#it’s often met with non-committal sayings and shrugs and ‘well okay. you tell me what you need to do and we’ll figure it out.’

[zwritestuff]

Some Things Are Bound To Be (Chapter One) - Kyara

A/N: Okay, hear me out, I know this ship barely has a week of existing - I’m very aware of it, thank you very much. But this idea wouldn’t stop haunting me, and before I knew it I churned out 2.7K in the span of two days. Obssessions be like that, I guess. With that being said - I’m hoping that this will have between 5-7 chapters, because I can’t deal with long multi-chaps at the moment. A big, massive thank you to @fromthenorthernskies​ for beta-ing this 💓 And to Winter for always being on board with my shit and peer pressuring me to write this.

Summary: When simple office gossip snowballs, Kyne finds herself faking to be Kiara’s girlfriend, the daughter of the owner of the company she works at. Not that she has any complain, though.

***

Kyne had been working a little over a week at Schatzi Co. when she met Kiara, though she had heard rumors and hushed whispers about the only daughter of the owners of the company — some said she was a bitch, others that she was a spoiled brat; to Kyne, she was none of those things.

It might just be because she exchanged a total of four words with her, and Kiara treated her as politely as she could be before going on about her day. Either way, she never participated in the insulting comments some of her co-workers made about Kiara, because she didn’t have any bone to pick with her.

Priyanka, her best friend and the one that got her the job interview in the first place, had wisely suggested she stay out of the office drama, at least during her first weeks. She had been working there for a year now, so she knows what she’s talking about; she doesn’t mind when Kyne asks one too many times what did Kiara Schatzi actually do to earn so much hate from the employees, considering she rarely is at the company.

“I don’t know, existing?” Priyanka offers as an answer, while they’re having lunch together at her office. “She’s set to inherit the company once her father decides to retire, that much I know, but I’m not sure where this hate comes from — probably from something that happened before I worked here, but nobody would tell me.” She shrugs, biting her sandwich.

“Oh, c’mon, she can’t be that bad, can she?” Kyne asks, picking at her Adobo. Priyanka is about to answer when someone knocks at the door, and as soon as she tells whoever it is to come in, they see Julia’s head poke from behind the door.

She tells Priyanka that the head of the construction team needs to speak with her about a mistake in the planes for the new project, using that very nasal voice Kyne has become used to rather quickly, and saying in a pretty non-confrontational tone to not shoot the messenger.

Priyanka groans, excusing herself to Kyne before following Julia, who’s still apologizing on behalf of the contratist, and leaves Kyne alone with her Adobo.

Not even a minute goes by when the door is opened again, but this time, it’s Kiara that interrupts in the room.

“Miss Priyanka?” She says, looking around the room and finding Kyne instead. “Oh, hello. Isn’t this Priyanka Kapoor’s office?” Kiara asks, squinting slightly.

Kyne briefly thinks that the red suit fits her so well it should be illegal, but she just nods curtly.

“She just left with Julia, something about a plane for a project being wrong?” Kyne hesitantly replies, though she heard the conversation very clearly.

Kiara groans, rolling her eyes. “How could that woman outrun me when she’s wearing six inch heels?” She asks aloud, barely holding back a laugh. Kyne chuckles.

“I mean, I’ve been working here for a month and I’ve never seen her not wear six inch heels,” she says, though she’s not sure if Kiara pretended to get an answer from her. 

She feels a weird flutter in her chest when Kiara giggles, shooting a smile her way.

 “Yeah, I guess that’s probably it,” Kiara replies, “What’s your name again?” She asks, lingering at the door.

“It’s Kyne Aguilar, miss Schatzi,” she replies with a genuine smile. Kiara smiles back, and Kyne thinks the smile suits her very well.

“I’ll see you around, Miss Aguilar,” she simply says before leaving, and Kyne’s stare stays glued to the door.

When Priyanka returns, much later and with a very visible frown in her face, Kyne doesn’t mention her encounter with Kiara, because she doesn’t find it relevant when her friend is complaining about her professionalism being questioned by one silly mistake.

When the day is over, Kyne is just making her way to the parking lot to meet Priyanka when she runs into Kiara again. She’s walking with her dad, and it makes Kyne straighten her back and avoid looking directly at him. She mutters a good night sir as she passes by their side instead, and she’d swear neither he nor Kiara listened, but she nods politely and says a have a good night that echoes in the otherwise silent hallway.

She’s not sure why, but she barely pays attention to Priyanka’s rant about her day, answering with non-committal sounds, as her mind drifted off and replayed the brief moment she’d spent with Kiara.

Yeah, Kyne is definitely skeptical about the rumors surrounding Kiara.

***

Kyne quickly gets used to her routine at the company.

She’s always been good at math and numbers, so being an accountant was one of her first options going into college, though she would’ve been as happy getting an overall degree in math and teaching children.

Her job as an accountant isn’t as dull as she would’ve imagined, though; she’s the one that everyone comes for calculating budgets, how much would they earn if they invest on a certain project and all that jazz — all of this means people don’t necessarily see her as interesting, and therefore she never gets involved in any kind of office drama, which she appreciates due to the fact that her friends seem to be a walking target for drama worth of High School girls.

Priyanka was the one that introduced her to Scarlett and Bo, and though Kyne appreciates their friendship, she has to admit they’re a little bit messy. Just a little. Scarlett and Bo know everyone’s business at the office, primarily because Scarlett sleeps around more than they’ll ever admit to, and Bo is able to charm her way through people’s most pettiest complains about other co-workers. Oh, and Priyanka is there to de-escalate situations that come back to bite the pair in the ass.

So, overall, work isn’t monotonous at all; she has her friends that always have some sort of gossip to tell her — and there’s also Kiara.

