injured ankle protested once again, but she bore the majority of her weight on her other leg and managed to get upright. "I can handle it," she said. "Who are you?"

The girl didn't seem at all off-put by Mikasa's blunt question. If anything, she seemed like she expected it. "Annie Leonhart," she said.

She paused for a moment. It did nothing to prepare Mikasa for her next, impossible words.

"I'm the slayer."

*

Weeks later, armed with only an axe, her memories, and the desperate research of a lonely girl scared she was losing her mind, Mikasa went hunting.

She found the one who had snatched them from the bodies of the original monsters and tossed them into the ocean.

She took his head, and he turned to ash at her feet.

[bnhayyy]

The Call (1)

Chapter Title: Slayer

Wordcount: 4.1k

Ao3 Link: Click

Notes: Written for day one of @aot-au-week , since a Buffy AU very technically counts as a College AU, and because it's the least I owe @cookietonwrites for convincing them to take on another fic. As you can see, the idea quickly spiraled into a multi-chap, for which I am not even remotely apologetic.

Summary: There is only ever one slayer at a time; the chosen one, a girl strong enough to fight against the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness.

 Mikasa has accepted that for her, being the slayer means living a reclusive life, haunted by the image of the first person she failed to save and unable to ever truly let anyone in. However, everything is called into question with the arrival of Annie, a girl who claims to also be a slayer. Mikasa's life becomes much less solitary seemingly overnight, but friendship is followed by a deadly conspiracy, and with it, the threat of loss and heartache.

Mikasa's world consisted of a haze of blurred vision and the gentle buzzing in her ears. She blinked, and the figures on the paper before her solidified into numbers for a heartbeat before fading out once again. Trying it a few more times didn't yield any better results. It only made her aware of how much her eyes burned and how heavy her eyelids were. How heavy her entire head was. How easy it would be to just slip forward and… 

The buzzing reached a crescendo. A hand reached out to grab her shoulder. She jerked back upright to find Armin sitting across the table from her, one hand still extended and a worried expression on his face. 

Mikasa faltered. Words played at her lips, semi-contradictory things like 'it's fine' and 'what's wrong', but none of them felt right enough to actually be voiced. Instead, Armin was the one to break the silence. 

"When's the last time you slept?" he asked. 

Mikasa sighed. He must be really worried if he was cutting straight to the point like that. 

"Don't worry about it," she said, even though she knew it wouldn't work. 

Armin's frown deepened as a hint of disapproval trickled onto his features. He pitched his voice into a whisper to say, "you don't need to go out every night. You can't- you shouldn't be doing this alone."

"I do," Mikasa countered. "I'm the only one who can. You know that, Armin."

There was one girl in the whole world charged with keeping the forces of darkness at bay. She couldn't cast that duty aside just because she was tired.

It was with that thought that she realized that her gaze had begun to drift back toward the table. She snapped it back up as Armin asked, "does Erwin know how thin you're wearing yourself?" 

Mikasa pursed her lips. "Erwin's only been here for a few weeks. He'll get used to it."

"You shouldn't be used to it," Armin insisted, the softness of his voice warring with the rapidly mounting undercurrent of anxiety. He was still talking, too, about how Erwin wouldn't approve and she would be more productive if she wasn't dead on her feet. She didn't absorb any of the actual words, his voice fading back out into that gentle, incoherent buzzing.

Then there was a flicker of movement as something faded into sight in the corner of her vision, and everything Armin said became utterly doomed to sail right over her head.

Mikasa very determinedly did not look at the figure. She didn't turn her head and didn't allow her eyes to move in his direction beyond that first involuntary twitch. It didn't matter. He leaned forward, and she caught a glimpse of the green eyes peering out from what she knew would be a placid-yet-piercing expression.

"He's right, Mikasa," he said. "You need to take better care of yourself."

She allowed her eyes to flicker shut even though it did nothing to block out the man's voice. The voice of her own imagination.

"You've always been like this," he sighed. His voice had a whisper of warmth in it today, a touch of fondness tucked within what sounded like age-old resignation. "But you shouldn't. You're at your best when you have our friends with you."

Something flickered within her at the comment, although she was pleased to note that she managed to keep it within. There was no need to remind the hallucination that she didn't have any friends. Not even Armin, truly. Because for all that they were fond of each other, no amount of fondness could ever make up for-

"-kasa?"

It was the hint of iron intertwining itself with the worry in Armin's voice that got her to open her eyes. Mikasa forced herself to look at Armin and only Armin, who was leaning halfway across the table at this point.

"You really need to get some rest," he said. She moved to open her mouth, but he cut her off by asking, "you don't have trigonometry for five more hours, right?"

Mikasa nodded.

Armin gave one short, decisive nod, which appeared to be more for himself than anything. "You should take a nap, then."

The shift in her expression was subtle, just a faint downward turn to her lips, but apparently still enough for him to catch, because he quickly added, "you're going on patrolling again tonight, aren't you? Even a couple of hours would be better than nothing. I promised to meet up with Annie in a little while, but. I could walk you home?"

Mikasa didn't bother asking who Annie was, but she didn't protest either. She could see the logic in his argument, even if it felt painfully like a waste of time. "No, it's alright," she said. "I can walk myself."

Armin frowned. "Okay, but you will-"

"Go home and take a nap. Yes." She was already standing up as she finished agreeing. If she was going to keep her word, then it would be better to get it done sooner than later. The earlier she left, the sooner she could return. "I'll see you tomorrow," she promised.

With that, she turned around and left without taking another look at the boy who maybe, in another world, could have been her friend.

Or the distorted memory of Eren Jaeger.

*

Mikasa laid in her bed and closed her eyes.

*

Thud.

"Clear!"

Thud.

"Clear!"

Thud.

"Cl-"

Coughing. Choking, sputtering, straining, a strain in her chest that turned into an ache resonating throughout her entire body. A pain worse than anything she had ever felt in her fourteen years.

Shouting. Rushing. Urgent voices talking rapidly. Not to her, with her aching body and spinning vision, but to each other. White coats and flashing lights. They were talking, talking, and there was something she had to say, something more important than the flashing lights or the unreal pain or the whisper of strength that shouldn't be there. There was something, someone, she had to ask about-

Her voice cut off in a hoarse croak when she tried to speak. Her throat stung, like it had been worn ragged by- by-

Salt.

