#its drenched in thoughts of men whom i miss

[games2girlsdotcom]

Ugh.

How am I supposed to talk to normal people at my adult job when all I can think about is supermegas demise, ryan magee being off the internet and matt watson performing live again, harry styles and louis Tomlinson all over my tumblr and tik tok (my Roman empire), and finally my little hyperfixation of the century, milk. The band who I am not normal about and want to talk about or look at pictures and videos of all the time and listen to their music as often as I can HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO JUST LIVE A NORMAL ADULT LIFE WHEN THIS IS HAPPENING IN MY HEAD CONSTANTLY. I feel like I'm 13 again and one direction is still together and everything is fine and I'm allowed to be weird about it.

[arscriptura]

The Man with the Blue Guitar

Wallace Stevens

I

The man bent over his guitar, A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, "You have a blue guitar, You do not play things as they are."

The man replied, "Things as they are Are changed upon the blue guitar."

And they said then, "But play, you must, A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar Of things exactly as they are."

II

I cannot bring a world quite round, Although I patch it as I can.

I sing a hero's head, large eye And bearded bronze, but not a man,

Although I patch him as I can And reach through him almost to man.

If to serenade almost to man Is to miss, by that, things as they are,

Say it is the serenade Of a man that plays a blue guitar.

III

Ah, but to play man number one, To drive the dagger in his heart,

To lay his brain upon the board And pick the acrid colors out,

To nail his thought across the door, Its wings spread wide to rain and snow,

To strike his living hi and ho, To tick it, tock it, turn it true,

To bang from it a savage blue, Jangling the metal of the strings.

IV

So that's life, then: things as they are? It picks its way on the blue guitar.

A million people on one string? And all their manner in the thing,

And all their manner, right and wrong, And all their manner, weak and strong?

The feelings crazily, craftily call, Like a buzzing of flies in autumn air,

And that's life, then: things as they are, This buzzing of the blue guitar.

V

Do not speak to us of the greatness of poetry, Of the torches wisping in the underground,

Of the structure of vaults upon a point of light. There are no shadows in our sun,

Day is desire and night is sleep. There are no shadows anywhere.

The earth, for us, is flat and bare. There are no shadows. Poetry

Exceeding music must take the place Of empty heaven and its hymns,

Ourselves in poetry must take their place, Even in the chattering of your guitar.

VI

A tune beyond us as we are, Yet nothing changed by the blue guitar;

Ourselves in the tune as if in space, Yet nothing changed, except the place

Of things as they are and only the place As you play them, on the blue guitar,

Placed, so, beyond the compass of change, Perceived in a final atmosphere;

For a moment final, in the way The thinking of art seems final when

The thinking of god is smoky dew. The tune is space. The blue guitar

Becomes the place of things as they are, A composing of senses of the guitar.

VII

It is the sun that shares our works. The moon shares nothing. It is a sea.

When shall I come to say of the sun, It is a sea; it shares nothing;

The sun no longer shares our works And the earth is alive with creeping men,

Mechanical beetles never quite warm? And shall I then stand in the sun, as now

I stand in the moon, and call it good, The immaculate, the merciful good,

Detached from us, from things as they are? Not to be part of the sun? To stand

Remote and call it merciful? The strings are cold on the blue guitar.

VIII

The vivid, florid, turgid sky, The drenching thunder rolling by,

The morning deluged still by night, The clouds tumultuously bright

And the feeling heavy in cold chords Struggling toward impassioned choirs,

Crying among the clouds, enraged By gold antagonists in air—

I know my lazy, leaden twang Is like the reason in a storm;

And yet it brings the storm to bear. I twang it out and leave it there.

IX

And the color, the overcast blue Of the air, in which the blue guitar

Is a form, described but difficult, And I am merely a shadow hunched

Above the arrowy, still strings, The maker of a thing yet to be made;

The color like a thought that grows Out of a mood, the tragic robe

Of the actor, half his gesture, half His speech, the dress of his meaning, silk

Sodden with his melancholy words, The weather of his stage, himself.

X

Raise reddest columns. Toll a bell And clap the hollows full of tin.

Throw papers in the streets, the wills Of the dead, majestic in their seals.

And the beautiful trombones—behold The approach of him whom none believes,

Whom all believe that all believe, A pagan in a varnished care.

Roll a drum upon the blue guitar. Lean from the steeple. Cry aloud,

"Here am I, my adversary, that Confront you, hoo-ing the slick trombones,

Yet with a petty misery At heart, a petty misery,

Ever the prelude to your end, The touch that topples men and rock.”

XI

Slowly the ivy on the stones Becomes the stones. Women become

The cities, children become the fields And men in waves become the sea.

It is the chord that falsifies. The sea returns upon the men,

The fields entrap the children, brick Is a weed and all the flies are caught,

Wingless and withered, but living alive. The discord merely magnified.

Deeper within the belly's dark Of time, time grows upon the rock.

XII

Tom-tom, c'est moi. The blue guitar And I are one. The orchestra

Fills the high hall with shuffling men High as the hall. The whirling noise

Of a multitude dwindles, all said, To his breath that lies awake at night.

I know that timid breathing. Where Do I begin and end? And where,

As I strum the thing, do I pick up That which momentously declares

Itself not to be I and yet Must be. It could be nothing else.

XIII

The pale intrusions into blue Are corrupting pallors…ay di mi,

Blue buds of pitchy blooms. Be content — Expansions, diffusions — content to be

The unspotted imbecile revery, The heraldic center of the world

Of blue, blue sleek with a hundred chins, The amorist Adjective aflame…

XIV

First one beam, then another, then A thousand are radiant in the sky.

Each is both star and orb; and day Is the riches of their atmosphere.

The sea appends its tattery hues. The shores are banks of muffling mist.

One says a German chandelier — A candle is enough to light the world.

It makes it clear. Even at noon It glistens in essential dark.

At night, it lights the fruit and wine, The book and bread, things as they are,

In a chiaroscuro where One sits and plays the blue guitar.

XV

Is this picture of Picasso's, this "hoard Of destructions", a picture of ourselves,

Now, an image of our society? Do I sit, deformed, a naked egg,

Catching at Good-bye, harvest moon, Without seeing the harvest or the moon?

Things as they are have been destroyed. Have I? Am I a man that is dead

At a table on which the food is cold? Is my thought a memory, not alive?

Is the spot on the floor, there, wine or blood And whichever it may be, is it mine?

XVI

The earth is not earth but a stone, Not the mother that held men as they fell

But stone, but like a stone, no: not The mother, but an oppressor, but like

An oppressor that grudges them their death, As it grudges the living that they live.

To live in war, to live at war, To chop the sullen psaltery,

To improve the sewers in Jerusalem, To electrify the nimbuses—

Place honey on the altars and die, You lovers that are bitter at heart.

XVII

The person has a mould. But not Its animal. The angelic ones

Speak of the soul, the mind. It is An animal. The blue guitar—

On that its claws propound, its fangs Articulate its desert days.

The blue guitar a mould? That shell? Well, after all, the north wind blows

A horn, on which its victory Is a worm composing on a straw.

XVIII

A dream (to call it a dream) in which I can believe, in face of the object,

A dream no longer a dream, a thing, Of things as they are, as the blue guitar

After long strumming on certain nights Gives the touch of the senses, not of the hand,

But the very senses as they touch The wind-gloss. Or as daylight comes,

Like light in a mirroring of cliffs, Rising upward from a sea of ex.

XIX

That I may reduce the monster to Myself, and then may be myself

In face of the monster, be more than part Of it, more than the monstrous player of

One of its monstrous lutes, not be Alone, but reduce the monster and be,

Two things, the two together as one, And play of the monster and of myself,

Or better not of myself at all, But of that as its intelligence,

Being the lion in the lute Before the lion locked in stone.

XX

What is there in life except one's ideas. Good air, good friend, what is there in life?

Is it ideas that I believe? Good air, my only friend, believe,

Believe would be a brother full Of love, believe would be a friend

Friendlier than my only friend, Good air. Poor pale, poor pale guitar…

XXI

A substitute for all the gods: This self, not that gold self aloft,

Alone, one's shadow magnified, Lord of the body, looking down,

As now and called most high, The shadow of Chocorua

In an immenser heaven, aloft, Alone, lord of the land and lord

Of the men that live in the land, high lord. One's self and the mountains of one's land,

Without shadows, without magnificence, The flesh, the bone, the dirt, the stone.

XXII

Poetry is the subject of the poem, From this the poem issues and

To this returns. Between the two, Between issue and return, there is

An absence in reality, Things as they are. Or so we say.

But are these separate? Is it An absence for the poem, which acquires

Its true appearances there, sun's green, Cloud's red, earth feeling, sky that thinks?

From these it takes. Perhaps it gives, In the universal intercourse.

XXIII

A few final solutions, like a duet With the undertaker: a voice in the clouds,

Another on earth, the one a voice Of ether, the other smelling of drink,

The voice of ether prevailing, the swell Of the undertaker's song in the snow

Apostrophizing wreaths, the voice In the clouds serene and final, next

The grunted breath scene and final, The imagined and the real, thought

And the truth, Dichtung und Wahrheit, all Confusion solved, as in a refrain

One keeps on playing year by year, Concerning the nature of things as they are.

XXIV

A poem like a missal found In the mud, a missal for that young man,

That scholar hungriest for that book, The very book, or, less, a page

Or, at the least, a phrase, that phrase, A hawk of life, that latined phrase:

To know; a missal for brooding-sight. To meet that hawk's eye and to flinch

Not at the eye but at the joy of it. I play. But this is what I think.

XXV

He held the world upon his nose And this-a-way he gave a fling.

His robes and symbols, ai-yi-yi — And that-a-way he twirled the thing.

Sombre as fir-trees, liquid cats Moved in the grass without a sound.

They did not know the grass went round. The cats had cats and the grass turned gray

And the world had worlds, ai, this-a-way: The grass turned green and the grass turned gray.

And the nose is eternal, that-a-way. Things as they were, things as they are,

Things as they will be by and by… A fat thumb beats out ai-yi-yi.

XXVI

The world washed in his imagination, The world was a shore, whether sound or form

Or light, the relic of farewells, Rock, of valedictory echoings,

To which his imagination returned, From which it sped, a bar in space,

Sand heaped in the clouds, giant that fought Against the murderous alphabet:

The swarm of thoughts, the swarm of dreams Of inaccessible Utopia.

A mountainous music always seemed To be falling and to be passing away.

XXVII

It is the sea that whitens the roof. The sea drifts through the winter air.

It is the sea that the north wind makes. The sea is in the falling snow.

This gloom is the darkness of the sea. Geographers and philosophers,

Regard. But for that salty cup, But for the icicles on the eaves —

The sea is a form of ridicule. The iceberg settings satirize

The demon that cannot be himself, That tours to shift the shifting scene.

XXVIII

I am a native in this world And think in it as a native thinks,

Gesu, not native of a mind Thinking the thoughts I call my own,

Native, a native in the world And like a native think in it.

It could not be a mind, the wave In which the watery grasses flow

And yet are fixed as a photograph, The wind in which the dead leaves blow.

Here I inhale profounder strength And as I am, I speak and move

And things are as I think they are And say they are on the blue guitar.

XXIX

In the cathedral, I sat there, and read, Alone, a lean Review and said,

"These degustations in the vaults Oppose the past and the festival.

What is beyond the cathedral, outside, Balances with nuptial song.

So it is to sit and to balance things To and to and to the point of still,

To say of one mask it is like, To say of another it is like,

To know that the balance does not quite rest, That the mask is strange, however like."

The shapes are wrong and the sounds are false. The bells are the bellowing of bulls.

Yet Franciscan don was never more Himself than in this fertile glass.

XXX

From this I shall evolve a man. This is his essence: the old fantoche

Hanging his shawl upon the wind, Like something on the stage, puffed out,

His strutting studied through centuries. At last, in spite of his manner, his eye

A-cock at the cross-piece on a pole Supporting heavy cables, slung

Through Oxidia, banal suburb, One-half of all its installments paid.

Dew-dapper clapper-traps, blazing From crusty stacks above machines.

Ecce, Oxidia is the seed Dropped out of this amber-ember pod,

Oxidia is the soot of fire, Oxidia is Olympia.

XXXI

How long and late the pheasant sleeps… The employer and employee contend,

Combat, compose their droll affair. The bubbling sun will bubble up,

Spring sparkle and the cock-bird shriek. The employer and employee will hear

And continue their affair. The shriek Will rack the thickets. There is no place,

Here, for the lark fixed in the mind, In the museum of the sky. The cock

Will claw sleep. Mourning is not sun, It is this posture of the nerves,

As if a blunted player clutched The nuances of the blue guitar.

It must be this rhapsody or none, The rhapsody of things as they are.

XXXII

Throw away the lights, the definitions, And say of what you see in the dark

That it is this or that it is that, But do not use the rotted names.

How should you walk in that space and know Nothing of the madness of space,

Nothing of its jocular procreations? Throw the lights away. Nothing must stand

Between you and the shapes you take When the crust of shape has been destroyed.

You as you are? You are yourself. The blue guitar surprises you.

XXXIII

That generation's dream, aviled In the mud, in Monday's dirty light,

That's it, the only dream they knew, Time in its final block, not time

To come, a wrangling of two dreams. Here is the bread of time to come,

Here is its actual stone. The bread Will be our bread, the stone will be

Our bed and we shall sleep by night. We shall forget by day, except

The moments when we choose to play The imagined pine, the imagined jay.

[insufferablelust]

butterfly blurbs? maybe that's nor what you want but spencer getting jealous bc he finds out butterfly spends some time with one of his closest man but butterfly only wanted him to show her how to shoot so she could impress spencer?

Warnings ; smut, The use of ‘sir’ & ‘daddy’, Jealousy, overstimulation, Squirting, Tiny bit of degradation mainly by name calling, Possessiveness, Its.. um Filthy as many of you already know. Oh there’re fluffs like cute fluffs in the end, mention of sub/little space too. Please read at your own discretion. Set before chapter 2A of Lb!Au

MASTERLIST HERE.

gif credit to @imagining-in-the-margins thank you!

Being the don of the most powerful mafia chain around the country requires Spencer to have guards everywhere he goes, and those men are always there to protect you too. There are 4 of them; Your favorite is Morgan, the friendliest and warmest of them all, but definitely the flirtiest— in more than one occasion, Spencer had to threaten his gurard, or more like his best pal to stop looking at you the wrong way, then there’s Hotch, which is the lead command of his men, the one who controls the way around, his right hand almost, He doesn’t talk a lot you reckoned, though you rarely see him. There’s Alvez, whom you are second closest to, he’s pretty funny at times and definitely warm, and the last one is Simmons though you only met him in several occasions, seeing how he was always the one that Spencer commands to run his ‘business’ outside of town.

The 4 of them are all loyal to the don and the famiglia, has been since many generations of fathers and their fathers. When you came into the picture, you didn’t expect that someone is going to be guarding you every time you go outside or to leave for work or study— but Spencer insisted one of his men will always be assigned to watch over you, seeing that the threats of being closer to him might bring you harm. They’re always close by but not super close where you might feel stalked or ‘guarded’

It was nice to have someone to look after you, and the man he always choose to be close by you is none other than Morgan, your favorite out of all of them, you knew why Spencer insisted that Morgan was the one who will tend to your every need (security wise) even going as far as renting him an apartment suite not far from where yours are, just incase.

You grew close to Morgan, practically seeing him as your older brother, on nights where Spencer might not coming back to your place because of his ‘unexpected’ business, you always asked Morgan to accompany you play board games or watch something on your half functioning TV, or to just simply be there to have a chat with you. He’s nice and he makes you feel like you knew Spencer, told you small things about your boyf— sugar daddy. Now knowing that Morgan knows a lot, practically everything about the don, young Y/N just wanted to impress him— cause he had been so good to her all week, so so good, taking care of her and spoil her to the limits. So she asks Morgan on what could impress the infamous don of the country.

Y/N couldn’t lie that when she heard Morgan proposed the idea of shooting, that excitement would run through her veins like something has been injected— she has seen Spencer shoot his gun once or twice, she knew he could kill someone so so easily without batting an eyelash, he injured a guy whom looked at her the wrong way once for fuck’s sake. So the idea was enough to make her all giddy and say, “Please Morgan! teach me!” which he couldn’t help but to say yes, now he knows the protocols, knows how his best friend is so he didn’t worry about him having any sorts of problems with him teaching her but what he didn’t expect was, Spencer Reid might have a deeper feeling towards the tiny butterfly.

—

Hey daddy,

i’m going to spend some time with Morgan today, i hope you don’t mind if i don’t send an update so frequently but i’ll try okay? be safe, Mwah!

Spencer tried to calm down from his sudden bubbling anger that rose inside his chest, the voicemail had been left on his brick phone two hours prior and she still hasn’t responded yet. Being away from her is torture from him, he wanted so so badly to bring her here whilst he has business to deal with in Chicago— but he knew it’d be dangerous.

Though, hearing her heavenly voice sets his chest aflame with combined mixture of Jealousy and Longing, longing for her— missing her to the core and wanting so so bad to show her that she’s his and his only. Spencer knows he’s being irrational but he couldn’t help to think that his little Butterfly is spending too much— an awful amount of time with her bodyguard, his most trusted man amongst others.

With a lit of his cigarette and ruffle of his hair, Spencer made a quick call to Hotch to prepare for leaving, cause he’s going back home— for her.

-

She didn’t expect this when she came home from her practice that night, she didn’t expect him to be here so so early. a day early from his supposed come back schedule. Here he was, sitting on a chair in the dark corner of your bedroom with his thighs spread, and his fingers interlaced with each other, and a glass of wine sitting atop of the bed side table.

“D-Daddy.. i thought you won’t be home until—“ you started yet immediately cut off by the sound of his voice shushing you, “Shh, Come here. Sit on my lap.” He demonstrated by patting his thighs so you know not to fuck with him, not to act up. You muttered a small “yes daddy” before setting down your purse and padded towards where he is, about to straddle his lap before he let out a disappointment-like sigh then turns you around so you’re sitting down on his lap with your back against his front and his hand wrapped snuggly around your throat.

Oh whatever you’ve done must be terrible, and you would be lying to say that it doesn’t excites you one bit cause it certainly does.

“You look pretty tonight, butterfly.” He whispered softly against your ear as his other hand slithered their way around her waist to wrap them tightly so she’d have nowhere to go, “T-Thank you daddy.” She muttered, feeling so small all of a sudden, not knowing what she has done wrong and what should she say to make it better.

“Daddy i—“

“Y’know your daddy is a busy man, don’t you, bunny?” His voice tsk’d you, making you squirm on his lap, as his palm slithered down down down between your legs and rub toward your inner thighs. “Yes daddy..” You muttered, only gasping momentarily as his fingers slip inside your legging and let it rest on top of where your panties beginning to dampen.

“And yet here you are, making daddy cancel his plans just to come back and remind you.” His voice gets a little rougher now as he slaps your cunt softly, a warning perhaps so you’d stay still and listen to him. You let out a confused yet pleasure filled mewls as he slap your by-now swollen and sensitive covered pearl several times, “Daddy! please i-i don’t know what you mean.. oh!”

“D’you know who’s this cunt belongs to?” He whispered roughly before biting on the shell of her ear where she arched her back when he pressed his palm— grazing against her clit side to side, “Y-You! it belongs to you! mmh!” Your moans are cut out by the tightening grip of his hand on your throat as he snap the waistband of your panties before tearing the whole thing with your leggings down your legs.

“And who’s this body belongs to hm? who do you fuckin belongs to, butterfly?” His thumb made a quick work over your sensitive button as he rub it all fast and rough, causing you to squirm and let out spews of moans and screams at the feeling of pleasure. Somewhere alongside the pleasure, your brain was able to make a sense of why he’s here, and you can’t help but to feel all the butterflies that swarmed on your belly.