Kiara started working full-time at the company shortly after she graduated from college, just one year after Kyne. This meant she saw her a lot more frequently, instead of sporadically running into her at the hallways once or twice a week — now, it’d be a pretty weird day if she didn’t see Kiara around, talking to people, collecting reports and having meetings with other important members of the company.

They didn’t talk much, though, only exchanging words when Kiara came to collect reports at Kyne’s office and they did small talk for a moment before Kiara went on with her day. Sometimes they’d greet each other if they happened to bump into the other at the end or beginning of the day. It was a cordial enough relationship.

That was until one day she comes to her office unprompted, asking her to follow the flow if her secretary, Lena, appears by looking for her.

“She’s more of an assistant that a secretary, you know? But she can be a bit too overbearing sometimes, though I’m sure I would have to blame my dad for that, he was the one that hired her for me,” Kiara rants, and Kyne just lets her, looking up from her reports from time to time to let her know she’s listening.

She’s pretty sure that this is the first time she’s exchanged more than a few words with Kiara, and there’s some sort of excitement — and a little bit of intimidation — bubbling up in her stomach.

“I mean, you’re the boss of the boss of my boss; if anything, you could just tell her to chill or you’ll fire her. That should calm her,” Kyne suggests, and she’d like to believe her deadpan delivery is what causes Kiara to giggle. 

She feels a tad of pride in herself for making Kiara laugh.

“I would, but I’m not that mean — and she’d tell my dad, anyway,” she jokes with a shrug, and Kyne chuckles. “I have to go, I have a meeting to attend, but thank you for letting me hide here.” Kiara winks at her, and Kyne tries to ignore the weird flutter of her heart.

“You’re welcome to hide here any time, miss Schatzi,” she says earnestly, smiling up at her. Kiara hesitantly turns to look at her.

“You know what? Just call me Kiara.” She smiles back, and all Kyne can do is nod dumbly.

Kiara leaves and Kyne goes back to work, until it’s time for her lunch break, when Priyanka, Bo and Scarlett barge into her office and oblige her to accompany them to this new restaurant that opened two streets away. 

She passes by Kiara in the hallways, and Lena is talking her ear off. Kyne catches Kiara’s glance and she shoots her a smile, Kiara returns it in the form of an eye roll as she briefly looks towards Lena and then back at her, a sneaky smile creeping on her face.

Kyne snorts, trying to focus on the ongoing conversation between her friends, but, much like the first time they met, Kiara doesn’t leave her mind for the rest of the day.

If her friends notice she’s like a deer in the headlights, they don’t bring it up, choosing to instead poke fun at Scarlett for struggling to get Ilona from Human Resources to text them back.

***

It’s becoming a common occurrence for Kiara to hide in Kyne’s office. Kyne’s not sure if Kiara should do that as often as she does, but she supposes she’s allowed to since she’s the daughter of the owner — Kiara gets away with a lot of things she wouldn’t get away with had she been someone else.

Such as interrupting in Kyne’s office in the middle of the day, because otherwise she’ll snap at the wrong people, and she doesn’t want that. Kyne doesn’t really mind, if anything, she’ll gladly let Kiara crash at her office if it means she’s doing the company a favor. Besides, she enjoys her company. Kiara is funny, kind and interesting in so many ways; there’s also the fact that sometimes Kiara brings her sweets to compensate for using her as a couch therapist, which is definitely a bonus in Kyne’s books.

It all makes her wonder what did Kiara do to not be so well-liked among the employees, because Kyne really likes her — as a friend, obviously.

Her other friends, such as Priyanka, Scarlett and Bo —but mostly Priyanka— are always asking her why does the daughter of their boss spend so much time with her, especially during work hours, and Kyne just shrugs and gives vague excuses. She won’t tell anyone Kiara talks shit about the other CEOs like it’s her actual job, she’s not a snitch.

Scarlett likes to joke that Kiara has a crush on her and Kyne should take advantage of that, seduce her and get all her money. Kyne just doesn’t pay attention to them, and flat out denies such thing being a possibility. Because not even in ten lives Kiara would like her like that for more than obvious reasons.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Kyne,” Scarlett says one day, on their way to the parking lot. “Like, your flirting is shit, but you’re not that bad looking,” they tease, earning a few chuckles from the girls and an eye roll from Kyne at that.

“Says the one that still can’t get Ilona Verley to go out with them,” Kyne quips back, intelligently derailing the conversation thanks to Scarlett going on a tangent about how they don’t care if Ilona texts them back or not, and how they’re water under the bridge.

Kyne just brushes off her friends’ constant teasing, and doesn’t really bring it up to Kiara, because why would she? It’s just playful nagging, and she doubts anyone else gives two craps about what Kyne does and not.

Well, so she thought.

Kiara comes to her office one day, and nothing seems strange, not even when she settles a cup of coffee in her desk and offers her a bagel. She figures it’s just Kiara thanking her for never complaining when she comes to her for venting.

“Do you have plans on Saturday?” She asks out of the blue, and Kyne cocks a brow, taking a sip from her coffee. She shakes her head no, and Kiara bites her lower lip. “So, uh, the charity ball is on Saturday, I think you know that. And I’m fairly sure you’ve heard the rumors--”

“Wait, what? What rumors?” Kyne cuts her off, knitting her brows in a frown and staring at Kiara, who looks absolutely mortified.

“Oh, no, you have no idea, do you?” She asks, and Kyne can swear this is the first time she’s seen Kiara blush. She looks cute with her cheeks crimson red, actually; it’s a nice change from the poised woman she’s come to know.

“Of what?” Kyne presses, trying to not get distracted by Kiara.

Kiara proceeds to tell her through gritted teeth how many people at the company think they’re dating — apparently her constant visits to Kyne’s office had caused some eyebrows to raise their way. Kiara never bothered to say anything about those rumors, because as the future owner of the company she shouldn’t dignify cheap office gossip with an answer, but then shit hit the fan when the rumors ended up arriving to her father’s ears, and now he expected Kiara to bring her alleged girlfriend to the charity ball.