Memories flashed by her in a dreadful kaleidoscope. The parents. The men. The boy. The other man, the one they'd thought would help. The sea - he'd thrown them in the sea, her and-

A jolt of energy. Mikasa forced herself upright and grabbed the wrist of the first person she saw. Surprise was on his face. Surprise and discomfort; her grip was stronger than it should have been. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was-

"Eren," she croaked.

"Eren." The white-coated man's voice was softer than she needed it to be. Focused on her. He needed to be focused on not her. "Is that your name? Eren?"

Through parched lips and a throat like sandpaper, she croaked out, "where's Eren?"

The man gave her a long, sad look. No. No. He shouldn't be looking at her like that.

"He saved me," Mikasa pressed. "Then he- the-" monster “- we went in the water together."

One faltering moment that lasted for an eternity.

The man redirected with talk about her. What's her name, can she describe what she's feeling, she's okay, it'll all be okay - it didn't matter. It didn't matter and it wouldn't be okay. It didn't matter, because in that moment, he didn't need to answer.

His expression spoke only of death.

*

She woke up feeling more awake, but just as tired as she had been before.

*

Mikasa didn't even try to pay attention during trigonometry. The nap may have refreshed her to some degree, but not enough for that. Besides, she still had a solid C. Spending class zoned out was... admittedly detrimental, considering that she had been in a similar state for her last two classes, but not so devastating that she wouldn't be able to recover from it. She would just have to cram as hard as she could once she had the opportunity to spend a few nights on her classwork. It wasn't a pleasant routine, but it had gotten her through her first two semesters of college. She could make it work for this one as well.

Besides, she had more important things to spend her brainpower on.

A girl had been marked absent during roll call. Mina Carolina. A single absence was not unusual in and of itself, but although Mikasa couldn't claim to know Mina well, she had not seen the girl take a day off before. That didn't mean that she couldn't - she could be well and truly sick, or an emergency could have popped up. People took days off all the time, even those who normally didn't.

The trouble was that there had been a marked increase in people turning up absent lately. Most of them never returned. There were no bodies found or hints as to their whereabouts. They were simply never seen again.

Mikasa didn't want to feel a sense of distant mourning. She wanted to hope that Mina would show up at their next class with some excuse for the teacher about how she can sick or had to deal with an unignorable situation. However, that same part of her had also wanted to hold out hope for Franz and Hannah when they disappeared from her American Literature class, and now they were nothing but faces on missing posters.

The semester had only been in swing for a month and a half. Mina would be the third victim person she had shared a class with. Not third overall - just that she had shared a class with specifically. When she scaled the radius up to encompass the entire campus, she would be the fifth disappearance.

According to Erwin, Paradis' level of supernatural activity was on the low side of average. She suspected that that was the reason he had been hinting that they should relocate. He felt that she was wasted here, and as her Watcher, he wasn't comfortable doing nothing about it, no matter how new to his position or unwelcome he was. And truthfully, five people disappearing off of a college campus during the first semester and a half wasn't unusual. College was stressful. She didn't know the details regarding two of the disappearances, and even with the couple who had seemingly disappeared off the face of the like, a human culprit was just as likely as a demonic one, if not moreso.

So why was she so certain that Mina Carolina had met her death at some point since she had last seen her?

Why did she feel like she had failed to stop it?

Once the feelings of dread and guilt grew strong enough for her to be actively aware of them, Mikasa decided to redirect her attention to the students who were there. 

Armin probably would have been one of her classmates if she hadn't insisted that he not take any classes that run past sunset and directed him to the morning trigonometry course instead. However, it wouldn't have been a large class even with him and Mina. 

Four of the students scattered across the room were unknown to Mikasa. However, her seat near the back of the room allowed her to keep an eye on them with relative ease. That, in turn, allowed her to be fairly comfortable in her assessment that they were normal human students. 

She could say the same of her four other classmates as well. They, however, were a little higher on her radar. 

Closest to her, his desk seated directly in the last few rays of evening sunlight, was a muscular blond man. Mikasa thought that his name began with an 'R', but didn't know much else about him. He'd caught her attention with a loud, outgoing personality and general demeanor that made him seem like an odd fit for the class. At the moment, it looked like he wasn't paying much more attention than Mikasa herself, fiddling with the ring on his left hand and only occasionally glancing up at the teacher. 

The blonde next to him was as much of a stranger, but she at least looked like she was focusing. She had gained Mikasa's attention by joining a week after classes had started. Since then, however, she had proven quiet and distant, only interacting with her classmates when she glared at the man next to her for trying to talk to her while she was working.    

Jean Kirstein, meanwhile, clearly didn't want to be a stranger. Over the past year, he had made a few attempts to reach out that she could admit were enduring. If she didn't have her duty, he might be someone she could consider a friend. As it was, she couldn't bring herself to do anything but brush him off, for his own sake. He didn't pay her much attention in class though. That wasn’t to say that he was completely focused, even though he had claimed a seat at the front of the class. She often glimpsed him speaking to the student next to him. There’d also been enough instances when she’d heard a frustrated comment from him regarding the course for her to get the sense that trigonometry wasn't particularly easy for him. However, she also suspected that he was hardworking and dedicated enough to make up for it.

The student next to him was Marco Bott. Cheerful and painfully earnest, he was honestly mostly notable to Mikasa because he was Jean's friend. He seemed like a good person though. That meant he was a reminder of why Mikasa couldn't let Jean become her friend no matter how hard he tried or let herself rest no matter how much Armin tried to insist. If she faltered, if she slowed, there would be consequences.

Mina used to sit behind Jean and Marco.

The sound of chairs being pushed back and writing implements being put away drew Mikasa out of her stupor. Rather than look at the clock, she glanced out the window.

The sun had already begun to set.

She quickly stuffed her textbook, pencil case, and notebook in her bag, feeling only a brief pang of guilt for the blank sheet of paper that stared back at her. The items landed haphazardly, and she knew that if she looked, they would likely only partly obscure the stake, crossbow, and knife that laid carefully arranged at the bottom. She zipped it shut before anyone could get curious and try to sneak a peek; a reflex even though she knew that no one would be bold enough to try that with her.

