#oh do I reminisce on the days where I would be in this shithole on the daily but it’s just not the same anymore

[atombombkaytee]

My Echo, My Shadow and Me

Summary: Hancock and I retire to The Third Rail after a long day to find that it’s particularly busy. Still, we manage to find a quiet spot to indulge in heavy flirting, booze and chems. However, I notice a shadowy figure across the room - somehow, neither Hancock or I recognise the stranger (another ghoul). Hancock is keen to introduce himself but the sheer amount of intoxicants we’ve consumed could have the potential to lead to a very interesting evening.

Pairings: Hancock x Female OC/Reader, Cooper Howard (The Ghoul) x Female OC/Reader

Warnings: (This first part is largely PG but we will see - in future parts - all of the following) Heavy alcohol/drug use, public groping, smut, MMF threesome, anal.

Part 1.

Occasionally, The Third Rail became so lively that you could easily delude yourself into believing that the bombs had never plummeted from the skies all those years ago. It is only when you're completely sober that you can discern that virtually every person in the vicinity disfigured by the enduring effects of radiation.

Nevertheless, the bustling crowds of sweaty bodies (dancing, laughing, and clinking their glasses without a care in the world) were surely reminiscent of what it was like pre-war. I couldn’t be sure. I was born into this shithole of a world. What would I know about living pre-bombs?  

I grunt a sarcastic chuckle into my pint glass, fogging the edges with my breath. I'm sure it was warmer in pre-war bars than it is here. Being underground in an old railway tunnel helps retain some heat, but there's a subtle yet constant breeze coming from somewhere.

Still, the alcohol helps. As do the masses of bodies. Alcohol helps with a lot of things. Even now, many still use it as a respite from the horrors of daily life. A beautiful dissociative escape, where the only thing that matters is the moment.

Unfortunately, I'm the only sober one tonight. Well, almost. I’ve managed to get one mixer deep, tucked in tight against the bar, waiting for Hancock to join me for a celebration. Today ended much later than we anticipated when a large group of Supermutants seeking revolution entered Boston Common. We dealt with them, of course, but it significantly cut into our relaxation time - something both Hancock and I equally hated. 

The dancing crowd swells behind me, swaying in time to Magnolia’s silky voice. Occasionally, someone brushes against my back. I'm desperate to feel more drunk. I tend to get irritable far more quickly when I'm sober, much like Hancock... maybe that's one of the reasons we've always gotten along. Feeling overstimulated, I swill back the ends of my glass and signal Charlie for another.

Lucky for me, no human could possibly serve booze as fast as that robot. It’s mere seconds before another full pint glass is in my hand and I greedily neck it back. I smile to myself, sensing the warmth in my belly spread into a pleasant haziness behind my eyes. These quadruple shots are certainly doing the trick.

An immense wave of gratitude washes over me as I perceive a hand between my shoulder blades. It unmistakably belongs to someone familiar, amidst the numerous inebriated strangers who have been using me as a prop for the last thirty minutes.

“Hey, dollface… how you holding up?”

He angles his head downwards, drawing himself nearer to me, enabling me to still take in his words amongst the competing sounds of music. In response, I offer a smile, albeit tinged with irony, and he promptly detects the subtle distress reflected in my eyes.

“Oh… well, why the hell are you sitting up here then?”  

With a light-hearted chuckle, he shifts his focus from me to locate Charlie. His hand instinctively wraps around the nape of my neck and delivers a playful squeeze, firm enough to hurt, yet, ultimately, conveying a sense of comfort and protection.

“Charlie - do this ol’ ghoul a favor and hand me that great, big bottle of whiskey - oh - and two glasses, if you’d be so kind?”

I can't help but watch him adoringly as he swoops in to solve all of my problems, like always. I've only spent a little over four months working alongside him, but I'm pretty sure that I'm falling for him. He's courageous yet gentle, sweet yet just, violent yet empathetic. I've come to realize that he's a very intricate person... well, ghoul. And, boy, does he know how to make me feel good.