Kyne sits still at her chair, owlishly blinking at Kiara for a moment too long. She tilts her head, waiting for Kiara to say it’s all a joke and she just wants her to calculate something for her.

But that doesn’t happen, and Kiara just silently stares back.

“That would explain the looks Susan from customer support gives me when I pass from her office on my way to get lunch,” Kyne muses absentmindedly. In fact, if she thinks about it for more than a second, it makes a whole lot of sense. Now she gets why Jenna from the architecture team went on a tangent about how much she hates people that sleep with their bosses for a raise whenever Kyne was around, raising her voice a tad too loud so everyone would hear.

No wonder why one time Priyanka scolded her for not interacting more with their co-workers, saying she’d benefit by being up to date with the office gossip.

“Have you thought of telling your father it was all a misunderstanding?” She proceeds after a few moments, and Kiara shrugs.

“He was excited that I was finally going out with someone, and I didn’t want to ruin his happiness,” she explains, and Kyne cocks a brow. She always assumed Kiara was constantly dating people — with how gorgeous she is, it didn’t seem that much of a stretch.

Kyne thinks it through for an entire minute, and comes to the conclusion that though it is definitely a bad idea (lies have short legs, they say), there’s something that drives her to say yes. It might just be that she’ll never get to be with a pretty girl like Kiara ever again, fake or not, so she decides to bite the bullet.

“If I don’t get a raise after this, I’m going to work for your rival company and sell them all your corporative secrets,” Kyne deadpans, and it takes Kiara a full minute to understand that is Kyne’s way of accepting to be her fake girlfriend for the charity ball.

Kiara lets out a sigh of relief, slouching in her chair and thanking Kyne profusely, promising to take her shopping on Friday to find a dress for the charity ball. Kyne jokingly says she’ll suck the money out of Kiara’s credit card if given the opportunity.

“As if that was possible, darling.” She winks at her, and something inside Kyne twitches. “I gotta go, but I’ll text you later to sort this out.”

“Wait,” she interrupts her again, before she leaves. “How do you have my number?”

Kiara smiles mischievously, and Kyne mentally goes over what she ate today, because her stomach twitches again.

“I have my ways of finding out things,” Kiara says, winking one last time before she exits Kyne’s office.

Once she’s alone, Kyne wonders out loud what the fuck had she messed herself into.

[tendertenebrosity]

Torin, awake

Sequel to here and here, and here!

Torin, who had been teetering forward at an increasingly precarious angle, slipped over to one side and awoke with a start.

“Hey,” Bertram said, from his seat in the lone armchair. He lifted a mug of hot cocoa. “Yours is over by the fire. Unless you want to go back to sleep in a real bed.”

Torin rubbed at his eyes and looked around, wincing and rubbing at his shoulderblades. “Oh. Thanks.”

He rearranged his legs and tail until he was sitting cross-legged, took a deep draught from the mug, and sighed contently. “Where, um, where are we, professor?”

“I’ve commandeered one of the university’s rooms,” Bertram said. “We’ll head back home in the morning.”

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, the room filled with the sound of the crackling fire and the occasional low rumble of thunder from outside.

Bertram cleared his throat. “Torin,” he said carefully, looking down into his cocoa. “Did… did somebody cut your wings? Before?”

Torin hunched his wings and his shoulders, looking embarrassed. His feathers were fluffed up and standing every which way. “Oh,” he said. His gaze dropped. “Sorry… about that. Don’t worry about it, professor. Being stupid. I wasn’t...” He scrubbed an awkward hand over his face.

“Okay,” Bertram said quickly. “You don’t have to talk about it. It’s okay, if you don’t want to.” His fingers fidgeted around the cup. “I just… you need to know that I would never, ever do that.”

Torin nodded, his face fixed on the fire. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment. “I… I didn’t… really think you would.”

“Right,” Bertram said uneasily. “Good. Great.”

They both sank into silence again, staring into the fire, Torin from the floor and Bertram from the armchair.

This time, it was Torin who cleared his throat, and turned around to look at Bertram. “Could… um… could you help me preen before I go back to sleep?” he asked. A bright little smile flashed across his face. “I feel so much better, being clean and dry, but – I sort of feel like I’ve been dragged through a couple of hedges backwards?”

Bertram eyed his feathers, puffed out and sticking out all over the place, quite unlike his usual sleek shine. The smooth sharp edges of his primaries were broken up.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he said, matching Torin’s bantering tone, and was rewarded with another little smile. “Of course I’ll help.”

Torin hadn’t asked Bertram to do this very often. He felt… oddly privileged to be asked. And at the same time, faintly anxious and guilty.

Unlike bathing, Torin could do this himself, he didn’t need to ask Bertram to do it, but he was anyway. More than once, Bertram had wondered what he would need to do to win Torin’s trust. This was a gesture in that direction… but given that it was his fault Torin had gotten lost in the storm in the first place, Bertram was beginning to doubt if he’d earned it.

He put aside the dregs of his cocoa and slipped down off the chair, to sit on the floor in his borrowed, much-too-large clothing.

Gently he ran his fingers through the contour feathers putting the worst of the misaligned ones back into place. They were warm from the fire, dry and soft under his fingers, and he knew a moment of the same absolute, dizzying wonder that he had felt when he had seen Torin for the very first time, in the lobby of his lodging-place in Eastport. Breathless at the thought that such a miraculous creature could exist, could be here, could be touched by him.

Now, with his recent scare and the guilt still clinging to him, Bertram thought uneasily that Torin wouldn’t have liked it, if he knew Bertram’s thoughts. He probably hadn’t liked it even then, he realised.