Despite being the last one to start getting packed, she was the first one out of class. Just like she always was. From there, it didn’t take long to get off the campus.

The first two blocks of Mikasa's walk went like she was heading home. It was as she reached the third - the one that would have lead back to her apartment - that she took a sharp right. From there it was four blocks straight on, then one block to the left. A simple route, but one that had come to haunt her nightmares.

Dusk had descended on the cemetery by the time she reached it.

Logically, she knew that she wasn't likely to run into anything for several more hours.

Instinctively, she knew that Mina Carolina wasn't likely to return to class.

This wasn't a night to take risks.

Mikasa wandered deeper into the graveyard, where she was less likely to be spotted by any passerby, and pulled out her stake. There, she began to wander.

It wasn't a small cemetery by any means. That was what made it the ideal hive for demonic activity. Not only were cemeteries where the majority of newly turned vampires rose, but large ones were also rife with additional dead bodies and crypts. This one was even separated into several different sections, which made it easy to get lost.

Getting lost made it easy to watch the time slip by.

A couple of hours into her patrol, a familiar figure flickered into existence at the edges of her vision. She didn't say anything to him, and he followed her silently, gaze occasionally flickering to one side or another as he took in the graveyard. As if he might notice anything before she did. Technically speaking, she supposed that he might. He had "caught" things a few times in the past, when she was subconsciously aware of something but hadn't been fast enough to process it with her conscious mind. It was the only thing that made sense, for all that she desperately wished that it wasn't.

A slayer whose hallucination needed to point things out for her couldn't mean anything good for the world.

She forced herself to look away from the figment and focus on her surroundings.

Not five minutes later, the sound of shifting earth caught her attention. Mikasa turned and strode toward it, her grip on her stake tightening and her gaze fixed straight ahead. Within seconds, she had spotted it; a grave with the earth beneath it stirring. As she watched, a hand punched up and out of it, grasping desperately at the ground. The head came next - an unfamiliar man, his face distorted by lumps across his forehead and nose, slitted yellow eyes, and fangs. The visage of a vampire prepared for predation. It glared at her as it struggled and snarled, eventually freeing its other arm. Once that was done, it had a much easier time dragging itself to the surface.

It never got the chance to free itself fully. The second its chest was completely exposed, Mikasa sprang into action. She grabbed the thing by the lapels of its dirt-stained tuxedo and dragged it upward. Fear flicked across its face, causing the predatory features to fall away and leaving a normal face behind. A face that could have been human if she didn't know better. She didn't allow herself to look closely.

In a blink, she had rammed her stake through the vampire's chest and into its heart. It dissolved into dust a few seconds later. Mikasa stood and watched the flecks flutter back down to earth.

She was drawn out of her reverie by a firm, "you shouldn't be patrolling tonight."

Mikasa grit her jaw. "I already rested," she pointed out.

"It isn't enough. You've been exhausting yourself, one little nap isn't going to make up for that."

"You just saw me kill a vampire."

"Yeah, and it took way more out of you than it normally would."

Mikasa whirled around to face the figment. Something in her chest threatened to hitch as she allowed herself to look directly at him, just as it so often did, even years after he first manifested.

The thing before her almost could have been a ghost. It wasn't though; god knew she had done enough research on the subject. Ghosts, when they visibly manifested at all, took the appearance they wore at their time of death or at another point in their life.

Eren Jaeger had been fourteen when he died. Even if he responded to the same name, this grown man with distant, unreadable eyes couldn't be him.

He wasn't anything. She'd run all of the tests as she learned more about the Supernatural. She wasn't haunted, there weren't hints of a demonic presence lingering around her - there was nowhere he could have come from other than her own mind.

He was nothing but a manifestation of her guilty conscience. She had come to terms with that years ago, yet she was still wasting time arguing with him.

At that instant, it was suddenly very tempting to look away. However, she forced her gaze to remain steady as she coldly said, "leave."

The figment blinked. "Mikasa-"

"No," she interrupted.

Something flickered in the illusion's eyes. It was difficult to identify, caught behind that distorting wall that so often covered his emotions, and she didn't even bother to try. He opened his mouth again, but she didn't let him get another word in.

"I'm not willing to put up with you tonight," she said. "Get out."

His expression finally came together into something real and visible. Alarm. "Mikasa, move!"

Mikasa lunged to the side just in time to avoid being grabbed by the shoulder.

She spun around to find a burly vampire standing over the ashes of the one she'd just killed. He was musclebound and bulky enough that he might be somewhat difficult to face in hand-to-hand combat - but not so much as to stand a real chance against her. "Slayer," he snarled. "I am going to grind you into dust."

Mikasa didn't bother responding. He lunged forward and she spun to the side, ducking beneath his flailing fist to get behind him. As she moved, she noticed that Eren had disappeared. Good. She sprang forward, stake in hand, only for the vampire to swing back around at the last moment and grab her wrist. He squeezed, a horrible grin on his face, and she had to fight to keep from automatically releasing her grip on her stake.

As the vampire leaned forward, she twisted to punch him in the sternum with her free hand. It only made him falter for a moment, but it was enough for her to wrench her wrist out of his grasp. It was also enough for her to come to a terrible realization.

Her blows weren't as hard as they usually were and she was moving slowly.

Eren was right.

There wasn't any time to ruminate on that. The vampire lunged forward, and Mikasa dove to the side again. She leaned into the momentum and swung her leg out to land a kick to the vampire’s side. He stumbled, a curse on his lips.

It didn't bring her any sense of victory, for as she brought her foot down, it landed on uneven ground. Not observant enough.

Pain shot up her ankle and the world began to tilt.

Eren still wasn't anywhere to be seen. Funny. If her mind was going to conjure up even a distorted version of Eren Jaeger, she would have expected it to happen when she died. She had thought that he would watch.

Mikasa hit the ground, the side of her head slamming hard against a flat gravestone. The world continued to spin around the sound of the vampire chuckling. She clenched the hand holding her stake, only to find that it must have fallen out of her grasp during the fall.

