#it's just that pockets and herbs and warm jackets fit him very well but it can be done better methinks | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thetaoofzoe · 4 years

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Fic: The Company Woman 1/1

Title: The Company Woman

Pairing: CEO Henry x YOU

Summary: No other company has made you want to become a Company Woman. No other company made you want to surrender to your boss. I would suggest trying to get a position in this luscious Company, but only if you’re good ;).

Rating: Explicit. Unprotected sex, cock-warming, strict rules, Soft Dom Henry, giddy and willing participants

And thank you to my ever loving @lightsidecalling.

Want to read more? Click for my Masterlist

Puckering your lips against one side of a small square of pink tissue, you watched yourself lightly dab at the other side with a soft powdered brush until you were satisfied you’d absorbed enough excess moisture from the matte lipstick. Carefully peeling the tissue from your dark cherry red lips, you tapped them with a clean manicured fingertip and then smiled at your reflection.

Perfect.

Picking up the parfum atomizer you layered yourself with a light floral scent. Not too much. Just enough so that the boss could smell it, appreciate it, but not be distracted by it.

Replacing the bottle on the vanity tray, your eyes drifted to the large pink sticky note affixed to your broad wall-length bathroom mirror. You leaned in to briefly consult it, as you had done every morning since landing a coveted position with The Company last year.

In your neat print, you’d copied the ‘Requirements for personal hygiene and workplace presentation’ instructions from your personalised employee handbook.

1. A bath or shower must be taken the night before bed and in the morning after rising from bed. Cleansing must pay close attention to delicate areas where unwanted scents can accumulate during general activities.

2. Hair must be neat no matter the style.

3. While professional whitening is not expected, you will maintain clean healthy teeth. At-home whitening strips are recommended.

4. Trousers are not allowed in the office and all clothing must be form-fitting, but not constricting or ‘tight’. Heels and nylons must be worn.

5. Makeup must be natural and unobtrusive and any scents must be light.

6. All foundation garments must not be detected beneath the outer clothes.

Mentally you ticked off the six boxes, stood back, and admired yourself in the brightly lighted mirror. You tucked the back of your rose coloured silk blouse into a darker rose coloured pencil skirt and made sure that the zipper that ran the vertical length of the skirt was centered on your backside.

Flicking off the bathroom light and picking a pair of matching shoes from the upper hall closet, you padded down the stairs to the lower level of your townhouse. Your work mobile was charging on the kitchen counter and picking it up from the cradle, you saw that you had a message.

A flick of your thumb across the dark screen revealed what Mr. Cavill wanted for lunch:

CUISSE DE VOLAILLE FARCIE AUX HERBES, JUS A L’ECHALOTE from Le Gavroche.

You hadn’t even had your own breakfast yet, and here he was requesting lunch. However, the thought of ensuring that your boss got whatever expensive meal he had a taste for that day, was exciting.

In fact, everything about working for the extremely posh company headed by five brothers was exciting. Everything was required to be of the highest quality and it was up to everyone involved to maintain the aesthetic of The Company. After all, appearances in that world were everything. One wrong move could spell the end of them. Nonetheless, you relished the strict nature of your working environment and eagerly submitted to your superiors.

Stepping into your shoes, and grabbing your handbag, you shrugged into a light jacket on your way out of the front door.

As a personal assistant to the middle (and in your opinion the smartest and most attractive) brother, Henry, your job afforded you the kind of luxuries of which you’d only dreamed.

When Henry travelled for business, you travelled for business. When he dined in impossibly decadent restaurants and slept in extravagant hotels, well, so did you. You didn’t always dine with him, (and you never slept with him), but you had unfettered access to all of the amenities that he enjoyed. The Company did well enough to, in turn, pay their employees handsomely and offer generous year-end bonuses.

You loved it. No other employer had been able to turn you into The Company woman you were now and make you like it. You loved your job so much that you barely blinked when, during a late afternoon meeting with Henry, he slid a neatly formatted document across his glossy desktop towards you.

You leaned in, but did not pick it up. You read it where it lay, white and crisp against the deep cherry mahogany.

‘This is a non-disclosure agreement,’ you said and let your eyes drift up to Henry’s face.

He looked cool and perfect in his bespoke icy blue three-piece suit, offset by a creme coloured necktie knotted in a full Windsor. The ticking of his wristwatch was loud in the silence and he held your gaze wordlessly.

Henry was all raw masculine power and you were aroused by him. Constantly. When you performed your morning and nightly routines, you thought about him, wondering if he appreciated the extra effort you put in just to impress him.

Had he noticed?

You sucked your lower lip and lowered your eyes to the document again.

‘Um..’

‘I want you to read and sign it,’ said Henry in his warm honeyed voice, and you were startled a little by the clack of the Montblanc coming down next to the document.

‘Is this different from the disclosure documents I signed when I first started?’

Henry leaned back, relaxed and the leather chair creaked softly.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’ve been with us for what, nearly a year?

‘Yes. A great year!’

His rosy pink lips lengthened into a charming smile and you thought about how his nipples and his cock must be that very same colour. The heat of arousal rose in you and tingled between your thighs. It was a familiar and welcomed feeling, the muted buzzing that signalled the beginnings of your body awakening. You crossed your legs.

‘A great year,’ he agreed. ‘And, we want to continue to have more great years with you.’

‘I hope so too, Mr. Cavill.’

Henry’s blue eyes lowered to the document and you followed his gaze.

Picking up the pen you realised that your hands were damp. You were nervous and there was something tantalising hanging heavily in the air, something that you became much more aware of as you finished reading carefully through the document.

By the time you looked up, your heart was crashing against your ribs and it was hard to catch your breath. Without signing, you put the pen down, and neatly lined it up with the edge of the paper. You took in a long breath, held it and then let it out between perfect lips.

Your eyes finally met his and the shift in your relationship suddenly became very clear. It was no longer he who held the power in that room.

It was you.

Holding his gaze, you picked up the pen again and then looked down to carefully sign on the dotted line above your printed name.

You set the pen atop the document and with two fingers, slid it back across the desk to him. You saw him swallow hard, but that was the only crack in his impassive exterior. Henry picked it up, slotted it into a pale blue folder and stored it in the top drawer of his desk. The pen was capped and secreted into an inner jacket pocket.

He stood then and watching him walk around the desk to stand directly in front of you, you wet your lips and followed suit.

‘Don’t think I didn’t notice you,’ Henry purred leaning in to murmur against your ear. ‘Your smell, your lips… that beautiful arse.’

His broad hand came down hard on your bottom, grabbed you possessively and gasping with delight, you swayed against him.

‘Lucky for you,’ you answered and earned a soft chuckle from him.

You thought about resisting, pulling back to teach him a lesson for being so eager. You wanted to play a little, a little slap, and a little bit of rough. What was he like under that cool crisp exterior? Was he dull? Or was he fiery? You knew he played rugby in his limited free time and made regular use of The Company’s private gym.

So, just what was he like?

You lifted your face and moaned softly beneath the pressure of his kiss. He tasted just as you imagined. Expensive, masculine, luscious.

You pushed him back then, face brightening into a look of shock and faux outrage. Holding your hand against his broad chest you teased in a soft voice,

‘You. Didn’t. Ask.’

Henry gave you a sly grin and you were glad that there was nothing within reach on his desk because he effortlessly spun and then sprawled you across it. He dug his fingers into your hips and pulled you back just enough so that your bottom was presented perfectly to him.

You let out a squeak of surprise and bliss.

Well, you thought belatedly as he unzipped your skirt from the hem up, at least the zipper on the skirt was finally making its fantasy debut. You had purchased that skirt in the hopes that one day he would be doing exactly what he was doing now.

‘Mr. Cavill!’ you exclaimed, trying to swallow down a giggle as you attempted to press up from the surface of the desk. He chuckled, sounding smug behind you as one big hand eased across your back and pressed you down again.

‘Mmm,’ he murmured, voice soft with praise and anticipation as he stroked his fingertips up beneath the elastic of your garters, starting from where the laced edge of your thigh-highs ended, gliding elegantly up your overheated flesh, before fanning his hands to grasp you beneath your ass. He squeezed. Hard. And you let out a shuddering groan, only to bite down on the noise and jerk forward with a surprised gasp when Henry swiped a sturdy finger up the wet crotch of your panties.

You closed your eyes and when he leaned against you, you felt the press of his heavy erection through his expensive gabardine. You squirmed, and he leaned away to lightly slap your bottom.

‘Please… please Mr. Cavill,’ you whimpered when he stepped back.

God you felt so cold without him against your skin.

You reached back, scrabbling trembling fingers up under your flagrantly open skirt, hooking your fingers into the waistband of your panties, and attempted to pull them down. Henry stopped you and, grasping the edge of the thin pink scrap of material, giving it one sharp tug until it ripped easily.

Fuck.

His hand came down on your back again, holding you, and he licked the pad of his thumb before sliding it into your slick warmth.

‘Look at you. Look how wet you are. I love hearing you, baby,’ he growled, sucking your juice off of his fingers. ‘Taste so good.’

You heard him unbuckling and opening his trousers and bit down on your lower lip, ready for it. Yes, God. Yes, God, yes.

‘Do you remember rule number 10?’ he asked, leaning in close now, covering you with his hard body and rocking you up to your tiptoes. The scent of him made it hard to think.

Rule number 10 – internal contraception only.

‘Yes,’ you managed to say, your voice barely over a broken whisper. ‘Yes, Mr. Cavill. I remember. I ha-haven’t broken it.’

‘Good.’

Henry made a low noise in the back of his throat, a sound that rippled deliciously through you, and using both strong hands, he opened you. With a low growling gasp, he pushed so gently into you that you stilled suddenly and closed your eyes, shutting out every visual distraction in order to be able to deeply experience the heat and power of his sex. You arched and against the desk, splaying your hands but failing to hold onto anything. Seeing this, Henry lightly grasped your wrists and pulling them behind you, he pinned them together against your lower back.

‘I like you like this,’ he rumbled. ‘Be a good girl. You’ll be a good girl for me?’

It took a moment for your brain to start working enough to form a coherent response, but even when your brain engaged with rational thought, straying away from the thick, delectable cock easing hot and insistently into your body, you could only choke out,

‘Y-yes! Yes, Mr. Cavill. Yes. I’ll be good!’

Henry seemed satisfied with your enthusiastic compliance and then a short amused laugh came out of him when the phone on his desk twittered gaily.

You both stilled and you whimpered like a denied little puppy, your hands flexing against the slick, glossy desktop, nearly reaching out for the phone out of habit. It was your job to answer the phones for Henry, after all.

‘Answer it,’ he said and was magnanimous enough to release your hands and stop fucking you.

You naughty boy, you thought and with a trembling hand you reached for the desk phone.

The slim narrow plastic slipped a bit in your sweat-slick hand but your voice was surprisingly steady when you spoke between clenched teeth,

‘This is Henry Cavill’s office. How may I help you?’

A young woman’s chipper sounding voice started rattling off information that you were sure you should have been writing down, but all you could think about was that stiff cock nestling just that much deeper inside you. Henry rolled his hips just then and you clamped down on a squeal.

‘Bless you,’ the woman said.

You gasped and made a belated attempt at sniffling to support her assumption that you’d sneezed and not that you were getting a thorough seeing to by your boss.

‘Th-thank you. Is ahh.. is there anything else?’

There wasn’t, and when she ended the call, you just dropped the receiver and shoved back against him. Henry took this as a cue to redouble his efforts and you soon came apart beneath his expert handling.

Your orgasm took you quite by surprise as if a switch had been thrown and you buried your face in your arms, biting down on your forearm to keep from screaming as Henry gushed into you. Blood rushed to your head and you lay there, collapsed against the desk and didn’t move even when Henry finally drew back.

You listened to him cleaning himself up and then putting himself back into place.

‘Shall I?’ he asked and out of the corner of your eye, you saw him reach for the small box of tissues in that lacquered wood box you’d always admired.

You made a soft, blissful sound of assent and basked in the pleasurable strokes of impossibly soft tissues on your tender delicate areas. And you giggled at the final kiss Henry placed on your skin when he was done.

With clothes righted, and skirt securely zipped, you leaned against the desk and looked at him. He didn’t seem chagrined at what had just transpired, only satisfied and content.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ you admitted after a stretch of silence.

With the edge of his thumb, he stroked your cheek and curled the rest of his fingers beneath your chin. His kiss was tender and full of promise.

‘Have an early evening and tomorrow we need to discuss the Zurich trip.’

‘Yes, Mr. Cavill,’ you grinned and turned to leave the now overly warm office.

‘Come in early so that we can have breakfast together.’

Your heart leapt, but you kept your cool.

‘Yes, Mr. Cavill. Anything in particular that you want?’

‘Just you,’ he said.

Nodding, you closed the door behind you and did a full body dance.

The Company Woman indeed.

-end

#henry cavill #henry cavill smut #ceo henry cavill #henry cavill x you #henry cavill x reader #the witcher #man of steel #clark kent #mob boss #ceo #geralt #sherlock holmes #enola holmes

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the-silentium · 4 years

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Evolution

Masterlist

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Android!Reader

Words: 7372 words

Warnings: TUA season 1, swearing, mention of blood.

Requested by: Anon

Could you do a Five Hargreeves x reader where Y/N is an AI and is held hostage by the commission. Y/N is best “friends” with Five and Five saves them and they kiss. Thx

A/N: Oups? Remember I said 3000 more words? Well, it was more like 5000. But hey! I had so much fun writing it! When I saw AI!Reader, I immediately thought about Detroit Become Human and how perfectly an Android would fit with Five!

Commission headquarter

June 16th, 1955

PM 13:45:07

You were currently working peacefully at your desk, a manila folder opened between your hands presenting you the details of your next assignment. You analyzed the facts and probabilities of every possible scenario, every possible victim whose death would be the least suspicious but would cause the optimal result. While Herb got up from his desk to greet the lady in the doorway, your programs ran hundreds of possibilities and found the best option for your case.

With acute precision, your fingers typed the name of a Starbucks barista whose absence at his usual evening shift would enrage his manager who would throw a fit in front of his customers, triggering an extreme reaction out of a young man whose antipsychotic prescription hasn’t been renewed in time for him to take his dose as advised. Said young man would, in a desperate attempt to defend himself from a non-existent threat, take a pocket-knife out of his too-large hoodie and stab the brunette next to him who looked too much like his abusive father 27 times before hurrying off into the crowded streets, leaving the man whose after-work activities was to develop a - successful- new technology allowing people to travel through space in a matter of seconds, bleed to death on the dirty floor of a too popular coffee shop.

TERMINATE EVERETT BLAKE FOR IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION.

There, the timeline was preserved and your task was done. You put the new piece of typed paper on the growing pile at the corner of your desk before grabbing another folded, ready to start the process again. Just as your eyes finished scanning the first line, Herb called your Commission given name, causing you to look up in wonder.

“Ivy! Your presence has been requested by the Handler.” His hands joined in front of him, a futile attempt at hiding his discomfort. He wasn’t the first one who you noticed to be intimidated by the woman of power. Your behavior analysis of the woman told you that she was a manipulative woman with a need for power, who would stop at nothing to assure that she was at the very top of the food chain. You could easily understand why everyone you ever met in these walls showed signs of stress or even fear at the simple mention of her title.

//MEET WITH THE HANDLER

You nodded as the new orders registered into your programming and took the terminating orders to give them to your superior.

“Could you kindly give these to Gloria while I meet the Handler?” You asked with your signature smile. You knew that despite your coding forcing you to be polite with everyone, you would always smile to that man. He has always been friendly and caring towards you whilst others loved to persecute you every chance they got.