“I’ll start here,” he offered, trying to break out of his moody thoughts. Focus. He asked for your help. Don’t start again.

“Mmm,” Torin agreed, fingers already working through his other wing.

They sat, Bertram’s brown head and Torin’s particoloured one both bent over their work.

Bertram sat back after a while, stretching his linked hands high over his head to ease his cramped back. He poured them both another cup of cocoa from the jug keeping warm by the fire.

“Darius did it,” Torin said, abruptly, but his voice very soft. “Because I flew away.”

It took Bertram a moment to figure out the connection, to realise that Torin was answering his question from earlier. He froze, the jug and cup in his hands, and then put them down slowly. “I see,” he said. “Because… you flew away.”

“Yeah. It took, um. Eight months for them to grow back.”

Bertram thought about that. Thought about Torin’s joy in flight, how he would vault over stair bannisters and leap up into the sky as easily as another young man might break into a run or boost himself over an obstacle with one hand. If one were used to flight, he thought, surely being deprived of it would be like… like having your legs hobbled? For eight months?

“That was cruel,” he said.

Torin glanced at him. “You think so?” he said, his voice low. “They didn’t. Either of them.”

“Sorry… either?”

“Darius and Alissa. You met her, once – she sold me to you.”

“Oh, right, of course.” Bertram had thought – the girl had said Torin was her friend. He’d thought Torin liked her? Wasn’t that the whole premise? He furrowed his brow. “I… wouldn’t have thought that of her,” he said slowly. “They shouldn’t have done that to you. I’m sorry.”

Torin shifted, seeming a little agitated. Bertram didn’t try to move closer and restart preening.

“Well, it made a lot of sense. From their perspective. Can’t have your property escaping, right?” He looked over and met Bertram’s eyes, his mouth twisting bitterly. “Don’t you think so?”

Bertram sucked a breath in between his teeth, suddenly feeling as though he was trying to make his way through quicksand.

Torin did this sometimes – like he was trying to press Bertram into saying or doing something harsh. Like the winged boy was certain that eventually Bertram would reach the limits of his patience and start acting like this Darius – God, Bertram was starting to despise the man - and he kept probing to try and find out where those limits were.

“No, Torin,” he said. “I don’t. I think it was wrong, and cruel.”

Torin shrugged moodily. “Maybe because you people don’t have any wings, they thought it shouldn’t be such a big deal to lose them. I could still walk, right? And, hey, it was only feathers, they grew back. So, no harm done.”

“I…” Bertram winced. “I... don’t know if I fully understand,” he admitted. He felt like he was trying to find a safe place to place his next footstep. “But you only have to listen to you to see that there was harm done.”

Torin sighed. His shoulders relaxed, and after a moment, Bertram offered him the cocoa mug. He accepted it. “They were okay a lot of the time,” he said. “Not like you. But okay. It was just work, I couldn’t leave but they treated me not that differently to the people they paid to be there. And Alissa was… I thought she was my friend. I don’t know. Maybe she was. I can’t tell anymore.”

“Hmm,” Bertram said, non-committal.

“Of course,” Torin said. “That was back in Eastport. I thought… I guess I thought I could find my way home from there. I thought I could remember the way.”  He shook his head. “I couldn’t, mind you. Besides, I didn’t even get out of sight of the city before someone caught me. Stupid bird, right?”

“No,” Bertram said. “You’re not… stupid. How long have you been away from home?”

“A couple of years, I guess?” Torin said. He glanced over at Bertram. Shyly, he stretched his wing out in invitation, and Bertram, feeling even less like he deserved it, smiled anyway and began to smooth long black flight feathers between his fingertips. Each had a perfect little oval of white in the centre.

“I was… only supposed to be going on a short trip, to visit my aunt and uncle. They probably all think I’m dead now.” Torin sank his head onto one hand, cupping his chin and looking into the fire.

“That’s awful,” Bertram whispered.

“I missed it all so much,” Torin admitted. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have risked flying away.” He gave a sad smile. “I still do. But, well, that was back in Eastport, which is completely different. Even I’m not dumb enough to think I could make my way home from here. It’s on the other side of the sea, even if I could figure out where to go after that.”

“Right,” Bertram said quietly. “You know, I... I really should have asked you more about your homeland. If you’d be interested in telling me about it, I’d love to listen.”

Torin nodded, and then smothered a sudden, huge yawn. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “I’d like to talk about it more! Sometimes I worry I’ll forget things. Maybe once we get home?”

“Sure,” Bertram agreed.

Torin withdrew his wing, folding it gently back up against his body. “Thanks,” he said. He spoke in a rush. “For… for everything. You were right, I was an idiot. I should’ve known better, I was just mad. My parents or my auntie wouldn’t have stopped yelling at me for a solid month.”

“Well, I don’t have a winged person’s impressive lung capacity, so I would find that difficult,” Bertram said, grinning. He stretched again, rolling his shoulders. “Why don’t you take the bed, Torin? I’ll sleep in the chair.”

Torin blinked at him, and then grinned wickedly. “Are you sure? Aren’t you a bit old to be sleeping in chairs?”

Bertram spluttered. “Cheeky,” he said. “Anyway, we’ll see who feels like an old man in the morning, won’t we? I suspect you’re going to be sore enough as it is.”

Half an hour later, Torin was an indistinct lump under the blankets, but Bertram still sat up, watching the fire.

He was exhausted – tiredness dragged at his eyes and his limbs – but sleep was elusive. His mind wouldn’t stop turning over and over, trying to find a new angle to look at the situation and coming up with nothing except the conclusions he already had.

Are you really that different to this Darius fellow? he thought unhappily. You don’t put a collar on him or punish him, but you don’t need to. He can’t get home.

You brought him here.