She forced herself to sit up, hands pushing hard against the ground to make up for the way the world was spinning around her. When she looked up, the vampire was glaring down at her. She tried to stand up, to scurry back, but her ankle gave out when she tried to bear weight on it. A sprain - just a sprain - nothing that wouldn't heal in a couple of days with her abilities, but even a sprain couldn't bear weight immediately. The vampire was saying something now, but she couldn't make out the words, couldn't hear anything past the buzzing in her head, couldn't feel anything but the sensation of warm blood oozing from the cut in her head.

The vampire was reaching for her.

She hadn't wanted to take a risk, and because of that, she was going to die tonight. And Eren wasn't even there to see it.

Maybe that was fitting. She hadn't witnessed his final moments either. Maybe he wanted her to die alone as well.

The vampire's hand closed around her neck. She forced herself to look up, to at least look her death in the eyes-

- and the vampire exploded into dust. In his wake stood the blonde girl from her trigonometry class, stake in hand and gaze locked on Mikasa.

The girl said something. Mikasa blinked, hearing her words, but unable to process them. The girl frowned, and Mikasa grit her teeth, just to give herself another sensation to focus on.

"Repeat that," Mikasa ordered.

The girl extended a hand. "I asked how badly injured you are," she said.

Mikasa ignored the hand and moved to force herself to her feet. Her injured ankle protested once again, but she bore the majority of her weight on her other leg and managed to get upright. "I can handle it," she said. "Who are you?"

The girl didn't seem at all off-put by Mikasa's blunt question. If anything, she seemed like she expected it. "Annie Leonhart," she said.

She paused for a moment. It did nothing to prepare Mikasa for her next, impossible words.

"I'm the slayer."

*

Weeks later, armed with only an axe, her memories, and the desperate research of a lonely girl scared she was losing her mind, Mikasa went hunting.

She found the one who had snatched them from the bodies of the original monsters and tossed them into the ocean.

She took his head, and he turned to ash at her feet.

[goatbi]

Lessons Of Love

It was only after he woke up he realized why everyone kept staring at him with that look in their eyes. 

Gordon woke up dizzy, though blood loss and a head wound would do that to someone. He didn’t want to complain, especially when he looked up and caught a glimpse of Bubby floating in his tube. It was... well, it was better than it had been the night before, but only marginally. He didn’t think it was fair of him to complain about a concussion when Bubby looked like that. 

Still, his head hurt, and his arm felt weirdly numb. He glanced to either side, seeing Benrey curled up against one side and Tommy on the other. He smiled softly at the two of them and sighed softly-

What the fuck. 

Gordon stared upwards at the sweet voice floating around him, eyes wide. He... he couldn’t use that. He didn’t know how to... and yet more poured from between his teeth, floating around in shades that he began to be able to decipher by his own panic. 

“What... in the world...” He murmured, shifting his arm carefully as not to disturb Benrey, grabbing at the sweet voice bouncing through the air. He... He could use sweet voice? When had that happened? 

It seemed, despite his efforts, Benrey was waking up next to him lifting his head to look up at Gordon. He glanced down himself, sweet voice slipping out of the corner of his mouth before he covered it with his hand, cheeks going red. Benrey grinned up at him. 

“You, uh, you got something? Something to tell me there buddy?” 

“Did you do this?” Gordon asked, muffled by his hand, and Benrey hummed, shrugging. 

“I don’t think so. I mean, maybe it has to do with consuming the sweet voice, but uh, I didn’t do anything on purpose.” Gordon nodded slowly, looking up at the colors floating about, watching them slowly disappear until the color was gone, and the light only came from Bubby’s tube. 

“Kinda pretty.” Gordon mumbled, and Benrey nodded a bit, singing a few notes up at him. Gordon smiled, then tried to control it himself, getting a note out, though the color was all over the place. Benrey snorted softly. 

“Nice dude.” 

“Oh pardon me for not knowing how to do the sweet voice after one day, Benrey.” Gordon shot a glare at him, though it was ruined by him holding back a smile. Benrey stared back, before snorting again, ducking his head down to laugh. 

“Go back to sleep, asshole.” Benrey muttered, closing his eyes. 

A good thing, Gordon realized, staring up and the pink and blue floating around his head. 

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

“So... How exactly do I do this?” Gordon glanced around, sweet voice slipping out of the corners of his mouth as he spoke. Benrey watched it quietly, shrugging. 

“Uh, you just... you gotta control it.” 

“Oh, I had no idea, I thought I could just go into public leaking colorful floating bubbles all over the place.” He deadpanned, and then grinned when Benrey shook his head, laughing. 

“Like, bro you have to, uh, suppress it. It’ll feel all wrong at first, and it wont’ be easy, but you gotta... you gotta have control over it. That why you won’t be showing your emotions all the time.” Benrey grinned, then covered his mouth as some of his own sweet voice leaked out. 

“Like that?” 

“Shut up, feetman.” 

They glared at each other for a moment, before Gordon sighed softly, closing his eyes. “So I just... suppress it. Push it down before it can come up.” Gordon muttered, nodding. “I can do that, Gordon can do that.” 

Benrey hummed softly. “Yeah, it might, uh, it might get a bit out of wack when shit like... everything that went down happens, but for the most part... once you’ve got control, you’ve got it.” 

Gordon nodded slightly, eyes still closed. He paused, focusing on the idea of taking all those sweet voice bubbles and pushing them down, hiding them away in his chest until it was useful to him. After a moment, he opened his eyes, opening his mouth to say something, only to cover it with a hand as green tumbled out of his mouth. 

“Epic fail bro.” 

“Shut up, you’re not doing any better.” 

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

So, maybe the whole fight was a lot more traumatic than he thought. He tried to go to sleep in Tommy’s guest room, but it was so silent. He couldn’t hear Coomer’s snoring, or Tommy’s mumbles, and it was just so... 

Nothing 

He almost had a panic attack before he decided it wasn’t worth it, moving into the tube room-as Benrey had dubbed it, getting Coomer to agree when he was half delirious from exhaustion-to settle in there. Coomer was sleeping against the tube, and Gordon relaxed when he heard him snoring softly. It was so much easier to sleep with something like that, and for some reason, he settled back against the wall, looking up at Bubby floating peacefully. He had healed a bit more, though he was still missing patches of skin, which was horrible to look at. 

It was worse when he knew that, in the end, Bubby had done nothing to deserve it, nothing but protect someone he loved. 