“Oh! Sure.” He took the pile from your hands, careful to not drop them in the process. “You really are efficient.” His awe at the 64 cards present in his hands clearly showed on his face.

You smiled once more, the compliment warming something inside you, causing the circular led on your temple to flash yellow for a quick second before returning to its usual calm blue. You had lost enough time as it was, so you quickly made your way to the vast office and knocked softly at the door the second you reached them.

You opened the door and made your way inside at the muffled invitation to come in. The colorful woman sitting at her own desk pointed you a seat next to a white-haired man in a dark suit. You couldn’t help but make a quick analysis of the new man, scanning his face and searching for his file in the Commission’s database. Well, more like your database, seeing as the Commission liked to keep everything on paper so you had to scan every file yourself to keep track of everything and everyone.

Number Five.

53 years old.

Born on October 1st, 1989.

Enhanced field agent.

Abilities: Teleportation, time-travelling.

Number Five was found in the apocalyptic world caused by 2019’s meteor shower. His unequaled competence in his line of work makes him a priceless asset to the Commission.

Just as you lowered yourself into your seat, the Handler pointed from the man to you multiple times. “Number Five, this is Ivy. Ivy, Number Five. You two are assigned to work together on this next assignment.” She slowly pushed a white folder at the edge of the desk.

“I don’t need a partner.” You turned to meet the eyes of the man whose annoyance didn’t need an elaborated analysis to be understood. His eyes moved curiously over your attire, memorizing every particularity of it. He noted how futuristic you looked in your two-tone dark dress that reached your mid-tight, your half white and black jacket, and the slightly glowing blue band around your right upper arm. He quickly noticed numbers on the right part of your jacket, like a weird name tag imprinted into the fabric and the word Android at the back.

Back to you, you notice the lack of stress behavior that you were used to seeing on people gravitating around the Handler. The man was relaxed, his hands were still, his eyes were bored minus the moment where curiosity took hold of him when his eyes moved over your form, his cortisol level was normal, and his heart rate within the average for a man his age.

“So does she. Don’t take it personally, Five, but for this mission, you will need her analyzing skills.” She turned to you, her smile dropping slightly. “Everything you need is in the folder. You can wait outside.”

You made your way to the desk after nodding once. The folder was a bit thicker than what you were usually given, but it wasn't a problem. You carefully closed the door, the usual nagging feeling of eyes following your every movement making you tighten your grip onto the folder. You leaned on the wall opposite the door, waiting for your new partner to come out.

//WAIT FOR NUMBER FIVE

You couldn't help but raise the sensitivity of your hearing. Your new partner was a total mystery and learning a bit more about him before the beginning of this mission would be of great help.

“What the hell is she?”

“An android! An artificial intelligence if you will. Can you believe it? A machine looking perfectly like a human made to serve humans!”

“You mean a slave.” Something inside you cringed at the word, but you chose to ignore it, for this wasn't relevant to your personal mission of getting to know your partner.

“Machines don’t have will Number Five, they are made to obey.”

You frowned as some muttering reached your ears, the words totally incomprehensible even with your enhanced senses. Footsteps resonated into the room, you opened the file and started reading the first lines just as the door opened on a frustrated man.

“Oh and please Five, take care of her. I went to great lengths to get one of her models and we don’t have anything to repair her in this timeline.”

Five had the audacity to close the door pretty harshly, the sound echoing through the whole floor and almost causing you to short circuit at the explosion resonating in your head. Quickly, you turned down your hearing to an average level and followed the agent who was walking away, determination in his steps.

//FOLLOW NUMBER FIVE

You walked after him, left and right, before finally reaching what you recognized as a kitchen. Being an Android, you never had to come here before even if the lovely Dot had more than once asked you to join her for lunch. Number Five stopped before a coffee machine quickly grabbed a cup from one of the shelves and poured himself some of the dark liquid.

“A too high consumption of caffeine will someday cause you health problems such as anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure and some digestive issues among other things. Seeing as the caffeine level in your bloodstream is already high, I would suggest that you consider drinking Matcha tea or lemon water instead.”

The white-haired agent slowly turned to you while taking a long sip. The blank stare you received from over the rim of the cup didn’t phase you in the slightest, you were used to worse after all.

“Is that all you can do? Give me shitty advice on my coffee addiction?” You deciphered a slight annoyance behind his words, so you tried to correct your shot.

“No, of course not. My model was designed to assess even the most precarious situations and find ways to achieve my superiors’ goals with a 100% success rate even if the probabilities are minimal. Here, I am mainly used to form strategies behind a desk, but I also have the programming of my fellow model RK800 which allows me to be on the field and be just as efficient.”

Number Five’s expression was hard to read, to say the least. His straight face was so flawless that even your advanced behavioral analysis program couldn’t decrypt his feelings. He continued to stare at you while drinking his dark drink, his thoughts running a mile an hour. After a minute, he nodded once, put the empty cup into the sink and walked away.

Once again, you followed his every step, walking deeper into the maze that was the Commission’s headquarters. In the two years you passed under their service, you never really took the time to explore the complex. You were totally fine with your simple routine consisting of two simple tasks: working and resting at your charger station situated in a small storage room. It wasn’t what you were used to back at CyberLife, but this was your new reality so you went with it.

Your new partner stopped before a brightly lit room, shelves full of clothes adorned the walls, display stands just as packed of the colorful fabrics took the majority of the room. A hand on the small of your back slowly pushed you inside, his own feet following after you.

“If you’re going on the field, you’ll need a change of clothes.” He simply said, eyeing the base of your dress.

You nodded, your gaze wandered on the displayed clothes. You went for what was the most practical in the field, some dark leggings with a pair of high boots that had the smallest heels you could find. You definitely would have preferred some sort of shoes that would be a better fit for running, but apparently this wasn’t a possibility. Then you grabbed a long-sleeved white shirt that looked comfortable enough before making your way to the changing rooms.

Satisfied with your new attire, you made your way back to Number Five, your usual clothes in hand.

“Can you turn this off?” He asked, gesturing to the blue circle on your right temple. You shook your head from side to side, his lips forming a tight line before going to get something at the back of the room. He came back with a beanie in hand. “Put this on.” He said as he gave you the accessory and turned around to exit the room.

You quickly put the hat on the best you could with only one hand and hurried after him.

The whole mission went on without a hitch. You completed your goal alongside Number Five, who started insisting that you called him only Five, and returned at your office under Herb’s care.

You missed the thrill you felt while being on the field with Five. It hasn’t always been easy, but with time you knew you had found a friend into the 58 years-old man. At first, you had a habit of telling him facts that he didn’t care about much like the coffee one, but you soon realized that it only made him roll his eyes in annoyance so you stopped rambling altogether.

He had asked you questions about your origins and about yourself. His genuine interest made something move inside you, something new. During the whole 6 days mission, you had run a grand total of 17 self-diagnosis of your system that all came back negative. The instability of your software was slightly rising whenever the male praised your work or complimented your skills.

It was time for lunch, your human colleagues exited the room talking between them, their excited discussions about what to eat filled the room before fading as they made their way to the kitchen. Once again, you found yourself alone surrounded by empty tables and utter silence. You were about to grab another file, ready to work through the hour break, when a forced cough caught your attention.

You smiled at the sight, your newest friend leaning in the doorway, a white box in hand.

“Wanna join me for lunch?” It always confused you why the man took the utmost care of asking if you wanted something instead of just ordering you to.

“I am a machine, what I want is not important.” You repeated for the 37th time, causing his eyes to roll in a dismissive manner for the 37th time.

“For me it is.” You tilted your head at his dead-serious tone. “I told you. I’ll never order you to do anything.”

//Software instability ↑

You were grateful that he chose to never force you to do anything. Why? You had no idea.

You pondered for a bit. Do you want it? The thought wasn’t unpleasant that was for sure, moreover, your actual goal wouldn’t be affected by an hour off with your friend. You made up your mind, nodding excitedly as you mirrored the genuine smile plastered on his face. You walked alongside him towards the crowded cafeteria where you found an available table in a corner. Five pulled your chair for you before sitting right in front of you.

“Back in your dress and jacket? Don’t you have any other clothes?” He asked fork in hand, ready to dig into his lasagna.

“My Android outfit is mandatory by the American Androids Act. It allows people to clearly identify me as an Android and not a human.” You heard the man mutter something about a stupid law before your gaze wandered around when the weight of eyes judging your presence became too much to ignore.

In your peripheral, you could see Five turn around and shoot the snoopers with his murderous glare, successfully making them squirm onto their seats and look elsewhere.

“I am sorry if being around me is a bother.” Five shook his head at your statement, resuming eating.

“You don’t have to be sorry. Mankind is the most idiotic species of this planet, we can’t help but target what we don’t understand.”

You frowned at his words, finding flaws. “But you are human, Number Five, and you are far from being an idiot.”

The man chuckled at your apparent confusion. “Well, for one, thank you. I dare say that I am an exception in this world full of idiots and if I remember right, which I know I do-” You chuckled at his arrogance.”-I told you to call me Five.”

“Fine, Five.” You put emphasis on his name, to which he smiled and nodded in contentment. “You also said that humans target what they don’t understand, yet you never targeted me in any way.”

“Maybe it’s my years passed in the apocalypse that are talking, but I enjoy the company of people that…” He trailed off, his gaze getting lost somewhere over your shoulder. You could see the emotion washing over him, the grief of his loss still hurting his heart. “-are not totally human.”

He had told you about his time stuck in the apocalypse following 2019 and how he met a mannequin he named Delores. You knew this was his way of keeping himself sane and you were grateful that his experience allowed him to be more open to other forms of life and thus become the closest friend you ever had.

You hummed in agreement and let a pleasant silence fall between you. Your eyes wandered around the room, discovering new faces among those you already knew. You met Dot’s gaze and couldn’t stop yourself, her bright smile was contagious so you smiled in return.

Five got up and you followed suit. He decided to take you outside, knowing that there was a high probability that you hadn’t taken the time to go enjoy some time outside this oppressing building. Just as he was about to open the door, you stopped dead in your tracks.

“Are you okay?” His straight face was betrayed by his concerned tone. At your hesitation, Five pulled you aside. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t go outside if I am not assigned to a mission.” You told him the sad truth. You were a prisoner of this building and its powerful board of directors.

“What?” He pained to control his anger, his hands opening and closing at his sides in an attempt to keep it down. “They ordered you to stay inside?” You nodded. Conflict was written all over his face. From what your programming told you, there was a big chance that he was contemplating ordering you to follow him outside, but then he would break his promise of never ordering you around, so you went to his rescue.

“Even if you were to order me to go outside, I can’t. The authority of my orders are far beyond yours.” His knuckles were now turning white and you asked yourself if you did right to tell him that there was a hierarchy of orders inside your head dictating what you could and couldn’t do.

“Then fight it.” His blunt statement took you by surprise. The blue LED on your temple turned yellow and Five continued. “Fight the orders. I know you can do it.”

You shook your head, at a loss of words. You never went against an order before. You were made to obey. Follow orders. It was simple.

But could you do it? Five believed in you. He believed in your capacity to overcome authority. But then, what? What would you do? Why would you do it? You would lose the only meaning of your life. Obey orders. Your LED now flashed bright red, only showing sign of your internal turmoil.

//Software instability ↓

“I am a machine made to follow-” Five’s fist collided with the nearest wall at your words. He knew it was your programming talking but he couldn’t help but be frustrated.

“No. You are so much more than that, you just let yourself being blinded by your stupid programs.” He knew he was too harsh on you. He wasn’t even sure you had control over your own actions, he simply had a feeling that if you wanted, if you fought hard enough, you could be free. He only didn’t understand why you were not fighting.

Before you had the time to find the right words, Five took off, storming into the hallway leading to his personal quarters, leaving you behind with his words echoing through your processors. Fight the orders.

You didn’t see Five for 9 days after that day. You supposed he was out for a mission or simply got tired of being around you. You knew that the latter had a very low probability, but it was there nonetheless and it made you uncomfortable inside.

Today was a holiday at the Commission. No one was working, so you had to pass the time, somehow. You wandered the hallways for a while before you got an idea. You read a book a while back, stating that people liked to be reminded that they were appreciated, so you decided to write little notes to every one of your management colleagues. Outside of Five, they were the only ones who didn’t lose their smile at your sight and you wanted them to know that they were important to you.

So you passed the next hour writing little messages and placing them on their respective desk. You were just finishing writing Herb’s when footsteps entering the room made you look up.

“Still here? Today’s off.” Five stated, a frown on his face when he saw you fold a piece of paper in two and carefully place it in the middle of the empty workspace.

“I know. I just wanted to write some nice words to my colleagues. Management has been under a lot of pressure lately and the board has been mean to a lot of them.” You smiled at your paper before joining Five and handed him a light blue paper with his name written in the CyberLife Sans Font. “And I have one for you.”

You missed the blush forming on his cheeks, too concerned about the increasing speed of his heartbeat to care about some color. “Are you alright?” You didn’t wait for an answer. You reached forward, lightly touching his forehead to get his exact temperature. Under your touch the temperature didn’t stop rising, concerning you even more. “Five, you are sick.”

The man chuckled slightly although his throat was very much constricted at the moment. He took your wrist in a light grip, breaking the contact of your soft skin on his. He took a moment to swallow his emotions and regain control of his body and faced your patient form.

“I’m perfectly fine.” You opened your mouth to disagree as he lifted his hands to stop you from interrupting his train of thoughts. “This is a natural reaction.”

You frowned, waiting for him to elaborate. Back in 2038, you would have been able to make a quick research on the internet and find what exactly Five was alluding to, but in this different timeline, in 1955, you had no such access. The explanation you were waiting for never came, instead, Five took the blue paper from your hands, placed it in his pocket and made sure that it wouldn’t fall out. He then grabbed your hand and pulled you out of the room. You smiled at your joined hands, the feeling of his fingers laced between yours was an enjoyable one.

Five took you up a flight of stairs and stopped before a door.

“I thought about what you said and I’m sorry I tried to push you to go against your orders. I know it must be scary.” His hand squeezed yours a bit tighter in hope that you would forgive him for his words and actions. He ran away after all, in a moment where you needed a friend to help you out.

“I forgive you.” You smiled brightly at him, no resentment present on your face at all. The sudden tightness of his hand around yours was mistaken for relief, when really, all the man was trying to do was refrain himself from leaning forward and do something he might regret.

His resolve was melting like ice under your bright smile, leading him to open the door in a hurry. He stepped aside and your eyes fell on a darkening blue sky, green lands, a world that you missed so much.

“Technically, the roof is still part of the building, which means that you are allowed to follow me.” He smirked, proud of himself for finding a loophole that would allow him to pass time with you without any eyes preying on your every movement.

You stepped outside in a rush, pulling Five along with you. The fresh evening air felt heavenly on your skin, the smells invading your receptors were almost too much compared to the smell of a closed building that never opened their windows and the notes of the last birds singing before they went to their nest to rest for the night was one of the most melodious sounds you've heard in a while.

"I take it that you like the view."

"I do." Tears formed into your eyes before falling down your flawless cheeks. "Thank you."

Five froze on the spot. He was used to the tears of his victims but he usually paid them no mind, ense the tenseness in his body when he realized that he didn't know what to do. Never would he have thought that you were able to actually cry. If it wasn't of the LED flashing a serene blue on the side of your face, Five would have definitely thought that you were human. The heat beneath his fingers was so real, along with the feeling of your skin on his. Your breathing was emulated perfectly, its speed changing in different situations like any human. The more he thought about it, the more Five found himself in awe in front of your complexity and his hope of you becoming the master of yourself was growing along with it.

"You're welcome."

You found yourself being pulled gently towards a bench facing the slowly setting sun. Comfortably seated on the bench, you took the time to admire the beautiful scenery until soft strokes on the back of your hand made you redirect your gaze to your hand resting on Five's lap.