The don is jealous over his best friend.

“Daddy i— oh! i— Morgan was only helping me!” She tried to blurted out, as his thumb quicken its pace on her clit, up and down, side to side whilst his other hands played with her swollen shirt covered nipples, all sensitive and reactive to his sinful touches. Spencer lets out a growl, “Helpin you with what hm? is it that important that he has to take you way from me?”

Butterflies, your heart warmed.

“He— oh god.. i w-wanted to oh! learn how to shoot so i ask him.. mmh fuck daddy! ask him to help me so you’d be proud of me!” Tears streamed down your face by now, not because of his words but because of how close she is, god the way his fingers slip inside her slit so easily now that she’s wet— drenched, combined with his palm on her clit and her overstimulated nipples causing her to the edge.

“Is that so, princess?” He hummed as he lean back so he could tilt your head back to see your eyes, gleamed under the moonlight and glazed over with needs— “Yes daddy.. i s-swear—oh god i’m going to cum.” Your fingers were gripped tightly onto his wrist as his fingers works even faster and faster— making squelching noises throughout the room.

“Little minx, trying to make me all proud hm? My butterfly is so fucking adorable isnt she?” Spencer was close to coming inside his pants himself, seeing her like this brought him to the fucking heaven but hearing how she wanted to train because she wants him to be proud of her brought him to the fucking edge of orgasm— that he didn’t even care if hes going to cream his pants like a damn teenager.

“Yes yes yes daddy! just for you! please let me cum!”

with a hard and quick thrust of his fingers inside you, he mumbled deeply and breathlessly, “Cum now, pup. Show everyone that you’re fucking mine, cum for daddy— thats fucking it.” He growled and growled, as you let an earth shattering scream which you had no doubt that your neighbors would be able to hear it, before squirting all over his hand, his suit, everything.

“Thank you oh! daddy thank you!” You sobbed and trembled as you both coming down from your highs, Spencer presses small kisses all along the side of your face. “Good girl, ‘m so proud of you, my little butterfly. Gonna show me tomorrow what y’learned okay?” He mumbled gently as you weakly turned around to give him a kiss.

“Yes daddy, welcome home.”

—

LITTLE BUTTERFLY TAGLIST;

@bloodstainedsarsaparilla​ @drabigailreidblog​ @mgg-theprettiestboy​ @vanessagub​ @reidsconverse​ @maybankslut​ @pastathighs​ @geniusgub @90spumkin​ @trina2323​ @70sreid @blxckhearthood​ @meme-lord-and-savior-sebastian​ @baby-pogue​ @sluttytears​ @187-reid @gubler2323 @flawlesslyexecuted @iamgonnaleaveroach @libidinexx @reidsbbg @dancestargia @agentadhd

{Message or comment if you wanna be tagged or removed! thank you for your support}

[slippinmickeys]

The Earl (5/13)

If you’d like to read this on AO3, you may do so here. 

CHAPTER FIVE

“What do you think the men do?” Suzanne asked, “when they retire to drink their port?”

After dinner, as the men of the aristocracy always did, the gentlemen of the party withdrew to a back room while the ladies meandered to the drawing room before retiring for the night.

“Cards and flatulence if I know my husband,” said Mrs. Green, one of the few other women who had been invited to the estate.

Scully gave an involuntary snigger of embarrassed laughter.

“Knowing John, it’s billiards,” Suzanne said, lowering herself onto a divan. “Always billiards.”

“I should like to join them,” Scully said.

“For cards and flatulence?” Mrs. Green said, “Leave me out of it.”

Suzanne chuckled. “If you mean the playing of billiards,” she said, “I should like to play as well. Perhaps one night we should eschew our social graces and storm the room.”

Scully stood. “What is stopping us from going now?” she asked.

“Other than Mr. Green’s gas?” Suzanne said, standing once again. “Nothing at all! I’m game.”

The other two women of the party declined, looking askance at Scully and Suzanne for their impropriety, but Scully, emboldened by Suzanne’s refreshing cheek, found she didn’t care. She knew Mulder would be happy to see her, and Byers had been nothing but kind and welcoming. With Suzanne by her side, they made their way toward their paramours.

When they got to the billiard room, they found several of the gentlemen (Mr. Green included) sitting around a card table, pipe smoke thick in the air (perhaps to cover for the flatulence, thought Scully).

“We’ve come to interrupt your port!” Suzanne announced as they entered, and all the eyes in the room turned to them.

“I can think of nothing I’d like more,” Sir Byers said with a smile.

Some of the other gentlemen looked unhappy, but not one of them said anything after their host had greeted the women so kindly. Suzanne moved to Byers’ side and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Scully scanned the room and found Mulder in the corner, looking at her with undisguised lust. His hair had a roguish part to it, which lent him an air of rakish charm — coupled with the sometime intensity of his gaze, it was no wonder the man had come into possession of an unearned reputation. She and her husband had made full use of their time together in Kent, but Mulder’s appetite for her bordered on insatiable. She met his eyes across the room and felt a flare below her waist -- she was growing wet for him from just a look.

Suddenly, she felt a warm hand on her arm. She turned to find Frohike beside her, his eyes light. He was holding out a glass of port towards her.

“Have you ladies come for the port or the cards?” he asked.

“Neither,” Scully said, graciously taking the proffered glass, “we have come for the company.”

“And the billiards!” Suzanne said, and Frohike nodded to Langly, who was standing by the billiards table, holding a cue. The three billiard balls sat on the table.

“May I have the first game?” Frohike asked.

She was about to answer in the affirmative when she felt the kinetic mass of Mulder come up behind her, could feel his breath in her hair and the solid warmth of him along her back.

“The first game my wife plays will be with me,” he rumbled, and Scully felt the peaks of her breasts turn to sharp points. “If it pleases her?”

She turned toward him, her face only inches from his.

“You always please me, my lord,” she said quietly enough that only Mulder and Frohike heard her. Frohike let out a long, low whistle.

Mulder stepped away from her and over to Langly, who handed over the cue without a word.

“We gentlemen usually play for a wager,” Mulder said to her, a challenge in his eyes.

“Name it,” she said, “though mind yourself, Lord Wexford,” she went on, “as I intend to win.”

Mulder’s mouth curled into a sly smile.

“Do you?” Came the comment  from one of the gentlemen standing by the hearth, swirling a port glass. “I have not met a woman yet who can best a man at billiards.”

Scully chose to ignore his bigotry and answered him frankly.

“Billiards are a matter of geometry,” she said, “Physics, too. I excel at both.”

“She’s not a bad ball handler, either,” Mulder muttered, moving to the other side of the table.

She chose to ignore his comment, and kept her eyes on the gentleman at the hearth, who inclined his head in apology.

In fact, she did win. First against Mulder and then against Frohike, Byers and finally against Mr. Abernathy, the hearth dwelling gentleman, against whom she could not resist having a go. He had the decency to be a somewhat gracious loser, but Scully could tell his hide was chapped, about which she felt no small amount of satisfaction.

After the last game, she handed Langly her cue and addressed the room. “You gentlemen may pay me at the end of the week,” she said, “for I suspect your debts to me will only grow.”

Her statement was met with hearty chuckles from the men and an outright whoop from Suzanne. Scully excused herself to retire for the evening. Mulder did the same, looking at her with impressed surprise when they exited the room and began the long walk back to their chambers.

“Where did you learn to play billiards?” he finally asked once they were completely out of earshot of the room.

She stopped in the hallway and turned to look at him frankly.

“I have brothers, William,” she said.

He threw his head back, laughed and offered her his arm, which she took as they once again proceeded to meander back to their chambers.

“Take care calling me by my Christian name, Dana,” he said, his voice low, “I may grow to like it.”

The rare sound of her first name from his lips elicited a shiver through her that began at her ears and coursed right through to her sex.

“I missed you,” she whispered, her gaze pointed below his waistline, “today.”

That was all it took for him to twist her around, and he had her pinned to the wall of the hallway before she could even blink. His mouth was on her neck in the same breath, and she felt the solid heat of him pressing against her much smaller frame, his iron-hard erection pressed into her stomach.

His tongue ran rough down her shoulder and into the heaving flesh of her bosom, both of them het up to the point of sexual frenzy. She wanted him, could not wait, and almost, almost didn’t care if anyone came upon them here in the middle of the hallway.

She reached out and grasped him through the fabric of his breeches, squeezing and pulling him as best she could. He groaned into her décolletage and pumped his hips into her hand, yanking the front of her dress down to expose her breasts to the air.

“I will not make it,” he gasped on a breath, “to our chambers.”

Scully looked over his shoulder and noticed an inset window in the hall with long drapery nearly covering it -- they could disappear behind it, so long as they made love standing up.

“There,” she said, breathless herself, “the window behind you.”

He all but yanked her after him and once they were past the drapes and inside its enclosure, Mulder turned her around and pressed her front into the window, the glass cold as ice against the inflamed skin of her breasts. Her nipples were so hard she was surprised they didn’t make tink ing sounds when they encountered it.

She heard a rustling and then felt the cool night air on her backside. Mulder’s mouth closed hot around her earlobe and he whispered “Lift your right leg,” around it.

She did so and his hand grasped around her upper thigh, pulling it high and out and before she could draw breath, felt the silken steel of him sliding straight into her. They both groaned.

The fingers of his other hand found the swollen nub at the crest of her drenched sex, rubbing roughly. He pumped into her, grinding her chest and face into the window and she gasped at the pleasure of it.

In no time at all, she felt her release building, and then her crisis broke. She sobbed once, her senses overwhelmed as Mulder followed her, grasping the flesh of her thigh so tightly she knew she would bruise. She would treasure the marks, she knew. She had never felt anything so euphoric or carnal.

When their breathing began evening out, he relaxed his grip and leaned back, and she nearly fell back into him, so weak were her legs. She turned around to face him and he reached down and gently tucked her breasts back into her frock, smoothing the garment over her shoulders. Her eyes searched out his.

When hazel met blue, the look he gave her was so unguarded, so filled with undisguised tenderness, it made tears spring to her eyes. For all his outwardly careless insouciance, she knew Mulder cared deeply about a great many things. She had no doubt, and hadn’t for some time, that she was at the top of the list.

She leaned up and kissed him sweetly on the lips and pulled him out into the hallway, toward their chamber and their bed, toward her loving embrace.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Mulder had joined the gentlemen for an afternoon of shooting, leaving Scully, Suzanne and the few scattered women to their own devices. Rather than spend this magnificent day sitting in the drawing room reading or taking turns about the room, Scully decided some fresh air would do her some good and chose to go for a ride.

Suzanne had offered to accompany her, but Scully remembered her mentioning that she wasn’t much of a horsewoman earlier in the week, so she politely declined the company. It would be good to get out on her own, she thought, it would give her some time with herself, which she hadn’t had much of, being more than happy to spend every waking minute (and all of the sleeping ones) at Mulder’s side.

Donning her newest riding habit -- a winsome teal frock that had been a part of her enormous order with the modiste -- she asked a maid to let the stables know she was on her way and to saddle Queen.

At the bottom of the grand staircase that led from the foyer, she noticed their newest footman Alexander hovering nearby. He caught her eye.

“Shall I follow you on your ride, my lady?” he asked. It was probably the thing to do, but the idea of getting out and being alone, truly alone, in the countryside after weeks and weeks in the populated madness of Town was more attractive than being prudent.

“No thank you, Alexander,” she said. “Or is it Alex?”

“Alex, if you would,” he said. He had a fine face -- a strong jaw and a thick head of beautiful, dark hair, if a slightly feminine nose. She felt a small regret that she hadn’t gotten to know him at all, seeing as he was one of the few members of their household staff that had traveled with them.

“Is Sir Byers’ staff treating you well here?” she asked.

“Very well, my lady,” he said, “it is a well run household.”

She smiled at this and turned to go. He hastened to open the door for her, and closed it efficiently behind her.

The day was crisp and bright, the greens of the fields around the estate almost blinding. They’d had several days in a row of a low grey drizzle, and the men were practically chomping at the bit for a spot of hunting when the sun came with the dawn. She drew in a deep breath of the fresh country air, and couldn’t wait to feel the powerful energy of Queen thrumming under her. It was the perfect day for a ride.

Just outside of the stables, she was met by a groom -- not Peter or Terrence, she noted -- who was holding a mount, a bay gelding by the look of it, outfitted in her saddle and tack, that was not her horse Queen. The groom was older than herself, and a little twitchy -- the man had trouble meeting her eye.

“I thank you,” she said politely, “but I requested that my own mount be readied for me, Mr….?”

“Barry, my lady,” he said. “My apologies, but Queeny had a swollen fetlock this morn. I think she mighta kicked her stall last night.”

“Is it serious?” Scully asked in concern.

“No ma’am,” he replied, “I mean my lady. I have a poultice wrapped around it now. Should be fine by midday tomorrow. B-b-but Easterly here should do well for you. He’s strong and should like a good ride.”

As if to prove the man’s point, Easterly pawed his hoof at the ground and nodded once, pulling at the reins.

“Spirited,” Scully said generously.

The groom’s eyes twitched and he looked to the side.

“A bit,” he said.

Scully appraised the gelding, who looked back at her as if daring her to turn him away. She smiled at him. She liked an animal with a little mettle.

“Very well,” she said, and the groom brought over a mounting block to help her bestride. The moment she sat down, Easterly took two shying paces sideways, and she took a firm hand with the reins. So this was a beast who needed to know who was in charge. Very well. She could and would teach him.

He pranced a bit until he passed under the lintel that led that to the field behind the estate, but once through it, she gave the horse his head and he took off like a shot, blazing across the meadow like a beast possessed.

It was a glorious day. Ashford Park was large — fields and pastures out to the horizon. The village nearby was over a far rise, and she could just make out the tower of its church.

Easterly seemed tireless, and she rode and rode until the beast’s flanks were heaving and she could smell his sweet sweat. She rode him to a large tree that bordered a small stream, dismounting to let him drink. Once his thirst seemed slaked, she secured him to the tree and left him to graze. From the small satchel secured to his side, she pulled a hunk of bread and cheese Prudence had wrapped in a light handkerchief and a new book she’d been dying to read — Jane Marcet’s book Conversations on Chemistry.

She settled down in the shade of the tree and read, the peace and grace of the day and her new life settling over her gently like the satin sheets on their bed at home. She had not felt so content since she was a child, when the troubles of her father’s estate were still years in the future. Eventually she dropped off to sleep — she had been exhausted lately, but had not, after all, been getting quite as much rest as she ought.

She was awoken by the restless whinnying of Easterly, who seemed to have had his fill of grass and was eager to get back to the stables.

Putting what was left of her lunch back into the leather satchel, she remounted the horse without much trouble and the second she fingered the reins, he was off like a shot. She let him run until she came upon a small dirt avenue between two fields.

As they made their way down it, she slowed Easterly to a walk, and he pulled several times at the reins, shying sideways as they made their way beside a high rock wall.

“Pestilential beast,” Scully muttered, missing the smooth gait and easy manner of Queen. The next time she was to ride a horse that was not her own, she would be picking the mount herself.

There was a stile in the wall about 10 yards away, and Scully got a prickly feeling as they approached it. Easterly grunted, pulling his head up once, twice. Just as they were even with the stile, a man jumped out onto their path and Easterly whinnied and spooked. He reared suddenly and Scully gave a sharp shout and was flung, unable to keep her seat in the awkward sidesaddle.

She fell straight backwards as the horse took off at a gallop, landing hard, her head cracking back against the firmly packed earth. She saw stars ascending in her vision, up, up.

A set of boots walked toward her and kneeled only a few feet away. Scully could just recognize the worn, unconcerned face of the groom who had given her Easterly. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, and she struggled for a moment to speak.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered, the black of unconsciousness closing in around her vision.

“Do not worry, my lady,” he said, his voice fading as she lost consciousness, “Duane Barry’s not like these other guys.”

[vrednic]

COLLATERAL DAMAGE (PT. 2)

Teen Wolf x Vampire Diaries AU

Prompt: Teen Wolf, but with a twist. Scott McCall has a twin sister… and she falls in love with Derek Hale.

Summary: After Scott refuses to join his pack, Peter Hale turns Serena McCall into a werewolf. Will her transformation be for better… or for worse?

Word Count: 3,285

Author’s Note: This series will skim the events of seasons 1-3. I have a lot of content planned, so there will be some skipping around at certain points, but it will all work in unison, I promise! I hope you all enjoy part 2! Please let me know if you’d like to be added to my taglist. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading :)

*PART ONE IS HERE. *

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Werewolves.

The topic of lycanthropy was one I hadn’t visited since freshman year english. I thought back to the unit of Greek mythology, and how we had been assigned research projects on famous Greek myths. My english teacher gave us the liberty to choose our own myths, and I had naively chosen Lycaon of Arcadia. Lycaon, the king of Arcadia, attempted to trick Zeus into eating human flesh, testing to see if he was truly all-knowing. Angered by Lycaon’s blasphemous actions, Zeus punished Lycaon by turning him into a wolf.

Oh, the irony of it all.

For the past three weeks, I have been given gradual insight into the world of the supernatural. The full moon was fast-approaching, and I needed to learn everything I could as quickly as possible. I wasn’t yet sure how I felt about my transformation. I was amazed at how quickly I began noticing changes. Overnight, it seemed, my senses had been dialed up to a thousand. I was stronger, faster, and more confident. I could smell, hear, and sense things other people couldn’t. One of the most fascinating things about my newfound abilities was that my body’s healing process was nearly instantaneous. The only downside of it was that I had yet to experience the brutality of the full moon. I was afraid that I would see things differently after, that I’d realize that I’d never be able to control it. Would my supernatural powers really be worth being enslaved to an insatiable bloodlust every month? Would it be worth putting my friends and loved ones at risk, especially when one slip-up could mean death for any and all of them?

I had been training tirelessly with Scott every day since I was bitten. Before school, after school, and during free periods. He had effectively taught me how to make my claws appear and disappear at will, how to partially shift into my werewolf form, how to follow scents, how to decipher chemo-signals, and how to trigger the healing process of an injury using pain. I was impressed with my progress, but I knew that I had only been exposed to bits and pieces of the extensive supernatural spectrum that I was now a part of. I had always been good at the technical side of things, so I knew that learning the basics of lycanthropy wasn’t going to be an issue. I considered myself to be on the smart side-- I had no problem displaying resourcefulness or creativity or administering critical thinking in complex situations. One thing I wasn’t very good at, however, was regulating my emotions.

When our parents got divorced, Scott and I handled things very differently. He was always a mama’s boy, and I was a daddy’s girl. Our father was an alcoholic and a cheater; something I knew all too well, but was also something I wanted to remain oblivious to. I’m assuming this realization is what made it easier for Scott to hate him, to be okay with moving on without him. It was harder for me to cope with his absence because our dad had always been my rock -- my hero --  and I couldn’t picture him ever hurting anyone. Especially me.

The night my mom kicked my dad out of the house for good, he had come home drunk. He instigated an argument with her over something, as usual. But with them it was never just an argument; it always ended up with them screaming at each other. Scott and I shared a room back then, and it was located right by the staircase, which was where they happened to be arguing that night. Not surprisingly, their heated voices turned into shouts, and we were both awoken. We peered through a crack in the door as our parents fought. My dad could barely keep his balance; his cheeks were flushed, his eyes crazy, violent words spewing from his mouth fueled by intoxication. I remembered vividly how he had lost his composure and grabbed my mother by the neck, slamming her against the wall. I let out an audible gasp and stood frozen in horror. Scott flung the door open and rushed into the hall, immediately wedging himself between our mother and father. My dad grabbed Scott’s arm, attempting to pull him out of the way, but yanked my brother with too much force. He was flung against the railing of the staircase, and he tumbled down the stairs. He was unconscious at the bottom of the stairs for maybe 30 seconds, and when he came to, he didn’t remember a thing. My mother ushered us back into our room and put us into bed. I fell asleep crying that night, but I didn’t know exactly for whom I was crying. Had it been for my brother? Had it been for my mother? For the loss of my dad? Or was it for me?

I hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye to him. I woke up the following morning, expecting him to be there, bags in tow, waiting to talk to us one last time. But he was already gone. I knew he didn’t deserve it, but I couldn’t help but miss him. When the plea for divorce was initiated, there was never a discussion about shared custody or visitations. Once the divorce was finalized, I knew that he was never coming back. It was because of his betrayal and abandonment that I grew up with issues when it came to trusting people. I was filled with this deep, aching feeling of isolation, and it made me angry. Very. As I grew older, I got better at suppressing it, but I knew that somewhere deep down, it was still there. With the full moon prodding and poking at my resolve and self control, I knew it was only a matter of time before those feelings resurfaced.

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The day of my first full moon, I felt the effects as soon as I got out of bed in the morning. I felt my heartbeat rising with every breath that I took. When I got to school, my senses immediately began to feel overstimulated. Everything was brighter, louder, and more jarring. The sound of the bell ringing made me feel like someone was hammering nails into my skull. The people I passed in the hallway blurred together, all of their emotions and scents hitting me like a door to  the face. At lunch, the sound of people’s voices and laughter made me want to tear their heads off. I looked around the cafeteria, feeling myself grow angrier and angrier, for seemingly no reason at all. Rationally, I knew that these people had done nothing wrong. Emotionally, they were the piece of gum stuck under my shoe. My gaze locked on Jackson Whittemore, and I fantasized about how good it would feel to tear his tongue right out of his head. He had always been an asshole to my brother, so why shouldn’t I kill him? It would be extremely satisfying to watch the smug look on his face disappear as I stood over him, my hands drenched in his blood, as I began to tear him limb from limb…

“Uh, Serena? Are you okay?”

Scott’s voice brought me back to reality. I was suddenly overcome with anxiety as I realized the vile intrusive thoughts that I was just experiencing. What was the matter with me? This wasn’t me. I wasn’t a killer. Only, maybe that wasn’t exactly true anymore.

I nodded, fabricating a smile. “Yeah, no, everything’s great. I was just thinking about my research paper for… biology. It’s due tomorrow and I have no clue where to start.”

“That’s fair,” he said. “But remember that it’s perfectly okay for you to be feeling on edge today. It’s your first full moon and I promise nobody will blame you for not feeling or acting like yourself.”

I felt the tension in my shoulders ease ever-so-slightly. I nodded once more, reassuring him that I was in fact okay. I felt better knowing that out of all of the things that had changed, our sibling bond hadn’t. He’d be there with me to make me feel safe and to teach me control. Before long, I would be able to be just like him. I trusted him, and I knew he had faith in me. That meant only one thing: I had to have faith in me too.

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Later in the evening, as the sun was setting, I began feeling the effects of the full moon amplifying. My heartbeat was nearly erratic and Scott was nowhere to be found. I was in the bathroom, standing over the sink and looking at myself in the mirror. There was a flicker of golden yellow in my eyes, and I nearly sobbed out of pure anxiety alone. I balled my hands into fists, trying to focus on anything other than the impending sense of dread that I was experiencing. I felt a warm, slippery substance course down my wrist. Blood.

I opened my fist up, revealing four deep punctures on both of my palms, where my claws had dug into. The temporary flicker of pain was small, but enough to bring me out of the frenzy. I took this opportunity to set out to find Scott.

I didn’t remember the way to the Hale house all too well, but what I did remember was its scent. The smell of charred wood and smoke would be very hard to miss. I maneuvered my way through the darkness, making sure every step I took was careful and calculated. Scott had mentioned that Beacon Hills Preserve was littered with traps set by hunters. It was also a full moon, so I knew there would not be any shortage of hunters roaming around town tonight, hoping to catch and kill their next supernatural victim.

As if on cue, I heard voices from a distance. By the sound of it, there were maybe four or five of them, all men. I swallowed, trying to think of an escape plan. I couldn’t run. It was fall, and the weight of my body against the leaves on the ground would give my location away immediately. I could have hidden, but I knew that they probably had some sort of a thermographic camera. If they happened to get me in one of the shots, I would have considered myself dead.

I tried to weigh any and all other options, but I had none. The best chance at escape that I had right now was simply to run. They sounded far away enough so that even if they did hear me, my superhuman speed would give me an advantage. I decided that now was as good a time as any, and began moving. I tried to keep to the shadows, not daring to make any unnecessary sounds. I noticed too late that I had no idea where I was going. I looked around me, but I couldn’t pinpoint any familiar landmarks. I could have sworn that I was heading back in the direction I came, but judging by my surroundings, that wasn’t the case. I stopped for a moment, attempting to gather my thoughts.

“Come on, Serena,” I whispered to myself. “Think.”  

I was jolted away from my thoughts when I saw a red light from my peripheral vision. I was frozen, completely unsure what to do. More red lights emerged from the darkness, pointing straight at me. Lasers. It was then that instinct spoke to me, telling me to run. And that’s exactly what I did.

I turned on my heel and bolted away from where the hunters had been. I didn’t take the time to care about the tracks or the noise I left in my wake. I had the advantage of speed, but they had the advantage of knowledge and experience. These were professional killers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew what move I’d make next even before I did. Through the commotion, I almost forgot why I had been in the woods in the first place. The fury of the full moon hit me, unforgiving. It was as if she allowed me only a few moments of peace before the storm. I looked up at the sky and the moon glimmered at its peak. Almost instantaneously I was overcome with an animalistic urge to go back and rip the head off of every single hunter that was on my trail.

My claws and fangs appeared as if by magic, and my eyes were aglow. I felt angry-- so angry. But it was that anger that gave me power. I felt strong… unstoppable. Against all rational thought, I turned back around, using my infrared eyes to see through the darkness. A few rows of trees ahead was where I spotted them. Two of them were kneeled down, examining the tracks that I had left behind, judging the direction I must have taken. The other three were behind them, standing guard. They looked around, weapons drawn, ready to fire at any given moment.

I growled. It was a sound that conveyed equal parts rage and purpose. I was hiding behind a tree, looking for the perfect moment to attack. Just as I was about to launch myself in their direction, a pair of hands snagged me from behind with tremendous force. Before I could growl or scream, the person used one hand to cover my mouth and tucked me against his chest, making sure our bodies were still shielded by the tree. I tipped my head back to see who it was, and was met with the fiery gaze of Derek Hale.

He broke eye contact first and peered over my head, trying to come up with an escape tactic. His stone cold composure made it clear that it wasn’t his first time evading death by the hands of werewolf hunters. I, on the other hand, was terrified. I felt an equal amount of shame and embarrassment once I realized how foolish I had been. It was a night of the full moon and I wasn’t in control, for one. I also felt extremely stupid for walking into woods that were infested with hunters; ones that wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet between my eyes. Another shame-inducing component was the fact that Derek just had to be the one to find me. I had gotten a brief description of him from Scott, so I knew that he was hardcore. He also hated liabilities, and at the moment, that’s exactly what I was.

“Now’s not the time to wallow in shame,” he whispered to me, his voice gruff. “If you hadn’t noticed, they’ve got us completely surrounded. It’s a miracle they haven’t seen us yet.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off. “Don’t bother denying it. The smell of embarrassment is rolling off of you like a stench.”

Your commentary isn’t exactly helping, I wanted to say to him. But I knew better than to push his buttons, especially when we were on the brink of being discovered. I kept my back against the tree, waiting for further instructions. After a few minutes, Derek finally spoke again.

He lowered his mouth next to my ear, his warm breath sending a tingling sensation onto my neck and down my back. “On my signal, you run. I’ll stay behind and cause a distraction so you can get away.” He pointed behind him to another row of trees. “Run that way. Get out of the woods as fast as you can.”

Before I could get a word out, he was gone. He roared loudly, capturing the attention of the hunters that resided a few yards away. As they ran to him, he turned back to look at me, flashing his icy blue eyes. That was my cue. I took off running in the direction he had said. I heard the commotion of the fight almost the entire way. Growls and roars from Derek’s end were met with the sound of guns firing. I found myself secretly hoping that he would be okay, although in the back of my mind I knew he would be. He was Derek Hale, after all.

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I made it out of the preserve after only a handful of minutes of running. At the end of the treeline, right where the road started, a vehicle’s headlights cut through the darkness. The closer I got, the more details I could make out. It was a blue 1980 Jeep CJ5. Standing beside it were two silhouettes, both male. I let out a sigh of relief.

I jogged the rest of the way and launched myself into Scott’s arms. He squeezed me tightly and ushered me into the Jeep. Stiles drove onto the road, taking the route that led back to my house. Scott turned to look at me from the passenger’s seat.

“Why the hell were you in the woods?” He asked. His tone was firm but still held a touch of delicacy. We both knew it was more for my sake than his. “Didn’t I tell you about the hunters? The preserve is not a safe place for a werewolf on a night of a full moon. Argent and his hunters have memorized every square inch of those woods. You’re lucky Derek found you when he did. If he hadn’t, I’m sure Gerard would’ve turned you into a human kebab by now.”

I felt my throat tighten in frustration. “The imagery really isn’t necessary. I know what I did was stupid, and I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt like I was losing control and you weren’t there, Scott!” My voice caught on his name, and I had to take a few moments to collect myself. “You weren’t there and, quite frankly, I have no one else to turn to on this. I don’t have a best friend like yours. I don’t have one that’ll pick up my call in the middle of the night and be willing to be a part of the world of the supernatural. I don’t have a best friend who’ll chain me up on a full moon and help me find restraint. I was all alone in my home, which I could have easily torn apart if I had lost control of myself tonight. I was counting on you to help me, and you weren’t there.”

The air was thick with tension. I could sense the sadness emanating from both Scott and Stiles. I felt guilty for taking all of my frustration out on my brother, but everything I said was true, and I wasn’t going to apologize for how I felt. Scott was a natural leader, and I admired that about him. Being a leader meant taking on responsibilities, and I understood that he wouldn’t be around all the time. Over the weeks following my transformation, I got a chance to see just how much people needed him.  Peter wanted him in his pack. Derek wanted him as an ally. Stiles wanted him as a best friend. Hell, even the lacrosse team needed him as team captain. But tonight was the one night that I needed him. I needed my brother, and he wasn’t there.

“I’m so sorry, Serena. I can do better, I promise. If you’ll just let me--” he began.  

“No,” I said, cutting him off. “I don’t want to talk. Just take me home.”

With that, I turned to face the window, looking at the blur of lights, cars, houses, and dark, desolate streets passing me by. Scott sighed, but he didn’t protest.

We rode in silence the entire way back.

TAGS

@broco8

[rinharu-purple]

Relationship Goals: Ch 15

Flows of tears being wiped away by the fingertips of love- dreamless night skies full of stars - a heavy heart washed clean by the rain - hot sweat and cold droplets of water-  a simple “good night” and a “good morning” - that all too well known scent - the excruciating pain of yet another “goodbye”- a blood drenched jacket that’s long lost its owner’s warmth...Name of Faith 

Being the solidifying chapter of my Gavin stanness, chapter 15 has a very special place in my heart. On the other hand, the whole chapter is the very embodiment of “relationship goals”, ensuring that in the MLQC universe MC and Gavin’s relationship is the most harmonious, mature and loving one. The chapter is about an hour-ish long so you could guess how long this analysis will take to read but it surely will be much less than it took me writing it, I promise ;)

At the end of chapter 14 MC had to say goodbye to Kiro without knowing if he would survive the fight against tens of BS men and carry the burden of being the key individual who can put an end to the out of control EVOL outrage. She was heartbroken about Lucien’s betrayal and was worried as hell about Victor’s whereabouts. She was still struggling under the overbearing weight of having to play the role of the “Queen” all the while being one of the last remaining people who still bear to think about the whole TV- tower incident. She’s found herself doubting the meaning of her existence and couldn’t help but feel as though she wouldn’t belong there. At the beginning of Ch 15  we find an MC that hit the rock bottom and is therefore deeply depressed. This is the first time she’s shown such a distressed psyché. So this is how the chapter starts...MC wakes up in her room after being hospitalized for a while, lost in thoughts and looking for reassurance in the gingko leaf bracelet on her wrist.

To have and to hold...

While she is buried in negative thoughts Gavin shows up at her place to give her the good news that there are no more signs of EVOL fluctuations and that STF’s investigation ends as of that day. This results in a real smile blossoming on MC’s face and then her concern switches to Gavin’s well-being. This first dialogue between them is already an embodiment of the foundation of their relationship. Gavin and MC’s main concern is always the well-being of the other. Sure, Gavin and MC always put others before themselves so they both have an altruistic character, however if protecting any other person would mean their s/o getting hurt, then they prioritize each other. We get to see what it means in the second half of the chapter. MC is worried about Gavin’s injuries, Gavin is worried about MC’s emotional state, MC is worried that she makes Gavin worry about her, Gavin is worried that MC worries about him worrying about her, thus keeping her real thoughts inside- not- opening up about them to him. That’s a vicious cycle which needs to be broken and that is exactly what our best boi does by reassuring her that she doesn’t need to put up a front and that she could tell him whatever is eating at her...anytime at all. That guy is already 3 steps ahead of her when it comes to worrying so he pulls her out of her self-agonizing overthinking bubble with those simple words which work like a charm. MC feels as though her heart was slowly lifted up by two hands out of a ravine. So she finally tears down the walls surrounding her agony and lets her tears flow and Gavin wipe them away and he brings the sunshine back into her heart.

Ever since her father’s passing MC didn’t much have anyone to open up to about her most bothering concerns or a shoulder to cry on. Gavin sees this crystal clear and encourages her to tell him about it all, cry it all out and also manages to lift her spirits up. He knows instinctively what she needs at that moment. She is broken, she is lost and she is stripped of her self-worth. Gavin can relate to this state all too well, because he too has been there when his mother died. He knows that she doesn’t need any encouraging talks or sweets or a scientific explanation to her feelings. At that moment, all she needs is warmth and a safe space to process what she is going through thoroughly. Which is why Gavin simply offers her to share what’s eating at her with him and cry all she wants. He doesn’t do anything beyond that. He NEVER EVER PUSHES HER TO DO ANYTHING! He just stays by her side in silence, giving her space...a warm space and the rest unravels from itself.  GOAL #1 Find someone who can feel your troubles, address them with care and share your burden with you. Someone who gives you a safe space to feel down without feeling ashamed of yourself. Someone who makes what’s yours theirs. 

For better, for worse... 

Gavin is aware of the fact that his words can give her comfort, but he also knows that she hasn’t told him the whole story yet. She needs to feel self-worthy again and go back to her true, kind and brave self. So he arranges a Ferris wheel ride in the middle of the night to show her the bright side that she fails to see at the moment. If MC had been asleep then he would’ve just tried another night but much to his luck she was standing on her balcony, lost in her thoughts, gazing at the bracelet he gave her and confiding in it. So he sweeps her off her feet once again and takes her to the construction site. He shows her from the cabin the world she succeeded in saving and that the world which is still turning thanks to her. She is the savior and not the burden and most certainly not a burden to Gavin. Neither with her negative feelings nor with her presence. She belongs there where she is and Gavin appreciates her existence. Because she didn’t only save the world but also him, many times, she caught him while he was falling. However, MC believes that its always been Gavin who was always there to catch her from falling. Their feelings and thoughts are again mirroring each other. Both of them are invested equally in their journey together, both have saved the other. Hearing this, MC finally opens up about her true feelings and lets the tears flow, and those tears are again wiped away by Gavin. When the wheel reaches its zenith, MC and Gavin are in a tight embrace and MC is finally almost back to her usual self: “With it, he took all my tears, all the unsaid words, all my worries and regrets. At that moment, it felt like the walls around my heart had fallen, letting in countless rays of sun. All the unease, suffering, doubt, pain and hesitation just evaporated”. Once they get off the wheel and they run/fly hand in hand under the summer rain, MC feels like Gavin has always been by her side all over the past years and her heart’s worry and gloom is washed away by the rain. This is a very crucial thing for their relationship, because they were separated for six whole years and yet now MC feels like he were always by her side, watching her from afar, accompanying her in her journey. 

On a side note, Ferris wheel and the gingko bracelet have become the main symbols of their relationship. The bracelet represents their bond with each other regardless of the distance separating them and I am certain that the bracelet doesn't have any tracker on it to be honest but it helps MC to cool down when feeling upset or sad by reminding her of Gavin, her precious moments with him, his love for her, and that he will always be there for her. The Ferris wheel on the other hand is their journey. Each time they ride the Ferris wheel together their spirits are lifted up alongside with the cabin. Once it reaches its zenith they consummate their love for each other once again, no matter if it's on a date with a kiss or in CH 15 when MC tells Gavin her true feelings and Gavin addresses them directly resulting of them reciprocating their importance for each other. GOAL #2: A relationship is much like a Ferris Wheel. It goes up, it goes down, then goes up again. It's not always a bed of roses, there are many thorns during the ride. The important thing is to go through both phases hand in hand. 

This whole episode names Gavin as the source of MC’s sense of safety, courage and faith. MC feels herself the safest and most serene around him. Their night together at MC’s home is a strong evidence to this. Up to CH 15 and in the following episodes, MC has constant nightmares almost every night.  But when she sees the faint ray of light from the crack of her bedroom door, she finally enjoys a night’s sleep without nightmares or worries. Knowing that Gavin is on the other side of her door gives her the deepest sense of peace. This happens again in CH 26 btw. and I think the original idea was for them to sleep in the same bed in CH 15 but then abandoned due to obvious reasons... As far as I know Gavin is the only LI who sleeps in MC’s apartment so it shows the level of trust she has towards him. No matter what’s happening during the dates, in the mean story MC is not canonically that close with any of the guys, so it truly shows how safe she feels around Gavin, knowing that he wouldn’t overstep his boundaries. And she couldn’t be more correct, since Gavin leaves before she wakes up, making sure that none of them feel awkward in the morning and leaving the place as he found it, but not before leaving a note which gives her a reassurance that he is going to send somebody to keep an eye on her and ends with a simple “good morning”. Gavin is a very considerate guy, who doesn’t miss any hint thrown at him. After hearing MC not being able to sleep without wishing him good night, he realizes how important this simple wish is for her. So he makes sure to wish her a good morning, whether he is there to say it face to face or not. GOAL #3: Be with someone, with whom you can fell safe and be yourself around them. Someone whose presence chases your fears and nightmares away . Someone who knows what your values are and respects them.

In sickness and in health...