Ignoring our rather large age gap - human/ghoul relationships aren’t uncommon in the wasteland, although they are generally disapproved of in most settlements. Except here. Here, in Goodneighbor, things are different. Here, Hancock and I can openly celebrate our relationship and relax in public without any judgment. As the Mayor, Hancock receives special privileges that he graciously extends to me. Moreover, the majority of the residents in Goodneighbor are ghouls themselves, and those who are human are generally open-minded outcasts who have found a welcoming home here. It's an ideal situation.

“Follow me…” He murmurs intimately next to my ear. With his palm placed reassuringly on the small of my back, he guides me smoothly through the mass of people - most of whom acknowledge their mayor with a rowdy toast of their glasses.

Once we’re out of the thickest part of the crowd, he grabs hold of my hand and leads me to a dimly lit table for two at the very back of the room. Both the noise level and the number of people are much more bearable here. I plonk myself down on the torn couch - enjoying the coolness of the leather seat against the back of my tired thighs.

“Jesus… thanks for rescuing me, yet again…” I snigger, holding my glass in place while Hancock pours a generous serving of whiskey. The liquid fills the vessel with a rich, golden hue.

“Why the hell is it so busy in here tonight!?”

Hancock puts the whiskey bottle back on the metal table between us with a thud, causing several small white flecks of paint to flutter to the ground. He leans back comfortably against the sofa, draping his spare arm around my shoulder while he surveys the room.

“You tell me, sunshine! Could be since we cleared up those raider gangs last week? Could just be a few more people traveling through.”  

His black eyes glisten and gleam like polished onyx under the sporadic beams of the spotlights that intermittently flash across his face. The aura of pride he exudes is palpable, adding even more charm to his demeanor. Seeking refuge in his presence, I nuzzle closer to the comforting warmth emanating from his body, finding solace as I press my cheek against his faded scarlet duster coat. Meanwhile, I continue to take measured sips from my glass of whiskey, relishing its smooth taste.

The mist brought on by alcohol is steadily encroaching upon my senses. I have firm intentions of becoming extremely drunk, and with Hancock already pouring himself another drink, it seems obvious that he shares that inclination.

(Part 2)

(Part 3)

(Part 4)

[happythecat]

so who is gonna watch natsume yuujinchou so that I can talk to them about it. huh.

[cdroloisms]

DAY 50 LET’S GO !!

It’s been 50 days since Quackity’s first Lore Stream, and I thought I’d write a little something for the occasion. Our buddy c!dream is not doing well in the prison rn lmao

tw: torture, abuse, injuries, blood, broken bones, manipulation, gaslighting, mental deterioration, trauma, dark content, pandora’s vault/prison arc, c!quackity critical (again, not really, but a Very Dark portrayal of him) 

Quackity’s in the middle of packing up his supplies for the day when he turns over; Dream flinches, automatic, but the winged man doesn’t come closer, hands still busied with rubbing off the blood on Warden’s Will. His good eye narrows, and Dream watches, half-lucid where he’s sprawled out over the obsidian in a puddle of his own blood, breath rattling in his chest and filling the silence with shuddering wheezes.

“It’s day fifty, you know,” he says, turning back towards his sword. Dream mulls the words over as his vision blurs, refocuses, letting them settle as his too-slow head catches up with the meaning. “Of my visits.”

He tries to respond, knows better than to ignore Quackity when he’s speaking, but the words escape his head halfway up his throat and the whole thing comes out as a garbled hum through his lips. Quackity hardly spares him a second glance, sheathing the sword and moving his hand to the axe, pulling it up from the floor and watching as blood drips down the blade onto the handle.

“You know, I said I would come for as long as I fuckin’ needed, and I don’t exactly plan on making myself a liar any time soon,” Quackity’s eye slants towards him, lips pressed together in an irritated frown that Dream recognizes as the one he wears when he’s more bothered than he lets on, “So you gonna talk? Or are we gonna have to go through another fifty?”

Dream keeps his eyes on the other stubbornly, refusing to look away even with the full force of Quackity’s glare directed at him. Hey- what can he say, it’s the end of the day and he’s more than a little delirious from the pain and adrenaline. He’s sure that he’ll regret it come tomorrow, but that’s a problem for future-Dream, not now-Dream. Now-Dream has enough to worry about with trying to stay conscious as it is.