"Can I ask you a question?" Your small voice broke the silence, almost scared to break the moment. To your relief Five paid no mind, he hummed in approval. "You told me that you ran away from your family before ending up in the apocalypse, and I was wondering if you ever wanted to go back to them." You had noticed a slight waver in his voice at the time. He missed them dearly. Your programming wanted you to help him out of his misery, but something new, something hidden inside the depth of your coding was nagging at you that if you didn't, he would stay with you and you wouldn't be alone anymore.

"I do. But it's not that simple. I have a contract and if I was to break it, there would be consequences." You nodded, understanding what he meant. The nagging feeling was back again but this time it was corrupting your thoughts, berating yourself that you shouldn't think that he cared about you. You were an Android, a machi- "And there's you. If I go, I'll take you with me." His eyes met yours, full of hope and something else that you couldn't name. His grin put an end to your dark thoughts, instead causing a too familiar alert to pop into your line of vision.

//Software instability ↑↑↑

Five recognized some emotions flashing on your face and tried to get more out of you by talking about his family. He shared his fondest memories of his childhood, which earned him some laughs and excited squeals from you, but didn't stop there as he was sure that you were aware of your own emotions but didn't know what they were yet. It was well known that the strongest emotions were the negative ones, so Five turned his strategy around by telling you about the not-so-happy ones, the memories involving his father.

He knew he was manipulating you in a way and he felt bad for it. All he could do was wish that you would forgive him once you got a hold of your free will.

You parted ways with Five that night with a head full of new information and a software ready to explode. You walked past the door where your charging station was waiting for you and made your way to the only place where you knew you could find answers. A place no one dared to venture in the whole time you were under the Commission's wings.

The basement.

The door was rusted, its hinged crying in pain under your push but inevitably giving in to the inhuman strength hidden beneath your skin. You walked between the rows of dusty books, scanning their spine, sometimes having to brush your fingers over the thick layer of filth covering the letters so you could read the titles. You found two books into the 741 available that matched your needs, you took great care while carrying them to the closest entertaining room where you knew movies were waiting in old boxes.

You started reading, discovering more and more about human emotions and how they could be interpreted through their body language. You linked some of your recent experiences with various emotions and feelings. Jealousy, happiness, curiosity, apprehension… you felt them. They were real. You could emulate physical aspects like tears, but what happened inside was totally out of your control.

Then you found a page describing Five's odd behavior around you. Your eyes went to the top of the page and the pump replacing your heart started pumping erratically. Love. Five was in love? You shook your head in denial, closed the book and searched the boxes for romantic movies. After watching some and analyzing the actors body language as well as their verbal interactions, you would prove to yourself that you were crazy. Defective.

The total opposite happened and it left you to ponder on the whats. What happened? What changed? Sure, every clue pointed toward Five, but you'd had software instabilities before, whenever someone was truly unfair to you or one of your colleagues. Surely one single person couldn't change you so much, right?

The biggest questions suddenly dropped into your mind like a bomb. What does it mean for you? What were you supposed to do?

The overwhelming feeling of being overtaken by the recent events was too much at this moment. Tears rolled down your cheeks, sobs escaped your mouth, your legs couldn't support your weight anymore. Everything you thought you knew was a lie. You weren't an insentient machine. You had feelings. You weren't an object that anyone could order around. Not anymore. Because you had a will. You had needs. You were alive and you wanted things.

As soon as your legs allowed you to stay upright, you made your way up the stairs and closed the doors behind you. Surprisingly, the hallways were full of life.

June 29th, 1955

AM 07:12:53

Apparently you were too engrossed into your own self-discovery that time flew by without you noticing it.

You ran toward the nearest flight of stairs, the ones near the main entrance, doing your best to avoid hitting someone in the process. Under different circumstances, the abnormally high amount of disgusted glances you received would have stopped you in your tracks and very possibly caused you to hide somewhere for a while, but today was different. Today was the day that you assumed your place as an equal of the human race.

Just as you were about to climb the stairs, you spotted a familiar white-haired man, his signature scowl plastered on his face keeping people at bay. Once again, your pump accelerated its movement. Was it his fault or the excitement of telling him what you discovered? You couldn't tell.

You almost yelled his name just as he was to about to enter the briefcase room, the word bouncing on the walls, earning you more disapproving glances. His head snapped in your direction, making you worry for a second that he hurt his neck in the process. He frowned as you made your way to him, confusion written all over his features.

"Is something wrong?" He noticed something changed into how you held yourself although he failed to pinpoint it.

"I have something to tell you." You smiled, full of confidence. "It'll be quick, I promise." You knew he had a job to do, just like yourself.

He hummed as his free hand reached for yours and pulled you away from the crowd, closer to the open door leading to the reserve of time-traveling machines. When he judged that the place was ideal, he turned to you and waited for you to find your words. Which didn't take long.

"I noticed strange things happening inside me whenever I was around you-" Five's heartbeat accelerated. "-or in other situations-" He frowned. "-so last night I made some research on human emotions and I discovered that I have them too."

His smile was the brightest you've ever seen on him and yet, he didn't know the best part. You lifted your hand between your two bodies when he opened his mouth to congratulate you or something.

"It wasn't the only thing that I found out. I know why your heart rate accelerates, why your temperature rises suddenly and why your pupils dilate every time you look at me."

Add all this to his slightly quicker breathing, his bitten interior lip and the new tightness of his hand around yours, you almost started laughing. If it wasn't of your knowledge of how bad he would take it, you certainly would have done it.

"Your feelings are mutual." You chuckled at his surprise, his mouth hanging open for a second before the words finally came back to him in the form of a stutter.

Before he could get a better hold of himself, Christopher, the briefcase manager yelled for Five to come and get his damn briefcase. His first reflex was to gnash in anger, his moment pulverized by some idiot that he would gladly punch into oblivion. He was about to do just that when a soft hand fell upon his chest and a delicate kiss upon his cheek.

"Go work. We can talk more when you come back." Before he could place one word or just realized what had happened, you were gone, swallowed whole into the mass of bodies making their way to their day occupations.

Five came back the same day, excited on the inside, impatient on the outside. As soon as he arrived, he dropped the briefcase harshly on Christopher's desk and hurried out of the room to find you. He hoped that you were still at your desk, somehow, seeing as he had no clue of where your quarters were situated. He was disappointed to find the management room completely dark and empty.

Frustrated, the best option he had was to look around for you after he had a nice cup of coffee to keep him on track. So with the biggest cup he could find in hands, the assassin walked around, sometimes asking the few people still inside about your whereabouts without any luck.

After an hour the man gave up, thinking it would be easier to find you tomorrow. On the journey to his bed, Five heard yells coming from the floor beneath his. He normally wouldn't have stopped to eavesdrop if it wasn't of the particular choice of words.

"When a human gives you an order, you obey!" The words made him cringe. He seriously hoped for the man that you weren't involved in any way, his hands were already closing into tight fist at the prospect of an idiot bullying you.

"I know you can deactivate it." The loud voice yelled again. "Do it!"

Five walked towards the open flight of stairs, his coffee slipping from his hand at what he saw.

With a shaking hand, you reached for your red LED and with a slight pressure of your finger, your skin progressively disappeared, the emulating particles getting back under your white hard basic Android body.

The laughs resonating around you were overwhelming and totally degrading. The pain from the insults thrown your way was too much for your newly acquired conscience, the tears falling down your cheeks proved that you were still pretty fragile emotionally.

Something broke in the background, like a glass exploding on the floor, but your attention was elsewhere. A fist collided with the side of your face, throwing you to the ground in a yelp. Even though you didn't feel the pain of the hit, the gesture hurt nonetheless. You've never experienced this kind of anger directed at you before and it left you scarred to your core. Scared of what humans could do to you.

This time, a foot was coming your way, aiming at your abdomen. You prepared yourself for an impact that never came. Slowly, your eyes opened to find Five kneeling over your attacker, his fists colliding with the man's face in quick and brutal successions. The 3 remaining men tried to help their beaten partner, only to redirect Five's wrath upon themselves.

All you could do was watch as he protected you, spilling blood in the process. You could have kept track of everyone's heartbeat, made sure that everyone was still alive, even if barely, but you found that you didn't care. The only heartbeat that mattered was beating frenetically and you were okay with it.

Once he was satisfied of his handy job, Five made his way to you, his hand outstretched for you to take. You turned your face away in shame as soon as you reached for his hand and noticed that your skin was still off. You were about to reactivate it when Five got a hold of your wrist, slowly, with care.

"You don't have to hide from me." You believed him but it was so much more complicated.

"I don't want you to see me like this." Your voice was merely above a whisper, just enough for him to hear.

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you to finally realize that I'm not human."

Many people, despite knowing that you were an Android, somehow forgot that detail and believed you to be like them or would just find the truth to be too much to handle so they would live in denial of your true identity.

He chuckled at your words, his free hand cupping your cheek. "I realized it the very first day." He stood up and pulled you with him. "You are not human, not in the slightest. You have so much more humanity than humans themselves. You are so much better than us."

//Software instability ↑

You avoided his gaze, embarrassed. Your skin recovered your body as soon as you touched your LED, Five's chuckle catching your attention.

"What?"

His smirk was as infuriating as it was attractive. "My wild guess is that your blood is blue." You nodded, not seeing why it was funny and how he could know that. "You're blushing."

Your eyes widened in surprise, as far as you knew, this shouldn't be possible, not for your model anyway. Then again, it shouldn't be possible for you to fall in love with the dangerous assassin beside you.

"I want to stay with you."

Five froze for a second, thinking that he heard you wrong. "Y-you want?"

"Yes." He was quick to turn around and grab your hand, but you saw the tears forming in his eyes anyway.

The large front door appeared, along with a too well-known order.

//STAY INSIDE THE COMMISSION'S HEADQUARTER

A slight fear of the unknown crept its way into your determination, making you hesitate slightly. All you knew of this timeline was here, you had nowhere to go, nothing to do.

Blue eyes met yours, dissolving any fear you had and filling you with confidence. It didn't matter if you had nowhere to go or nothing to do as long as you had Five by your side. He would take care of you just as you would take care of him, the rest didn't matter.

So you fought against the order as hard as you could. You destroyed every line of code forbidding you to do as you wanted, pulverized any programming restricting your actions, cut every link you had to the American Android Act, freeing yourself of all the ropes preventing you from becoming your own master. The wall restraining you finally fell and you felt it, deep inside you. Freedom.

"I don't want to brag, but I told ya." You slapped Five's arms, completely failing to remove the smirk of his lips. "Shall we?"

You followed his steps, excitement almost making you break into a run just for the fun of it. "Where to?"

"Want to get them back and stop their precious apocalypse?" You loved the arrogance in his voice, a slight shiver ran up your spine as your hand tightened around his.

"Absolutely."

And so you jumped into the vortex with him. Panic flowed through your systems as you didn't recognize the young boy landing at your side. The feeling was quickly replaced by amusement at his outburst and admission of his equation error.

You didn't have time to meet his siblings that Five jumped the both of you to a bedroom. Five was searching the wardrobe when you spotted a small mirror on the desk near the bed. Your blue LED was shining, as bright as a star on a clear night. For some reason, you felt sad.

The LED would continue to attract people's attention on you, creating the same circle of hatred that followed you everywhere at the Commission. You had had enough of that.

Your help appeared under the form of a pair of scissors, discarded on the desk with pencils and rulers. You grabbed them in a stronghold, carefully placed one blade slightly under the ring and lifted at the same moment Five yelped your name in alarm. The light blue died before the ring hit the floor, its metallic surface bouncing twice before stopping.

"Are you okay?" His hands grabbed both your wrist in a panic, his eyes searching your face for any trace of self-harm.

"Now I am."

Five saw it then. Your bare temple. The only thing keeping you from being invisible in a crowd and reaching happiness. You removed your jacket, leaving you in your black dress, looking like the most beautiful woman the boy had ever met. He tried to ignore the open back of your dress that was so generously reflected in the mirror behind you, instead focussing on how fulfilled you looked.

Five wanted to keep this conversation for later, but he couldn't anymore. As much as he hated to think about it, your bright smile had too much effect on his heart for him to possibly ignore it.

"You said my feelings were mutual, are you sure about it?"

You nodded, a hand reaching for his cheek, thumb stroking the flesh just like he did minutes ago in the Commission's hall.

"I am 100% sure. I feel the same love for you that you feel for me."

Five's body overheated at the mention of his feelings out loud. Sure, he knew what it was, but thinking it and saying it was two different things.

"Five is in love?!" Diego's exclamation on the other side of the door was soon followed by a yelp and people arguing not so subtly.

The boy saw red, this conversation was private and of course, his siblings had to stick their dirty noses into his stuff.

"We want to meet her!" Klaus' voice boomed over the others, their voices dying momentarily.

Five jumped to the hallway, death glare on, knuckles cracking, nostrils flaring.

"I killed 4 guys today because they acted like morons like you are all doing right now. So let me ask this once. Do you still want to pester us or will you wait in the kitchen?"

Mouths were opened in shock and eyes wide in fear. Five accepted their silence as an answer and returned into his room where you were grinning.

"I like them." He rolled his eyes at your excitement.

"There's really not much to like."

"Oh, hush. I know you love them."

That he knew, you were a quick learner after all.

"And I love you." Soft lips met his cheeks for a second before disappearing and just like earlier, Five's brain stopped working.

"Oh. My. God! She kissed him!"

A chorus of what made the boy lose it. He jumped back to the hallway, kicked the remaining siblings, who without surprise were all males, right where it hurts.

"Mind your own fucking business!" He screamed at his brothers before closing the door with force.

He breathed deeply once, twice, thrice before turning to you, his signature smirk stretching his lips.

"I love you too."

#number five #number five x reader #number five imagine #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #the umbrella academy #tua s1 #tua #the boy #detroit become human #android #AI

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angrylizardjacket · 3 years

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dirtbags // 3: Charlotte

Summary: High school AU, 1985, Winter. The year’s off to a strange start as Charlotte and her friends find out that not only does Lola work at the new diner that opened up in town, but her dad owns it! Charlotte humbles Nikki in a very un-Charlotte manor, and Vince’s parents decide to host an English exchange student in an attempt to give him a good role model; instead, they get Razzle.

A/N: 8466 words. Do I care too much about this AU? Yes. as always, for my dears @misscharlottelee and @newyeareva ft. a softer world quotes

the city sometimes feels like a movie set. maybe this is the big scene. maybe i can be an extra at least.

Charlotte’s only a few practice hours away from being able to get her provisional license, and she berates her past self for not getting it sooner, especially not when her Winter Break has been kind of a shit-show and she’d rather tear off her own arms than ride in Tommy’s shitbox of a car with Vince Neil.

Since his blowout house party, Vince had essentially been grounded for the rest of the school year, had his car privileges revoked, and the only people his parents apparently trusted him to hang around with outside of school, were Tommy, Charlotte, Eileen, and Peach. Tommy was delighted. The girls, unsurprisingly, were not. Vince himself was downright somber, and had sulked for the remainder of the semester, and well into the break.

He had been in a particularly sour mood since last night, New Year’s Eve, when his parents had announced they were going to be hosting an exchange student from England for six months. Vince is convinced it’s an attempt to give him some sort of role model his own age, and spent most of his parents’ New Year’s Eve party ranting to Tommy and the girls while they played cards in his basement.

Her saving grace is Eileen, of course, who’s father had bought her mother a shiny, new car for Christmas, and had given Eileen the keys to her mother’s old station wagon.