Not long after having a heart to heart conversation, MC and Gavin find themselves in a dispute over Perry. MC wants to stay by Perry’s side with the hopes of being able to help him but also come closer to the truth about her father. Gavin is not happy with the idea since he’s lost his EVOL and is dubious about Leto’s intentions so if any danger were to strike, he might not be able to protect MC. Despite this he agrees with MC’s wish in terms of her not putting herself in danger and that he would stay by her side. The second time the topic comes up, Gavin outright forbids her to get involved with Perry and MC in return, for the first time ever, tells him that she is going to do otherwise. This dispute arises because Gavin doesn’t tell her full story, that he’s lost his EVOL and that the STF is executing the Evolvers. MC on the other hand fails to see the situation from Gavin’s perspective or to trust him when he is so strict about keeping out of the whole ordeal. But right before they temporarily part ways she finds the courage to ask him about his worries and troubles, since she too can feel his distress, much like Gavin did hers at the beginning of the episode and offers to share his burden with him and that’s the thing. MC isn’t upset that Gavin doesn’t want her to see Perry anymore but that Gavin isn’t open with her and that he is still keeping his problems to himself. MC was hoping that he would trust her to face the truth and take on everything with him. That’s what actually hurts her the most. And Gavin is lost in this unexpected argument since he’d never had a situation like this with MC so he is torn between telling her the truth or leaving it be. Unfortunately he decides to just leave their dispute at that and leaves, not willing to have a fight with her. So they give each other the good old silence therapy for days and only after Perry reminded MC of Gavin’s good-will that she finally sends him an SMS (but only at second try, she wouldn’t send the first SMS in which she tells him that she is worried about him). Gavin is not  better either, since he is already at the hospital to check on her from afar, but is not ready to face her yet. Its a typical “earlier in the relationship dispute” so much so that MC even literally sleeps with her phone while waiting for Gavin’s text/ call/ any response at all. Even I am shocked by his level of stubbornness at this point.  The next day MC receives the bad news about Perry and leaves the hospital, letting herself get soaked in the rain. This time around without Gavin by her side, with completely different feelings, thinking that the rain can’t wash everything away. This is a pivotal realization on MC’s end, because at that very moment she realizes that Gavin was the reason of her being able to overcome her worries and face her troubles with faith and courage. Luckily for her, right when she was thinking of him, she senses his scent behind her aaaand cue “Rosy Mirror”...

Its such a lovely moment for the maturity of their relationship, despite them still getting to know each other and being the youngsters they are. So MC apologizes to him (but only going through the reasons why in her head so Gavin only hears that she is sorry) and then Gavin finally opens up, since he has realized that was the mistake on his part, not telling her about his true worries. So without further ado he tells her about his insecurities about the possibility of not being able to protect her since their downfall from the TV tower, about him losing his Evol, about following her for a while from behind without knowing what to do. And that’s pretty much all it takes for them to overcome their dispute, since it was a relatively small dispute and so MC again fells warm and dry inside, not caring about the rain. GOAL #4 There are disputes in all relationships. What’s important during those disputes is not to hurt each other’s feelings irreparably and communicate in honesty. It’s about trusting in each other’s good intentions and resolving the problem in hand with care and understanding. 

Till death do us part...

Our pair makes up and are ready for the next move but there are no happy endings in the MLQC universe...nö nö nö. Of course drama ensues as MC and Gavin find out that Perry has been kidnapped while MC’s precognitions start getting worse. But remember folks, Gav-babe is back so he calms her that as long as her precognitions are about the future, they can still change the course of events and that He trusts in her, so she also should put her trust in him too.  “That was his absolute faith in me, and his absolute reassurance for me”. We could actually roll the credits here without going further with the heart wrenching end of this chapter. 

Not long after though MC and Gavin has to face the worst of the worst...They have to witness Perry getting shot in the chest and leave him in his state, only to be greeted by the STF aiming at them by the exit of the warehouse, leading Gavin to resign from the STF. While on the run from the STF/NW, Gavin realizes that his Evol becomes extremely weak, so much so that he cannot even raise a barrier to hold back the bullets, which then results in MC getting shot on the back while trying to protect him. Not only MC’s precognition is coming true, but also Gavin is at his limit, both physically and mentally. So he is left with no choice, but to sacrifice himself and once again get separated from MC. For Gavin is Ch 15 is the worst-case scenario. The justice he has always believed in turned out to be a façade, he had to witness another child’s suffering in front of him and his raison d’être comes to the brink of losing her life because he failed to protect her. Everything that keeps him alive, everything that makes him who he is , is shattered right in front of his eyes. MC doesn’t have it any better as she can only watch as her worst nightmare comes true. The last 15-20 minutes of this chapter covers MC’s perpetual fear of being left by Gavin. She says thrice that she doesn’t want him to leave and begs him to stay (unfortunately Gavin doesn’t hear any of it). The have just built their faith in each other and yet got separated again after a brief moment of togetherness. IT becomes one of the issues that MC struggles with for at least 10 chapters, namely her fear of being left alone by Gavin.  

Here is a small comparison: All other LIs relationship with MC are doomed because of their choices: Kiro’s alternate personalities as Key (no time) and Helios (no love), Lucien’s involvement as Ares in BS or his values contradicting that of MCs, Victor’s pride and dominance as the research topic for my Phd at Boston College. Those guys actions and personalities conflicting with that of MCs are whats standing on the way of a harmonious relationship. With Gavin, these two are doomed by the seemingly endless external threats. Both Gavin and MC are constantly the main target of somebody’s plans and are under attack. Those poor babies cannot have a second of peace. As if it wasn’t enough, those parties constantly use their bond for their own means. Its Shaw using MC as a bait to provoke Gavin, its Josie telling MC that she is going to kill Gavin, its Gavin’s father using MC to convince Gavin to accept the NW plan. MC and Gavin don’t have any obstacles with regards to their own personalities or choices. They trust each other, stand by each other, understand each other’s perspective and love each other. In this chapter Elex even shows us that they could even take care of a child together for God’s sake. They...just...fit...

Unfortunately once again things unwind to their demise and Gavin, once again, has to leave MC for her sake. Before leaving her, Gavin repairs the gingko leaf bracelet brand new, so that MC can find the reassurance she seeks for on it in his absence and remind her that he will return to her side. He also leaves his jacket behind so that she can still feel his warmth. That’s his promise to her. That’s his reassurance that this is not a goodbye and that he is not ever going to leave without saying goodbye.  GOAL 5# True love is selfless, true love never dies and if two souls belong together, then nothing can keep them apart. because true love prevails. 

The chapter ends as its started. MC wakes up in her room after being hospitalized for a while, lost in her thoughts and finding reassurance in the gingko leaf bracelet on her wrist. The only difference this time around is that she wouldn’t find Gavin in her living room or hear three knocks on the door and find him standing tall in front of her... for this time around Gavin is gone...

[masked-buffoon]

Chapter 2: Twisted (Part 2)

Warnings: violence, torture (physical and mental), cruelty, murder

Author notes: there they start, at last, the horrible things I am able to write... I swear I am a nice person though! >.< anyway, I hope to enjoy nonetheless, but, again, do pay extra attention to the warnings, which may not sound as heavy as the actual work is...

Being far from my superior, I was allowed some respite. I was not beaten, yelled at, threatened nor insulted. I was exhausted, because of my ability, but also because of the harsh words he would bark at me when my achievements were disappointing.

Nevertheless, my enthusiasm was quickly spoiled by the man replacing Dazai-san, his second in command. Much older than my executive — he was around forty — he went by the common name of "Yamada-san" and did not seem to know how to use his brain cells, to the point that even I, whom I did not consider intelligent, could easily call him stupid. Or, perhaps stupid was a bit too harsh on him. Simple-minded would be better. His strategies reflected this fact, in the sense that they rarely did predict any counterattack nor did they measure the losses we could suffer. Often, we would have to find a way out by ourselves in the middle of the mission, and the effect of surprise supposed to give us advantage seldom succeeded. I never would have believed I could miss my superior, yet, at the very least, however careless he was toward his men, he did not send us to death mindlessly. I believed Yamada-san, occupying one of the highest seats of the Port Mafia, tended to see the members of the squadron as pawns he could easily sacrifice to complete his mission, whereas Dazai-san moved us intelligently to win with minimum losses. Having talked with a few members about our situation, I knew we all agreed about a fact; we were not disposable pawns in the eyes of our executive, and the second in command took too much liberties with us. Even so, the only thing we could do was waiting for a week to pass.

Yamada-san also took sadistic pleasure into sending me, particularly, to missions he knew were dangerous, mostly with an unprepared strategy. From tailing illegal dealers who robbed our stocks of drug to meeting a contact within the government to gather important information, I had often seen myself on the brink of being killed, or worse, being arrested and interrogated about the Port Mafia. Fortunately, I had always managed to escape or to suppress my opponent beforehand, to the second in command's displeasure. During the first few days, I had also taken numerous jobs as an executioner; I would find and eliminate betrayers of the organisation. The signature protocol for this matter was rather simple. After breaking the traitor's jaw on the pavement with a kick behind his head, I would turn him around to shoot three bullets into his chest while he would be screaming in agony. This method let the whole Yokohama know the Port Mafia was behind the murder, and the police would not try to investigate the case further. The first time such work had been given to me, I had not had too much issues with killing he man. I had already murdered two people before entering the Mafia, I was no stranger to the ways of taking one's life. However, I had had troubles pointing my gun on the man's chest, at the beginning. He was wailing, begging for his life, and he had not harmed me in any way. It was not a situation of defence, but a conscious killing. I could have witnessed horror in his eyes when he had understood he would not go back to his family the evening, and I had shut my mind. This path stained of blood, I had chosen it myself when I had followed Dazai-san, that day. I had to face the consequences, and I had to do the job. Not only was it necessary for me to survive, but it was also my duty, for I was a mafioso. Finally, I had found it pretty easy to pull the trigger thrice. A human's life was so absurdly easy to steal, so fragile, so worthless. The world I evolved in did not even permit me to loathe myself; killing people was my occupation, it was not worse than working in an office, was it? Besides, the Port Mafia had been the only place willing to take me in after I had been abandoned by my parents first, then by the dream-like benefactors who had proved to be monsters looking for easy money. The only future I could get, if I even had one, considering my ability was killing me, would be found in that underground organisation, and no matter what I wished for, no matter what I had once expected from life, all those prospects and desires were no more. The entire will of the Port Mafia had become mine, and I lived only to serve its purpose and obey my superior's orders. So that I could keep breathing the filthy air we filled our lungs with everyday, I had become a depraved puppet in the hands of people much more powerful than I would ever be, and I did not mind. Struggling against the fate decided for me would result in a loss of energy I could not afford, not in my state.

"Spare me! I beg you, spare me!!" The man cried as he ran away from my team in the narrow alleys of Yokohama.

Calmly, I followed him, without any rush. I had learnt the maps of the intricate maze of forgotten places of the town, those paths had no secret for me. Soon enough, I cornered him into a dead end, and he was forced to turn around, back against the wall behind him as though he could melt in it and miraculously disappear. I stood in front of him, staring at his pitiful face, drenched in sweat and tears.

"I'll tell you everything you want! I'll make up for my mistakes, so, please, don't kill me!" He fell onto his knees.

I kept staring at him, emotionless. This person had betrayed the Port Mafia by divulging important information to the police about our drug dealing businesses, in exchange for being protected as a witness. However, whether there were guards or not around his house, he could not escape the men sent after him — me — and would have to face retribution soon.

"Please... Please..." He sobbed.

Quietly, I pulled by box of pills out of my pocket and put one in my mouth. The pain relievers worked well to calm my headache, and I hummed, getting closer to him.

"Working for the Port Mafia requires to respect a few rules." I told him, crouching in front of him "But among them, unwavering loyalty toward the organisation is the most important one, so obvious no one even mentions it. Should you be tortured, should you be interrogated, never would you utter a single word about the Port Mafia. Any secret you know about us is to be taken with you to your grave, that is how we work, that is what you should have expected upon joining us."

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I was afraid... I didn't think..."

"You are sorry...?" I tilted my head slightly "Because of you, we are going to lose hundreds, thousands of dollars. Next to that sum, your life is a cheap payment, isn't it?"

"No... Please..." He sniffed pitifully, bowing in front of me and holding the hem of my coat "Please spare me... I have a wife, and a daughter..."

"I know." I raised his head harshly so I could look at him in the eyes "They've already been notified of your death, and the funerals are almost ready, too. All that's missing is the guest of honour — you. But you had to run away and make things difficult for you. You trapped yourself in that dead end, and I can't even break your jaw on the sidewalk, because there is no sidewalk, you see? I guess you'll have it the hard way..."

"No... No!!" He shouted as I stood up and threw him on the ground.

"Open your mouth." I demanded "And try to bite the dust, I don't know."

Knowing he could suffer more if he did not obey, he did his best to facilitate the process of breaking his jaw. His scream echoed in the alley the moment my heel crushed the back of his head, but I clicked my tongue.

"See..." I examined his mandible "Not yet broken. That's what you get for running away, I suppose..."

My men stayed quiet as I repeatedly kicked his head, making him cry until his vocal chords gave up on him and he could only yelp and whimper each time my foot met his head. After a few times, the familiar cracking sound reached my ears and I sighed deeply.

"Finally...!" I exclaimed "Goodness, I thought I would never be able to do it...! Usually, it only takes me a single attempt... Now, now... Do you have any last word? None? Oh, I was inconsiderate... Both your jaw and voice are broken... You can't possibly answer me. It is fortunate that I can at least hear your last thoughts... Don't worry, your daughter will be perfectly fine. She's such a lucky girl, having a loving father... Had you been mine, perhaps we would not be in such a situation, but I suppose you don't care about my feelings... That being said, the Port Mafia wishes you a pleasant journey in the afterlife...!"

One, two and three bullets in his chest. He died immediately, without a sound, and I had accomplished my duty. I exhaled and put my gun into the holster before turning toward the men escorting me. They stayed speechless as I walked past them, only to glance at them over my shoulder.

"Are you going to gawk at that dead body the entire day?" I asked curtly "We have other tasks, let's not waste any more time there."

There was another traitor who had joined another organisation and whose name was on the list of people I had to execute this day. I hoped he would not run away in a street without a sidewalk — having to break their jaw like this was quite exhausting for my body.

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[cherry3point14]

Stranger Than Fanfiction: Ch 7

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x Reader   Warnings: Not much except for a badly brewed cup of tea. Word count: 3,000.  Chapter Summary: A quick trip to finish with your job puts you on a path to see a certain Winchester again. A/N: After the shock of the last chapter I thought we could all do with a little Dean.

Ao3 if you prefer

Margaret Hall, formerly Margaret White, was a dreamer. That is until she met her late husband. Before meeting Andy she had dreamt of being an actress, perhaps, or a dancer. Moreover, she had dreamt of the world and any career that would allow her to see every corner of it. Teenage dreams are often far-reaching and difficult to attain, not that Maggie gave up or settled in any way. She understood that dreams change and hers evolved into a romance with her high school sweetheart. His father owned a restaurant and wanted Andy to follow in the family business. Maggie wanted to follow Andy, whether that was to the furthest reaches of the Middle East or the eastern end of Peach Street. He loved her as much as she loved him, so he’d resisted and tried to send her away after her dreams. Luckily Maggie was a lick smarter than her husband and saw straight through his stupidity.

They tried to start a family but after years of failed attempts they found out it was impossible, the Hall family genetics skipped Andy’s generation. Maggie didn’t care as much as she thought she would. They could adopt or foster, or they could live renound as the local childless couple with too much disposable income. It might even be enough to travel the world one day. Not that it mattered if they did see the world she had dreamt of as a child. As long as Maggie had Andy, then she had all the family and adventure she’d ever need.

Her last memory of Andy is the ghostly shade of grey his skin held when she had to identify his body. Murdered felt like the wrong description for what happened to him, he was stolen from her.

Of course, seeing him on that cold, metal table wasn’t Maggie’s hardest day. She thought it had been at the time but since then her life had gotten so much worse, so very quickly.

You swallow thickly as you turn onto Peach Street. You have the file, again, in your bag and you hope it’s the last time you’ll ever hold that manilla nightmare. Then the voice in your head, the writer, started talking about Maggie and you almost consider going home again.

It was only one signature that you’d forgotten to get. Everything was done, claim processed, entered in the system. This was literally dotting the ‘i’, assuming that she signed her name Maggie and not Margaret.

The voice talking about Maggie is what makes you doubt being here at all. You didn’t want to be her worst day. Not that you think you are but what if you were part of it? All the preparation and niceties in the world wouldn’t make this easier. This wasn’t a loss you could compartmentalize away like you usually do with clients since you’d  just  heard the abridged version. You could be as sympathetic as you are with any other spouse in mourning, nothing would change the fact that your heart had broken for Maggie about twenty seconds ago.

You don’t stop, can’t. Not for your own selfish reasons, although you won’t deny you’re a little selfish; you keep going for Maggie. This thing you need her to do is a few blinks from her entire life and then it will be done. No more people coming into her home reminding her of her dead husband. Andy. She’d said Andrew when you’d visited the first time. You’d written down Andrew but he was an Andy.

You shake your head, you need to be stronger than this, focused. As much as you wanted to sympathize with Maggie Hall it may not even be Maggie that you are going to see.

No matter what the voice says there was always the possibility that you were about to meet a shifter. How you  were supposed  to tell the difference you had no idea since you had no silver stashed away ready to  subtly  hand over. That was probably a good thing. If you showed up with silver and the shifter realized you knew what they were? Well, that thought terrified you. Imminent death or not you didn’t want to go looking for danger. You were happy to leave the monster to the experts, all you needed was a signature. If you could do it on the doorstep you would, but two minutes inside would be an acceptable compromise. In and out. Done and dusted.

You’d convinced yourself this would be fine, that you didn’t need backup or support. Finding yourself on the doorstep of 75 Peach Street is a completely different matter.

Y/N knocked commandingly on the door. She heard the sound echo as if the inside was a cavernous space waiting to engulf her. A stark contrast to her previous visit when she’d found two burly men filling up the whole space and pretending to know her. She might have been convinced nobody was home, there wasn’t so much as a rustle for the longest period. Y/N began to wonder if she should walk away and make a return journey another time. That is until the lock of the door clicked  slowly, fearfully, with none of the confidence of a woman who so bluntly referred to her dead husband before.

You’d noticed how slowly the door opened obviously, still, it was the voice who put a name to what you see in Maggie. Fear. The door only opens ajar, a chain across the gap stopping pushy intruders. Your own concern melts away at the sight of scared Maggie Hall peering out of the darkness of her own home.

She could comment on the time of day and question the darkness within but it would be a pointless question. That much was already explained by the closed curtains and shuttered blinds visible from every outside window. Y/N is not one to point out the obvious unless she is clarifying a fact for her records. She could also argue that the brightness in which Maggie Hall chooses to live was not her concern.

Y/N did none of these things and only endeavored to get what she needed  quickly and precisely, having no idea that this meeting was another thing on a long list of things. Things such as she had no idea how important they were.

“Mrs. Hall?” you ever so slightly lean in, all the better to see her face and still failing.

You expect the correction insisting that you call her Maggie, instead, she stutters out an affirmation, “y-yes ?”

You only pause for a moment, “Mrs. Hall, do you remember me? Y/N Y/L/N from First National?”

“The insurance company?”

“Yes, the insurance company. I was missing a signature on the paperwork and I was hoping I could get you to sign it. I promise it’ll only be a second and it’s the last thing we need.”

While she waited for Maggie to make a decision Y/N was struck by a conflicting myriad of memories. The woman she had met had been not only more confident and straight forward, but she’d shown no feelings about the insurance claim at all. Mrs. Hall had been rather blase about the money she would be receiving, hardly remembering the account details it was to  be paid  into. Now the woman before Y/N sprung back in horror. She slammed the door closed only to throw it wide open again seconds later, no security chain and fervent horror adorning her features.

“There’s a problem with the insurance?!” She shouts at you. Almost. The emotion is there, not the volume. As if shouting has been trained out of her.

You’re quick to stop her panicking, you didn’t do well with other people panicking, “no, no. It’s fine, everything is fine, everything is processed. I just need a signature to officially close the claim but really, it’s all done.”

She inhales like it hurts her throat and exhales as violently. Although she does, at least, appear to be breathing again.

“Mrs. Hall, Maggie, are you sure you’re ok? You seem upset.”

Where you hope to calm her down enough to stop her breaking apart, instead you set her off.

“Of course I’m upset. My husband is dead!”

This was going to take longer than two minutes.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hall.” You’re not stupid enough to wish her well as you leave.