Gordon sighed softly, scrubbing at his eyes with his hand, surrounding himself with silt colored bubbles, guilt building up inside of himself slowly, tears coming uninvited, sunset joining the colors floating around him as he got more and more upset. 

“Hey...” He jumped, glancing to the side, seeing Benrey just... there. Gordon wiped at his eyes, waving at the bubbles still floating around him, sniffling softly. 

“Uh... hey.” 

Benrey frowned slightly, before shifting, trying to find his words. Gordon watched him quietly, not wanting to interrupt the thought just in case Benrey lost it. After a moment, Benrey shifted slightly, singing a few notes. 

He wasn’t quite sure how he began to understand it, but the sweet voice hovered, and Gordon found himself tearing up again. 

It’s not your fault. 

He felt like it was. He was supposed to be the leader after all, how could he do that if he couldn’t protect someone- 

“Hey.” Just as he started to spiral again, Benrey shifted, bonking the side of his head to Gordon’s. It hurt, probably more than Benrey meant to, since his concussion was still a thing, but some how it comforted him, and Gordon sniffled, nodding a bit. 

“Sorry... Just... feels like it is, you know?” 

Benrey sighed softly, then nodded, before shifting, laying his legs out straight, patting his thigh. Gordon tilted his head, frowning, before Benrey brought one hand up to his hair. Gordon blinked, before going along with it, laying with his head in Benrey’s lap. 

It was comforting, having someone playing with his hair like this, and soon enough, Gordon drifted off to sleep, comforted by Benrey’s hands in his hair, and Coomer’s soft snoring. 

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

It did get easier to control as time passed. The color around the two of them slowly decreased, though neither would mention the pink and blue that would float around them from time to time. 

They both knew what it meant. 

They both knew that the other knew what it meant. 

They both pretended not to know. 

It was slowly driving the two others-three, if Bubby was actually awake, a rare enough occurrence at the moment-up the wall. Neither of them really cared, or at least they both pretended not to. 

It was confusing at this point, but Gordon stuck to it. He didn’t want to make Benrey uncomfortable with the idea of it, since they were still recovering from some pretty serious trauma, which does things to people. 

Still, they slowly got closer. Gordon found it hard to sleep without noise around, but it was so much easier when Benrey’s hand were in his hair, slowly petting and braiding and scratching. It relaxed him, calming the fear the would build up in his chest when he couldn’t hear the others. 

Tommy watched them with knowledge in his eyes, though he didn’t often come out of his room or the lab connected, in fear of them seeing him crying. Though, no one was really surprised by it. Gordon let him mourn, knowing that Tommy would come to them eventually. He was the main one who preached communication, and Gordon trusted Tommy enough to know when he needed help. 

Plus, Tommy had Sunkist. 

Gordon just had Benrey. Coomer was focused on Bubby healing, and Gordon couldn’t blame him, but he didn’t want to burden anyone with his issues. Benrey, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care as much. Benrey would just grin, color bleeding through his teeth, and Gordon felt so much safer. 

So he slept on Benrey’s lap half the time now? Was he not allowed to cuddle his friends? Tommy and Benrey did it all the time too. 

Okay maybe he needed to stop pining. 

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

Tommy had dropped a plate in the kitchen. That’s all it was. It hadn’t even broken, just made a loud noise, and Gordon was off. 

He didn’t know exactly where he hid, and by Benrey’s cursing, he didn’t know either. Still, he pushed himself as far back into his little hidden hole, clutching at his arm, waiting to feel the heat of the metal heat up, but it never came, there nothing, he was defenseless-

“Gordon.” His eyes snapped to Benrey, who stared at him, both hands up near his head. Gordon tilted his head slightly, panting softly, shaking. 

“You... you don’t really uh, call me that huh?” Fear bubbled up and out, bathing the little closet he had buried himself in in light, and Benrey smiled softly, carefully singing out a few notes back. 

You’re safe. 

I’m here 

Nothing will hurt you. 

With each line, Gordon began to calm down, ignoring the tears streaking down his face, shivering like he was cold. Benrey shifted, slowly moving his hands out, opening his arms for a hug, and Gordon pulled himself out of the little closet to latch onto him. 

Tommy apologized far more than was necessary, since it had been an accident, and Gordon... hadn’t really shown any signs of that being a trigger for him. 

That closet ended up becoming his go to hiding spot. 

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

“You ever going to tell him?” Tommy asked at some point, when Benrey was sitting in with Bubby while Coomer took a shower. 

Gordon sighed softly, glancing towards the door of the tube room. “Maybe. I just... I worry about it.” 

“I know, Mr. Freeman. You worry about everything there is to worry about.” Tommy smiled at him, and Gordon shot him a look, one eyebrow raised. “Pretty sure you need help with that, but I don’t know how to help with it.” 

Gordon laughed softly, nodding. “Yeah, you are... unfortunately not the first person to say that to me. I have said that to myself.” 

Tommy stared at him. Gordon stared back, before breaking and laughing softly. 

“I’m fine. I just worry about him” 

“Gordon, you do need to worry about yourself more.” Tommy patted his back lightly, and Gordon closed his eyes. 

Maybe he did. 

Still... it would be alright in the end. They would be okay. 

Nothing was stopping them from being okay anymore. 

[waywardwrestlewritingwaif]

The Guardian’s Oath, Part Eight

There’s likely going to be another chapter coming very soon, but I wanted to respect what I felt were the natural “dividing points” in the story. This is already the longest thing I’ve ever written and it keeps getting longer. I do hope to have it finished fairly soon, though. Maybe this week? Not sure. Get caught up on the rest of the story here. 

Pairing: Feargal Devitt/ Finn Balor x OFC

Word count: 2,408

Content advisory: Nothing at all in this part!

Mercifully, the next days passed uneventfully. I still found myself keeping vigil at night but there were no further incidents with the children and no visits from Balor. Increasingly, I spent my nights thinking of the Reverend’s imminent return, of how excited I was to see him again, even more so because he would be with us for longer than usual. I ran through all of the looks that had passed between us in my mind, the infrequent touches, to which I was always trying to ascribe some greater meaning. Sometimes, I felt myself start to drift off to sleep thinking of the gentle press of his fingers against my arm, or his smile the day we had our picnic lunch overlooking the ocean; and sometimes these thoughts would become confused with the memories I had of Balor and his nocturnal visits, of the earthy, animal sounds he made and the sensation of having that part of him inside me, of the unspeakable sensations he gave me. I hated when my mind would become confused in this way, how I could taint the sweetness and beauty of one set of memories with the darkness of the others. 