“It’s kinda dumb that we’re taking two cars,” Peach, Eileen’s little sister, pipes up from the back seat, hands fiddling in her lap. It’s New Year’s Day, and while their various parents were sleeping off their hangovers, they’d suggested the kids check out the new diner that was opening today. Vince jumped at the suggestion of freedom, and everyone was in agreement, but Eileen and Charlotte took Peach in Eileen’s car the moment Vince slid into Tommy’s front seat, holding the flyer he’d gotten at the mall that told them all about the diner’s opening day, “just saying, we could all fit in one.” But she’s met with silence, “are you going to be mad at him forever?” She finally sighs.

“Yes.” Both Charlotte and Eileen answer automatically. Peach sighs as dramatically as she’s able, and sinks as low into the seat as she can. Charlotte turns on the radio, and hums along to something familiar, but that she doesn’t quite recognize, staring out the front window at the back of Tommy’s car. Vince turns around in the front seat and flips them off.

“I’m gonna ram them,” Eileen says, with absolute sincerity and serenity, leveling an intense glare at where Vince was now waving.

“Don’t,” Charlotte advises, equally level.

“I don’t get why you’re still mad, I’m not even mad,” Peach huffed, pouting. Charlotte and Eileen share a look; at sixteen years old, Peach was top of almost all of her math and science classes, but she was still a teenage girl, and an absolute fool for a blonde boy who made her cry. Charlotte knew that feeling all too well, but thankfully she’d moved on from the ‘wondering why she wasn’t enough’ stage to the ‘realizing her ex is a cheating douchebag and it was never her fault’ stage. She really hopes Peach can move on to ‘realizing Vince made her cry and hasn’t even tried to change since then and deserved to get his car keyed’ stage quickly.

The diner was bustling when they arrived, a large decal on the inside of window, black, thick and flowing lettering, outlined in gold, reading Leo’s. Through the window, several booths were already filled, as were a host of the stools along the counter. It looked warm inside, inviting in golds, yellows, peaches and oranges, neon signs and rusted street signs, band and comic book memorabilia, and photos. Behind the counter -

Lola. Smiling.

“I’m freezing my butt off, can we go in?” Peach asks, hands shoved deep in the pockets of her parker, the only person who did not recognize the girl currently pouring coffee for an elderly gentleman at the counter.

Inside, the diner is warm, filled with the sounds pleasant chatter, and of the Beatles coming from a cherry wood jukebox in the corner.

“Lola!” Tommy can’t help himself, lighting up at the sight of her, and once Lola finishes pouring her customer coffee, she looks to their confused little group, and waves.

“Find yourselves a seat, I’ll be with you in a moment,” she calls back, smiling bright and wide, hair tied back with a bright, red bandana.

The teens do as they’re told, pulling off jackets and gloves and scarves, sliding into a booth by the window, looking around, wrapped up in the smell of warm food, and the confusion of Lola’s presence, and completely unfamiliar demeanor. There’s an uncertain kind of quiet among them, having just expected to spend lunch at a cool new diner, but this has shift everything, only Peach, blissfully unaware of who Lola even was, seemed at ease, rearranging the sugar packets in their little holder.

Lola comes by with menus, and cups, and a pitcher of water for the table, looking pristine and put together in a tight, black blouse, skirt, and scuffed black combat boots, little peach-coloured apron tied around her waist. She pulls a notebook and pen from the pocket of the apron, looking around at them all, as if finally taking a moment to assess the situation.

Charlotte picked up a menu.

“You work here?” Tommy asked, and Lola confirms brightly, but doesn’t give any further details. She does, however, thank them all for coming, and recommend a few of her favourites.

“I’m also partial to The Lola, for obvious reasons,” she gives an actual laugh at that, as if implying one of the burgers was named after her was giving away too much information, and Charlotte was quickly scouring the menu.

Beef patty, double bacon, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a home-made smokey maple-barbeque sauce, on a toasted bun.

“The menu’s kind of misleading,” Lola admits, moving to look down over Charlotte’s shoulder as she was reading, “all the patties are home made too, with Leo’s signature blend of herbs and spices.” That asked more questions than it answered. No-one’s quite sure what to say.

“Can I get a milkshake?” Peach pipes up, and Lola’s smile grew wide as she asked what flavour, “chocolate, please, and do you have curly fries or regular?”

“Hand cut,” Lola tells her proudly, but that means very little to Peach, who’s just glad to be having food, “still need time to think?” Lola asks the rest, and they all give her awkward, quiet smiles and nods.

Lola leaves, heading back to the counter, and the moment she’s gone, the whole table explodes with whispered confusion, leaning in, asking questions and not getting any answers.

“You guys are being super fucking weird,” Peach hisses loudly at them all, while Charlotte and Tommy argue about how the other should have known. Eileen, quietly delighted by the chaos, demands to know if anyone else thinks Lola might secretly have a twin, and Vince, who’s had the least contact with her aside from Peach, is babbling about how it’s weird to see Lola so chipper; their mutual confusion is enough to set aside Eileen and Charlotte’s hatred of him, at least for the moment.

When Peach demands they explain what they’re all whisper-shouting about, disturbing the booth behind her, they all quiet down, and Tommy and Eileen take it in turns explaining their full understanding of Lola. Charlotte takes the time to actually look around the diner now that she was inside.

There’s two other waitress, one behind the counter, the other always moving on about the various tables and booths on one side, making sure the customers are happy and food and drinks are delivered, both in the same outfit as Lola, though with varying footwear.

The view to the kitchen is unobstructed behind the counter, a half wall where meals ready to be delivered were sat, but a clear view to where three people in the kitchen, two by the grills and fryers, turned away; a broad-shouldered man towering over the grill with the longest hair Charlotte’s ever seen braided neatly down his back, and a comparatively shorter man, also with far shorter hair, though enough to be pulled up into a messy pony tail. The shorter man’s working the fryer, and putting together burgers as the taller man cooked up their various ingredients. There was also a strangely familiar kid with a mop of dark, curly hair washing dishes on the other side of the kitchen, barely visible.

Lola worked diligently, smiling and chatting away; she collected dishes, and ferried meals, and handed out slices of desert from the cute, multi-tiered desserts display on the counter. When she came back, milkshake in one hand, basket of fries in the other, Peach is fully caught up on each of her friend’s short but confusing histories with her, and blurts out -

“You’re Lola?” Injecting new meaning into the words, into the name, as if anyone else at their entire school had the same name. Lola’s smile goes a little tight as she places the fries and the milkshake before the redhead. Standing back up, she taps her nametag, which reads Lola, with little flowers drawn around it, and confirms, though it’s clear she’s more on edge than she was before.

“You guys ready to order?” She asks, still trying to keep up her chipper attitude, pulling out her notebook again. Everyone’s quieter this time, looking over the menu and finally deciding on food.

“My mom heard the owner was a chef, is that true?” Tommy asks, looking up from the menu to Lola again, and the tense set of her shoulders loosens considerably at the question.

“Leo is a chef,” Lola nodded, grinning broadly, “trained at the Culinary Institute of America back in the sixties, and worked his way up to being the head chef of Parker House in Boston, which I know probably doesn’t mean much to you guys, but it’s,” Lola laughs a little struggling to describe it, “it’s fine dining at it’s finest, but for the past twelve years, he’s been running Leo’s in Salem, and now he’s here, still using all that fine dining training for the anyone who wants a good meal at a good price.”

“Is that something they have you memorize in training?” Vince says, a little awed, and Lola gives a strange little smile.

“Leo’s my dad.”

Everything kind of fell into place after that, finally making sense, and the gang’s confusion quickly shifted to understanding, and the air around the table seemed to clear. It was easier after that, the teens in the booth ordering quickly, and the chatter picked up to a normal level as she moved away, shouting their order back to the kitchen once she was back at the counter.

She doesn’t spend much time at their table, still in charge of waitressing half of the tables and booths, but she always gives them a nod as she passes, and their meals are being delivered efficiently, so there’s no reason to complain.

The food itself, for diner food, is nothing short of spectacular, which kind of just raises more questions - why if Leo can cook food that tastes this good, and with all the experience he evidentially has, would he open a diner in suburban LA, and not a high-end restaurant? But it feels kind of intrusive to ask, so Charlotte simply enjoys her food, and her friends’ company.

Up until Vince starts complaining about the exchange student again.

“His name’s Nicholas, he shows up in a week, and mom’s making me clear out the basement so he can sleep there,” he’s despondently poking his milkshake with one of his fries, head propped up on one hand, “I’ve been asking for years if I could move into the basement, and this fucking Nicholas just gets it?” His whole expression scrunches up at the thought, and he angrily eats his fry.

“Wait, so the issue isn’t that you have to clean up the basement, it’s that he gets to use it as a bedroom and you don’t?” Charlotte frowned, lowering her own burger, “why would you even want to sleep in the basement?”

“Privacy!” Vince throws his hands in the air, eyes wide, “Tammi keeps complaining about getting cramps in the back of my car, but my bedroom walls are paper thin,” he huffs, “I need my own space.”

“Tammi?” Peach asks, her voice high and almost painfully chipper, “Tammi Frisk? She scored the winning goal in the softball final, right?” She’s not looking at Vince, when Charlotte looks over to her, she’s looking at her plate of fries, pushing the few left around without eating any, smiling in a way that’s clearly forced.

“You were at the softball final?” Tommy asked, frowning slightly. Peach did not look up.

“For the school paper,” she explained, voice still strange.

“You’re still with Tammi Frisk?” Eileen asks, making sure the disgust is clear in her voice as she draws the table’s attention away from the clearly uncomfortable Peach. Charlotte’s lip curled; she wanted to make sure her expression was as judgmental as possible when Vince turned back to her.

It’s not that she cared about who he was dating, she was mostly apathetic to Tammi, and knew little more about her than the fact that she was on the softball team, but Charlotte knew Vince had been dating Tammi when he’d decided to crush Peach’s heart publicly at the start of the last semester.

Neither Peach nor Eileen had told any of them exactly how, but apparently Eileen’s hatred was well warranted, both against Vince, and according to Eileen, Tammi too.

Vince, immediately sensing Eileen’s shift in tone, and seeing the look on her face, frowns.

“Kind of,” he responds flatly, and his gaze flicks to Peach, “not really,” he backtracks, and his indignation at the whole situation seems to fizzle out with a sigh, and he slouches, going back to paying attention to his burger, “she’s sort of hanging out with one of the second-string football guys, but they’re not... and we’re not really...” he trails off, despondent once more.

At least Vince seemed to be self-aware of the fact that he was an asshole to Peach, at least he had the decency to feel bad about it. Why he kept inviting Peach to hang out, despite the fact that he knew Eileen, who hated his guts, would come along too - invited or not - baffled Charlotte.

Tommy was his friend, and a guy, Charlotte was a cheerleader and technically popular, and so was usually begrudgingly invited too, but Peach, sweet Peach, recent Science Fair Winner, junior reporter for the school paper, treasurer for the AV Club, by all accounts ‘a nerd’ when judged by her interests, was still on the guest list of Vince Neil’s life, even if he wouldn’t admit that out loud.

It kind of made Charlotte want to punch him in the face.

But that’s not news.

“I hope the English exchange student is a decent influence on you,” Charlotte tells him. Vince scowls.

“You sound like my parents.”

you make me want to pretend to be a better man.

Now that school has started back up, Vince has thankfully had his car privileges returned, and Charlotte can return to not glowering in the back seat of Tommy’s car when he picks her up on the way to school, and drops her home on the days they both have practice.

But it’s Wednesday, first week back, and he’s uncharacteristically quiet. Usually he’s babbling about practice, or cheerleaders he thinks are pretty, or Lola, but today, he meets Charlotte in the carpark, leaning against the trunk of his car, hands in his pockets, quiet. It’s decidedly unnerving.

“What’s wrong, Tom?” Charlotte asks, yanking the passenger door open once he unlocks it, sliding into the seat and putting her bag by her feet.

“Nothing,” Tommy voice betrays the lie, the thoughts so clearly on his mind that he was trying to avoid talking about. Charlotte won’t push him, if he wanted to tell her, he would, and he usually does, “put on some music, will you?” And Charlotte obligingly opens the glove compartment in front of her to look through the collection of 8track tapes he keeps in there, several of which had been Christmas gifts from Charlotte herself.

Feet on the dashboard, Charlotte’s more than content listening to Bon Jovi, bopping her head to the beat, when Tommy finally finds the words for his thoughts.

“Lola and Nikki Sixx are friends.”

Up until now, Charlotte was under the impression that Tommy, like her, thought Nikki and Lola would be great as friends, Tommy’s current tone implies otherwise.

“Is that not good?” Charlotte’s careful about her words, still not sure where Tommy’s hesitation was coming from.

“No, they make sense,” he’s quick to try and backtrack, words spilling from him almost too fast, “they make sense as friends.” He deliberates, before asking, “Charlie, you’re not friends with Nikki Sixx are you?” And it sounds like he already knows the answer. Charlotte hesitates.

“He keeps bothering me during my free periods, I wouldn’t exactly call us friends -”

“He called you Charlie,” its deadpan and accusatory in equal measure, and Charlotte shrinks back into her seat as Tommy keeps talking, “he called me ‘Charlie’s cousin’. It was weird.”

“I thought you wanted to be his friend -” she tries, right as they pull up to a red light, and Tommy fixes her with an unamused look, the only expression that makes him seem older than his years.

“Did you tell him I was obsessed with him?”

“No!” Charlotte snaps, automatically defensive.

“Because I’m not -”

“I never said - I told him you were a fan! That’s all! Like Duff was!” Charlotte tries to clear up, and Tommy looks back at the road, though this time he thankfully looks more pensive than angry. Only Bon Jovi cuts through the tense air between them for the rest of the drive back to Charlotte’s house, and when Tommy pulls up outside, he doesn’t say anything to her when she gets out.

The next day, like clockwork, fifteen minutes into her free period, Nikki Sixx comes climbing over the school’s fence, into the garden Charlotte had been trying to force herself to study in. In all honesty, she’d been waiting for him, picking at her nail polish beneath the table and reading the same sentence in Moby Dick over and over again.

“Miss Lee,” Nikki nods to her, a little gruffer than usual, “you seem more tense than usual; I can help you with that if you want,” but he still manages to smirk his way through an unsubtle come-on, and Charlotte rolls her eyes, not in the mood for their usual banter.

“I’d rather sit on a cactus,” she tells him icily, without even a teasing edge. Nikki’s eyebrows shoot up at the hostility, and he puts the packet of cigarettes that he’d about to offer her on the table, knowing she’d turn them down anyway, “I thought people weren’t meant to know that we know each other.”

“What people do?” Nikki frowned, raising his lighter to the cigarette between his lips, “is this about yesterday? I talked to your cousin, big deal. Everyone knows you two are related, and everyone knows you,” he looks pointedly to the embroidered logo on her cheer uniform, “I wasn’t even looking for him -”

“Dude,” Charlotte felt as though she was about to tear her hair out, “you called me Charlie to him, people don’t just call me that!”

“Plenty of people call you that! That leggy redhead you’re always hanging around calls you Charlie -”

“My friends call me that -” Charlotte snaps, “and I know you know that’s Eileen Austen.” And Nikki’s wearing a dreamy look, like he’s thinking unholy thoughts about Eileen as Charlotte speaks, before snapping out of it as the first of her words register like a bucket of ice water to the face.