Surprisingly enough, or maybe not surprisingly at all (say what you will about the daily visits and the torture and pain they’ve brought him, but seeing the same person for hours a day every single day does mean that you end up knowing them better than most. He can say a lot about Quackity, most of which involving bloodstained fantasies of revenge and memories of agony and every excruciating moment in between, but in the end he also knows the other man, for better or for worse), Quackity shakes his head, turning back to his work, and laughs. It’s a dry, bitter thing, whatever amusement left within having long cooled and sharpened into something viscous and wanting, but it’s still laughter, the sound so unfamiliar that it makes him physically recoil for a moment before his head catches up.

“You really are a stubborn bastard, aren’t you?” Quackity’s voice dips low in wry humor even as he looks away again, and Dream closes his eyes, lets the world go dark for a blissful second. “Fifty days- I have to say. I’m impressed! It’s really…quite impressive.”

Fifty days- Dream looks up again, head lolling over limply as he tries to look closer. Quackity never brought up the time before, had enjoyed in the psychological side of making him guess how long it’d been, in giving fake times and messing with his head without a clock to keep his head straight. In all honesty, there’s a side of him that’s convinced that he’s lying, but - well - it’s not like it matters, how long it’s been. It’s hardly like there’s a time limit or anything.

“Anyway,” he stands up suddenly, reaching up to stretch his arms, wings spreading to his sides, catching the light of the lava, seeping through the feathers, “We’ll have to cut today short, alright Dream? I have, well you know, arrangements. We’re celebrating.”

“Yeah?” Dream rolls his eyes, words thick in his mouth, and he spits out a mess of blood and other gunk onto the floor beside him, recoiling at the feeling. “Celebrating what?”

“Well, it’s been fifty days, hasn’t it?”

Quackity’s voice has shifted to a slight drawl, almost fond save for the edges, sharpened to a razor point and ready to cut through skin, muscle, bone. It’s a tone that Dream’s become all-too-familiar with, the sort of way Quackity speaks when he’s about to say something that he thinks will make him hurt, when he feels like using his words alone to drive a knife between his ribs and then twist the handle. It’s unassuming, slow, and cruel in every sense of the word, and Dream blinks slowly as he waits for the meaning to register in his pain-addled mind.

Quackity must take his silence for something else, because he laughs again - this one is one that Dream’s familiar with, a hissing, mocking thing that curdles the very air. “Oh- you didn’t think they didn’t know, did you? He turns back towards Dream, moves closer, hair having fallen over his scar and lips twisted in a smile that shows off his glinting golden tooth, “You really- you really fuckin’ thought they didn’t know, prime, this is pathetic Dream, this is a new low even for you.”

Know what- oh.

“Of course they know, Dream,” Quackity kneels in front of him, hand reaching forward to grab him by the jaw, running his thumb back and forth over a fresh cut slashed over his cheekbone and putting enough pressure on it to make it sting, “I told them ages ago - I told you, too, did you seriously fuckin’ forget? Prime- the whole point of you being in this shithole is for the revive book. Once I get it we can finally just kill you and be done with it - of course they know, man! They’re fuckin’ cheering me on.”

Dream watches, waits for the betrayal to come, hot and fast as it always has before. Waits for the rage to come bubbling up, dark and angry, waits for his hands to shake feebly with desperate fantasies of revenge that will probably never make it out of the walls of this obsidian hell. He waits, and waits, and waits, even as Quackity grins and walks to the back of the cell, a triumphant spring to his steps, and disappears in a shattered potion of harming that sends another wave of agony through his broken body.

Nothing comes.

And- it’s almost funny, nearly has him laughing hysterically in the middle of his cell, still spread in a mangled pile of broken bones and limbs twisted unnaturally, drenched in sweat and blood, because - of course, of course now he finally manages to do what he’s been trying for all along, of course now his traitorous, bleeding heart that never failed to bruise and fracture no matter how any layers of netherite he wrapped around himself finally, finally hardens, of course now after fifty fucking days of torture does he finally learn the lessons that he’s been trying to teach all along.

Lesson 27, he remembers himself saying, hands clasped around each other as he paced back and forth on a mountain’s peak, grass crumbling beneath his boots, do not reminisce on what you have lost for it will weigh you down.