Thursday came at long last and for once I found myself struggling to contain my own nervous energy rather than the children’s. The two of them were well-behaved, although they were also excited at the prospect that their father would be back. Despite being told numerous times that he was not expected until late in the evening, they keened at every noise, thinking that it was the Reverend arriving. Late in the afternoon, when there was a knock at the front door, all three of us started, forgetting for a moment that the man of the house would not knock at his own door. 

Susan answered it and came to find us with a worried expression on her face.  

“It’s for you, Miss,” she stammered, holding out a letter. 

I couldn’t think of who would be writing to me but as I took the envelope from her, I saw the black border on it. The servant girl trembled a little as I opened it. 

“Sad news,” I sighed. “The pastor of the church that took me in and that educated me has passed.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Miss,” Susan mumbled. 

“Thank you, Susan. He was quite advanced in years, so this isn’t a surprise. He lived a long and good life.”

“Do you need to go back there for the funeral?” William chimed in. 

“No,” I said softly. “We were not as close as that. He has a family and his parishioners who will mourn him. This is just a notice sent to those who knew him.”

“So you don’t have to go?” he repeated. 

“Master William, it’s not polite to go at her like that!” Susan exclaimed. “She’s just lost someone!”

“Thank you, but really, it’s all right. Reverend Potter was a kind man to me and I owe everything to that, but this isn’t unexpected.” I patted Susan’s hand, a little embarrassed that she seemed more distraught than I was. “I suppose the strangest part of it is that he was the last bond I had to my home. There are a couple of teachers but I never knew them well. The only person who knew me after my family had passed was Reverend Potter.”

“Well this is your home now,” William insisted.

I smiled, touched at how sweet the sentiment was and at the same time finding it strange that it was true: I no longer had any part of my life that lay beyond this place. I still felt like something of a stranger in Bray but it was everything I had. 

That night, I practically had to tie the children to their beds, as they were convinced that their father would return the very moment they tried to sleep. I was far from insistent, however, allowing them to dawdle in their preparations and reading to them for longer than usual. I told myself that I was indulging them in case their father returned earlier than expected. In truth, though, I was indulging myself. Once the children were put to sleep, there was no reason for me to remain downstairs and if the Reverend did return at a decent hour, I wanted to be able to see him myself. 

In the end, all of our patience was rewarded. While I was reading to the children, we heard the telltale sound of the front door opening and immediately both Sophia and William yelped for their father to come upstairs. 

“Well now what have we here?” he chuckled, leaning into the bedroom. “Seems that there are two young ones who should be asleep by now.”

“It’s my fault, sir,” I answered sheepishly. “They were so excited to see you and I didn’t think there was any harm in letting them stay up a little later than usual in case you made it home.”

“Is that so?” He stepped inside the room and dropped onto the foot of Sophia’s bed. She climbed out from under the covers and into his arms, crying out when he tickled her stomach a little. “I suspected that these two had forced you to stay up with them, or that they’d tricked you into thinking it was earlier than it was, but if this is all your doing than I suppose you’re the one that needs to be punished.”

I gasped slightly, although it was clear that he was joking. 

“What do you say, children? What kind of punishment should she get?”

“She should have to go down to the shore and collect crabs!” William offered gleefully. 

“You think so?” The Reverend laughed. “It seems she’s already proven what a strong swimmer she is, seeing as she rescued you.”

“You can’t punish her, Papa,” Sophia informed him. “She’s just found out that a friend of hers has passed.”

Reverend Devitt twisted towards me, his daughter still caught up in his arms, even as he tried to straighten himself. 

“Is that true, Miss Miles?”

“Yes, sir. The pastor of my church at home… back where I come from. He passed away recently and I just received the notice this afternoon.”

“I am so sorry. I never met Reverend Potter but I corresponded with him several times. I understand he was a most gentle man and, of course, I’m in his debt for recommending you to me.”

“Thank you, sir. Reverend Potter was always-”

“We’re her family now,” William interjected. 

I laughed a little. “William, it doesn’t work that way. We’re not family just because I live here.”

“But we are,” he insisted. 

I smiled and suggested, awkwardly, that it was time for the children to go to sleep. At length, and with the Reverend’s help, I was able to get them settled. The two of us, him and me, slipped out of the room together and I turned to wish him good night when he laid a hand on my arm. 

“I would like to speak with you before you turn in for the night,” he told me, eyes darting around like a nervous animal’s. “If you could give me a few moments and then come and meet me in my office.”

“Of course, sir.”

He disappeared down the stairs and I stood frozen in place, unsure of what I was supposed to do or exactly how long I was supposed to give him. My first thought was that his good humor had been a performance for his children and that he was actually angry with me for allowing them to stay up later than usual. It was possible, I told myself, that he wanted to say something to me about the late Reverend Potter, although I couldn’t imagine what. It was also possible that, in light of William’s announcement that we were family, he wanted to remind me of my place in the household. 

I stood on the landing, entertaining all sorts of scenarios in my head before I finally decided that I had given him enough time to collect his thoughts and prepare himself to face me. Every step on the staircase felt heavier and it seemed to require all my strength just to remain upright as I made my way to his office. 

He was standing when I entered the room, shuffling anxiously as he waved me in. 

“Miss Miles, Helen,” he began, “I wanted to say again how sorry I am for the loss of your… protector… friend… for the loss of Reverend Potter.”

“That’s most kind of you, sir.”

“I only wish that he could have lived long enough to see you here… how you’ve flourished… how you’ve become a part of our family.”

“That’s most kind of you to say,” I murmured, blushing. 

“It’s not, though.” He was struggling for words in a way that I had never seen. Normally, speech flowed from him with the ease of a forest spring. “What William said… I hope that you do think of us as a kind of family to you… or that you could think of us that way.”

“You honor me, sir.”

“Please stop calling me ‘sir’.”

“Of course, s- Reverend.”

“Reverend Potter told me something of your history- nothing you should feel ashamed for me to know- but enough for me to understand how difficult your early life must have been and how strong your character must be for you to have emerged from such circumstances as the good, sensible, kind woman you are.”