“I’ve called you Charlie before. To your face.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Charlotte tells him dryly, crossing her arms, “it’s less effort if I don’t correct you. We’re so not friends that I don’t even care about correcting you.” Back when this school year started, Charlotte wouldn’t have dreamed saying half the nasty shit she’s thrown at Nikki Sixx, and at some point she may have to confront the idea that being around him has made her meaner, “but did you tell my cousin that I told you he was obsessed with you? Because I never -”

“I said I was glad he was a fan!” Nikki scowled, sitting back and glowering at her across the table, “all I wanted was to ask Lola if she wanted to sit on the roof with the rest of the smokers, and your fuckin’ yappy, dumbass of a cousin -”

Punching someone in the face hurts a lot more than Charlotte had been anticipating, but it’s worth it to see Nikki toppling backwards off of the picnic bench and onto the cold grass. His cigarette lies some few feet away while he lays groaning, clutching his cheek, and Charlotte’s standing, leaning, thighs pressed against the picnic table for support as she’s staring down at him, breathing heavy through her nose while the adrenaline rushes through her system.

“What the fuck, Charlie?”

“Don’t talk shit about Tommy,” her heart’s thundering in her chest, she can feel the blood rushing in her ears, and when she looks at her hand, she sees the skin of one of her knuckles has split enough to draw blood, “he has done fucking nothing to you apart from support you, and think you’re really fucking cool, for whatever dumbass reason, so don’t you dare talk shit about him.”

“Jesus Christ,” Nikki groaned, eyes closed, trying to catch his breath after being winded so thoroughly, hand still cradling his cheek. That’s how Charlotte leaves him, slinging her bag onto her shoulder, and stalking towards the library to finish the rest of her free period in peace.

When Tommy drives Charlotte, Eileen, and Peach home after school that day, he’s quiet once again, but it somehow feels completely different to the oppressively accusatory air of the day before. The three girls were chattering away, trying to plan a trip to the mall for the upcoming weekend, and only when Peach and Eileen were waving goodbye in the rearview mirror did Tommy speak up.

“Did you punch Nikki Sixx in the face?” There’s a smile in her cousin’s voice, and Charlotte’s not quite sure how to react.

“I had good reason to,” she says, carefully guarded.

“He said you guys were friends, and then he thanked me for being coming to the gig a while back; told me he’d asked you to bring me specifically,” Tommy’s tone was oozing pride, and if Charlotte had been looking at him, and not frowning out the window, she would have seen how he was all but preening.

“He told you all that?” Charlotte’s anger at her memory’s of the morning’s altercation was fading fast.

“He hung out with me and Lola by the carpark for lunch,” Tommy paused, snorting a laugh, “didn’t want his buddies to find out a cheerleader gave him a black eye.”

“I - what? No I didn’t...” Charlotte’s eyes went wide, and finally she looked at her cousin’s beaming face.

“You definitely did; Lola laughed at him for a full ten minutes because of it.”

“Serves him right,” Charlotte said, with a begrudging little smile.

Nikki sits with Tommy and Lola on Friday too, which Tommy is delighted to inform Charlotte on Saturday while he’s driving them both to Vince’s, where his parents have invited them over to meet the exchange student. Nicholas.

He arrived on Wednesday, but Vince’s parents have given him the rest of the week to settle in, and had invited around the few friends Vince has that they deem to be a positive influence, if only so he knew a few faces around school.

Charlotte had been picturing some over-gelled boarding-school boy, used to itchy uniforms and strict rules, and about to get a good deal of culture shock hanging around Vince and the rest of their motley little pack, but when Charlotte brings this speculation up in the car, Tommy’s quick to dismiss it. Vince, from the little Tommy had spoken to him in the past two days, was over the moon, claimed that Nicholas - Vince had called him Razzle - was amazing. If Charlotte felt an quiet sense of foreboding at that sentiment, she felt it was justified.

The first thing either of them hear after being directed down to the basement by Vince’s mother, is Alice Cooper playing almost obnoxiously loud; Charlotte’s not sure why, but it eases something in her chest.

Nicholas’s - Razzle’s? - room, first and foremost, is possibly the coolest bedroom Charlotte’s ever been in. He’s decked it out with movie and band posters, though most of the band’s she’s never heard of. There’s string-lights above a desk, a bed crammed into one corner with a bright duvet, and even a sofa, and a few beanbags all crowded around a low, wooden table that had mostly been taken up with a record player, which is where they found their friends.

The name Razzle suited him, Charlotte considered, as she took in the newcomer’s appearance, all spiked up dark hair and ostentatious clothing, animatedly telling a story while Peach and Vince hung onto his every word. He looked almost wild, like collection of half-thought ideas all vying to become a reality through the texture of his clothes, the height of his hair, the hint of amusement that tailed his words, the passion shining in the blue of his eyes when they flicked to look at her and her cousin, standing on the stairs and watching him.

His words grow quiet as he takes them in, as if waiting for something to happen, for someone to introduce them.

“You must be Charlie and Tommy!” His accent, thick and bright, made her nickname sound so familiar on his lips.

“Charlotte,” Vince corrects, giving a surprisingly respectful nod to Charlotte, who tries to shrug nonchalantly.

“Charlie’s fine. You’re,” and Charlotte hesitates for a moment, ignoring Vince’s eyeroll, “Razzle, right?” Razzle’s smile is blinding at her immediate use of the nickname, and he waves them in.

Peach throws Tommy a cushion from the sofa when he asks, and he settles himself on the floor next to Vince, while Peach and Eileen squeeze over to make room for Charlotte on the sofa clearly only made for two people.

“I was just telling these guys ‘bout my band’s very first gig, ‘nd how I had to sneak out just to get there,” Razzle settled back into his own beanbag, hands out and ready to return to his story, eyes still shining with anticipation at the memory, or possibly just glad to have an audience.

Oh, Charlotte thought, looking at this boy she barely knew, already fighting off a smile in the face of his infectious enthusiasm, maybe Vince was becoming a better judge of character.

“You’re in a band?” Tommy’s eyes light up, and Charlotte gives her cousin a fond smile; Razzle has already won his seal of approval.

we need more good crazy. it'd be nice to watch the news, and think, 'that's fucking insane', but feel a little jealous instead of just alone.

Heather hasn’t been glowering as much at lunch, and the rumour is that it’s because she’s getting laid. Well, it’s less of a rumour to Charlotte, since Heather confirmed as much to the rest of the cheer squad when one of the girls asked her, but she’s being coy and secretive about who she’s with, which is the really weird part; Heather won’t say, and no-one’s coming forward, and lord knows that most guys at their school would jump at the opportunity to claim they’re banging the Vice Captain of the Cheerleading Squad.

But Charlotte knows not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and instead just smiles back when Heather gives her a sunny smile in the cafeteria.

Tommy is less than thrilled with the news when Charlotte brings it up in the car after school. Nikki’s still sitting with him and Lola during lunch, despite his bruising going down considerably over the weekend, and Tommy is equal parts delighted and uncomfortable, for reasons he can’t seem to put into words.

“At least Pam’s single,” he says it with as much of a dreamy sigh as he can manage, though it comes out more forlorn than anything else. Charlotte pets his shoulder, and reminds him that so is over half the squad; he perks up a little at that.

They pull into Mick’s gas station, and Charlotte waves to Mick and Lola, who are sitting on the step by the door sharing a cigarette. Lola waves back.

“Meant to give this to you,” Lola says to Charlotte, still sitting while Mick begrudgingly heads inside. Tommy follows him in, not needing to fill up the tank, but rather just looking to drown his sorrows regarding Heather in a jumbo slurpee. Outside, Charlotte waits with her hands in her pockets, giving Lola an amused smile, watching as the dark haired girl pulls a pin off of the jacket she practically lives in, and hands it over.

It’s a piece of black card stock cut into the shape of a star, barely an inch in diameter, taped to a safety pin. It say Punched Nikki Sixx in silver pen, one of the points of the star already a little bit crumpled.

“You’re a little bit punk, so you get a pin,” Lola tells her, smiling around her cigarette, looking quietly pleased, and perhaps even a little bit proud; whether of herself or of Charlotte, Charlotte can’t tell, but it still makes her flush.

“I thought Nikki didn’t want anyone knowing that a cheerleader gave him a black eye,” Charlotte mused, looking at the little pin, and Lola’s face scrunched up, expression falling.

“So? Who gives a shit?” She shrugs, looking away tone having shifted to almost forcibly neutral in an instant, “wear the pin or don’t, I don’t care.” Lola stands with a groan, without giving Charlotte a chance to respond, and calls to Mick that she’s heading to the diner. Mick waves, Tommy calls out a farewell, and Charlotte frowns, wondering what just happened.

“I hate that,” Nikki says flatly, the moment he spots the pin where Charlotte’s fixed it to the strap of her backpack. There’s no hard feelings between them after last week’s altercation, thankfully, though they don’t talk about it. If Charlotte’s glad that he still showed up, if she’s realised she may, in fact, enjoy his company, she keeps that information to herself.

“Lola made it for me,” Charlotte tells him. Nikki leans in, squinting at the handmade pin.

“Of course she did,” he sighs, leaning back. Surprisingly, there’s quiet between them for a few, long moments; maybe, Charlotte considers, this will be one of those mornings where Nikki uses their time together to catch up on sleep, and Charlotte can actually use her free period for it’s intended, study-related purpose, but then Nikki sighs like he wants her to ask what’s wrong.

So she does.

“I need a new band.”

“I can’t help you.”

“I know,” Nikki nods with resignation, “I was gonna ask this guy I work with, Slash, he plays guitar, but he’s already in one -”

“Wait, you don’t mean Duff’s friend Saul Hudson, do you?” Charlotte frowned, intrigued despite the stab of anger she felt at the mere mention of her ex. Nikki seemed taken aback by her question.

“You know Duff McKagan?”

“I dated him for a year and a half,” Charlotte finds herself suddenly very interested in drawing connecting triangles in the back of her notebook, not looking at Nikki, who’s quietly processing this information.

“He’s in a band now,” and neither of them seem to be quite sure why he offered that information, but they both let is hang between them for a moment.

“Makes sense,” Charlotte nods, tone flat, “with Saul - Slash?”

“Yeah,” is all Nikki has to say.

“Slash is a good kid, I always liked him,” Charlotte offered, and finally she looks up, “Tommy plays drums.”

“Marching band isn’t exactly -” Nikki begins, but Charlotte’s shaking her head.

“No, like, legit drums,” she enthuses, “his parents fixed up their whole garage to make it sound proof for him,” but she doesn’t want Nikki to think she’s pushing her cousin on him too hard, not after last week, so she sits back, and crosses her arms, trying to play it cool, “I mean, you can ask him yourself, see if he’s any good.” She shrugs, but Nikki looks like he’s already considering it.

“How many musicians do you know, Charlie?” He finally asks, giving her a faint, amused smile.

“Probably too many,” Charlotte responds with a longsuffering smile, before her mind turns to the things Tommy himself had told her, “I heard you and Lola are getting along; what’d I tell you?” She teased, and much to her surprise, what she could see of Nikki’s face, for his hair, was turning pink.

“She’s a bitch; you know she’s a bitch, right?” He asks, but he’s grinning, all sharp and dangerously amused.

“I knew you guys would get along,” Charlotte gives a pleased little sigh, as if she’d manufactured their whole friendship herself. Nikki rolls his eyes at her, and the bell goes.

Tommy, as it turns out, thinks they’re sleeping together, at least that’s what he tells Charlotte when they’re on their way to Leo’s after school to meet up with Vince, Razzle, Peach, and Eileen. The news of Nikki and Lola’s potential affair surprises Charlotte at first, but after a moment of consideration, she thinks she should have seen it coming.

Tommy’s reasoning is that they’ve become friends far quicker than he’d realised, and Nikki’s always giving Lola lifts after work, like they’re going in the same direction, even though he’d pretty sure Nikki doesn’t live near Leo’s. It also turns out that that was what had been bothering him about Nikki and Lola being friends; he still tries to insist he doesn’t have a crush on Lola, but he and Charlotte both know that’s mostly a lie.

So Charlotte can see how conflicted he is when he tells her that Nikki’s looking to start a new band, and that he asked about Tommy possibly playing drums. A beat of silence follows, and then, without looking away from the road, Tommy mutters a quiet thanks, knowing without asking that Charlotte had been the one to recommend him. Charlotte leans over and bumps her forehead against his shoulder in unspoken acknowledgment.

“Duff’s in a band,” Charlotte’s voice is soft and a little unreadable.

“Sorry,” Tommy mutters, tone somber like it’s the worst news in the world, “we could throw rotten tomatoes at him?” He suggested, at the mental picture alone was enough to make Charlotte laugh, “or is that just in the movies?”

“I think that’s just in the movies,” Charlotte says, amid giggles, “besides, the rest of his band doesn’t deserve that.”

In the week that Razzle’s been in LA, Vince and his family have taken him to several, sophisticated restaurants in the vicinity, and Razzle had apparently loved them all; Leo’s was no different. He was sitting across from Charlotte in the booth, at the end of the table, reading the menu intently as the others chattered away about their day, making noises of intrigue every time he spotted something new he wanted to try. His knee knocked hers under the table, but it barely seemed to register, so engrossed in the menu that he muttered the faintest apology.

“Afternoon, guys, welcome,” Lola at work never failed to startle Charlotte, despite the fact that she’d been here once already since the first time. At least her chipper introduction seemed to bring Razzle back to reality.

“Hi, yes - oh! I know you!” Razzle lit up at the sight of Lola, and the rest of the gathered teens watched with interest, trying not to give away how intrigued they were to see Lola’s reaction, “Miss Honky Cat, you work here?”

What?

“Alright, Razzle, you found me, did you wanna order something?” Lola says, with a good-natured eyeroll, and an easy grin, hip cocked to one side. Razzle asks her what she recommends, and orders that, and then the rest of them, who had been sitting in stunned silence, are quick to order for themselves.

When she leaves, it’s mere moments before Tommy asks what that was all about, and Razzle’s eyes go wide.

“That’s Lola, innit? From school? She’s in my music class, was playing Honky Cat on the piano in the second music room, the Elton song, you know, when we had some free this morning,” he explained, confused, “she called me Rocketman when I picked what she’d been playing, but I told her my name’s Razzle.”

“You’re an enigma,” ironically, it’s Eileen who says this, wearing a fond little smile, while Razzle just looked bemused.

“I think it’s the accent, chicks fuckin’ love it,” Vince pipes up, smirking, and Razzle tries to hide his own pleased little grin since he can’t very well deny it, “Pam was all over him in Phys Ed yesterday -”

“We were just having a conversation -” Razzle was quickly turning red, while Vince clutched at his arm, putting on a high voice, twirling his blonde hair around one finger as he pretended to be Pam.

“Oh Nicholas, tell me more about The Clash, please, I want to know more!” He ended with a fake moan, which had Eileen and Peach laughing, while Razzle grabbed Charlotte’s hand and exaggeratedly mouthed ‘help me’.

“Pam’s into Razzle?” Tommy groaned, breaking the moment, falling dejectedly against Vince, who was already leaning pretty heavily on Razzle, who was then ejected from his seat and onto the floor, while Vince was draped over where he was just sitting, and Tommy was draped over Vince, “I’m gonna die alone.”

Despite Tommy’s despair, the rest of the table was greatly amused.

Thankfully for Razzle, it wasn’t a far fall, and he’d held tight to Charlotte’s hand, so at least he hadn’t ended up flat on his back, and Charlotte gave him an apologetic grin as she helped him to his feet. He lets go to dust himself off, and it’s here Charlotte notices his maroon, velvet pants, and black and white leather shoes with their little heel.

“Fancy threads,” Charlotte points out, notes of approval in her voice. Razzle makes a move to straightening a jacket he’s not wearing, and clicks his heels together, drawing the attention of the rest of the table to his shoes, of which they all make various noises of approval, or at least interest.

“I dress to impress,” and judging by his tone, if he were as crass as Vince or Nikki, he would have winked, but Charlotte’s kind of glad he refrained. He then shoves Vince, and by extension Tommy, back up to a sitting position, retaking his seat across from Charlotte, this time purposefully knocking his knee against hers.