It’s been fifty days, and Dream laughs, because after so, so long, he finally has no attachments - and it’s the best feeling in the world.

[arminbitchlover]

the moon is beautiful, isn't it? (1)

pairing: connie springer x gn! reader

content warnings: mention of vomit, blood, angst, & death

summary: chapter 138 spoilers / you and connie have been in love for years, falling for each other at the exact same moments. one night, connie tries to hint his feelings towards you on top of utgard's castle, but you don't catch it, so connie shrugs it off. a few years later, during the rumbling, connie decides that it's finally time to admit how he feels.

song recommendations : the swans by: camille saint-saëns, gymnopédie no. 1 by: erik satie, nocturne no. 2 in e flat op.9 no. 2 by: frédéric chopin, and mia and sebastian's theme by: justin hurwitz

word count 4.1k

DO NOT POST/SHARE ANY PART OF MY WORK ON TIKTOK

This is the end.

You lay on the stone floor atop Utgard castle, gazing at the stars while reminiscing on all the memories you made with your friends.

Everything is becoming too much for you; nobody knows how titans are infiltrating the walls if there's no breach, you still have no idea where Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are, and now you're left with no ODM gear to fight in case titans were to take over your refuge.

You feel completely utterly useless.

"It was a good run," You mutter to yourself, feeling the lump in your throat get stronger.

You're not ready to give it all up, your life as a scout was just about to begin. You've met so many people that mean so much to you, especially him.

You won't ever forget when you first met him; Sasha introduced him as her bestfriend and you instantly fell in love with everything about him; his eyes, his voice, his laugh, and his sense of humor, just everything about him is absolutely perfect.

You continue your search for constellations amongst the stars, trying to distract your mind from the harsh reality.

"Hey." You hear a voice come from the door and you turn to have your eyes meet with golden brown orbs.

It's him.

"Connie." You sit up, moving your legs close to your chest with your jacket spread across them.

You feel your face start to heat up as he gets closer to you. You could never understand why he has such an effect on you, he could do the slightest thing and your heart will always skip a beat.

"Mind if I sit?" He walks towards you, one of his hands scratching the back of his neck.

"Be my guest." You gesture on the empty spot next to you, feeling your heartbeat start to quicken as you immediately catch his scent while he settles in next to you.

You glance down and see that your hands are only an inch maybe centimeters apart; god, how bad you wanted to hold it to make you feel better. You look back up, worried that he may have seen but notice that his gaze is fixated on the stars.

"Beautiful, right?" You move your focus back to the night sky.

Almost as beautiful as him.

"Sure beats this shithole," He chuckles.

"Yeah, it sure does..." You trail off, looking back down to the floor while fidgeting with your fingers.

Silence thickens between the two of you, but not the awkward kind when nobody knows what to say, rather the kind that just wants to savor each other's presence. You enjoy it, worried that if you were to say something you might burst into tears from panic, anger, confusion, and sadness.

“...Christa told me you were up here.” He turns to you, sharing a sympathetic look.

“Yeah, I- um told her I would spend some time here for a bit before sleeping.” You take in a deep breath and rub the back of your neck.

You didn't dare overload Connie with your feelings. It wasn't because you thought he would shove them under the rug or tell you to suck it up, but you were fully aware what he was going through as well.

“We’re going to be okay, you know.” He reads you like a book, seeing through your calm demeanor and knowing you were just a ball of anxiety ready to burst at any moment.

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"We're going to be okay, you know." Connie laughs, helping you undo your ODM gear.

"Ugh, I wish! This training will be the death of me, I swear." You giggle and place your gear on the table.

You love the way he makes you smile. Even when your body is on the verge of extreme fatigue and exhaustion, he somehow always made you feel a bit better about the whole situation.

"If it makes you feel any better, we're finally having a hot dinner." He places his gear next to yours and you both walk to the dining room.

"As great as that does sound, I just need to get this gunk and sweat off of me." You feel disgusted with yourself, thinking about the number of hours you spent outdoors in the heat.

"Yeah that too, you smell like a Titan just threw up on you," He playfully jokes, already speeding up his pace as he knows what's about to come next.

"Asshole!" You laugh and chase him down the hall.