Looking back at his past actions with the benefit of hindsight, Bertram knew what was wrong with the wonder that had come over him when he’d first seen Torin. Wonder, yes, nothing wrong with wonder, but… It had had a possessive edge to it.

He wants to go home. And he can’t. Because you took him across the sea.

[throwaway-sinfulwriter]

The Same - Chapter 7 - 4/6

Sitting in Dr. Brown's living room, Malcolm and JT question her until she finally begins to divulge.

"Was Alice Downey taking LSD on your order?" Bright asks the woman, a small tape recorder in his hand. The throw pillows on the chairs and couch reminded him of his father's eyes. He tries not to look at them too often, focusing on Elaine instead.

"This isn't 1963, Detective. I can't make anyone do anything." For a moment, he and JT share a look.

"Except, you can. With your credentials and authority, you could make anyone do anything. How long did these experiments last? How many students participated in them?" The pillows were mocking him. They were simple, a blue to green gradient with shimmery thread and sparse beads.

He questions her, mouth running on auto-pilot as his mind slowly drifts off to another place. He sees recognition in her eyes as he lists off what they know about their suspect.

Bright faintly hears the name Dominic Render as his eyes glaze over.

Malcolm fully spaces out.

He couldn't get his father off of his mind. Shutting his eyes, Malcolm remembers every glance Martin had ever gave him. How his eyes darkened when annoyed, lit up when he was joyful. How straight and perfectly white his teeth were when he smiled.

"-right?"

Malcolm just wants to sit here, and think about things he usually never allows himself. Just for a moment. A sinful, forbidden moment. Think of his father's hands, how they were still bigger than his, even when he was fully grown.

How his father would put on records and play classical music to dance to, how he read sonnets to him as a child. Doctor Whitly taught him to play the piano at a young age.

He was remembering the small details, the ones that hurt to think about when his father wasn't there.

Martin loved the rain. He would always make Malcolm hot chocolate and read to him when it rained. Kept him warm, even when a storm was raging outside.

"Bright? Bright? Malcolm blinked his eyes open, and instinctively clicked stop on his tape recorder.

"Uh.. sorry. I'm just.. uh.. I'll just.. I'll go wait in the car." He stood and walked outside, sighing as the cold air hit his face.

He was thoroughly embarrassed about losing himself like that. Making a fool of himself in front of JT, who already hated his guts.

Malcolm enters the car, resting his head on the back of the seat and taking a few deep breaths. He just needed to get back into control. Become closed off from his emotions.

He knew how to do it, his heart was just hurting so bad he didn't know if he could. Malcolm needed to escape from his mind. Focus on something else.

JT. How long had the man been calling out for him while he was trapped in his childhood memories? Seconds? Minutes?

He didn't know. Bright sighs, his tired eyes refusing to rest as he fiddled with the car door. In fact, he knew nothing about JT. Only that his humor was incredibly strange, and he did not like Malcolm.

The driver's door open, and said man hopped in the car. "Elaine is settled down for the night with some chamomile."

Malcolm nodded, pushing down the discomfort at the mention of tea. His mother always tried making it for him, but he refused to drink it. It was how his father drugged his victims.

Tea laced with ketamine.

Needless to say, Bright was more of a coffee fan.

"Hey, what happened in there? You completely zoned out." JT asks, hands on the steering wheel.

He shrugs. "Yeah, that happens sometimes. My body can shut down at times."

"Gil and Dani are off looking for Render. He wants me to stay on Professor Bad Trip."

Malcolm stares at him.

"That means you can go home."

He doesn't respond to that. "What does JT stand for? Joseph? Jake? Jason? Julian? J-"

JT interrupts him.

"I don't think you're stakeout material."

Bright shakes his head. "I'm a chronic insomniac. I was made for this."

JT looks past him, observing Elaine's house. Only the porch and living room lights were on.

"How many kid's brains do you think she scrambled to get that house?" Malcolm glares at him, crossing his arms.

"…Sorry." He says reluctantly. "I know she's your people "

The profiler next to him hums, non-committal. "No. You're my people."

JT gives him a certain look, and Malcolm raises his eyebrows. "Tell me why I'm wrong."

"In the service, we have a hierarchy." So, JT had been in the service. Malcolm had guessed this the first time they had met, but now his assumption was confirmed. He smirked lightly.

"Your rank earns you respect. It's the same for cops, y'know. I have a badge. But you don't respect me."

Irritation grows in Bright. How could the man be so daft?

"Listen.. when I was a kid, a cop came to my house and took the bad guy away. He saved me. Saved me from hell on earth, from a lifetime of fear. There is not a single person that respects the badge more than I do, okay?"

Malcolm is uncomfortable with opening up to JT, but he knew that he had clear this up now, to prevent anything from happening later.

"Any respect I haven't given you is what you've been giving to me. You've been an absolute dick since I started consulting, and it's really not helping any of us. Including yourself."

"I'm doing my best. I might not have the most orthodox methods, and I know I come off as strange to you, but I do my best to get justice for everyone. Just like Gil tried to give my family justice." Tried being the keyword.

He doesn't want to get too emotional, so he runs his hand under his nose and sniffs.

"I need to ask Dr. Brown a question. For the profile." He exits the car.

-------

Sitting in Doctor Elaine Brown's living room, Malcolm Whitly opens up about his case. It was quite sad to call his life a case, but that was what it had been since he was 10 years old.

Legal documents, testimonies, and news articles. It wasn't much of a life for a child. And it didn't lessen as he got older. People had always expected he would turn out like his father.

"Your case is a testament of the humans mind to endure trauma."

Malcolm winces. Ouch. Not exactly the support he had been looking for.

"Uh.. thanks? I guess? Was that a compliment?" Elaine just raises her eyebrows and drinks more of her tea.

Bright shudders in his seat, the scent of chamomile in the air.

He continues on, telling her about his "controversial" repressed memories, and everything he had been diagnosed with.