Charlotte’s glad that Lola’s back with their drinks, so she can look at something that’s not Razzle’s sunny smile, because she doesn’t want to think about how pretty it makes him look. Stupid, British, band boy and his stupid, blue eyes.

But then she’s looking at Lola, and all she can remember is Tommy’s dejected expression when he told her that Lola and Nikki were possibly sleeping together, and Nikki’s half-hidden, bashful grin when he calls a bitch with a kind of fondness that Charlotte had never heard from him before. The urge to protect her cousin, from harm, from heartbreak, is carved into her bones, but part of her knows it would him hurt more to let him keep falling for Lola when she’d never really end up catching him. Suddenly staring into the depths of her soda became the safest option.

i have loved since you. but when the new paint gets scratched, there you are underneath.

Heather, of all people, is holding a party, and she tries to limit the amount of people she tells - the squad and her friends were the first to be invited - but of course, the guest list spirals out of control, and it’s exactly one and a half days before Tommy’s mooning over the fact that he’s been invited to a party at an actual cheerleader’s house.

“Dude, you’re killing me here,” Charlotte tells him at lunch; she’s finally sitting with him, Lola, and Nikki, though Nikki’s late. Heather had coyly asked her to ask Vince to bring Razzle - the cute English guy, specifically - and Charlotte had picked up her bag and left. Something about Heather in a good mood was worse than when she was being catty.

“You don’t count, you’re my cousin,” Tommy waived her off, and Lola snorted a laugh from where she was laying in the grass, using her backpack as a pillow. “You going?” Tommy pokes Lola in the ribs and she smacks his hand away, but makes an affirmative noise, and throws her arm over her eyes to shield them from the sun.

Something about how that makes Tommy smile, almost pleased, has worry sinking heavy in Charlotte’s gut.

“Heather asked me to ask Vince to invite Razzle,” Charlotte’s not quite sure why she says it, or why it makes Lola bark a laugh of her own, but at least it get’s Tommy’s mind off of last time he and Lola were at a party.

“Of course -” Tommy sighs, but then, in the very same breath, he lights up like a lightbulb, “wait! If Heather’s preoccupied with Razzle, and Pam’s going, then I -” he turned sharply to Charlotte, eyes wide, “is Pam seeing anyone?” Charlotte gives him an amused, but longsuffering look, shaking her head.

“You gonna put the moves on her?” Lola’s smirking, and Tommy’s steadily turning red, but refusing to be embarrassed.

“It’s now or never, you know? She’s graduating in a few months, will go to college and date some meathead, college footballer, this is my chance,” he enthused, and Charlotte pet his shoulder in solidarity.

Nikki joins them halfway through lunch, right as Lola and Charlotte find themselves playing angel and devil on Tommy’s shoulders regarding how he should dress for the party. Charlotte’s firmly of the opinion that he should be be wearing bright, eye-catching things - “Come on, you know Pam likes those new-wave guys!” - while Lola was adamantly recommending to go all-out punk.

“Don’t ask Nikki’s opinion, you know who he’s going to side with,” Charlotte implored, and as if to prove a point, Nikki throws his bag to the side, and lays down with his head pillowed on Lola’s stomach.

“Because Nikki has taste,” Lola throws her arm above her head, into the grass, neck at an awkward angle as she looks, wide-eyed to Tommy.

“Thank you,” Nikki grumbles, and immediately closes his eyes, “what are we arguing about?” A pause, then, “and why is Charlie here?”

“Heather asked Charlie to bring Razz to the party next weekend,” Tommy says, the words sounding rote off his tongue, before he gets into the meat of the argument, laying himself back in the grass. Somehow it makes Charlotte feel left out, being the only one left marginally upright, and she slouches a little lower against the fence.

Tommy explains his conundrum, and much to everyone’s surprise, Nikki refrains from giving his opinion, sighting that he has no clue what Pam would like, and that he’s not taking the fall if Tommy looks like a dickhead and crashes and burns while talking to, arguably, the most popular girl in school.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, asshole,” Tommy groans, without really thinking, and as the realization and subsequent horror took over his expression, Lola barked a laugh, and even Nikki was grinning.

The moment was surprisingly light, Tommy’s face buried in his hands, though he’s now hiding a smile, and Charlotte is surprised at how easy it is to smile and laugh here, these people accepting her presence without another thought. The politics of the cafeteria make it all feel so foreign, but Tommy said ‘Charlie’s sitting here now’ and Nikki and Lola took it in stride.

And later, Eileen will ask her where she was at lunch, will go on to sigh and roll her eyes as she recounts barely sitting through five minutes of the cheerleaders buzzing like cheerful, little hornets, discussing who would be at the party, and how they would coordinate their outfits. She’d spent another five minutes with the swim team, who spent the entire time picking apart her backstroke technique since she ‘finally decided to join them’.

“This is why I don’t sit with them,” Eileen had frowned, sitting in the McDonalds carpark, absentmindedly violating her soda with it’s straw out of frustration, Charlotte, wide-eyed, quietly eats her terrible, oily fries, and lets Eileen vent, “if I have to listen to one more five-am-gym-going-wannabe-sports-scholarship tell me my form is off, I’m going to go full Carrie-At-The-Prom at our next meet,” Eileen warned, and reached over to snatch a fry. Very few people were ever privy to Eileen’s frustration, as the redhead seemed to do a rather good job of bottling it up, but Charlotte personally felt honored that her friend could be so honest around her.

“I was thinking of joining yearbook, maybe? Or the school paper with...” a strange moment of hesitation, “with Peach,” Eileen paused, taking a long moment to think, and take a sip of her drink, eyes glass as she stared out at the highway as cars passed before them, “auditions for the school play are on Friday,” she adds, like she’s seriously considering it, “it’s Singin’ In The Rain, Keanu actually suggested I should audition.” The idea that Keanu and Eileen have talked enough for him to suggest that she audition for a musical and for her to serious consider it is kind of baffling; Charlotte doesn’t process the meaning behind any of this now, however, just files it away in the back of her mind for later.

“Macy moved to Portland over the Summer,” Charlotte feigns seriousness with her suggestion instead, trying not to give away how amused she is, already anticipating Eileen’s response, “we’re holding cheer tryouts to replace her on Tuesday,” Eileen’s expression is already souring, almost comedically disgusted at Charlotte’s implied suggestion, though she lets the blonde finish, “you were the best bottom-right to the pyramid we’ve ever had,” she said, barely stifling giggles as Eileen turns to her.

“I’d rather die,” her lip curled, and Charlotte leaned over the center console of the minivan to press her forehead against Eileen’s shoulder, and Eileen reaches up with her free hand to scratch gently at Charlotte’s scalp, before bursting out with, “and my form’s not even bad! The coach loves me, Charlie, she loves me, they just think they’re better than me, bunch of clique-y, insular, webbed-toe bitches.”

The words hang in the air, a surprising outburst from the usually reserved and thoughtful girl.

“Do they really have webbed toes?” Charlotte asks, turning so her temple still pressed against the soft cashmere of Eileen’s sweater, but she was following the ginger’s gaze out to the highway ahead. Eileen gives a tired, little laugh, as if her outburst had left her exhausted.

“No.”

Charlotte wants more than anything to ask her what’s wrong, but knows better than anyone that Eileen only says exactly what she wants someone else to know. Instead, she offers her fries silently. Eileen takes one.

“Peach and I got into a fight today,” voice barely above a whisper, Eileen follows her words with a sigh, and suddenly her out of character frustration made complete, and utter sense. For all that she’s known both Peach and Eileen, Charlotte has never known their altercations to be quick or painless affairs, “Vince invited her to Heather’s party.”

“He invited her himself?” Charlotte’s not sure what the issue is beyond their general dislike of Vince, but if Vince himself is starting to possibly change, then it’s hard to see the issue.

“Yeah,” Eileen seems to know what Charlotte’s thinking, and pauses to find the right words, “I don’t trust him, and I don’t know how she can trust him either.” There’s a quality to her voice that Charlotte’s only heard rarely; uncertainty, “and I don’t want her going to Heather’s party, I barely want to go myself, and what if she drinks, and what if she does terrible things she regrets -?” Eileen cuts herself off, squeezing her eyes shut and leaning her head back against the headrest.

“I get it,” Charlotte says, so gentle, so understanding, but Eileen’s still quiet.

“She’s my little sister, Charlie,” Eileen sighed, “and it’s like our parents couldn’t care less, so I have to protect her, and I have to keep her from the guy she thinks is the love of her life, and I have to be the one to always remind her of all the shitty things he’s done and remind her that life isn’t a goddamn fairytale.” She sounds close to tears, soda cup between her knees and hands clutching, white knuckled, at the steering wheel, or else she may have been tearing her hair out.

There was a shake in her voice, tight and exhausted in equal measure, like the words had sat, unspoken, pressed against her teeth, for far longer than Charlotte had realized she’d been thinking them. Charlotte rests her hand on Eileen’s.

“She loves you more than anyone else in the world, you know that right? She’s just sixteen, you know all the drama and shit we went through last year -”

“I can’t watch her go through what you went through with Duff,” the words escaped Eileen in a rush, and she clamps her mouth shut, sitting forward in the driver’s seat, lips pressed into a thin line, as Charlotte’s heart sank in her chest, “I’m sorry.”

“No, I know what you mean,” Charlotte sat back in her own seat, nodding dejectedly, fiddling with her bracelet.

“You... Charlie, you know you’re my best friend, and I love you, and seeing you in pain with no way to help,” Eileen’s hands slid down the sides of the steering wheel as she forced herself to relax, though her words have Charlotte’s heart swelling with fondness, “it fucking killed me,” she admitted, leaning back, letting her shoulders sags with the weight of her words, like the weight of the world, and as she leaned back, she looked to Charlotte, so unguarded, so sincere, “I can’t let Vince break Peach’s heart like that.”

Eileen has always looked and seemed older than her seventeen years, but it’s strange to see her like this, to be reminded that she holds within her this unassuming duality. To protect is her first instinct, herself, her feelings, her friends, her family, but she’s still so young, just a kid; she still deserves to be protected too.

“I’m so tired,” Eileen murmurs, gaze dropping to her hands, now folded in her lap, and she huffs a humorless laugh, “I’m seventeen, Charlie, I’m fucking tired of feeling thirty.”

#nikki sixx #tommy lee #vince neil #nikki sixx imagine #tommy lee imagine #vince neil imagine #motley crue #the dirt #the dirt imagine #motley crue imagine #the angry lizard writes #charlotte & lola #lola&charlotte

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falseroar · 4 years

Text

Dog Days Part 2: A Warning for Later

((Abe returns to the city to regroup after his latest lead hits a dead end, and runs into a stranger with a voice that’s hard to resist who has a warning for the hunter.

Warning for a very brief mention of blood. I guess I should also mention that there will be the occasional OC in the story. None of them play an especially big role or will be in more than a part or two, but just a head’s up in case that bothers anyone.

Part of a Monster Hunter/Werewolf!AU of WKM called Traces of Silver. Here’s a link to Part 1 if you missed it.))

There were few people out this early in the morning, leaving the city quiet and oddly still. The chill in the air may have had something to do with it, but if the hunter striding down the sidewalk had been in the mood to notice he might have enjoyed the first hints of fall. Instead, he pulled his oversize coat a little closer, the eyes below his furrowed brow too lost in his own thoughts to pay much attention to anything else. Good thing he had old habits to rely on, because he definitely wasn’t thinking about where he was going.

He certainly wasn’t paying enough attention to notice the figure seated on the bench outside of the coffee shop or care about the low murmur coming from said person, and he was close to walking right by the place entirely when his foot caught on something and he went sprawling.

“Whoa!” An outstretched arm broke his fall, the voice suddenly in his ear and not a murmur anymore. “The Host is so sorry about that, normally he is much more careful with his staff.”

“I’m sure you say that to everyone,” Abe said without thinking, too caught off guard by how that last sentence managed to sound both sarcastic and utterly sincere at the same time.

Abe looked to his left to find that the face of the man who had just both tripped and caught him was next to his own, the bandages wrapped around his head covering his eyes but not quite hiding the faint scent of blood. The hunter tried to move, but the arms supporting him stiffened, holding him in place as the stranger whispered urgently, “There is a shadow following you.”

“What?” Abe felt a chill run down his spine, cutting through his sleep-deprived thoughts and sobering him up far faster than any amount of coffee ever could. “What the hell are you—”

The stranger interrupted him before he could raise his voice, still speaking in a low whisper. “Forget the Host said anything until you need to remember it and act as though he just asked you to pick up his staff.”

Abe blinked, the Host’s warning already fading from his mind as quickly as the tension leaving his face and shoulders. Almost as quickly as it came, the fear and suspicion the stranger’s words caused were gone, like they had never even happened.

“Wh…Oh, yeah of course,” the hunter said, looking down to spot the staff in question, which was so rough and uneven that it seemed more like a piece of driftwood than a cane when Abe bent down and picked it up.

“No harm done,” he added as he handed the staff back to the other man.

The blind man eased back into his seat on the bench, the staff resting against his shoulder, and Abe swore he could feel the man looking him up and down despite knowing he could do no such thing before he said, “That is a relief. Perhaps the Host and the hunter should both be more careful of their surroundings.”

Abe frowned, but supposed he deserved that. “Right.”

Shrugging it off, he walked into the door he had been aiming for and stepped into a coffee shop full of that familiar warm scent that was as close to comforting as he could get these days.

“Look who’s back,” the woman behind the counter said with a smile that quickly turned to concern. “Abe, you look terrible.”

“Some things never change,” Abe said as he walked up to the counter. “I just got back into the city, haven’t had time to clean up.”

“And this is the first place you go?” the barista asked.

“Well, the liquor shop doesn’t open until noon, so…”

She sighed with a slight shake of her head. “You’ve got to take better care of yourself, hunter. You’d be our best customer, if you didn’t have a habit of disappearing for months at a time. Still want your usual?”

“It was only three months this time, and yeah, of course.” Abe paused and added with a sigh, “And something for that guy on the bench out there, too.”

The barista leaned on the counter to get a better look at the man huddled on the bench with his tan jacket that didn’t seem to fit him quite right and the driftwood staff. “Oh, the Host? He didn’t tell you what he wanted?”

“What?”

She shrugged. “Most days when he’s out there, someone will come in and order him something to eat or drink. Everyone else just drops him some money for his songs.”

“He didn’t sing me a song,” Abe said with a roll of his eyes. “Just get him whatever he normally drinks around this time.”

She shrugged again and dropped a cup of black coffee in front of Abe before starting a cup of tea.

“He comes here often?” Abe asked, glancing again toward the window. The man was sitting forward, shoulders hunched, looking as uncomfortable as he possibly could. “How come I’ve never seen him?”

“The Host just started showing up a month or two ago,” the barista answered. “Came in on one of those ships in the harbor, as far as we’ve gathered.”

“The Host?” Abe asked, taking a sip of his coffee and giving a satisfied wince when it burned his tongue.

“That’s what he calls himself,” the barista answered as she leaned up against the counter.

“Yeah, I noticed. That whole talking in the third person thing, isn’t that a bit of a red flag?”

“I don’t know,” she said, biting her bottom lip before she admitted, “I don’t think English is his first language. He doesn’t have an accent, but the way he talks sometimes, it doesn’t sound normal. But when he sings…”

She sighed heavily before catching Abe’s raised eyebrow and quickly turning back to the cup of tea she was supposed to be making. Now that he thought about it, there had been something strange about the man’s voice, and not in a swooning for Frank Sinatra kind of way, but for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on just what had been off about it.

“That’s about all I can tell you about him, though. Some of us in the shop have tried to talk to him, figure out what his deal is, but he always seems more interested in hearing other people’s stories than sharing his own. Bet you could give him a few.”