Y/N fell from the step outside of Maggie Hall’s home much like a dazed and confused newborn giraffe trying to take its first steps atop uncertain legs. Maggie had kept the lights low, had led her to the lounge, and only turned on a single lamp to see the line where her John Hancock was required. She had signed her name Maggie and dotted the ‘i’ with a shaky strike, rather than a neat jab. Still, it wasn’t the shocking change from night to day that had Y/N wobbling unpredictability to the pavement. The woman seemed to have no recollection of the Winchesters, whom Y/N had completely,  accidentally mentioned.

The fact that Dean himself was taking large strides across the street to meet her was merely a coincidence after she brought them up. Y/N was not aware of any hidden powers she possessed to wish for things and have them appear. However, intended or not the older Winchester was here all the same.

You’re looking back towards the door you’d just left with disbelief. Which is why Dean has to catch you with his hands wrapped around your shoulders to stop you bumping into him or consequently walking into the road. “Hey, hey. Wanna watch where you’re going, honey? Good thing I was already keeping an eye on things here, huh?”

He probably thinks he's being funny about you nearly walking into the street but you don't laugh.“She had no idea who I am.”

“What?”

When she whips her head to him it turns out to be, very unfortunately, the first time she’s seen Dean Winchester bathed in sunshine. Not under fluorescents or in darkness. Absolutely drenched in the sun's warm glow, highlighting the forest green of his eyes enough to pull a silent ‘wow’ from her lips. It’s uncontrollable then when she slips into her imagination, where his strong hands are holding her still as he leans into her. His tongue rolling over his bottom lip before he slots his mouth over hers. The pad of his thumb tracing the curve of her neck as he swallows the air from her lungs.

Crap. This again. You can’t deny it’s a very pleasant mental detour but now you feel like you might fall down if he wasn’t holding you up, and moments ago you’d had other interests.

“Sweetheart? You ok?” His voice sounds worried if you’re inclined to believe it.

“Yeah-yes. I’m fine. I’m-she didn’t remember you.”

“So? I was there for five minutes, a week ago, before you kicked us out.” His lip twitches when he mentions you kicking him out and he decides that you’re steady enough to let go of, as his arms drop.

Before you can reply he starts patting his pockets for his phone, which has coincidently started to ring. He only fleetingly scowls at the name on the screen and then his face smooths out. He holds a finger up, “give me a second.”

Dean took two steps away to speak into his phone, which seemed to be enough distance for Y/N to clear her head completely of her intoxication. He was becoming more of a constant in her life than the questionable sounds that came from her car engine. It had to be more than a simple coincidence that she once again found herself with him. This time without the distraction of Sam or the inherent urge to argue with him.

How much the voice encouraged you to think about Dean was becoming borderline embarrassing.

“You’re not understanding me.” You emphasize by tipping your head forward and raising your eyebrows when he ends his call, not wasting a second. “She didn’t know me as if we’ve never met and I spent over an hour with her last week.”

His eyes flash in recognition, although it doesn’t seem to change whatever decision he’s already made, “coffee?”

Dean seems at home in the diner that you weren’t even aware of on the other side of town. The place smells of bacon and coffee with a side of Americana. Somewhere in the deepest recesses, you recall a thousand instances in the books of Sam and Dean solving things over breakfast. You don’t mention that to him. Understandably he doesn’t seem to appreciate his claim to fame. Besides, you very recently understand what it feels like to be a subject other people are reading about.

The waitress walks over with a pad and what she thinks is a smile, “what can I getcha?”

Dean, in his natural habitat, is confident, “two coffees and a slice of pie please, sweetheart.”

Y/N huffed, only slightly. If asked she could claim it’s due to him ordering her a drink and the wrong drink at that. Dean's order was certainly not the reason for the huff or the crease between her brows. She didn’t want to admit the actual reason. She had too many other pressing matters in her life. Too many to admit that him calling the waitress 'sweetheart' had felt seven shades of uncomfortable.

She knew the other matters had to come first, not to mention she was being irrational. Logic didn't stop the absurd thought that she has to chase away. It also doesn't stop the small curve of her lips when he looks at her expectantly, waiting for her with silent eye contact to add to the order. Unfortunately for Y/N, she was coming to realize that her feelings went beyond simply not wanting to kill him anymore. Beyond a distracting physical attraction even. In another timeline, another story, she might even find herself using that elusive cure-all verb—like. She liked him.

You soften your face for the waitress, ignoring everything you’d heard and felt as best you can. You needed to ignore it. “Can you change one of those coffees for a tea please and double the pie.”

The waitress purses her lips, “tea?”

“Any tea you have will be fine.”

She taps her pen against the pad and you wouldn’t be surprised if she’s written some sort of insult on the paper. She walks away without anything said out loud, which could be considered a kindness.

“Tea?” Dean repeats but with amusement in his voice compared to the waitress's judgment.

“Tea,” you confirm smiling wider, shrugging one shoulder. “You didn’t bring me here and buy me a slice of pie to debate tea versus coffee though, did you, Dean?”

He raises his finger again, “well, you never need an excuse for pie.”

It’s funny you guess. In the Supernatural books, Dean’s love of pie was a fun quirk that showed up at inopportune moments. The boys might be stranded in a hideout or undercover and Dean would always step out for pie. It’s the punchline to a joke. Whereas sitting here with him illustrates the nuances of real-life compared to pulpy fiction. Dean talks about pie in front of you and there’s something childlike in the crinkles of his eyes, a quirk you can't get from literature.

“Sure. Still, there’s something you want to tell me?”

He sighs, it weighs him down like it could drown him. “That was Sam on the phone, leads have been drying up for a week now and we’re kinda spinning our wheels.”

She felt like she had been on the receiving end of this conversation before. Past boyfriends telling her that it wasn’t her, it was them. Even when she suspected it might indeed be her. The déjà vu was unnerving. Dean was not tied to her by the title boyfriend, unfortunately, which meant that his ‘dear John’ conversation was not his way of breaking up with her, thankfully. This only begged the question, if it wasn’t her he was leaving, what else was he trying to let her down easy over?

“Not for nothing I think you’re right too. The widow she’s not a shifter, at least not anymore.”

It all clicks into place. He’s not leaving you, he's leaving the case, which by extension still means he's leaving you.

“You think the shifter moved on?” Even you can hear the panic in your own voice, it's not panic over a shapeshifter anymore at least.

“One coffee and one tea.” Your bubbly waitress interrupts with two drinks and you find yourself looking at a sad cup of half brewed leaf water. She’s gone before you can complain.

Dean doesn’t see his coffee while he tries to calm you down. “We’ll stick around a few more days, I’m not just leaving. We gotta make sure it’s really gone.”

You’re still not fine with monsters and you’re still not looking for danger, the words come rushing out of your mouth anyway. “What if I had an idea to flush it out?”

He cocks his head like you're adorable for trying to play with the grown-ups, “you have an idea?”

“It’s about the money, right? The insurance money. So, let’s-let’s stop the money. Yeah… I can go to the bank and stop the transfer. Then it’s gotta come out of hiding?”

Dean sips his coffee. Slow and savoring. His whole hand wrapped around the small cup. The china clangs as he puts it back down. It’s an agonizing sixty seconds until he opens his mouth again.

“Solid plan, sweetheart. Ain’t no way you’re doing it.”

“It has to be me. I’ve done this before, the bank knows me and this is the sort of thing that needs approval.”

He clicks his teeth, “let me rephrase that, ain’t no way you’re doing it alone.”

Continue to Chapter 8.

5eva tags: @divadinag​ @darthdeziewok @fluentinfiction @witch-of-letters @supernatural-teamfreewill-blog @magnitude101999 @alexwinchester23 @jesseswartzwelder  Dean babes: @thewinchesterchronicles @akshi8278 @bloodydaydreamer StrangerThanFiction tags: @jaylarkson @starsandmidnightblue

[artdaily7]

The Man With The Blue Guitar by Wallace Stevens

I The man bent over his guitar, A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, 'You have a blue guitar, You do not play things as they are.'

The man replied, 'Things as they are Are changed upon the blue guitar.'

And they said then, 'But play, you must, A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar Of things exactly as they are.'

II I cannot bring a world quite round, Although I patch it as I can.

I sing a hero's head, large eye And bearded bronze, but not a man,

Although I patch him as I can And reach through him almost to man.

If to serenade almost to man Is to miss, by that, things as they are,

Say it is the serenade Of a man that plays a blue guitar.

III Ah, but to play man number one, To drive the dagger in his heart,

To lay his brain upon the board And pick the acrid colors out,

To nail his thought across the door, Its wings spread wide to rain and snow,

To strike his living hi and ho, To tick it, tock it, turn it true,

To bang from it a savage blue, Jangling the metal of the strings

IV So that's life, then: things as they are? It picks its way on the blue guitar.

A million people on one string? And all their manner in the thing,

And all their manner, right and wrong, And all their manner, weak and strong?

The feelings crazily, craftily call, Like a buzzing of flies in autumn air,

And that's life, then: things as they are, This buzzing of the blue guitar.

V Do not speak to us of the greatness of poetry, Of the torches wisping in the underground,

Of the structure of vaults upon a point of light. There are no shadows in our sun,

Day is desire and night is sleep. There are no shadows anywhere.

The earth, for us, is flat and bare. There are no shadows. Poetry

Exceeding music must take the place Of empty heaven and its hymns,

Ourselves in poetry must take their place, Even in the chattering of your guitar.

VI A tune beyond us as we are, Yet nothing changed by the blue guitar;

Ourselves in the tune as if in space, Yet nothing changed, except the place

Of things as they are and only the place As you play them, on the blue guitar,

Placed, so, beyond the compass of change, Perceived in a final atmosphere;

For a moment final, in the way The thinking of art seems final when

The thinking of god is smoky dew. The tune is space. The blue guitar

Becomes the place of things as they are, A composing of senses of the guitar.

VII It is the sun that shares our works. The moon shares nothing. It is a sea.

When shall I come to say of the sun, It is a sea; it shares nothing;

The sun no longer shares our works And the earth is alive with creeping men,

Mechanical beetles never quite warm? And shall I then stand in the sun, as now

I stand in the moon, and call it good, The immaculate, the merciful good,

Detached from us, from things as they are? Not to be part of the sun? To stand

Remote and call it merciful? The strings are cold on the blue guitar.

VIII The vivid, florid, turgid sky, The drenching thunder rolling by,

The morning deluged still by night, The clouds tumultuously bright

And the feeling heavy in cold chords Struggling toward impassioned choirs,

Crying among the clouds, enraged By gold antagonists in air-

I know my lazy, leaden twang Is like the reason in a storm;

And yet it brings the storm to bear. I twang it out and leave it there.

IX And the color, the overcast blue Of the air, in which the blue guitar

Is a form, described but difficult, And I am merely a shadow hunched

Above the arrowy, still strings, The maker of a thing yet to be made;

The color like a thought that grows Out of a mood, the tragic robe

Of the actor, half his gesture, half His speech, the dress of his meaning, silk

Sodden with his melancholy words, The weather of his stage, himself.

X Raise reddest columns. Toll a bell And clap the hollows full of tin.

Throw papers in the streets, the wills Of the dead, majestic in their seals.

And the beautiful trombones-behold The approach of him whom none believes,

Whom all believe that all believe, A pagan in a varnished care.

Roll a drum upon the blue guitar. Lean from the steeple. Cry aloud,

'Here am I, my adversary, that Confront you, hoo-ing the slick trombones,

Yet with a petty misery At heart, a petty misery,

Ever the prelude to your end, The touch that topples men and rock.'

XV Is this picture of Picasso's, this 'hoard Of destructions', a picture of ourselves,

Now, an image of our society? Do I sit, deformed, a naked egg,

Catching at Good-bye, harvest moon, Without seeing the harvest or the moon?

Things as they are have been destroyed. Have I? Am I a man that is dead

At a table on which the food is cold? Is my thought a memory, not alive?

Is the spot on the floor, there, wine or blood And whichever it may be, is it mine?

XXIII A few final solutions, like a duet With the undertaker: a voice in the clouds,

Another on earth, the one a voice Of ether, the other smelling of drink,

The voice of ether prevailing, the swell Of the undertaker's song in the snow

Apostrophizing wreaths, the voice In the clouds serene and final, next

The grunted breath scene and final, The imagined and the real, thought

And the truth, Dichtung und Wahrheit, all Confusion solved, as in a refrain

One keeps on playing year by year, Concerning the nature of things as they are.

XXX From this I shall evolve a man. This is his essence: the old fantoche

Hanging his shawl upon the wind, Like something on the stage, puffed out,

His strutting studied through centuries. At last, in spite of his manner, his eye

A-cock at the cross-piece on a pole Supporting heavy cables, slung

Through Oxidia, banal suburb, One-half of all its installments paid.

Dew-dapper clapper-traps, blazing From crusty stacks above machines.

Ecce, Oxidia is the seed Dropped out of this amber-ember pod,

Oxidia is the soot of fire, Oxidia is Olympia.

XXXI How long and late the pheasant sleeps The employer and employee contend,

Combat, compose their droll affair. The bubbling sun will bubble up,

Spring sparkle and the cock-bird shriek. The employer and employee will hear

And continue their affair. The shriek Will rack the thickets. There is no place,

Here, for the lark fixed in the mind, In the museum of the sky. The cock

Will claw sleep. Morning is not sun, It is this posture of the nerves,

As if a blunted player clutched The nuances of the blue guitar.

It must be this rhapsody or none, The rhapsody of things as they are.

XXXII Throw away the lights, the definitions, And say of what you see in the dark

That it is this or that it is that, But do not use the rotted names.

How should you walk in that space and know Nothing of the madness of space,

Nothing of its jocular procreations? Throw the lights away. Nothing must stand

Between you and the shapes you take When the crust of shape has been destroyed.

You as you are? You are yourself. The blue guitar surprises you.

XXXIII That generation's dream, aviled In the mud, in Monday's dirty light,

That's it, the only dream they knew, Time in its final block, not time

To come, a wrangling of two dreams. Here is the bread of time to come,

Here is its actual stone. The bread Will be our bread, the stone will be

Our bed and we shall sleep by night. We shall forget by day, except

The moments when we choose to play The imagined pine, the imagined jay.

Theamat and Amanda Rodgers 2014 Death, the Old Guitarist, Digital Art, DeviantArt

[maliby]

Dom (M)

↬ Pairing: Jungkook x Reader ↬ Story Genre: smut, fluff at the end, dom!reader, sub!jungkook, PWP ↬ Warnings in this chapter: unprotected sex, face riding, deepthroat, marking of the body (hickeys and scratches), very light petplay, cum eating, noona kink ↬ Word count: 2.9K ↬ Summary: Your day is going shitty and you just want to fuck the shit out of your boyfriend after he posts a very sexy pic online.

a/n: this is pure filth, I just had these feelings inside of me after some pictures I saw of Jungkook and I just had to let them out somehow, lmao.

9 PM and you were still stuck at work; your feet hurt from wearing high heels all day and you were starting to get a headache from staring at the computer for too long. You wanted nothing more than to just pick up your things and go home to your loving boyfriend Jungkook, but instead, you had to finish a load of paperwork your boss had given you.

Today had been one of those days where everything had ticked you off. You couldn’t quite explain it, but you thought that the added workload, the lack of sex (due to that same workload) and your approaching period were making you extra bitchy and horny, bringing your dom persona straight to the surface.

You usually liked to be the submissive one, going to heaven and back every time your boyfriend choked you out with his cock buried deep inside you, but sometimes you liked to be the one in control. Jungkook loved it when you brought your dom side to play; as soon as he would see that look in your eyes and heard your bossy tone his cock would immediately start getting hard for you.

You were keeping it fairly in control, thinking that you were almost finished and could finally relax, but it wasn’t until you decided to check Instagram that it all went down the drain: Jungkook had posted a shirtless picture of him from your vacation in Hawaii.

You wanted nothing more than just lock your phone and get back to work, but your eyes kept wandering over his naked torso. He had just come out of the water when you decided to take a picture of him; he looked like a god amongst men with his toned golden muscles glistening in the sun and his wet black hair being pushed back. Damn him and his perfect looks. You wanted to wreck him; you wanted to hear him plead for you to give him what he wants, what only you could give him.

Not being able to hold it in any longer you turned off your computer, picked up your purse and started driving home, telling your boss you had some family emergency. At this moment you didn’t care anymore, you would worry about your work tomorrow, for today you had other sticky situations to worry about.

As you parked your car in front of your building you looked up and noticed that the light from your living room was lit up, telling you exactly where your prey of a boyfriend was. You went inside the building and called for the elevator, the ache between your legs being so big that you had to press your hand to your cunt to relief it.

“Come on you stupid elevator, where are you coming from? The moon?” You cursed as you looked at the numbers slowly counting down, the thought of climbing up the stairs briefly passing through your mind.

As soon as the elevator arrived and opened its doors to you, you went inside and quickly punched the button to your floor, checked yourself in the mirror right after; your makeup had run off a little bit, so you applied a bit of concealer to hide your dark circles and an extra coat of your red liquid lipstick that would stay on your mouth even if you were giving the sloppiest of blowjobs.

When the elevator reached your floor you marched down to your door, your hand already inside your purse trying to find your keys; you searched and you searched, but it seemed like they had disappeared into another dimension.

“Fuck this shit.” You cursed to yourself once more, giving up on the hell hole that was a woman’s purse and deciding to knock on your door.

“One second,” you heard your boyfriend say from the other side.

“Hurry up,” you demanded.

“Y/N? Did you forget your keys?”

When he opened the door you swore you could feel the extra slick moistening your underwear - he was wearing nothing but his grey sweatpants that hung oh so nicely on his hips. You couldn’t handle it anymore, you walked inside, closed the door and pushed him to a wall, kissing him fervently.

“Did you miss me that much babe?” He said as he broke the kiss for air.

“Shut up. Get on your knees.” It was at that moment that he knew exactly what he was dealing with, the corner of his lips rising up in a smirk. “What are you smiling at? Do you think this is funny?”

“No,” he rapidly got on his knees and glued his eyes on the floor. He knew that dom Y/N was in the house and that you weren’t gonna take any shit from him.

“Let me tell you about my day. I had to work for twelve hours in front of a computer, wearing tight and uncomfortable clothes, and hearing shit from my boss about being behind on work. I worked so hard, wishing nothing but to finish early so I can come home to spend time with my boyfriend, but when I decide to take a little break to check Instagram what do I see? I see a photo of my half-naked boyfriend looking all mouth watering with all his glorious abs shining in the sun.”

“I’m sorry noona,” he said with his eyes still glued to your feet.

“Did I tell you you could speak? You’re so fucking insolent.” He didn’t say anything further, only bowing his head further down in a sign of submission.

“Do you have any idea of what you did?” You lifted your right leg up and placed your foot on his shoulder, your heel digging into his flesh. “Look up.” When his brown doe eyes met with your drenched underwear you swore you could see his cock twitching, making your desire grow even more. “You see what you have done?” You slightly pulled your panties off to show him the string of your arousal that connected you to your underwear. “Because of you, I couldn’t finish my work. Because of you, I had to come home running. Because of you, I had to almost pleasure myself while waiting for the damn elevator. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I-I’m sorry noona,” his eyes were still fixed on your glistening cunt, probably thinking of all the things he could do to it.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it my little kookie,” you pressed the back of his shoulder with your foot, forcing him to now be on his hands and knees, “you’re gonna have to beg. Now, be a good boy and follow your noona on all fours like the obedient dog you are.”

The way from the entrance to your bedroom was a short one, but you just wanted to fuck with him a little bit, so you decided to make him crawl around the living room and only then take him to the bedroom. You sat at the edge of the bed with your legs crossed and watched as he waited on his knees for your further instructions.