Despite his assertion that I should feel no shame that he knew something of my past, I felt deeply uncomfortable. I had never been sure how much even Revered Potter knew of my family life before the church had taken me on, and I felt terribly vulnerable at the idea that Reverend Devitt knew any of it at all. My history always felt like a kind of stain, something that needed to be removed and forgotten as best as possible. I felt caught up in the web of my own memories for several moments before I looked up and saw his eyes locked on me, luminous and intent. 

“Marry me?” he croaked. 

“P-pardon?”

I could scarcely believe I’d heard him correctly and he’d spoken so very quietly, so hesitantly, that I felt like I should give him the opportunity to claim he’d made a mistake, or that he’d said something else entirely. 

“I adore you. I wanted to tell you when I said that I thought your prayers had helped us, had helped me. The fact is that simply having you here has helped me in every way but now that this… miracle… has come about and I’ve at last been able to understand the fate of my late wife… I believe that God brought you here and I believe that He brought these matters to a conclusion for a reason and…” He took a deep breath. “God has allowed me to find love again and has at the same time allowed me to close the door on the past. I truly feel like He means for me and you to be together. And I understand if you don’t feel the same way for me, but-”

“I do!” I startled myself with the sound of my own voice. “I mean, I will. I mean… yes. Yes, I will marry you, I want to marry you.”

“Really?”

“Oh sir, since the day I met you, I-”

“Feargal, please. Of all the times I want to hear you call me by my first name, this is the chief.”

“Of course.” I swallowed, trying to collect my thoughts. “Feargal… I am enchanted with this place and I adore your children and I… I love you. I should want nothing more than to be your wife, your family…”

His face broke into a smile like the sun cutting through the seaside clouds. He strode forward and captured both of my hands in his, pressing kisses against them as he hummed to himself. 

“You really love me?” he ventured. 

“So very much.”

“You could be happy with a husband who spent so much time on the road, raising two children who weren’t your blood?”

“Begging your pardon, sir… Feargal… but I already am.”

He grasped my face in his hands and pressed a soft kiss to my lips before taking hold of my hands again. “I know things haven’t been easy for you here. I just hope you’ll believe me when I say that I do want to make you happy.”

Being so close to him, hearing his words, I felt like I was being pulled into the sun. The stability of my body disappeared and I went weak in his arms. Gently, he helped me to the armchair next to the fireplace, easing me into it while apologizing for “surprising” me with his proposal, as if there was anything more I could have wished for. 

He knelt before me, chafing my hands in his, looking deep into my eyes with an expression of excitement that made my breath quicken. His tongue flicked lightly over his lips and his eyes flitted over me in a way that seemed intimate and strangely familiar. I hated that I recognized the pangs of desire I was feeling because of what I had gone through with my demonic partner. 

“I suppose we should both retire for the night,” he rasped. “We shall share our good news with everyone tomorrow.”

Once again, he pressed kisses into my hands before he helped me up and walked with me as far as the door to my chambers in the attic. We were ever so slightly awkward as we took our leave, aware that we would sleep under the same roof as we had for months but that our relationship was fundamentally changed. 

I lay in bed, terrified that Balor would visit me to remind me that I had asked him to bring about this exact situation, and although I did not see him that night, I could feel his eyes on me. As I hovered between sleep and wakefulness, I felt the heat of his body against mine, one hand rising along my skin, under my nightdress, the palm splaying against my breast, and I heard his dark laugh next to my ear. But when I opened my eyes to confront him, there was nothing. 

[fuwafuwamedb]

Demons in Fuyuki Pt 2 (Hakuno, Gilgamesh, Kirei)

Previously: 1

__

The morning light came in warmly, embracing her with a loving embrace that left her shifting slightly in bed. Her eyes opened to blue skies and lush green trees outside the window. Her body shifted, feeling the silkiness of her outfit that had coasted out of its proper state as she’d slumbered.

It was a great morning. A lovely morning.

Today, in fact, she would have a good day. She could feel it in her bones. If she went out with this attitude and took pride in the world of magic and its hand in hand embrace of the divine, she would experience nothing but happiness.

Of course, then her eyes took in the room.

The darkened ceilings with their patched up wooden ceiling boards. There were wires that were exposed, leading to a singular light overhead that held a string. She could see the minimalist décor and the spartan furniture. A desk, a bed, a small table, and a small chest of drawers composed the room. Other than that, there was not even a proper rug on the floor or set of curtains over the window.

Hakuno looked down.

The blanket she had was finer than the one that had been here last night. She’d fallen asleep under the strangest blend of wool that had ever been formed into a blanket, its edges had been covered in a satin trim, no doubt to prevent fraying but, in doing so, left the feet of to freeze at the slightest touch.

It’d been such a poor blanket, but not this one.

Size alone said this crimson and black blanket was at least twice the size. The fabric material was soft and warm, made of a thick fabric that she couldn’t place. It had replaced her poor gift from the church easily and entirely, leaving her to glance around again for any signs of her old blanket.

In glancing around, she noted her outfit had changed as well.

The slip she’d been adorned in was missing.

Well, it was gone from her person at the very least.

In the place of her chaste, white slip that went under her habit, Hakuno found herself in a black silky number. Its straps were over her upper arms now, having fallen from her shoulders. The fabric had puddled around her middle due to the length and- now that she was pulling back the blanket, someone had gone further.

A set of panties and garters led lower.

Someone had dressed her without her consent.

Not only had they done that, they’d dressed her in probably the most risqué of attire that one could have gotten her. A glance to the door showed that the thing was ajar, exposing her just a bit to the hallway.

She didn’t have other attire options.

That was where the whole pious nun cover came from. She had given up personal possessions for the life devoted to the church. She’d made sure not to wear any perfumes or adorn herself with any makeup. Her life and her state of being were to be presented as bare and empty.

However, there were footsteps coming now.

There was no time to dwell upon who had done this. No time to think about how to avoid trouble. Hakuno grabbed her habit and slipped it over the clothing she wore. She pulled the blanket from the bed, folding it as quickly as she could and carefully looking around.

There was not much time and that priest, if suspicious, would look around this room.

Her eyes drifted to the ceiling patches.