She asks him if he believed he had been drugged, and Malcolm nods, fingers tapping in a rhythm on the arm chair to stop the tremors.

"Have you ever smelled chloroform?"

"..Well, it's not my drug of choice." She gives him that look, a look that his therapist gave to him often. He knows he's deflecting, okay, but he's not very comfortable talking about this with anyone.

Unlike his therapist, Dr. Brown continues on.

"It has extreme chemical notes, but it's actually quite sweet smelling."

He swallows hard. Thinking of his father's clean, crisp cologne with a hint of chemical and sweetness.

"A familiar smell can trigger repressed memories."

Malcolm stands from his chair, going over to a desk in the far side of the room. Fingers resting on his hip bones.

"Do you have any fears?"

He asks, shuffling through the papers on the desk. Looking at different files, with graphs and charts. Dr. Brown doesn't say anything about him going through her things.

"I have regrets." She says, and Malcolm turns to look at her curiously.

Elaine continues. "If your memories are blocked, it must be because your mind is afraid of something in your memories. You'll need to overcome that fear to access them."

Malcolm notes this, vowing to remember that fact once the case was over.

He turns, eyes raking over the room. Meticulously looking at every detail, trying to find something that would aid him.

His eyes catch on a glass display of tribal masks, and his head tilts. Something clicking in his mind.

"These are.. interesting." Bright says, going up to the case and staring at the one displayed in the middle. There were four in total, but he couldn't tear his eyes off the one.

"What is this one?" He asks, finger poised just inches from the glass case.

"It's African." Malcolm exhales through his nostrils, trying not to snap at the woman. He knew that. He wasn't an idiot.

"It's an artistic interpretation of Lucifer." A cold shiver travels from the base of Malcolm's skull to his tailbone.

"Has Dominic Render ever been here?"

"Yes, he along with many other students.. he.. he was always fascinated by those masks.."

Malcolm sprints back to the desk, gripping the folder with the copy of the notes left by Render.

One thing he hasn't understood earlier was the circular shapes Dominic had formed with his words. At the time, separately, it hadn't made much sense.

But now..

Bright moves the papers around, his own panting breath loud in his ears. Stepping back, he looks at all of the papers. They form a face. His head snaps to the left, at the Lucifer mask, and back.

"He wants you to understand him. To find him." Dread washes over Malcolm as he quickly takes a picture of the papers and shoves his phone back in his pocket.

"This is where he's planning on killing you. It has sentimental value to him."

"S-something's wrong." Dr. Brown tells him, and his heart drops to his stomach as he turns to her. She's sweating, pupils dialated. "My pulse is racing, my thoughts are shifting. It-It's the tea. The chamomile."

Malcolm rushes over to her, biting the inside of his cheek so hard the bitter taste of blood fills his mouth. He should have known to not trust the tea. Dammit.

At least it wasn't ketamin. If it was, he wouldn't be able to function. Wouldn't be able to help the woman.

He ignores the pain at the thought for now, hesitantly placing his hands on Elaine's arms to get her out of the chair. His stomach flips unpleasantly at the touch.

"You've been laced with LSD. We need to get you out of here." Bright leads her to the door, and goes to open it when all the lights cut out.

Left in the dark, the only sound Elaine's drugged babbling and his own panicked breathing, Malcolm knows what he has to do.

"Come on, let's go back." He pulls her away from the door, and she holds onto him, pupils unnaturally dilated. "Shh, shh. Come on. Sit back down.."

"Stay here. Don't go anywhere." Bright tells her, making sure she doesn't get up, and leaves the room.

Outside, in the hallway, is a record player. A record is already sitting in it.

Malcolm takes out his phone, ringing JT. He waits in tense silence until the man finally answers.

"JT. Dominic Render is in the house. Get in here." He hangs up, not waiting to hear the man's response. Malcolm would have to go find the mentally ill man, prevent him from getting to Dr. Brown.

Thankfully, due to his father's love of classical music and all things retro, they had a record player in their home. He and his father used to dance to Frank Sinatra.

Thank you, Martin. Malcolm thinks as he turns the player on, pressing the needle onto the record.

He flinches as rock music started playing. It was definitely no Sinatra, and it hurt his ears quite a lot, but hopefully it would delay Render.

The loud music should confuse the man, and if Malcolm was lucky he might hallucinate due to sensory overload. A part of Bright feels guilty for undoubtedly causing a mentally ill man more pain.

But, thinking back to the Professor's empty head and the many blades next to Carl Mitchell, Malcolm can't take any chance.

Malcolm stops by the fireplace, grabbing a fire poker and holding it ahead of him like a weapon.

Walking through the house slowly, hands in front of him, Malcolm tries to talk Render down.

"Dominic Render!" He calls out over the booming music, trying to hide the fear that was bubbling at the surface. Malcolm couldn't let the man to have the advantage.

"No one else needs to die." He comes around the corner, muscles tensing in anticipation of the killer being there. He isn't.

Where could he be?

Malcolm goes over the entire house, not finding the suspect. That only leaves one place.. upstairs.

"I know how you feel. I've had my fair share of nightmares."

He begins slowly ascending the stairs, his breathing erratic and undoubtedly afraid. His palm runs over the wooden railing of the staircase. It does little to calm him, but Malcolm memorizes the grain of the wood underneath his hand.

"But they trapped you inside yours, didn't they?" Bright prided himself in his skill of talking people down, getting a Masters in Psychology hadn't just been for show. He reverently studied conversation, and the act of talking to a person who was dangerous.

It helped him in the sociopathic aspect (he was not a sociopath, he just had tendencies). He understood empathy more, though he could not accurately emulate it without looking quite robotic.

It also helped in his career as a profiler. He had many personal conversations with killers, which was especially easy due to his background. Malcolm was quite good at subduing killers, talking them down from suicide after they had been caught. Showing at their trials, convincing them serving time was better than death.