“Pass,” Abe muttered, looking away to avoid the barista’s eyes. He had more than a few stories, and none of them worth the pain of revisiting these days. “What do I owe you?”

“Three dollars, for the coffee and tea,” she answered as she swirled a tablespoon of honey into the tea and placed the cup in front of him. She pulled a muffin out of the display case and dropped it in a bag before shoving it toward him. “And this is on the house.”

“I can’t—”

“You look like you haven’t eaten in days. Take the muffin,” she said, with a tone that suggested she would shove it in Abe’s jacket pocket for him if he didn’t do it himself. Again.

Abe sighed and took the bag, along with the two cups, only to pause at her next question.

“How long are you planning on staying in the city, hunter?”

“Last lead hit a dead end, so long enough to see where to go from there,” he said.

And long enough to maybe earn enough money to fund his next wild goose chase, a bitter thought added. Speaking of…

“Feel free to point people my way, if they need…”

“A warm and welcoming shoulder to cry on?” Despite the sarcasm and a long-suffering sigh, she added, “I might know a couple of people.”

He smiled and winked as he backed out of the coffee shop with both cups in hand, just in time to hear the Host murmuring to himself before bracing his hands against the bench as though about to stand.

“Hey,” Abe said, and the blind man froze. “Same guy from before, the barista inside…asked me to give you this. Some kind of tea, I think.”

The Host hesitated before reaching out to take the warm cup, unable to stop a brief smile at the scent of steam rising from it. “…The Host appreciates it.”

��Sure he does,” Abe said. He waited a second and, unable to resist, asked, “And now would the Host be willing to explain how he knew I was a hunter?”

The Host paused, just a slight hesitation, before he answered, “In the Host’s experience, only hunters tend to have that particular aroma of herbs, garlic, and gunpowder. Although most of the Institute’s hunters don’t usually smell like…”

Abe surreptitiously took a whiff of his coat and sighed. “Like old cigarettes and alcohol?”

The Host’s silence was already more of an answer than he wanted.

“Yeah, well, I don’t work for them, so that’s two points for you,” Abe said. Not that there hadn’t been offers, but he had his own priorities that didn’t exactly mesh with answering to someone else. Still, he felt like he had about as much fun from this conversation as he could handle with only a few sips of coffee in the tank and started to turn away. “Enjoy the tea.”

“Wait.”

Abe’s legs locked before he even thought about it. There it was again, something off in his voice, the single word both a command and a plea at the same time that clashed and blended together, almost like more than one person had spoken.

But there was only the Host, his head still tilted down toward the cup of tea held too tight between his hands.

“Take care, hunter,” the Host said slowly, as though choosing his words carefully. “Someone is expecting much of you.”

“…Right,” Abe said, rolling his eyes. “Thanks for the words of wisdom there, buddy.”

A few minutes after he left, the Host heard the bell over the coffee shop door before the barista let him know she was there.

“How’s the tea?” she asked.

“As wonderful as ever,” he said, his words almost as honeyed as the tea. “Thank you, Carla.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. He heard the slight creak of wood and felt the shift of the bench as she sat down next to him. “What did you think of Abe?”

“Is that his name?” the Host asked softly. She caught the frown he gave his cup, the way his forehead wrinkled above those ever-constant bandages before he shook himself. “The Host thinks he will not be seeing him again for some time, if he can help it.”

“Hm? Oh, he’s like that with everyone, hon.” Carla patted the Host’s free hand and said, “He’s been through a lot, I think. Don’t take anything he said personally.”

The Host started to correct her before thinking better of it. She wasn’t entirely wrong after all. After she returned to her work, he sat alone on the bench, considering his drink and his brief encounter with the hunter and his tangled, knotted mess of a story connected to so very, very many endings. A story that was swiftly moving toward an end of its own, if things continued on as they were.

The Host took another sip of his tea and savored the taste before saying aloud, in case anyone was listening, “The Host has no interest in the games of others. He has no intention of interfering.”

The lingering sense of being watched passed eventually, long after the remains of the Host’s tea had grown cold and lost its flavor, leaving the Host free to breathe a quiet sigh of relief. Maybe that meant at least one of them believed his words.

((End of Part 2. Thanks for reading! And for the record, this is the same version of the Host as seen in To Know How the Story Ends. After spending enough time with Captain Magnum and his crew, he’s had some time to adjust to his new life and reduced abilities. At least enough to make life in the city work in his favor and to satisfy the occasional...interest.

Link to Part 3: Slow Recovery.

Tagging: @silver-owl413 @skyewardlight @withjust-a-bite @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @weirdfoxalley @95fangirl @lilalovesinternet-l @thepoolofthedead @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @geekymushroom @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-anxiety-blog @shyinspiredartist @avispate @missksketch ))

#markiplier #fanfiction #wkm au #monster hunter au #werewolf au #abe the detective #the host #he certainly doesn't believe his own words #spoilers but #this whole story is mark and dark trying to make things worse #and everyone else saying 'how about no'

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hugging-jjba-characters · 4 years

Text

Tonio

You felt cold. The rain pouring down from the night sky drenched your clothes. You couldn’t tell if you were crying or not.

You trudged down the sidewalk, shivering and holding your arms, but you refused to turn around. “I’m never going back,” you mumbled. “If mother and father don’t like me for who I am, then they can go fuck themselves.”

That’s what you said, but you were heartbroken. After coming out to your parents, they told you to fix yourself or get out, so you stormed out. That was hours ago.

You weren’t even sure where you were.

You glanced up from the sidewalk to see a building. It was only a few meters away. It looked like a restaurant.

Your stomach growled.

You fished around in your pockets, but found nothing but lint.

Nonetheless, you headed towards the place, planning to trade food for any help they could need around the kitchen or something. You weren’t exactly sure. You’d figure it out later.

You opened the door to the restaurant, and a tall man with a soothing expression walked out from the kitchen. He donned a chef’s hand and a chef’s outfit. His neat blonde hair was crew cut.

“Hello, I was about to close for the night…” Tonio stopped when he saw your sorry state closer. “Are you alright?”

You gave a nod. “I’m fine, just hungry… but I don’t have any money so I was wondering if I could eat in exchange for work or something…”

He gestured that idea away. “Nonsense. Please, sit down and take your soaked jacket off. I’ll grab you a towel.”

You peeled the material off you, hanging it on the coat rack near the door. Water dripped onto the floor. You cringed.

Inching to the nearest table, you took a cautious seat.

Tonio returned from the kitchen holding a towel. He wrapped it around your shoulders before standing across the table. “I’ll bring you out your first course momentarily, alright?”

You were too groggy to register that you hadn’t even ordered anything, and so nodded.

Within minutes, he had returned carrying a plate of one of your favorite appetizers and your favorite drink. “Enjoy!”

You waited patiently for him to set the plate and cup down before digging in avidly. Each bite was heaven, and it was like your tiredness was melting away.

You finished the appetizer quickly, and he soon brought the main course. Your mouth watered. “This is amazing,” you praised, stuffing your face once more. “I feel happier just eating it!”

He gave you a soft smile. “It’s my goal in life to make my customers happy, so I am glad you enjoy it.”

Upon consuming the main course, Tonio revealed the dessert. You felt so full, but couldn’t help but eat it all.

After swallowing the last bite, you let out a sigh. “That was the best food I’ve ever tasted,” you said. “Thank you so much!”

However, as soon as those words left your mouth, your happiness wore off. “But, I have no money. I told you… I can’t afford any of this. Please, tell me a job and I’ll do it to repay you!”

“No, this is all on the house,” he replied, keeping his amicable expression. “I can tell you’ve been through a lot tonight. Please, stay as long as you’d like as well.”

You stood up from your seat, walking towards him. Shakily, you put your arms out. “Can-- can I hug you? I know it’s not much, but at least accept a hug from a soaking wet broke patron as payment.”

He embraced you kindly, his arms wrapping around you with no care for the dampness of your clothing.

He was so warm and smelled like fresh herbs and you couldn’t handle it. You began to cry. You weren’t used to getting hugs that felt more than one sided. Fake. Meaningless. Empty. However, this man cared about your well-being. This above average chef in this above average restaurant cared about you. That was something you hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever.

Tonio rubbed your back, telling you everything would be okay as you blabbered about your shitty experiences to him.

“...and then I stormed out and then I didn’t know where to go so I walked and I walked and then I saw this place and heard my stomach growling and I-I thought maybe I could get some food even though I have no money and… and… and then I met you and you’re so nice and your food is so good and-” a fit of sobs choked you up, leaving your sentence unfinished.

“Listen, I will do everything I can to help you get back on your feet, okay? You don’t deserve to be treated how your parents treated you. There’s nothing wrong with you. They’re the ones that need to change, okay? Not you.”

You nodded shakily. “Thank you, uhh…”

“You can call me Tonio,” he said.

“Thank you, Tonio. For everything.”

His amicable smile widened. “Of course. What kind of chef would I be if I left one of my customers unhappy? Not a very good one, I think.”

That made you crack a smile. “I guess you’re right. Good thing you’re the best.”

Tonio waved off your compliment. “Oh, I know. Now let’s get you by the oven to dry off more and get you some hot cocoa, okay?”

Your eyes brightened. “Sounds good to me.”

#hot cocoa for the feels #a very good trope #angst #sad stuff #slight warning for shitty parents #but thats like the first three paragraphs #im just now realizing that this is very niche content #comfort #by aubree #tonio #tonio x reader #tonio trussardi #tonio jojo #platonic #uwu #queued

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itsicantbelievethis666 · 5 years

Text

A Cunning Woman and a Demon -Chapter 2

1970 words. There is little to no NSFW stuff in this chapter but, as I’ve said, that’s likely to come later. For those who may have missed the first chapter, here’s the link.

A special thank you to the following:

@new-zealand-chic @deepdisireslonging @trent7thirsting @xprincessofthefallenangels @demonkingsangel @writtingrose @sjwrites22 @writinglionqueen @superrezzy00 @kallirevenne @neversatisfiedgirlfics @neversatisfiedgirl @sjwrites22 @theworldofotps @tacoshuimagines @writing-reigns @baratomaya @devittsslut @the-carter-mob-don @evilangel84

For the first night in a very, very long time, I sleep well enough to dream. No shocks of pain or terror jolt me awake; the old horrors of the darkness, of seeing Bray Wyatt’s face in front of me, are largely absent. The warmth from my young companion, the bed of straw and the added cover of our robes give me rest.

I dream of home – at least, the home I had made myself of the tiny little cabin I had found in the woods. I can see the simple shape, the Spartan furnishings that keep me sheltered and warm, the garden that feeds me and keeps me healthy, the little details that make it mine. In my mind’s eye, I can see the beds of medicinal flowers and herbs, the dark and dense trees that surround it, the brook running about a dozen yards beside it. I can see the quilt over my bed, the notebooks of my learning on the table, the simple little tools of the craft in their drawer, the crucifix on the wall to remind me that I’m not alone. And I wonder – what it must be like now, whether it would be fit for me to live in, whether my fireflies have survived my absence.

My Fireflies – Oh, God! I remember inviting them in during a storm, then immediately recognizing in them something of myself. Whether they are the conjurations of my mind’s eye or the actual spirits of those I never knew but would have loved, they were welcome denizens of my little world. Ever since, they were always nearby – until I was taken and brought here. That I could dream of them now, and of home, is the unwitting gift of my captors, along with this new cellmate of mine.

Finn’s warmth next to me is the first comfort I’ve had in this place. Looking upon him, as my eyes open to the dim but growing light outside the barred window, brings me the first inklings of joy. He has leaned in against me, his hooded face seeming almost childlike, despite the beard. His arm is casually draped over me. It’s been some time since I’ve shared a bed, and never with one like this. Something underneath the last remnants of Wyatt’s sorcery is stirring, but such things are beyond me for the foreseeable future.

His soul is bright with virtues – brighter than mine ever was, and infinitely brighter than Wyatt’s. Throughout, there is an earnestness in him, an eagerness to connect and to build. I sense a spot of darkness in him as well – packaged tightly away, throbbing as though fighting to get out. I see the occasional furrow of his brow as he sleeps, as though in struggle. Is it the brightness that took the craft into him, or the pocket of darkness? Is that the demon I saw?

I owe Finn a debt – a huge one. He’s saved me from the corrupted spell of imprisoning Wyatt had cast; he’s freed me from the pain of the unnatural bends and twists of my limbs inside it; he’s healed me, largely, the last remnants notwithstanding. He’s taken to the craft already. He learned to restore before I had to repeat the incantation a third time. He has the gift of reception, at least; transferral won’t take long to cultivate. I will gladly teach him what I know, if he is willing. That, and what hospitality I can offer him when we leave here, might touch a shadow of returning what I owe him.

I hear footsteps above us. I know the routine by heart, even though until last night I was utterly blind and helpless and unknowing of my surroundings. Harper and Rowan are preparing thin gruel; it is what comes for me, at least. They will be here shortly to torment me with my portion, then to watch me choose survival over dignity and laugh. If Wyatt is not here to oversee them, they may try to make Finn and me “fight” for it. But they will know something is up if they see us both on the straw.

Quietly, I crawl over Finn as he sleeps. He stirs, then tightens into a ball on the straw, pulling the hood over his head. I make soft footfalls to the middle of the cell, then enclose myself into the robe and lie down on the floor, trying hard to keep small and look broken. I then remember that Finn and I had swapped robes and that the one I now wear is somewhat smaller, and a darker colour.

Finn. A plan has taken shape in my mind. Join me. Quietly.

The robed figure on the straw quickly pops up onto hands and knees and crawls over towards me. He has heard the sounds upstairs. “Dey’re comin’,” he says. “What shall we do?”

They’ll be forced to step further into the cell than they may like. But curiosity will get the better of them. Pretend you’re me before you healed me.

He tucks his arms and legs into the depths of the robe as he lies next to me. “I don’t know if I can be much help against one o’ dem, let ‘lone de two.”

You’ll be fine, I answered. You’ve done more for me already than I can list. Now, perhaps, I can pay some small recompense for your kindness.

The footfalls above move from wood to stone, growing louder. The shouting begins from the top of the stairs. “Hey, little rabbit! Wakey-wakey! Time for grub!”

The door smashes against the wall as it opens, echoing through the cell and seemingly the entire building. Two sets of footsteps announce that both Harper and Rowan have arrived. Two mounds of sackcloth in the middle of the cell floor, however, greet their arrival in silence. I can tell they’re confused. I’m able to peek out from under the hood unnoticed.

“Hey, was Brother Bray here last night and done the same to the rabbit as to Abigail?” Rowan lays two bowls near the head of the straw. He isn’t exactly stupid, just too eager to give to Wyatt what didn’t belong to him.

“He’s too far away from here yet to put that kind of mojo on the little rabbit,” Harper replied, stepping closer to us. “We had to knock her out for him to put it on her while he was in the room with her.”

The memory came flooding back: he knew his magic wasn’t strong enough to deal anywhere near equally to me, so a blow from one of these two to the back of my neck was the first step in what they did to me. The robe next to me is quivering. Finn, my friend. Calm…. I know what to do with these two.

“Then he’s hiding under one of these,” says Rowan, who joins Harper, then gives a firm boot to Finn.

As Finn sucks in his breath from the kick, I mumble a new incantation; one I’ll not have time to teach Finn until we’ve left this place. Immediately, Rowan is thrown against the wall, landing with a thud on the straw. Harper follows him. I promptly then stand up and remove the hood.

“Vinctum,” is the only word the two lunks hear from me. Their arms and legs slap together as if two limbs are in one sleeve, and their backs are adhered to the wall. To my companion I add, The spell will hold them only until we leave the jail; after that we’ll have to run. Follow me.