“Come over here baby,” he crawled a bit more and stopped right in front of you, his face giving signs of the discomfort he must be feeling in his knees. “You are so beautiful,” you said as you observed his features for a moment. “I want you to stand for me.” Once again he didn’t wait a millisecond to obey your commands, immediately standing, his prominent bulge pointing right at your face.

You loved it when he wore those sweatpants with nothing else, it made you go wild, but now you were ready to see them on the floor, so you reached for the hem and yanked them down, leaving him with nothing but his black Calvin Klein boxer briefs that hugged him perfectly.

“You are so hard already from just crawling around the house?” You said as your hand massaged his junk over his underwear making him release tiny little moans. “Look at you, you can barely fit in your underwear anymore.” You slid your hand underneath his underwear and started pumping his cock very slowly, making him moan louder. “Shut up, I don’t want you to make a sound.”

“I-I can’t noona, it feels so good.” He closed his eyes and bit his lip in a state of pure bliss.

“Well if you can’t…” you took off your soaked underwear, turned it into a little ball and put it in his mouth, “I’ll have to find another way.”

You thought that you’d be indifferent to your actions, but watching Jungkook happily sucking on the piece of fabric soaked with your arousal like it was candy made you so excited that you wanted to end all this and just fuck him then and there.

“You can sit in the bed now baby.” When he did as you asked, you hoisted your skirt up and straddled him, your cunt meeting with his bulge. The pressure his hard cock made on your pussy felt so good that you couldn’t help but moan out loud.

“You like that baby? You like how I make your underwear all dirty just like you made mine today at work?” Since he couldn’t talk, he nodded his head 'yes', his hands grabbing at your ass cheeks.

“Why won’t you be a good little boy and get rid of noona’s clothes?” You didn’t have to ask twice, as soon as the question was out of your mouth he ripped your shirt open, buttons popping all over the floor, and reached behind your back to unhook your bra; you let your ruined shirt and bra fall to the floor, the only piece of clothing on you now being the skirt at your waist.

With no layers of clothing standing in your way now (except for your skirt), you moved a bit closer to him, skin rubbing against skin, and attached your mouth to his neck - a spot you knew had him weak. You started sucking on him, having no mercy on his beautiful skin; you wanted to mark him all over, you wanted everyone to know to whom he belongs to - you. Afterwards, you pressed both your hands on his chest and pushed him back so he could lay on the bed and you could have his body as your canvas. You marked his neck, then his chest and his delicious chocolate abs, and then you moved onto his crotch area and pulled down his boxers, freeing his cock.

You teased him and you teased him, leaving kisses everywhere except where he wanted them the most, making him a whimpering mess. “You want me to suck you off baby?”

“Hmm-hmm,” he moaned while nodding his head ‘yes’.

“Mmmm,” you let your mouth get closer and breathed into his dick, teasing him once more. “I will baby,” you grabbed his red tip and slowly started moving your thumb in tandem over it, spreading his pre-cum all over it, “but first you have to do one more thing for me.”

He mumbled something you didn’t understand due to the underwear that was stuffed in his mouth but you imagined it was something along the lines of ‘I’ll do it’.

You moved to meet his face again, your thumb still working on his tip. “I want you to eat me out.”

Your free hand removed your underwear from his mouth so you could hear his sweet voice. “Fuck, yes. I want to taste you so bad noona.” He whimpered, still falling to pieces from your touches.

You let go of his cock and moved your body so it could meet with his mouth, and without any warning, you sat on his face. You almost came on the spot as soon as his tongue met with your clit, the pent up frustration no doubt at fault for that. It all felt so heavenly that soon you were riding his face, your clit hitting his nose and his tongue just running along your folds.

“Oh fuck, that feels so good.” You were nearly there and he knew that, so to give you that extra edge he lifted you a bit with his strong arms and started tongue-fucking you. “Oh yes, don’t you dare stop.” Jungkook’s tongue, as well as all his other muscles,  were very strong, so with the frenetic rhythm that he was going at it didn’t take long for you to cum all over his mouth.

You couldn’t move for a few moments, but after he started to lick you all over again you had to back away, the overstimulation making you shake all over.

“You did so good baby,” you petted his hair like he was a little child, “I think you deserve a reward.”

You didn’t even bother moving down, you just turned around and started going down on him in a fake 69 position (due to you being the only one doing oral sex). You started off soft, just giving little licks here and there until eventually, he was deepthroating you as you massaged his balls. You wanted him to reach near his climax quickly, which thankfully wasn’t hard due to the teasing you did before, so you went all out and let him fuck your throat like there was no tomorrow, but when he was about to cum you backed away making him curse.

“What the fuck did you just say?” You turned around once more, grabbing him by his chin.

“I’m sorry noona, it’s just that I really wanted to cum.”

“Listen here, you belong to me. Your cum belongs to me. I decide when you get to cum, is that understood?” You looked deep into his eyes for you knew that this would get to him since he would say this to you all the time when he was the dom.

“Yes,” his eyes were also on yours, but they looked at you in a way that screamed ‘I submit’. If he wanted to cum, he would have to beg for it.

“Don’t you dare move.” You aligned your pussy with his cock and slowly sank into it, the feeling making the both of you moan.

“You feel so good noona,”  he was fully grabbing your thighs, his short nails digging into your flesh. He was trying really hard not to move, but he knew that if he disrespected your orders he wouldn’t get the cum.

You started off by swirling your hips and only then did you start to bounce on him, the sound of skin slapping on skin filling the whole room.

“Noona, please let me cum,” Jungkook said in a pleading tone, the poor guy having been tortured with all the teasing.

“Not yet.”

“Noona please,” he insisted.

You completely stopped all movement at his second time pleading. “Fine. You want to cum? You can cum, but only after you make me cum, get it?”

“Yes noona,” and just like that he suddenly picked you up and turned you over so he now was on top of you. Then, without losing any more time, he started fucking you at an inhuman speed like he was a young wild animal that had been locked in a cage and had just now been sent out into the wild to play.

“Oh fuck, yes baby, just like that. You’re doing great.” You were nearing your end and so was he so, wanting to comply with your wishes of making you cum first he reached for that magic little bud that just never fails - the clit. As soon as he started rubbing your little bud you felt your orgasm coming down on you like never before, making you claw at Jungkook’s back.

After your orgasm Jungkook never stopped though, desperately wanting to reach his own high. It didn’t take long for him to be spilling his load inside of you though, his sweet moans that you loved so much reaching your ears.

“You did so good baby,” you said after both of you recovered your breaths. “Sorry about the scratches, I couldn’t help it.”

“No worries baby, I like it when you’re wild like that with me.” He gave you a soft kiss on the mouth before he got up to go to the bathroom.

“Hey, don’t you dare! Aftercare is on the dom, you know this!” You said as you realized what he was about to do.

“Come on let me do this for you, you’ve had a rough day and week,” he returned from the bathroom with a wet washcloth and a dry one ready to clean you up.

“You’re the sweetest, I love you.”

He cleaned you all up and then gave you a little kiss on the nose. “I love you too baby.”

As soon as he turned around to go to the bathroom again and you saw his scratch marks again you had an idea. “Hey, before we take care of those scratches can you just do me a little favour?” You asked batting your eyelashes at him.

“Anything.”

“When you asked me if we could take a photo of us to put on my Instagram, this was not what I had in mind,” he said teasingly while looking at the photo of you two naked and hugging, the only thing visible being your face and his clawed back.

“Well, it’s just in case people go to your profile and start drooling over the photo I took of you on the beach. Then they look at this picture and realize that you are well served and that they can back off.”

“Well then, next time that I’m dom I demand the same type of photo for my love bites,” he said as he playfully bit your lip.

“Noooo, my mother has Instagram kookie! I can’t post that.”

“Too bad, the sub doesn’t make the rules.”

[darksct]

stop / @flcksin​ ( bc i always like to alter the timeline of shit ,, also its 1 am big woop enjoy this long ass manuscript. )

she sees him for the first time in three years. he is even greyer in the hair and his shoulders slouch, shoulders hunched back when he walks. it is when she runs in an open field, through the tall grass and under the warmth of the sun. it shines down brighter upon rome than it does in her home, a place that is colder and where white crystals open fall from the open sky. tears of jupiter the melt into water when they fall upon her open palms. life is so different in rome. so full of violence yet so calm in her pursuit of escape. there is quiet, serenity where all willow can hear singing of birds and the billowing of the wind. commodus does not like when she ventures off on her own. he fears that she will be harmed in the wildnerness or perhaps it is something is. perhaps he think that if she is to stray away too far from the palace, that she will never return. that she will leave him. 

oh, but she wishes she would have remained under the cool shade of the tree where she’d rested, closing her eyes in deep thought. she prayed for rain as she did for the sun. but helos himself cannot be fooled by her. she may carry specks of sunlight upon her golden tresses, but willow favors jupiter. he is the most divine of all and one whom she has danced for in her garden at home. just a girl was she then, gown clinging to her skin as she rushed towards her palace. she was drenched head to toe, giggling to herself as she’d aimlessly trailed through the empty halls. but she’d seen him then as she’d seen him now. unexpectedly and all too haunting. willow stood on the open field, frozen. paralyzed with fear. 

the diplomat.

a man who willow has not spoken to commodus of. commodus, who she still yet maintains her distance from despite the way they have made a habit of sneaking into each other’s chambers in the darkness of the night. willow remembers the first time she had gathered the courage to do such a thing. she is quiiet when she moves, a sleuth only because the fear of being caught by her father as she would explore, terrified her so. she had trailed off, desiring of her enemy’s touch. willow had all but forced herself into his chambers while he laid in the comfort of his bed. sheets of silk which she, then, had never felt upon her skin. but she’d climbed atop him, risking death itself while clasping a hand over his mouth. a thoughtless pursuit now that she thinks of it. willow could have winded with a dagger in her chest. but perhaps she had missed something, for she had not stirred commodus awake in those moments. commodus doesn’t sleep. 

she imagines such pleasures will be over now that an even greater enemy stands before her. a man who stripped the princess of her innocence — who has tainted and done away with the only part of her that had been untouched. her dignity, pride, and body all toyed with. crushed underneath the iron fists of soulless men. when willow speaks to commodus of his arrival, she cannot do it without tears. but even yet, she refuses to reveal what had occurred between them both. she allows herself to develop and excuse in those moments. a feigned truth. he reminds me of my father. this is all. 

it isn’t until they are approached in the evening, willow drinking wine from a golden chalice as she watches the way the diplomat moves about the festivities. she loses sight of the older man only when commodus comes to her, joins her as he always does. “ prince, ” she greets in an amused tone. she always teases him. even now, when her mind feels frazzled with fear. it isn’t until minutes pass that she hears a voice interupt her conversation with the emperor’s son. his voice is gruff, low and eery. it sends chills straight down her spine and she cannot help but remember the way he hovered over her, moving atop her forcefully. he dares to tsk softly, a smirk painting his wrinkled features. you are not meant to be here, princess. last i have heard you were meant to be a prisoner. a whore for men to make proper use of.  willow lowers her gaze, only to raise her arms to touch commodus’ arms as he takes a step forth to confront the elder. “ commodus, ” willow calls out shakily. she is trembling. “ there is no need. ”

[midnight-circus]

bad girls go to vegas

At one of the largest green-flocked tables, one of the Seven Cat’s regulars is busy winning money he doesn’t need. It is his third casino of the night, and this time he intends on breaking big.

Poker, of course. He is briefly lured by the sweet simplicity of blackjack and wastes a little time at the polished handles of the bandits, but his talents lie in folds and flushes. He gambles his takings back into the game with no pause for thought, playing with an air of apologetic self-deprecation, as though he can hardly believe his own good fortune. He eases the sting of the losses and eschews his own wins with incredulity, vouching for himself as a poor player, really, the cards are just honouring him tonight, and it is in this manner that René Chevalier steady lines his temporary bank account.

He bids yet another player goodnight and thank you as they leave (empty hands, empty wallet), offering a last, effusive apology for his uncanny beginner’s luck, and the black Aces that line his pockets go unnoticed. It is a risky game to play – cheaters are vilified nowhere moreso than Las Vegas – but his singular situation means he has nothing to fear. What danger do large bouncers in black suits signify for a man in his position?

Four hundred years ago, he turned a hunting tactic into a gambling ruse, and he has enjoyed a comfortable life ever since. Foresight is terribly useful on the heels of panicked prey – predicting a left turn or a right could be the difference between blood and hunger – but as it happens, it’s also extremely handy when sitting opposite a croupier. He watches his opponents make their moves seconds before the thought has even occurred in their minds, and he manipulates his own (with the help of the cards in his pocket) to out-manoeuvre them.

Is it cheating?

René, as he slips an Ace into his royal flush with effortless sleight-of-hand, would posit it as strategy.

And really, he doesn’t feel any guilt. These people – draped in jewels and Rolexes and mulberry silks – can afford to lose a couple grand each to a handsome stranger who will take it from them with charming apologies, and besides, it’s not as though he keeps it all to himself. Some he gambles back in, and then the rest of it is spent on booze and snow and expensive accommodation, so it all ends up back in the economy one way or another anyway.

A Kitten sashays past the table, placing her hands on his shoulders as she goes and kissing his cheek; he plucks a cat-eared band off her head and slips it over his own dark, tousled curls, winking as she slaps his arm playfully and leaves him to it – if there’s one thing René does not need, its encouragement to spend more money.

So he wiles away the next few hours – the sun sets outside and the sky turns the dull, hazy yellow of an eternal Vegas twilight, lifting an arcing dome of light pollution above the city’s head. By the time he is finished, extracting himself from the game and walking away from the table in the wake of handshakes and good-natured ‘I’ll-get-you-next-time’ threats, he is almost fifty grand richer.

It won’t last for long, but perhaps he’ll hold onto it tonight.

He moves through the grand hall with graceful fluidity, wending his way through diamonds and furs, gently steering around patrons with a hand to their shoulder, their elbow, the small of their back. Many of them know him, and the ones that don’t assume he is worth knowing; the very same phenomenon that warns others of his ilk away from him lures humans close to his side, and it is more than just a wealth of charisma.

Yet another modified hunting technique, of course – pheromones drawing flesh and blood and beating hearts to him like moths to flames. It’s simpler to stalk a prey animal when it thinks it has nothing to fear, and even simpler when they come flocking like doves, but he is not hunting tonight. Hunger curls in his chest like a gaping wound, the sharp ache of starvation never far away, but he can forgo for a little while yet.

He only has three more marks left on his license, after all, and it is barely even July. He is expecting a busy summer.

So he leaves the crowds behind and steps into an elevator, manned by a silent, slick-haired man who glances at the sleek black card René produces between two fingers and nods his admittance; classic in build, lined with gilded mirrors and red flocking on the wall inside, but entirely modern in its silence and fluidity as it glides him a floor up and brings him to berth in an élite upstairs bar.

His name is on the VIP list at the Seven Cats – all seven of them, in fact, and that little black card in his pocket vouches silently for his worth. His own booth, free booze, a suite if he requires it, and any number of pleasant little perks that he need only ask for. The staff know him. The girls trust him. There are things he can get away with – the odd line here and there on a sleek black bar, for example, or a croupier who chooses to look the other way for one brief moment – that VIP allows for, and for that reason he is quite willing to spend enough to keep it.

So he sits now in gilded exclusivity – a mezzanine balcony lavishly decorated in a drench of red and gold and deep mahogany, providing a lofted view of the casino below, serviced with its own bar and sequestered from the noise of rabble by a vast glass window; the lights are soft and low, little haloes of amber around the heads of Edison bulbs fashionably scattered around the bar. He is nursing an exquisitely-made martini and pondering whether to top up the next with espresso; his Saint Laurent suit is carefully rumpled, the collar of his shirt open at his throat in an effective display of somnolent contentment. The Cats have the feel of the early 20th century with all the mod-cons of the 21st, and René submerges himself in it – of all the years and decades and centuries he has lived, he holds a special fondness for only a few, and he harks back to the 1920s with wistfulness.

By God, he misses jazz.

It is whilst he is dwelling on this swell of nostalgia that a ripple of blue silk and white furs cascades elegantly into the barstool beside him, settling itself into the icy milk-and-honey façade of a familiar face – Sylvia Rothschilde, socialite of unspecified age and (she insists each time he sees her) newfound debutante, draped in form-clinging charmeuse of a pale periwinkle.

René lights up a devastating smile.

“Mme. Rothschilde! My heart, my soul, my favourite.” He kisses the back of her silk glove; she tuts and bats him away.

“Don’t be a rogue,” she scolds. Her faux anger is belied by a vulpine, rouge-lipped smile. “And where have you been, René Chevalier? There you were last summer, promising to make an honest woman of me, and then right back to New Orleans you went! You made quite the little Daisy Buchanan out of me.” She waves a delicate hand at the bartender, who brings her a margarita without a word; she takes it and hides her smile in its salt-crusted rim. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Ah, Sylvie, you know me,” cajoles René, covering her hand with his. “I’ll say anything in the spotlight of a pretty face.”

“Oh, do shut up, you wastrel,” she scoffs. “Well, fortunately for you, it never would have worked anyway – alas, a girl just can’t get hold of two marriage certificates these days, and I’m afraid you did come in second place.” The frosted diamond on her ring finger glitters golden in the lamplight.

“Not to sound like a tourist, darling, but we are in Vegas.”

“Don’t remind me.” She rolls her blue eyes to the ceiling. “I was promised the Maldives this July, and yet here we are again. If we don’t go in September, I shall scream.”

“Say the word, Sylvie. You, me, a private jet -”

“And at least four other men, none of whom have an interest in me.” She licks a grain of salt from her lip. “I know you, sweetheart. A few more of those martinis and I pity that poor bartender.”

The bartender, polishing glasses behind them, allows himself a smile. The atmosphere is light and pleasant – for now, they are the only two patrons up here, and it is easy to imagine they are privately ensconced. René allows himself to lapse into a comfortable silence, and for a little while at least, he can try to forget the gnawing, aching, crushing hunger that roils ceaselessly in the pit of his stomach. Drowning it in alcohol does not work and never has, but it does help the time pass – it is whilst the bartender is filling his glass for the third time that Sylvia breaks the lull.

“Now then, René,” she says, nestling close to his side with a hand held to her diamond-studded neck and a teasing smile curling across her lips. “To business. Rumour tells me you quite cleared the tables down there tonight. I must say, you’ve been at the whim of ‘beginner’s luck’ for quite some time now. I’ve seen you up and down the strip since I started visiting, and when was that – three years ago now?” She tips him the shadow of a wink. “At what point are you going to confess?”

“Sylvie, mon cherie, a confession suggests I must have something terrible to confess, and it wounds me that you could think I’d hide things from you, my darling.” He swivels on the bar stool to face her, lifting his martini to touch the rim to her glass. “But alright, I admit – perhaps I should finally promote myself from beginner to amateur.”

Her laugh is like champagne on ice.

“You’re a wonderful liar, René,” she says, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “I have a little theory. You’re Louisiana’s household name in the professional game. Their secret weapon at the tables. You have a whole double life playing out in New Orleans, and you come here at the end of each season to make fools of the rabble with falsehoods about ‘beginner’s luck’. Tell me I’m wrong.”

René puts a hand to his heart, reeling back on his seat.

“Large fishes, small ponds, mademoiselle.” His wounded expression gives way to a dazzling smile. “You know I’m a terrible exhibitionist, and besides, the proprietor hasn’t had me thrown out yet.”

They chime glasses once again and sip in momentary silence, watching the casino roll beneath them; the singing of slot machines and the muffled roars of losses and wins batters at the far side of the glass. The bartender returns, a crisp white towelette slung over his starched shoulder, and he refills René’s glass yet again without question or comment. René mouths a thank you, and slips a $50 into his waistcoat pocket. It pays to keep people sweet.