He wanted to use this skill to help Dominic Render, but so far the man had yet to show. This worried him. Bright not be able to talk him out of it.

"..Dominic, I know you're scared." Malcolm reaches the top of the staircase, walking towards a closed doors on the left. "I am, too."

The door opened, and the next thing Bright knew, he was being hurtled backwards, into a picture on the wall. He feels the glass shatter as he hits it, all breath leaving his body. Hitting the wall so hard, his knees wobble.

He fights back with the fire poker, holding it in front of him so Dominic couldn't stab him. Malcolm pushes against him, giving him enough space to get away from the wall.

Dominic's hand hits the wall, and Bright is behind him. He grabs Malcolm by the shoulders, trying to get him down the stairs so he could subdue him properly. This doesn't work well, as Render's elbow comes back and hits him in the face. The hit causes his shaking knees to give in, and he collapses to the floor.

Render stands over him, pressing him with his foot to the edge of the staircase.

"This is how I respond to fear."

He crouches over Malcolm, raising his blade.

Malcolm's eyes go wide, pure, unbridled fear in his eyes. This is it. He's going to die. Dominic is going to kill him, take his brain and.. and what? Do what with it? He didn't know, there was no time, he couldn't even open his mouth for his last words-

There's an incredibly loud bang, and Render is off of him, a warm splatter of blood on his face. Unlike the time at Quantico, when the feelings that followed were resentment for a person that could be saved, all Malcolm felt was satisfaction.

If that was how Dominic reacted to someone who was trying to help him, he couldn't imagine how he would react to someone prosecuting him.

He doesn't wipe the blood off of his face, sitting up calmly and looking back. Dr. Elaine Brown is standing on the staircase, shotgun still in hand.

"I-I did it. I killed him." Something twists in Malcolm's chest, and he slowly desends down the stairs. There's a large crash somewhere in the house and then a cry of, "Police!"

JT enters the archway near the staircase and raises his gun. "No!" Malcolm tells him. "No. Wait."

"Elaine, you're in the middle of an intense psychedelic episode. I know it may seem like a lot right now, but in the end it's just going to be a bad trip." He manages to take the gun from her, taking out the bullets and turning the safety on, throwing it to the side.

"You can't run from the fear. You just have to.. fall into it, okay? You did this." He gestures up the stairs at Render's body. Cold and lifeless. "You have to live with it now."

[lynfantasy]

Soul-Shifted

For Lotor Week 2017 @voltronweeks Day 3: Hiding AO3 link

Shipfic, Keith/Lotor, Keitor Features Blade of Marmora Keith and Blade of Marmora Lotor, Trans Keith

Rated for general audiences

Warning: discussion of periods, discussion of systemic transphobia and the fears associated with coming out as trans

Lotor was on break. He enjoyed his rest time as a way to unwind from the stressful work in the Blade of Marmora, but that did not mean that he was planning to simply lie down. Unfortunately, that left him without many other options. He aimlessly made his way into the barracks and over to the bunk he shared with Keith (only because Keith was the only person who was willing to sleep directly below the former prince), idly wondering what he was going to do, when a small sound, a groan, caught his attention. Lotor looked down to see Keith on his side, clutching his abdomen.

Keith did not seem to be aware of Lotor’s presence at first, so Lotor spoke softly, hoping not to startle him. “Are you alright?”

Violet eyes shot wide open and met Lotor’s with an intense gaze for a moment, but Keith’s entire expression quickly scrunched up in pain for a long moment before he managed to relax again somewhat. “I’m fine,” Keith muttered.

Lotor was unconvinced. “If you are ill, you should see a healer,” he prompted.

Keith shook his head before Lotor was even done speaking. “No, no, I’m fine,” he insisted with forced casualness. “They wouldn’t be able to do anything about this. It’s just a normal human thing. I’ll be fine in a couple days.”

Leaning a little closer to investigate, Lotor caught a scent that was familiar to him – blood mixed with something almost sweet yet very repulsive – and he quickly realized what ‘normal human thing’ Keith was talking about. “Ah, I see,” he said gently. “I was… unaware that human males also went through menstruation.”

The human male in question looked utterly shocked and horrified at Lotor’s statement. “H-how… how did you know?!” he asked in an accusatory tone.

Hesitating, afraid he had crossed some kind of unstated boundary, Lotor ventured, “As I told you before, Acxa is half-human, and she underwent this process 10-15 times per decapheobe. She told me that, as far as she was aware, it was something that only happened to females, and it occurs in very few species other than humans.”

Keith looked… resigned. “Well, I’m not just a normal human male, so… yeah, I also go through this.”

“Do any of the others know?” Lotor asked, trying to be as tactful as possible.

“No.” Keith’s voice held a note of near-panic at the mere suggestion. “Don’t mention this to anyone else, especially any of the oth—of the paladins.”

Lotor pondered this for a moment, trying to piece everything together. Acxa had said that this had to do with the female reproductive system in humans, yet Keith was male. Additionally, Keith wanted to make sure that no one knew about this, and Lotor suspected that this was for reasons a lot deeper than simply not wanting to admit to some bleeding and pain. The only conclusion was…

“On Altea, they called your kind the Soul-Shifted,” Lotor stated, watching for Keith’s reaction.

Keith looked up with confusion and suspicion. “What do you mean, ‘my kind’? Acxa and I are the only human-Galra hybrids in the history of the universe as far as anyone knows.”

Lotor offered a gentle hint of a smile. “Alteans could shift their physical forms, of course, but they believed that the soul remained the same. The soul did not shift even when the body changed.”

“Okay…?”

“I do not know how much you have seen of Altean shapeshifting, but it can be taken to an extent that would make one… appear to be of the opposite sex.” Again, Lotor watched for a reaction.