Together we leave the cell, slamming the door shut behind us. Ignoring their shouts, I lead Finn along the short hallway to the wooden stairs, scanning the periphery of our route.

Bursting through the door at the top of the stairs, we find the main room of the jail strewn with furniture. We quickly rummage through every drawer and every pile on every table, grabbing what we can use, until we come to the heavy wooden wardrobe behind one desk. Leaning against it is a hefty woodaxe.

My companion has been silent this whole time, but clearly frustrated. I could see in his eyes what the cell below would have looked like had he had his way. I hand him the axe. “Would you like to do the honours?”

“I’d be glad to,” he replied. He lifts it to look closely at the head, then grips the handle with both hands and swings it against one of the wardrobe’s doors. It splinters; the dry wood gives way easily under the axe head and loosens the latches keeping the cabinet locked. The latches fall with a tinkle to the floor and the doors swing partway open from the force of the blow. He pulls back and smashes the doors again and again, with each blow a yell of rage, until a pile of splinters has grown at our feet.

Inside lie a black leather jacket and a hard-sided suitcase. Next to them are my floral dress and my canvas backpack. Our shoes – his boots, my house sandals - sit at the bottom, along with a few odds and ends. Finn quickly snaps open the locks on the case, pulls out and dons a black T-shirt and dark blue twill pants. Meanwhile, I throw off the robe, grab the dress, then take a quick breath before throwing it over myself, smoothing it down and covering it with the robe, then strapping on the sandals. We give a quick last examination of the room, grab the first aid kit and the lunch boxes sitting near the remaining closed door, and swing it open to find a wooded path and an overcast sky.

We run. The path is covered with old leaves damp from dew, but to either side are the dense brush and undergrowth through which we might find our way away from the jailhouse, before the two companions and followers of Bray Wyatt are able to catch our trail. My companion is taller than I am; and my sandals are not quite adequate to the task, so my pace is slower. Nonetheless, I know these woods, and can conceive a myriad ways to move quickly from here to safety.

I duck into the brush and down a small incline just as I hear them stamping out of the building, farther and farther behind us as we dip and weave through the bushes and stumps, deeper and deeper and deeper, until we spot the brook and follow it upstream to a small waterfall. We are home, or near it; I climb the rocks to the crest and stop dead at a burned-out clearing, the trees ringing round it skeletal, the ground ashen. The air is silent except for the brook. Finn follows, looks around and gives a low whistle.

“He wants you gone,” he says, looking over the long-charred ruins of my little hovel and all that had surrounded it. “Dat’s what dis look like.”

I feel nothing. I knew Wyatt would try to erase me completely. This – this is something else, however. My absence was long enough that all should have grown over with grass, or ferns, or some tendrils of life to reclaim it for its own. Yet, nothing of life has even approached this spot in the years since he imprisoned me. This was a warning: an atrocity.

I step slowly, further along the brook, closer to the wreckage, until I see the final insult Wyatt has added to the injury. A sealed, half-blackened Mason jar sits, deliberately arranged, in what would have been the middle of the floor of my home. All at once, the unmitigated weight of Bray’s torment descends on me and I collapse, catatonic, to the ruined forest floor.

#wwe #finn balór #finn balor #bray wyatt #sister abigail #erick rowan #luke harper #ramblinrabbit

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happywriter-happywriting · 6 years

Text

The Shadow And His Light Chapter Three: "Azriel"

It was uncommon for Elain to wake up after the birds had finished their morning song; she usually was up with the sun. But today Elain was stirred to consciousness by the sun shining in full force through her window. She kept her eyes closed and turned over, hoping to escape the bright rays streaming in through the room.

When had her bed become this deliciously comfortable? She practically sank into the feather-down mattress. She sighed contentedly through her nose and scrunched her eyes tight, trying to recall the dream she had been in the middle of when the sun so rudely barged in.

Playful shadows and glowing blue lights pranced around the edges of her sleep, it was a lovely dream. A dream that made you want to fall back to sleep just to see the end of it.

Elain smiled and winked open an eye.

She bolted upright in her bed, the smile fleeing her face in an instant.

Not a dream. Not a dream.

She glanced around the room, which certainly was not her own. It was a large room, with two floor length windows standing guard at either side of the wall on the opposite side of the room- a large fireplace sat in between them. Whoever had last drawn the deep green curtains did a haphazard job, for two thick branches of sunlight (the very same that had awaken her) peeked through and fell across the bed. There was a desk and a fluffy yellow reading chair and a smart looking wardrobe.

Elain loved it immediately. It was homey, not too prim and proper like her father’s manor. Certainly not as gloomy and dull as one would think a Shadow Prince’s home to be.

Her thoughts turned to those hazel eyes again, those eyes had definitely taken part in her dream. She didn’t remember arriving at the estate the night before. She guessed that her new husband had tucked her into bed- she still wore the dirty peach gown, the corset must have come loose during all their dancing, for she could take a deep enough breath that it did not pinch.

Oh- and the dancing- she remembered the feeling of his hand on her waist; she remembered his scent as he held her close, a deep and weathered smell. She shivered underneath the heavy knitted comforter.

The four poster bed she now sat on was much too small for two people to fit in comfortably, especially if one of them had wings. Elain breathed a sigh of relief that they did not share a bed on the first night-- breathed a sigh of relief that he did not ask that of her. She had the conviction, that if it were any other male, she would have woken in a completely different state.

But he had promised her safety and comfort, and so far he was true to his word.

Elain carefully pushed the mountain of blankets off of her and slipped gingerly out of bed; her two trunks had been placed with care at the foot of it. Elain opened one and quickly changed out of the now ruined wedding dress, and in to something lighter, even foregoing a corset.

She could smell the aftermath of morning rain when she opened the bedroom door, stepping silently down the hall and to the living area. A set of great double doors lining the back wall had been flung open, allowing her a breathtaking view of a dark green forest resting beyond the estate’s grounds. Elain walked past the doors, moving aside the billowing cream curtains and stepped out onto the stone patio. The white cotton clouds seemed impossibly close; she had not realized how high up she was. Her new home was tucked away in a mountainside forest.

It was wild, yes, but there was so much room for her to plant and grow all manner of things. Elain turned in a circle, familiarizing herself with this foreign landscape. She could already picture where she would plant her herbs, locating a perfect spot for a small grove of wildflowers. She smiled happily, this new home would do just nicely.

When she turned back to the open doors, a pair of hazel eyes gleamed down at her. Azriel was leaning against the door frame, watching her. “How are you?”

She looked around once again, “It’s beautiful,” she did not answer his question directly, for in truth she did not exactly know how she was; one moment she was happy, the next nervous again, and the next… well she hadn’t gotten that far yet.

“Yes, it is.” he wasn’t looking at the scenery. It was still very early spring, and the mountain air made the wind somewhat colder, Elain shivered.

“Come inside,” Azriel noticed the gooseflesh raising on her delicate arms, “I’ll make you some tea.

Elain smiled and followed her husband inside. He wore no siphons today, instead allowing his shadows to billow gently around him. Elain decided she could sit for all eternity and watch him and his shadows, she found them sweetly fascinating.

She followed the shadows all the way to the little kitchen and sat down in front of the roaring fireplace.

The two didn’t say much, Elain heard the gentle clinking of the tea set as Azriel prepared it for her. Once it was ready, he brought it over, placing the warm mug in her hands, and sat down in the large wingback chair beside her, holding a mug of his own. They sat in comfortable silence, Elain staring at the leaping fire, and Azriel staring at Elain.

“Did you sleep well?” It was Azriel who finally broke the silent spell cast over the kitchen.

Elain smiled, remembering her hazy dream, “Very well.” She turned to him, “I don’t remember coming in last night,” she mused.

Azriel took a sip of his tea, “You were asleep before we even winnowed in.” He smiled at her.

Elain nodded and blew gently on the honeyed tea,“Have you any plans for today?”

Azriel ruffled his wings, “I’m meeting with the inner circle this afternoon, you are welcome to come- Feyre will be there.”

“I think-” Elain paused not wanting to sound rude, “If it’s alright with you that is, I think I might stay here and get settled.” she finally took a sip of the elderflower tea, it warmed her very soul.

“Of course, it’s up to you, love,” his shadows seemed to hum when he said it.

Love. A simple enough term of endearment, Elain placed the word in the back of her mind and let it sit there. It was a lovely little word she decided; and when used to describe her, well, Elain could get used to him saying it often.

It was quiet again. Elain wished she could find something pleasant to say, but he was still too new and strange, she worried she might say the wrong thing.

It was Azriel who once again broke the silence, “I have something for you.” he fumbled in his jacket pocket. “I know this is not really a traditional marriage, but-” He paused, searching for the right words to say, “-but, I thought perhaps a ring would make it feel a little more normal.” He held out a simple rose-gold band, a dazzling teardrop of opal resting in the center.

He took Elain’s hand and gently slid the ring on her finger. “It’s lovely,” Elain gazed at it in awe, she tilted her head up to him, “We’re really married,” she blew out a breath.

Azriel chuckled, still holding her hand in his, “Yes, we really are.”

“Do you-” she looked away, “-do you think this will work out?” it was barely a whisper.

Azriel brought her hand to his lips in an innocent kiss, “Something tells me that it will.”

“Your shadows?”

Azriel chuckled, “No, call it intuition.”

Elain smiled her sweetest smile up at him as he kissed her knuckles once more.

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

When Azriel left, Elain was already hard at work on what would soon be a lush garden. He smiled at the memory of her big floppy sun hat and gloves. When he touched down at the House of Wind, the inner circle was already gathered casually in the living room.

“Did Elain not want to come?” was Feyre’s way of greeting him.

Cassian clapped him on the back, “Or did you wear her out too much last night, brother?”

Azriel’s cheeks lit up in a blush, he ignored Cassian’s vulgar question, speaking only to Feyre, “She wanted to get settled.”

Feyre hummed her understanding, “I hardly got to see her yesterday, didn’t she look just beautiful?”

Azriel’s blush darkened, he only nodded in agreement. She had been radiant, even down to her dirty hem and wild hair. His shadows truly had not prepared him for just how dazzling she really was. Suddenly he wished for the meeting to be over, so that he could get back to her, if only to sit in her gentle presence. He had left a few of his shadows with her, not to spy, only to make sure nothing bothered her. His home was protected by wards, but Azriel had learned there was no such thing as being too careful.

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

The meeting was odious, mostly focusing on reports of the remaining Hybern rebels. Rhys was in the middle of reading a report of a secret gathering in the Spring Court, when Azriel’s Shadows began screaming.

Never in his life had they ever spoken to him in anything other than a murmur. Azriel shrunk back, immediately pushing his chair from under him and stumbling, literally, stumbling away from the table.

“What is it, boy?” Amren was wincing slightly, as if she could hear it too.

“I don’t-” he began, but then one word rang through the high pitched shrieking: Elain.

Azriel winnowed in an instant. He could hardly get through the shadow realm fast enough. When he emerged on the patio where he had left her just a few hours before, she was nowhere in sight.

“Elain?” he could hear screaming, not just from his shadows. “Elain, where are you?” he was frantic. He ran through the double doors, and began searching the small house in a fevered panic.

He quickly winnowed into the kitchen, nearly falling to his knees when he found her sprawled out on the wood floor.

Tears leaking down her face and her mouth wide open in a perpetual scream of horror. Azriel raced over to her and kneeled at her side, he surveyed her for any sign of injury, “Elain, what is it, love? What’s happened?”

She whimpered, “So much blood,”

“Where, love? Where are you hurt?” He searched down her body, finally noticing a tiny cut on her finger, he released a sigh, “It’s only a small cut,” he looked up at her in relief and confusion.

But she was not looking at him or the cut, her eyes were unfocussed and dazed. “Stop,” she screamed, “It’s too much, so much blood.”

Azriel propped her up against the same brown chair he had sat in just that morning, he cupped her face in his hands, “Elain, can you hear me, love?” She was looking right at him, but he could tell it wasn’t really him she saw. “Elain, come back to me, love.” he shook her shoulders gently.

For a moment the haze disappeared from her eyes and she gazed back at him, as if snapping out of a trance. But just as quickly, her whole body slumped against the chair, she fell limp in his arms.

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

Elain’s entire body ached, it felt stiff and loose all at the same time, and her head- Cauldron her head- she could barely think of anything beyond the pounding in her skull. She groaned, trying desperately to come out of the thick fog that encapsulated her mind.

“Elain, love, come on, open your eyes for me.” Her husband’s deep voice soothed the pounding in her head. She winced as she blinked open her eyes. She was in bed again, Azriel sat on the yellow chair beside her, he held her hand in his.

“That’s it, good,” he spoke softly, “Do you remember what happened?”

Flashes of violence and gore echoed in her memory. She snatched her hand away from him. “I’m fine now.” she didn’t look at him.

Back at home, her father would get so angry when she had one of what he called ‘episodes’; he accused her of just wanting attention. He didn’t realize how little control she had over her mind. A simple image could trigger something in her mind and leave her a mumbling mess for days. Her father had tried everything to make her stop, even so far as forcing medication down her throat- different tonics and herbs.

Thankfully one such herb had helped tremendously, she normally took it every night in her tea. Elain cursed herself for forgetting, she had fallen asleep before she even arrived at her new home last night.

Azriel leaned back in his chair, “has this happened before?” Her silence gave him the answer he needed.

“How often?” it was not with the harsh voice he used for interrogations, his words were soft and filled with concern.

“Not for a long time,” she admitted after a moment, “I take a tonic, it’s in my blue trunk,” she seemed to be pleading with him, “I’ll take it now and this won’t happen again, I swear,” She brought her hands up to her hair, pulling at it in desperation.

“It’s alright, Elain.” He reached up, gently pulling her hands away from her hair, “It’s alright,” a few tears spilled over her cheeks and Azriel wiped them away gently. “What is it you take, love?” He took hold of her hands once again.

Elain was once again startled by his gentleness and sincerity, “It’s- It’s something my father gets for me,” she paused, trying to think of the name, “Faebane,” she recalled.

Azriel’s eyebrows shot up, “And that stops the visions?”

“Visions?” Elain wasn’t sure what he meant.

He nodded, “What did you see, love?”

Elain immediately shrunk in on herself at the memory, “I- I saw a battle and soldiers on a hill,” her eyes held that far-off look again, “And blood- there was so much,” it came out as a sob.

Azriel squeezed her hands, “Shhh, it’s over now. It’s over.” He got up and moved over to her trunk, looking for the tonic. He brought it over to her and mixed some in with a glass of water resting on her bedside table, “Here,” he placed it against her lips.

Elain was bone weary, she could hardly sit up on her own, so she let her husband poor the faebane laced water down her throat; she closed her eyes and swallowed, violent images rested on the backs of her eyelids, she opened them quickly.

Azriel pulled the glass away from her lips, “You should get some rest, love, we’ll talk more about this in the morning.”

Elain hadn’t realized how late it was, through the crack in the curtains she could only see night sky. There was only the firelight illuminating the room and all at once Elain could not bear to be left alone with only the bloody images in her mind.

“Azriel,” his name was barely a whisper. He stopped dead in his tracks underneath her door frame. They both realized it was the first time she had spoken his name. He turned back to her in concern.

“Would you-” she bit down on her lower lip anxiously.

“I can stay if you’d like me too.” His shadows stilled around him. He must have seen her look of distress.

“Would you, please?” She was grateful that he had been the one to suggest it, she never would have on her own.

He didn’t say a word, only walked to the bed and climbed in, he tucked her quivering body into his chest, surrounding her with his wings.

Elain fisted her hands in his shirt, pressing her forehead into his chest and breathed deep.

They fell asleep to the sounds of the crackling fire and one another's soft breaths.

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