A floorboard creaked not far from her room. For now, Hakuno shoved the blanket beneath the mattress and began to grab her veil for adorning her head. She was just shoving her hair underneath the headdress as she saw the priest.

“Sister?”

“Good morning, Father Kirei.” Hakuno gave a low bow, doing her best to cover up any indication of her racing heart. “What brings you to this end of the church?”

“You missed the morning mass.”

“I did?!”

The man nodded.

God would forgive her. There was no place of worship or time of worship that restricted one’s goodliness and wellbeing more than any other time or place. Religious belief was between one and their heavenly spirit, not the mass and their prominence in the church.

“Would you care to join me privately for a religious prayer? Perhaps to beg His forgiveness for your tardiness.”

“I would hate to take you away from your duties, father.”

The last thing she wanted was to be in a room alone with this man, especially in the central part of the church. There was no missing the way he avoided the light. His eyes were too bleak, too sharply focused. It was as though he were preparing for a kill rather than checking on the wellbeing of one of his flock.

The man shook his head.

“Sister, may I remind you that god is above all else. One’s devotion to their god should be absolute, without hesitation or perception of earthly duties. While we may fast and partake in the cilice to show our devotion, there are many who would be tempted by the devil’s hand. Vain, selfish beings, unworthy of the protection of the divine and the comfort they find in their faith may stray from their daily worshipping of god, but it is those like ourselves who must hold their faith resolute.”

“The lord is about forgiveness.”

“Oh?”

The man moved closer, leaning in.

“Do you think that the lord approves of vain attempts to stop the aging of man? Do you think that we should encourage the selfish ways of human beings and endorse the way that others try to avoid confronting their own pains and vices? Should we allow one to think that their own actions can save them alone?”

…Yes.

That sounded like a few great things to do, especially the pains and vices bit when those were too great. Support was needed. Community.

Something in that gaze kept her silent though.

“You will learn properly about faith in this church,” Father Kirei told her. “Withstanding the pains of life, experiencing the losses and poverty of man, only then can one be close to what is truly human. Only then can one think themselves a follower of their faith.”

And that was no doubt the talk that sent everyone running, claiming it was donations alone, Hakuno thought to herself. She was tempted to leave herself.

“I will wait for you in the basement prayer rooms,” he told her. “Finish your cleanings, since I see that you are caring for your space that you’ve been given… where is your blanket?”

“I took it to be washed,” Hakuno lied. “Regular cleaning encourages health.”

That sounded like something that he would approve of.

The man glanced at her. “And your dressing now?”

“I have been dressed. I merely had my headdress a bit loose.”

“I see.”

She was a shit liar, but the man turned. It looked like he had no reason to wonder about truth or lies. The moment he was gone and his footsteps were descending the stairs, Hakuno rushed to her bed and pulled the blanket out. She had to use the desk to get up to one of the roof patches, pulling it aside to see the small crawlspace.

It was a waste. The blanket was beautiful and would become dirtied in this spot, but she couldn’t let it be found.

Her undergarments for the day were too form fitting and slick, all but caressing her when she moved. Even as she descended down the stairs and went to visit with the priest, she found herself mentally cursing.

There was nothing pious about wearing such lewd garments beneath her religious attire. There was nothing pure running through her mind when she would feel the garters press lightly to her thighs and legs.

The demon made prayer long, speaking of verses from the Old Testament. Fire and brimstone, smiting and anger; she heard nothing of hope or comforts. They reviewed the morning mass’ donations, the man making several large donation collections go towards cleaning and maintaining the church.

“Soon, the donations will have saved up enough to bring more of those who’ve abandoned their god to their renewal of faith. I intend to expand the main room, to bring more seating and stone walls to this building.”

And she could see him affording that easily.

“May I help look over the finances?”

“To what end?”

“Perhaps to see if any donations have faltered.” Hakuno smiled as best she could. “Perhaps there is a crisis of faith that has brought me here.”

The man gave a small nod, turning and leaving the room.

The answers had to be here.

Of all things, finances would show discrepancies. There would be signs of finagling and ill intent amongst these records. The man was so easily able to decide the portioning of money, whereas all the places she’d been lingered and asked opinions. Even the finest businessmen that she’d worked with before had faltered in making such bold decisions.

Somewhere-

“Those books are fake.”

Hakuno paused, glancing over to the blond in the corner.

“The priest never shows his true ledgers to anyone,” the man purred. “This is a test, one of which you are failing.”

“What do you mean, failing? I am looking for-“

“Do not lie to me. Your lies cannot stand on any ground, shaky or otherwise.”

He moved forward with that being said, his arms leaning over her person and lips moving close to her ear.

“You did well in hiding my gifts, little sister. Tell me, do you still wear the clothing I gave you this morning or did you find a clever place to hide them. I found the blanket I gave you, but the clothes…”

“It was you?”

He leaned in close, his forehead pressing to hers.

“H-How did you know about the blanket’s location?”

“The patches in the ceiling were made on purpose. Them and a floorboard are the only true places to hide anything. Not to worry, I took the blanket back before the priest could find it. He’s currently turning over your room for any signs of sin.”

The man’s fingers brushed against her thigh, feeling the straps of the garters beneath.

“What a sinful sister of the cloth, wearing such things while working. Does it bring you pleasure, I wonder.”

“No one is without sin, not even the foreigner who mourns his friend.”

Dangerous words.

She could see those eyes flash, the man’s hands stilling on her person.

“I have raised armies and slaughtered countless men,” the man warned quietly. “I’ve taken the innocence of more women than this city has people, all with the full knowledge that they would go to their men without their innocence and chastity intact. I-“

Hakuno pressed her hand over his lips.

Looking up at him, she shook her head.

“I don’t know why you think you are a demon, but there is only one here whom can be called such a thing. Your sins are only the pain of mortality. I can’t tell you prayers or cleanse your spirit, but I can tell you this: I guarantee I’ve killed more demons than you’ve slaughtered in men. And I’ve cleansed more of this world than you’ve ever corrupted.”

At his silence, she leaned forward, pressing her lips to his cheek.

“Thank you for the warning about the demon, son of god. I will be more careful in the future.”

She’d look for the ledgers tonight, once the priest was asleep.

In the meantime, she’d find him and give praise. 

His false books were beautiful.