“He’s floating around tonight, you know,” Sylvia says suddenly, gazing out at the crowd neatly partitioned from them. “Mr. Fairfax.” She says the name with a faux shiver, her voice skipping down an octave. The stem of the margarita glass rolls between her fingers. “You’ve met him, I assume?”

“Seen him,” says René, listening with new interest now. He has been trying to get on some sort of terms with the patron of the Cats for several months, without a great deal of success outside a brief glimpse or two. How much money must a man spend? “Haven’t had the pleasure of speaking yet. I assume pleasure is the right word?” He claps a hand to his chest again, as though struck by sudden horror. “Tell me he’s not another Trump, Sylvie, my heart couldn’t bear it.”

Sylvia smiles primly around the rim of her glass, suddenly coquettish. She tilts her slim wrist to regard the gilded face of a Tiffany watch, and pats René on the arm.

“Must go, sweetheart, Forrest arranged reservations for us at nine at Robuchon and I’m already ten minutes late.” She leans in once again, brushing Givenchy-painted lips against his cheek. “But I promise you, he’s certainly no Trump. Tata, darling.”

“Bonne nuit, chérie.” He watches her walk away, because to be fair she does it very deliberately, and then he returns his gaze to the grand hall below the curve of the window. It is a sea of black tuxedos, studded here and there with glittering jewel-toned dresses – this is not the common-or-garden Vegas of the tourist traps. Admittance to the Cats requires the level of financial security that renders carrying cash obsolete – here, the elite gamble directly out of offshore banks, and when they run dry there they wager assets and equity. René has neither – paper trails, you know – but for now until the end of summer he is a loyal customer of the Bank of Nevada; when the season is over, the account will close without comment, employees will forget his name and he will return to the bright swarm of Louisiana for the winter. In a way, it’s the same life he’s lived since his conception (when was that? He can’t remember now) – the world has updated around him, technology has taken leaps and bounds he could never had predicted, but he and his habits have remained greatly unchanged.

But he eats less now, though.

The hunger curls vice-like in his stomach, writhing and twisting like something living and dying all at once.

He swallows the last of his fifth martini, and asks for a bottle of absinthe.

[amepcrdue]

𝕬𝖑𝖑 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕶𝖎𝖓𝖌'𝖘 𝕳𝖔𝖗𝖘𝖊𝖘

    the only warning was the cries of the soldiers below, trying to build up moral as they prepared to siege the mountain top castle. it was followed shortly by the very walls of the castle shaking, resisting the need to give in and crumble as the first shot from the trebuchet rocked the exterior. red eyes peered out the window, staring at the amassed army. rumors had spread past the valley of the evil that spread through it like a plague, turning ordinary folk into ravenous monsters, thirsty for carnage and blood. everything came back to the strange lord of the castle. the malfestation had started spreading shortly after he took over the abandoned castle.

     the general, clad in ornate armor, stood atop the closest siege tower, shouting to his men below. raphael met this sight with a sneer, small fangs poking out from over his bruised lips. pathetic. such simple beings thinking they could stop one such as me. he let out a low hiss as he stepped out on the ramparts. this threat... it didn’t scare him. nothing would stop him so long as his daughter was still missing. and any who threatened to stop him would die a most grisly death. he locked eyes with the general, red eyes piercing through the darkness of night as the sneer morphed into a devious smile. as the smile spread across his face, his body instantly dissipated into a fine red mist, flying the distance from the rampart to the top of the siege tower until he was facing the general himself. the soldiers didn’t concern him, the general barely did. they were all gnats, tiny annoyances who he would swat down and squash under his considerable power.

     ❝ such fools, ❞ he announced, a calmness mixing with the dark tone of his voice, ❝ to think you could ever stop me. ❞ as he advanced toward the general, two of the soldiers who were atop the siege tower with him rushed at raphael, intent on killing him as quickly as possible. there was no doubt the man with silvery blond hair and the red eyes was the source of the plague that cursed this valley. he was no man. as they rushed him, the malfested lord quickly thrust his rapier into the gut of one, catching right under the breast plate and piercing through a vital organ. the other soldier was just as unfortunate, as he watched his fellow soldier get impaled on the thin blade, he felt a sharp pain in his own gut as raphael thrust his fingers through his abdomen and began draining the very soul from him. the malfested lord stood there, sword in one soldier, hand in the other, red eyes staring at the general with a maddened gaze as he continued to drain the life from the one man as the other bled out.  ❝ you cannot stop me. i am like god here. ❞

     perhaps the general had realized they had underestimated how much damage one man could do. but he was that, wasn’t he? only one man? no, not with that look in his eyes. the red that burned bright like fire. it only took another moment before raphael twisted his blade in the gut of the one soldier before kicking him off and then quickly dropped the other whom he’d had in his grasp.  ❝ pathetic. ❞ he only spared the dead a momentary glance before fixating his inhuman gaze on the general, ❝ what is one man going to do against me? come, let us dance. ❞ he raised his sword, drenched in viscous red, before taking a proper fencing stance. this battle would be over before it began. the general tried to steel his resolve, he had men to lead and he would not be taken down by this ungodly being before him. he knew not what this man was, but he knew he had to be stopped.

      ❝ you will have to get through me before i allow you to harm anyone else. ❞ the general proclaimed, hefting his mighty blade. 

     but raphael was not fazed. he’d felled mightier men, had faced the azure knight and survived. became something stronger, something more than human because of it. he would play with the man at first, let him feel like the big, bad general he thought himself to be, but he would grow tired of playing quickly. as the man moved to strike, raphael felt the blade connect with his chest, sending searing white pain through his body, but he smiled through his hiss, sharp teeth on display, all white and glistening against his purple-tinged lips.  ❝ well met, ❞ he kicked the general, his foot pressing against the breastplate and pushing him back, ❝ but it’s not enough. ❞

     with the kick giving him enough distance between the two of them, raphael swung his rapier, expertly slicing the general’s throat, practically down to the spine. and then he closed the distance. in an instant, the malfested lord was upon the general, drinking from the grievous wound he created, making sure the grotesque spectacle was in view of all of his soldiers to see. their general would not die a dignified death, he wouldn’t even manage a scream, let alone a gurgle from the cut raphael had delivered. and as the rich red blood flooded his mouth he could feel the wound he had received only moments ago already start to knit. he could feel his strength increase. and it wasn’t long at all, maybe a few moments at most, before the general was limp in his grasp. 

       walking to the edge of the siege tower, the general being dragged by his hair behind him, raphael hoisted the body up for all to bear witness. with a swift jerk, he snapped the vertebrae in his neck, twisting the rest of the flesh and sinew loose until the head was no longer attached to the body. he would make an example of the unfortunate general, that no one comes for raphael sorel and lives to tell the tale. he grabbed the pike of one of the dead soldiers, impaled the head upon it and drove it into the floor of the siege tower.

       all it took was one word, one word that was only a warning in the formal sense as he glared down at the soldiers below and on the other towers.  ❝ flee. ❞ it was followed in short order by the stirring of the malfested villagers in the valley. the moon had reached its zenith and they hungered.

[joeys-piano]

Title: Silence of a Lamb Rating: Teen Characters: Gavin Reed, Nicholas [RK900], and Connor makes a posthumous cameo Word count: 1,019 Notes: Nicholas calls Gavin and speaks to him through an imitation of Connor’s voice, post-android revolution, takes place after one of the bad endings, Connor died and Gavin feels guilty about it, and Nicholas comes to a realization before the end of the phone call

Bouts of uncertainty were uncommon phrases when they came from Gavin, Nicholas noticed. The detective seemed flustered, dancing with a thought that he wouldn’t yield from his tongue, and all that remained were traces of cigarettes. Meandering down the groove of Gavin’s fingers when he left for his break, and a trail of smoke followed him around the DPD like a spectre to his shadows. Nicholas should’ve turned his head away, but he didn’t. He should’ve remained in his docking station, oblivious to human affairs, but his eyes followed Gavin with every pace. Until the foul detective slumped back in his seat, and lines of sweat drenched down from his locks and south of the trail of his neck.

For a moment upon the docking station, a different artist articulated the expression across Nicholas’ face. That of a man who felt empathy to his core, but Nicholas was no man. Bits of wires and code down to his core, and his social relations program merely acted upon what would console Gavin best.

But what Gavin needed right now wasn’t just a comforting face, especially one that belonged to an android that he didn’t want to love. No -- to an android that he couldn’t look at without feeling pain. Nicholas suspected so for he shared the exact same face as his predecessor. Nicholas believed that its name was Connor. RK800 model, the finest prototype CyberLife had ever crafted for law, and yet it became the leader of a revolution and it shot itself on national television. Hesitation before the pull -- Nicholas narrowed his eyes at that as he replayed the news clip within his mind.

Perhaps, Gavin felt guilty that he couldn’t apologize for what he had done to Connor. It was a guess -- an excellent one if one dared to trace Gavin’s record with androids and the abrupt shift in his behavior after the revolution ended. The man was never quite the same afterwards. Still foul-mouthed as ever, colleagues would say, but he lived like a man robbed of every opportunity to say, “I’m sorry.”

Perhaps, what Gavin needed was closure from his past and from a ghost that looked at him too often nowadays. He made a face when he caught Nicholas staring at him, and the android politely averted his gaze. Looked elsewhere -- but still, his sensors could detect the minute changes etched in Gavin’s person. Maybe there was a relieve what he felt, but Nicholas knew that he couldn’t approach the detective. Not physically, at least. Nicholas’ eyelashes fluttered as he read Gavin’s phone number out loud in his mind, and he heard the dull beats before Gavin received a ring. He didn’t pick up immediately. Somewhat defeated, somewhat tangled in a past he could never amend. But he wiped the guilt like how he wiped his seat and mustered a voice of such conviction that it would deter a normal caller if they had heard it. But then, Nicholas wasn’t a normal caller.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Gavin looked from the corner of his eye, a twist to his lips when he saw ‘unknown’ where the caller ID should’ve been. “Hey, asshole!” Met with silence, encountered with a bark. “I’m talking to -- “

“I’ve certainly missed your use of explictatives against me.” The smallest perk of a smile touched Nicholas’ lips. No significant changes occurred on Gavin’s person, but Nicholas could only guess and marvel what was happening in the man’s mind. As soon as Gavin heard what he thought was Connor’s voice, it was as if a rusted tap attached to a sink dripped once more. The surface of a still pond shattered as a single teardrop made it through, and Gavin’s breaths were tiny when he adjusted his phone next to his ear.

“No.” Believing in denial felt more reassuring than coming to terms with this. “No, no, no, no…” A fade of thoughts? The mind hiding back into the little hole that it could? “This fucking can’t be happening right now.” Gavin’s voice barely rose above a whisper. “I saw you die.”

“Dead men tell no tales, but I can’t be dead if we’re conversing.” Though the imitation of Connor’s voice wasn’t exact, it was close enough to derive the desired effects that Nicholas wished to study on Gavin. For before Connor died, he transferred his memories for the very last time. Fortunately, they were brought over to the RK900 server and Nicholas knew every little detail between his predecessor and between the frantic man on the phone.

“No, you’re dead -- done, gone, finished…” Gavin’s voice trailed again. Interesting how the human mind worked. So tenacious that they wouldn’t believe what felt so real in the moment, and a hint of instability traced Nicholas’ program. Like a finger running through the cords in his mind, about to pluck a string from its outlet so that Nicholas would be doomed to fall like Connor did.

“Gavin, I know we had our differences.” Whom was speaking now? Nicholas with his imitation, or did the real Connor slip in like a scruple into Nicholas’ program? “Just, I want you to listen to me and then I want to listen to you.” A whirl of the finest yellow splashed the side of Nicholas’ LED.

“Whatever you have to say, I’m not going to -- “

“I forgive you.” The snap in Gavin’s neck could’ve killed a man as he stared at his phone, trickles of what he believed was Connor’s voice spilled through. “I didn’t know why you treated me the way you did, or why you hated me so much. I didn’t know until I became a deviant, and I could empathize with your position. And for a moment, just for a sliver of time, I could see the world from your eyes. You were scared of me. You were scared that an android would take your livelihood away before you could stand a chance.”

‘Do you fear me as much as you feared him?’ -- the thought perched in the back of Nicholas’ mind and perhaps one day, he would also find his closure.

[impracticaldemon]

The Ghost

~ a Hakuouki SaiChi story by Impracticaldemon ~ intended to be another “teaser-trailer” for SaichiFest 2018, it turned into more of a feature presentation

Words: ~ 3500   See also:  FFN | AO3

The Ghost

The mood at Doctor Matsumoto’s clinic had been sombre since Okita’s death from tuberculosis, and that had been two years ago now.  Then again, all of the news in the year following had told of disaster upon disaster for the Shinsengumi and what remained of the former Shogunate allies.  When the hideous details of Aizu’s fall and ruin had been brought to them, Chizuru’s brave smile had disappeared for good, although her tireless care of the clinic’s patients—men and women ravaged by disease and war—had not wavered.

Doctor Matsumoto might have wondered at Chizuru’s barely contained grief for the fate of the Aizu, which had seemed at least as immediate and personal as it had been at Okita’s passing, but for the letter that he’d received from Hijikata Toshizō, then Chief of the Shinsengumi, not long after Chizuru had first arrived at the clinic:

Matsumoto-sensei,

I write to you in confidence, and send this by way of one of my own men. As you know, our situation is difficult and only likely to worsen. 

Consequently, I commend Yukimura Chizuru-san to your care,  as it is neither appropriate nor safe—if such a word still has meaning—for her to remain with us in Sendai.  I know that you will be kind to her, both on behalf of the Shinsengumi, and for her own sake.

I have decided to advise you of one personal matter in case the worst comes to pass and Aizu is overrun.   I have reason to believe that Yukimura has developed a strong affection for Saitō Hajime, as unlikely as that might seem. She begged to accompany him to Aizu, when he announced his intention of remaining with the Aizu warriors until the end.  In an effort to spare her life, Saitō rejected her request and ordered her to accompany me further North.  He phrased his dismissal in the coldest possible terms, no doubt to ensure her compliance.  I mention all of this only because the girl has an overly-sensitive heart, and I am not convinced that Saitō’s words were sufficient to change her feelings for him.

It is no doubt ridiculous to trouble you with such things at a time like this, but Kondō always worried about Yukimura’s future—you know how he was—and in a sense I am writing to you on his behalf.  He and Yukimura were not unalike in the way that they cared about others.  I do not know if this information will be of any use to you if and when the blow falls, but it is rare for too much information to be worse than too little.

With regards and sincere thanks for all that you have done and continue to do,

Hijikata Toshizō, Chief

The doctor had shared the letter with his wife, but while the latter had been very sympathetic toward Chizuru, she had had her own family to worry about and the times were indeed full of sorrow for many.  Thus, while Chizuru was well cared for, and her assistance at the clinic truly valued, there was nobody close with whom to share her grief, whether it was for Saitō in particular, or for the Shinsengumi warriors as a whole.  The war had ended almost a year ago, and that was that, except for a lingering sadness in the household that had yet to give way to renewed hope for the future. 

Chizuru had finished her work for the day when the unexpected visitor arrived.  Although she was seated by a brazier on the house’s front porch, she did not see him approach, nor did she sense him standing at the gate, seemingly transfixed by the ordinary sight of a slight young woman preoccupied by the mundane chore of preparing vegetables for the evening meal.  The man was very thin, and noticeably pale under his straw travelling hat, but despite the appearance of ill-health, he didn’t seem to notice either the drizzling rain or the sharp bite of early winter.

“Shitsureisimasu,” he said at last, his voice barely carrying over the hiss of the wind and rain.

Chizuru looked up, visibly startled out of her thoughts.  She set down her work and rose, bowing politely.  Doctor Matsumoto’s wife had always approved of her manners, except for her habit of being at times too courteous to the lowest classes.  The only thing to be clearly discerned about the present visitor was that he carried a katana, which was troubling given the new government’s strict regulations about owning—let alone using—swords and firearms.

“How may I help you, sir?”  Chizuru found her eyes straying almost compulsively to the longsword.  Swords failed to intimidate her the way they did others, although she was not fond of them either.  But this feeling was something else altogether, a sense of both wrongness and déjà vu all at once.

“… I came to find Matsumoto-sensei.  Is this his residence?”

“Yes.  Are you ill, or injured?  We are no longer seeing patients today, but Doctor Matsumoto sometimes”—often—“makes exceptions.  May I know your name?”

Even as she asked she knew the answer.  Some part of her mind had even known from the beginning. But there had been too many nights of hoping against hope, and dreams that turned to ash when she woke up and had to face the day.  Was she so pathetic that now her delusions existed in the daytime as well?  She felt fear rising in the place of what should be—perhaps—maybe—a more positive emotion.

The stranger who might not be a stranger didn’t move or speak; he seemed frozen to the spot.  One hand lay passive along the top of the gate, but the other had dropped to brush against the hilt of his sword.  It wasn’t a threatening gesture; instead, it suggested uncertainty, or even anxiety.  Chizuru fought the urge to run indoors and hide, overcome by the need to escape this… this ghost.  She had never seen another man wear his sword on his right hip, not even before swords had been outlawed for all but a few.  This man was dead, killed in action on the blood-drenched fields of what had once been the Aizu domain.  Doctor Matsumoto had been kind, but very clear:  Saitō Hajime of the Shinsengumi had died, and there was no room for hope.

Even as Chizuru stood poised on the verge of irrational flight, the ghost spoke:

“Yukimura… Īe—sumimasen—Yukimura-san?” (1)

“You’re dead.”  There, she’d said it, denying his living existence as firmly as possible.  I wonder if his ghost has eyes of the same dark blue as the summer sky after dusk?  Not that it matters, but still… Despite everything, Chizuru felt a flicker of something like curiosity.  Curiosity could be admitted—it wasn’t hope.

“… Īe.” 

After a moment, the straw hat was tilted back, so that Chizuru could make out more than just the chin beneath.  She pressed her hands to her mouth, willing back a renewed impulse to panic.  He was too far away, and the light too dim for her to see the colour of his eyes.  But the face was familiar in every line, despite being so gaunt as to make her wince. Her feet betrayed her by moving down the steps and away from the shelter of the porch.

“They told me that you were dead.”

“… Ah.”

“You sent me away.  Why did you come here?”

“Yukimura… -san.  I was imprisoned; I came here as soon as I was released.”

“Why?”

There was a very long pause, and Chizuru found herself digging her nails into the palms of her hands.  Finally, the apparition seemed to make up its—or his—mind about what to say.

“I heard rumours that Nagakura was still alive and thought that Doctor Matsumoto might know where he had taken refuge.”

“I missed you.  You sent me away, and then you died—and then everyone else died too.  Even Hijikata-san.”  Was she being irrational?  She had a strong suspicion that she was.  When had she started trembling?

“…I am not dead, Yukimura-san.”

Now that she was closer, she could see that the dark kimono he wore hung far too loosely about him.  It also emphasized his pallor, and heightened the ghostly effect.  Or maybe that was just her own perception.

“They told me that you were confirmed dead, Saitō-san.”   There, she’d said it.  It was painful though.

“According to the official records, I was declared missing in action.  There were rumours about my death, however.”  Saitō hesitated, and then said, “You should go back to the engawa out of the rain, Yukimura-san—you are shivering with cold and your clothes have gotten wet.”

“If I turn my back, then you will go away, and I’ve missed you so much already.”

The gate opened with a quiet click, and then closed again.

“I am not a ghost—I have feet.” (2)  Saitō was holding his hat in one hand now, and his hair was rapidly darkening from indigo to black in the rain.

“Nagakura-san said that,” Chizuru commented mechanically, remembering the burly captain’s valiant attempt at humour in the face of the loss of most of his men during the Battle of Toba-Fushimi.  Her thoughts veered back to the present.  She really shouldn’t be making Saitō-san stand outside in this weather, yet she seemed unable to behave like her usual self at all.