Now Keith looked wary and defensive. “And your point is?”

“Shifts were seen to be skin-deep only, but some would maintain a shift almost indefinitely to attempt to integrate into society as a member of the opposite sex. They insisted that the shift went down to the level of their soul, hence the name Soul-Shifted.”

Keith’s eyes unfocused as he realized what Lotor was saying. “Oh,” he finally murmured. “On earth we just call it…” He hesitated, swallowing hard, before coming out with it, “We call it transgender. I’m… trans-male.”

Lotor offered Keith a supportive smile. “Thank you for trusting me with this.”

With a wry chuckle, Keith said, “You were the one who figured it out. I just confirmed what you already knew.”

“You could have tried to lie to me,” Lotor pointed out with a casual gesture of indifference.

“I doubt that would have worked,” Keith scoffed. His eyes still held some vulnerability and many questions. “So, this… doesn’t bother you?” he ventured.

Lotor shook his head without hesitation. “It does not bother me at all,” he answered without hesitation. “I do not necessarily believe that the Alteans were better than the Galra on all accounts, but I certainly find their view, and especially the policies friendly towards the Soul-Shifted that King Alfor’s father put into place, to be a much better take on the situation than the Galra way.”

Keith froze for a moment. “What’s the… Galra way?”

Lotor grimaced and looked away from Keith, unable to meet the latter’s eyes as he explained, “For those insistent on going through with the transition, there is a… procedure, but few survive, and even those who do are banned from many rights and privileges. Their lives afterwards are unpleasant and often short. Most are too afraid to express their feelings in the first place. For those who will not suppress their identity but do not want to attempt the procedure, the only other option is death, unless the druids take them for experimentation.”

“Oh.”

“‘Oh’ indeed. I attempted to change the policies, but change was too slow, and I was rather preoccupied with trying to manage the colonies without the fear tactics they had been conditioned to respond to. I simply could not do everything at once. And now…”

“Now Zarkon is back in power.”

“Exactly.”

Silence hung between the two of them for a few moments, the only change in it being the shifting cadence of Keith’s breathing as he suffered through a few waves of cramps, before he spoke up, “On earth, it varies from country to country. In mine, there is a procedure, and most do survive it, but it’s really difficult to sort through all of the legal stuff and have the change be recognized by the government, and even then…” He trailed off. “Well, I’ll never really be ‘done’ transitioning. The laws have gotten better than, say, just over a hundred years ago back when I wouldn’t have been able to even use the correct bathroom, but they still aren’t perfect.”

Lotor nodded sympathetically. “I see… does anyone else know about this?”

“Shiro does,” Keith admitted as he fidgeted with the edge of his blanket, “but I haven’t told the others. I don’t know how they’d react. I mean, they were fine with Pidge, but she still somewhat identifies as a girl. Her situation is a little different from mine.”

Humming thoughtfully, Lotor considered his next words before asking, “What is the worst reaction you could reasonably expect? Pushing aside the irrational scenarios, what are you afraid of?”

Keith was silent for a moment – partly because he had to brace himself to endure another wave of cramps – before he answered, “I think they might find it bizarre. I’m already weird enough as an alien hybrid and a loner type. I also don’t know if they might have cultural or moral objections to it. I doubt they’d try to hurt me or do anything to me on purpose, but I’m afraid that they’ll pull away and become more distant, maybe even encourage me to spend more time with the Blade of Marmora.”

“I think the Blade of Marmora might be your more pressing concern,” Lotor advised. It was harsh, he knew, but Keith needed to know. “As I said, Galra society is… less than accepting of this. Does Kolivan know, at least?”

Keith made a non-committal sound and gesture, only clarifying with, “I had to tell him about the periods, but I passed it off as just a normal human thing. He might suspect, but he hasn’t said anything.”

“I see,” Lotor sympathized. “I imagine that the Blade of Marmora will likely be accepting, since they already go against the laws and traditions of the empire, but perhaps I could subtly ask them to be sure? I would certainly not mention you.”

“Hmm…” Keith considered this for a moment. “I suppose that’d be good to know. Thanks.”

Lotor smiled. “Not a problem.”

“If only you could do the same with the paladins…” Keith half-joked.

“It would not be hard to bring it up to Allura, at least.” Lotor watched for Keith’s reaction, which displayed some interest, before continuing, “I could simply mention it in the context of politics and what laws she intends to enforce on the planets in the Coalition. If I bring it up in front of everyone and explain the concept of the Soul-Shifted to the humans, I could read their reactions and determine how they might feel about the matter.”

Keith was silent for a short while before he answered, “I guess that would be good, but I don’t want to risk them finding out.”

“You deserve to know whether or not you even need to hide,” Lotor insisted.

“True,” Keith admitted. “Alright, go ahead.”

“Thank you for allowing me to help. I’ll be careful.” Then, without even properly thinking about it, Lotor bent down and kissed Keith’s forehead in a comforting and affectionate gesture. As soon as he realized what he’d just done, Lotor pulled away and began to apologize. “I’m so sorry! I-I overstepped. I simply… I forgot what was proper. I am so sorry…”

Keith actually began to laugh, which caused Lotor to freeze mid-sentence. “That was pretty weird, but… not bad? Just, you know, give me some warning next time, okay?”

“…next time?” Lotor looked at Keith, trying to read in Keith’s eyes what was left unsaid.

Shrugging, Keith replied, “Yeah, I mean, I usually don’t really like being touched, but… I guess that just kind of… felt okay?”

Lotor sank to his knees beside the bed, coming a little closer to Keith. “Then… perhaps I could stay with you? Until I need to go back on duty, that is?”

Violet eyes met Lotor’s, sparkling with amusement and softened by… affection? Keith smiled a little as he answered, “Sure, sounds good to me.”