“I remember.  Perhaps…” Saitō studied her carefully before continuing in his usual, uninflected voice:  “Do you wish to hold my hand?”  His eyes widened when Chizuru stepped back in obvious consternation, but he persevered.  “It might help you to believe that I am here, that is all. It seemed to reassure you once before.”

“That was a dream.  I’ve had enough of dreams.  It hurts when I wake up.”

Despite her words, Chizuru gingerly extended one hand.  To her surprise, it was immediately taken in a firm, warm, apparently human grasp.  Her eyes flew up to the familiar face above hers, which suddenly became difficult to make out because—she was weeping.  Uncontrollable sobs shook her body, and she was gasping for air.  Mortified, she said the first thing that came to mind.

“You sh-should get out of the c-cold.  You look exhausted, as u-usual, and half-starved… And, and, you’ve d-dropped your hat in the m-mud.”

Without a flicker of expression, Saitō nodded. “I will pick up my hat and then we can both go to stand by the brazier on the engawa.”  He immediately put his words into action, one hand still tightly clasped around Chizuru’s. 

Within a minute, Chizuru found herself huddled by the brazier, her eyes flicking between the glowing coals and Saitō-san, whose presence still frightened her for the hope that she could feel building within her.  They both needed to get inside, but she wasn’t quite ready for that yet.  What if he disappeared at the door, unable to remain in the realm of the living against the vehement denials of her current guardian?  Worse—no, not worse, that was ridiculous—what if he were somehow real, but only comforting her now out of his usual sense of responsibility?  If that were the case, he would hand her back over to Doctor Matsumoto as soon as they entered the house, and then leave again on his search for Nagakura-san.  What if even friendship was beyond her grasp?

“Are you feeling better?  I regret having startled you.”

The understatement almost made Chizuru laugh, but she bit her lip to avoid looking even more foolish than she had already.  What if it really was Saitō-san and he wasn’t going to abandon her again?  He might not care for her in the way that she wanted—that had never been more than a wistful dream even before his harsh words to her in Aizu—but it would be more than enough if he would just let her travel with him again.  She was quite a good cook, and much better versed in medical knowledge than she had been.  She could probably even support herself, more or less, by offering her medical services.

“Yukimura-san?”

Chizuru blinked.  What was she thinking?  She’d told him that he was dead!  This was not how she had imagined it would be during those moments—much rarer now—when she had daydreamed about finding him alive somehow.

“Gomenasai, Saitō-san! I w-was rather, um, startled, just as you say.  I’ll show you inside now, if you like?”  She tried to recover her hand, but Saitō’s fingers were too tight about hers to do so unobtrusively.  He was staring at her intently, and she wondered what he saw, or was looking for.  She hoped it wouldn’t take much longer, because she could still feel tears prickling at her eyes, and her emotions were a tangled mess. She desperately wanted to appear more calm than she really was.  Without realizing what she was doing, she brushed Saitō’s cheek with her fingertips.

War and loss and imprisonment may have taken their toll, but your beloved face is everything to me, Saitō-san.  I just didn’t know that the return of hope could be as terrifying as its loss.

“You should return indoors as soon as possible,” Saitō said quietly, releasing her hand.  “However, it is clear that I have caused you grave anxiety.” 

I was terrified for you.  I was distraught when they told me you were dead.  Chizuru could only swallow and nod nervously.

“Also,” Saitō cleared his throat, “I must apologize for what I said to you… before asking you to go with Hijikata-san.”

You called me a burden that would only slow you down and get you killed.  You were as cruel as Okita-san ever was during my first months with the Shinsengumi.  No, worse, because his words were never as cold and precise as yours. You said everything you could to make me hate you, and sometimes I’ve wished it had worked.

Chizuru tried to keep her feelings off her face, and knew she had failed. Saitō-san and Okita-san—and Harada-san, and, of course, Hijikata-san—had always been able to see right through her.  She’d been grateful for Heisuke-kun’s tendency to take her at face value—it had been reassuring.

“I regret my words.  Please forgive me.”  Saitō bowed deeply, leaving Chizuru speechless.  “I did not have the skill necessary to dissuade you less roughly.  It is clear that I injured you even more than I had thought.”

“Saitō-san…” Chizuru drew a deep breath to steady her nerves.  “Please—please don’t bow to me. Just tell me, if it’s okay… Why did you send me away?”  She heard her voice break, and tried to compose herself to hear the answer with some vestige of equanimity.

Saitō straightened as she requested, but his eyes were fixed on the ground and his answer came slowly—so slowly that it seemed he would refuse to answer at all.  “…  I could not bear to see you die.  The people of Aizu were destined to suffer the worst of the horrors of war, because the Imperial Army sought revenge, not just victory.”

For the first time in more than two years, Chizuru felt a measure of peace.  She was unutterably relieved, as wrong as that seemed in the circumstances.  Saitō-san hadn’t pushed her away because she was a burden to him; rather, he’d cared enough to want to protect her.

When Chizuru didn’t respond, Saitō glanced up, lips compressed.  “It seemed to me—no matter how unlikely—that you...”  He trailed off and tried again.  “I was… not quite prepared… for you to prefer the misery of war in Aizu with me over remaining with Hijikata-san in comparative safety.  It suggested that you cared more about… my future… than was either reasonable or safe.”

Chizuru stared at him, feeling a faint blush rise to her cheeks.  She scrubbed at her eyes to keep the tears at bay and squared her shoulders.

“Saitō-san, I’m sorry that I didn’t give you the welcome you deserve—“

“There is no need for you to apologize, Yukimura.“

“Please, Saitō-san, please—don’t leave me here.  I will try not to be a burden.  They are very kind here, but they don’t understand.  About the Shinsengumi, I mean.  Not really.  And—“

“Yukimura—“  Saitō’s voice sounded oddly strained, but that just made Chizuru hurry to get all the words out faster, before he could tell her again that she would be better off, or safer, or some other meaningless thing, away from his side.

“But I need to tell you!”

“I already understand.”  Saitō reached out as he had once before—years ago now—and pulled her against his chest and shoulder.  Chizuru went unresisting, heedless of the wet kimono under her cheek. “At least—I don’t really understand why you still wish to be with me, but I understand that you do.”

“You won’t leave me?”

“Correct.  Also…” Saitō tightened his arms around the shivering girl—woman—and forced himself to complete his sentence.  “I don’t want to.”

Doctor Matsumoto found them there on the porch when he returned from visiting one of his regular patients.  He was through the gate and most of the way to the house before he was drawn up short by the sight of Chizuru-chan in the arms of a strange man.  His first surprised indignation was instantly replaced by shock when the man turned his head to meet the doctor’s gaze.

“Saitō-kun?!”  The calm blue eyes and slightly pointed features were unmistakable.  He was currently more thin than lean, and his impassive features seemed older than they should be, but he was obviously alive and apparently uninjured.  “That is—Saitō-san?”  The man had commanded both the Shinsengumi and mixed Shinsengumi-Aizu forces in Aizu, and was known to have the personal respect of Lord Matsudaira of Aizu himself; he surely deserved to be addressed as an equal despite his actual age. (3)

Doctor Matsumoto hurried up the steps to the engawa in order to get a better look at the unexpected—very unexpected!—visitor.  He saw Chizuru stir slightly in Saitō’s hold, but it was obvious that she was in some distress, and not quite prepared to face another person at this moment.

“Konbanwa, Matsumoto-sensei.  I hope that you are well.”

“Yes, yes I am—but you!  They told us that you had gone missing and were presumed dead!”

“The Aizu were kind enough to shelter me with their name so that I would be imprisoned rather than killed.  I assume that the rumours of my death were circulated in order to safeguard my identity.”

At last, Chizuru turned to face her unofficial guardian and mentor, although she stayed very close to Saitō. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her expression was difficult to read.

“Sumimasen, Matsumoto-sensei,” she murmured, almost too quietly to hear.

“No, no, there is no problem—of course you would be overwhelmed, my dear…”  The doctor collected himself and took in the pair’s wet clothes.  “The engawa isn’t too bad, I suppose, with a few rugs and a brazier”—his voice clearly expressed disapproval of the arrangement—“but you really shouldn’t be out here on a day like this.  Saitō-san, Chizuru-chan, please come inside with me.”

Some kind of unspoken communication seemed to pass between the two, and then Chizuru nodded.  “We will be right in, I promise.  Oh!”  The cry of consternation seemed to be aimed at the half-prepared vegetables.  “I said I would finish these…”

Saitō put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently.  “We will finish them as soon as we go in.”

“But Saitō-san!”

“We will be in very shortly, Matsumoto-sensei.”

“Very well.  But please tell, me Saitō-san… Why are you here?”

“I came to make sure that Yukimura-san was well,” replied Saitō, without discernible hesitation.  “And to find out whether you had any news about Nagakura’s whereabouts.”

“Mmm.”  The doctor’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, then he smiled.  “I will leave you to work out the answer to the first question yourself.  As for the second—yes, I may have something for you.  Come in when you’re ready—but don’t wait too long.”

When they were alone again, Chizuru slipped her hand shyly into Saitō’s.  “I think I can face everyone again now—at least, once I’ve tidied myself a bit.”

“I see.”

“I am very happy to see you, Saitō-san.”

“Yes—I mean, I am very pleased to see you as well, Yukimura.”

Saitō seemed to debate for a minute within himself, and then he cupped Chizuru’s face with his free hand.  She gave him an inquiring look, but there was no longer any fear in her soft brown eyes.  The shadows of grief and loss would take a long time to dispel, but…

Saitō bent his head to kiss Chizuru’s lips.  Eventually, they went into the house.

Notes:

(1) No (that's not right) - sorry [Saitou had always referred to Chizuru as Yukimura because she had taken on the role of a junior subordinate; however, outside the Shinsengumi, Yukimura-san is more appropriate.]

(2) In traditional Japanese mythology ghosts have no feet. (See Nagakura's comment during the battle of Toba-Fushimi.)

(3) Saitou joined the Roshigumi (precursor to the Shinsengumi) at age 19. This means that he was only about 24 years old during the Boshin War. (He would be about 25 in this story.)

A/Note:

 Please let me know what you think if you get the chance! The setting is canon-esque AU, if you understand what I mean.

Tags: @fic-writer-appreciation @shell-senji @eliz1369  @hidetheremote @hakuouki-or-hakuoki @resshiiram @eheartangel @hakuyamazakisensei @queen-mizera  @cherryb0mb79 @very-x-vice @fury-ous @sabinasanfanfic @kurokiorya

Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from the list! (No questions asked.)

[finally-isaac]

Pathetic Fallacy

Read on ao3

Chapter One

Pathetic Fallacy is a funny thing.

Occasionally, the world will listen to the moods of its inhabitants. When a bunny dies, the skies will often cry. The birth of a butterfly is usually greeted with radiant sunshine.

But sometimes, the worst of times, nature can be cruel. The emotions of the day will juxtapose the world around it, spreading a false sense of feeling to those who are unaware of events taking place elsewhere.

The bright, beautiful sunshine of July 12th just so happened to be one of those cruel days.

The news would spread quickly, all of the castles courts knew, but it only seemed right to leave the young prince alone with the body of his newly dead mother - if only for a few moments.

The death of a Queen… She’d been ill for some time. At first, only small coughing fits would affect her days, but before long she fell victim to spasms and fits. When her legs succumbed to numbness she was advised to keep it hidden, but she had been adamant about her honesty to the people of her kingdom. She was aware of the weakness it showed, but she’d always seen the best in people - including the rulers of the surrounding countries, whom she considered friends. Even when she was officially bedridden, she ruled with a calm and kind hand.

To many, it was merely the death of a Queen. To many more, it was the death of a friend. To only one, though, it was the death of a mother.

Roman couldn’t fathom the brightness of the outside while he felt so dark within. Even with every curtain drawn, and every torch put out, the sunlight prevailed and pushed through every tiny crack it could find, as though to say, “Dear Roman, everything will be alright. Happiness will prevail,” just as his mother had said each time he had cried as a child. But how could it?

Knelt beside his mother's bed, clutching her feather-light sheets, Roman couldn’t help the moaning sobs that fell past his lips in endless waterfalls, drenching the sleeve of his mother's arm beneath him. He wasn’t sure how long he’d sat like this. Not long enough to have been pulled away, not yet, but long enough that his knees ached against the cold stone floor under him. His eyes burned, a never-ending river still running from the blue pools they held. His stomach rolled with nausea and his brain seemed to be pounding against his skull…

How could happiness prevail when the very embodiment of the word lay cold in her bed?

As time passed, Roman began to calm. His shaking slowed, and he became quieter with every passing moment. He wasn’t happy - far from it - but at some point, a person must run out of tears. For a prince, that moment was required to be fast.

He listened attentively to the room around him, choking back the remaining whimpers in his raw throat. He could hear the near-silent mumbling of the staff near the doors, the awkward side-steps of the guard behind him. They were all waiting for their next orders.

Roman took a slow, deep breath through his nose. He could still smell her in this close proximity, but the life behind her flowery scent was gone… As though a forest fire had snuffed out every bloom.

It was time.

The prince stood, blinking away the last of his tears. There was no time to mourn. The time had finally come to take action, and he knew that now the orders must come from him. He would plan the funeral, large and befit of the beautiful life it would celebrate, but soon after there would be a coronation.

With a final look at her beautiful, peaceful, sleeping face… He knew.

It was time for Roman to become King.

***

“Thomas! Get down from there, silly!”

“Never!” the boy yelled from his perch in the large oak tree. His brown hair danced across his forehead, nearly touching his bold brown eyes.

Grinning up at him, his father noted that the boy desperately needed a haircut. “Thomas, we’ll be late! C’mon, please?”

“Fine,” he sang, recklessly jumping down one branch at a time.

Laughing, Patton added, “Don’t rip your trousers! Those are your good pair, son.”

“I know, Papa!”

Patton landed on his feet with a heavy thump, not a scratch in sight. He grinned up at his dad proudly, showing off the gap in the front of his otherwise toothy smile. Though Patton couldn’t afford to give Thomas his well-deserved coin for the missing fang, the boy didn’t seem any less happy than any other day. Patton felt grateful to have such a mature, understanding nine-year-old as a son.

“Ready to go?” Patton asked.

With a hum of confirmation from the boy, the two set off. The walk to the castle wasn’t long, but they were planning to stop at the blacksmiths' shop along the way. Afterall, Mr.Thatch had promised to buy Thomas a balloon on the way to the parade!

Thomas stopped many times along the dirt path, picking white carnations and hydrangeas for the flower crown he was creating along their way.

“Papa?” he asked once he was done, “Would you like a crown as well?”

Patton smiled brightly as his beautiful little boy. How cute Thomas looked, flowers sat askew across his tiny head. How could he turn down this wonderful child? “Of course, my starlight.”

Again, Thomas flashed his papa a grin. “Mr.Drake has been teaching me much about flowers, Papa!”

“Has he?” Patton smiled, listening attentively to his son. “Do tell.”

Thomas ran off to the side of the path once more. When he returned his hands were filled with flowers. His smile never faltered as he explained, “Chrysanthemums indicate a long life, and Hyacinth’s symbolize playfulness. These orchids represent exotic beauty, and roses are symbols of love!” With each flower he listed, he added them to the crown. The array of plants looked odd altogether, Patton had to admit, but the thought behind them made his smile glow as he leaned down to let Thomas place it on his head.

“Now we both have crowns, Papa!” Thomas exclaimed.

Nodding, Patton added, “Yes, and soon, so will Prince Roman.”

“King Roman!” Thomas shouted, fist thrown in the air with a gleeful laugh.

“Yes,” Patton chuckled, patting Thomas’ hair gently. “King Roman indeed. It is quite the shame the Queen has passed… But Prince Roman will be a fine leader, don’t you agree?”

Thomas nodded, jumping ahead of his father to walk backwards as they spoke. “Of course! He’s beat dragons and armies, nothing can stop him!” A mock battle took place as Thomas mimed a sword and shield, swiping at the air and jumping away from invisible danger. “He’s very nice too! Remember, Papa? Mr.Thatch says that Prince Roman is very nice!”

Patton nodded once more. “I remember,” he promised, chuckling at Thomas’ antic. “Careful, starlight. Watch where you’re headed.”

“Yes, Papa!”

***

Logan Thatch didn’t consider himself an aggressive man. In fact, he thought himself quite fair and logical. Every day he would sit through listening to his customer's demands, however annoying and ridiculous they may be, and he would work hard each night to try to finish the projects requested of him. If a mistake was made of his own fault, he offered discounts and partial refunds, and if his customers simply didn’t like their product he was always willing to redo their piece for an equal price.

He was always smart with his money, saving for needed equipment and food, as well as a little extra should he need it. His math skills weren’t the best, but the knowledge he had was enough to get by. Once a month he would splurge just enough to take a math or literacy class in order to further educate himself. His reading was greatly improving every day!

But still, Logan was smart enough to know that money was tight. Afterall, he wasn’t the most popular blacksmith in the small town - by far, he wasn’t the best. His customers came to him for cheaper prices, not higher quality.

So when Lyle Drake arrived at Logan’s shop, on the morning of the coronation no less, to inform the blacksmith of the rising price of rent, Logan was infuriated.

“Fifty coins?! Mr.Drake, you must know that fifty coins is an absurd amount?” In his outrage, he found himself getting nearer and nearer the other man, but Mr.Drake seemed entirely unaffected by Logan’s outburst. “Twenty was already more than I could afford, and now you ask fifty of me? Every month? That’s just illogical, and frankly, it isn’t going to happen. It can’t. I’ll barely be able to afford bread!”

Lyle Drake chuckled, finally taking a step back from Logan, who had gotten close enough to see the golden shine of Lyle’s eyes. Both men were tall, but Lyle’s six feet won out by just a few inches. He was slim, with think black hair beneath his silk top hat. Half of his face was covered in green skin and scales, the result of venomous snake bite as a child, and his clothes reflected his abundance of wealth. After All, the Queens tax collector and royal advisor was paid rather well.

“Mr.Thatch, or rather, Logan, the kingdom has reached dire times my friend! The Queen's funeral, and now Prince Roman’s coronation… Very expensive events indeed. Everyone is required to chip in.” He paused, grinning in response to the snarl he received from the blacksmith, before continuing, “Besides, his royal highness has been advised to collect money to build a proper shrine for his beloved mother, God bless her soul.”

“I wonder who advised that, Mr.Drake?”

“I haven’t the faintest what you’re implying, Logan.” The two faced man turned on his heel and began to walk away. Only seconds later he called over his shoulder, “I’ll be by in a week to collect your rent, Mr.Thatch.”

Logan wanted to scream. He wanted to punch that slimy man and wipe that stupid grin off his annoying face. He wanted to-

“Mr.Thatch!”

His murderous thoughts were interrupted by a pair of arms flung around his waist, squeezing in a friendly manner. It took him a moment to realize it was Thomas, a young boy who occasionally helped him around the shop in exchange for a loaf of bread.

“Mr.Thatch,” the young boy continued, releasing the man from his hug before looking up with a grin. “Look what Papa and I made for you!”

Logan smiled, gazing down at Thomas and the boys' outstretched hands. A flower crown made of aster, gladiolus, and lilac… “How beautiful. Thank you, Thomas.” Logan gently picked up the braided plants and placed them on his head. Normally such ridiculousness would annoy him, however, he found he could never say no to Thomas. The young boy was such a bundle of joy and delightful energy. And Thomas’ father… Well, Logan’s smile brightened more as he watched Patton descend down the path towards the blacksmiths' shop.

The father's face seemed to be flushed pink as he greeted Logan, and the blacksmiths face mimicked the shy greeting without fail as Thomas ran around them with loud exclamations of his excitement.

After all, it was coronation day.