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It was strange, you could be on opposite sides of the world, but he always knows if something was bothering you, like an invisible tether always kept the two of you in sync.

“You don't know that, Connie.” Your eyes start to get glossy, looking back up to try and hold back your tears.

You can't understand why everything in your life has to end up so shitty. For once you just want to save lives and be the hero that everyone needed after the Shiganshina incident, but you can't even do that.

“Y/n.” He scoots closer to you, gently pulling your head to his chest as he lightly traces your back.

You hold your breath and become stiff as you hear Connie’s heartbeat. Fuck, you'll never get used to this, no matter how many times it happens. Having him comfort you when everything was going wrong and assuring you not to worry and that it was all going to work out, made you forget all your problems for a moment.

"No regrets though, right?" He lightens up the mood with an inside joke.

"No regrets." You smile and feel yourself melt into his embrace.

You love the way he makes you feel, whether you're upset, sad, frustrated, or maybe just hungry, he always finds a way to make your day not so shitty.

“Why are you doing this?” You ask while you bury your head into his chest, feeling like this is too good to be true.

You feel his chest stop moving and his arm stay still. Silence once again takes over and lingers in the air.

"I mean, after what you found out about your family, I-" He cuts you off.

“I… just really care about you.” And he isn’t lying, he cares about you more than you could imagine.

What you didn't know was that he has been in love with you ever since the day Sasha introduced you as a member of her training squad. He adores everything about you: your voice, your lips, the way your eyes lit up when you ramble about things you're passionate about, and your wits, just everything about you is absolutely perfect.

It didn't take him long to realize he had fallen head over heels for you months ago, but he couldn't tell you. There's no possible way in his eyes for everything to work out if he tells you. He knows the risks of everyone’s lives when it comes to being a scout. He can't bear the thought of becoming more attached to you than he already is and know that he might not have you the next day.

“I care about you too.” You hide your wide grin, relishing this moment for as long as you could.

“Y-You do?” Connie chokes, causing you to pull away and make eye contact.

“Of course I do, why wouldn't I?” You immediately inhale a sharp breath, scared that you may have said something wrong.

‘I need to do it now.’ Connie’s thoughts start to cloud his mind. ‘If this is it, I need her to know.’

“I just… I don't know. Forget it.” He opens up his arm again, inviting you back into his chest.

You brush it off, not wanting to ruin what you already have, and lean back into him. You start copying his breathing, finding comfort that you never thought you would never find again.

You close your eyes for bit, trying your best to memorize everything in the moment. The material of his shirt, his warm skin against yours, the light breeze that hits your face, everything.

“The uh- the moon is beautiful, isn't it?” He quietly stammers, and you immediately feel his heartbeat begin to pound and so does yours.

It can't be.

You know exactly what that means, but does he? Was he just saying that because the full moon that illuminates the hills genuinely looks beautiful? He has to be, right? This night was already beginning to feel like a dream, there’s no way he means what you want it to.

“Yeah, I guess.” You wince as you hear the words fall from your mouth.

You sit in silence yet again, but this time filled with unwanted tension. While your head is spinning with a million thoughts, Connie can't help but feel anger with himself. Why couldn't he just come out and say it? Did you not know what he meant or did you really just reject him?

"It's getting a bit cold, so I'm gonna head inside. You coming?" You put on your jacket, avoiding eye contact to hide the tears that were on the verge of falling down your face.

"Nah, I'm going to um- stay up here a bit." He clears his throat and kees his gaze fixated to the moon.

"Oh alright, well goodnight, Connie." You weakly smile and walk away.

"Goodnight, y/n." He whispers, not loud enough for you to hear.

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chapter 138 spoilers

"Y/n, we need to go get Armin, now." Mikasa snaps you out of your thoughts.

"But Connie? He has to be near here somewhere, I-I just know it." Panic sinks in as you scan through the battle of the titan shifters to find your lover.

"Y/N SNAP OUT OF IT!" You slightly jump and turn to her, her face becoming flushed with red.

"Sh- Sorry, right, Armin." You shake your head, covering Mikasa as she makes her way towards the pig-type titan.

It's been 4 years ever since that night on Utgard's castle and you remember every second of it. A day never went by when you didn't think back to that moment and wonder what could've been if you had said something different, but you couldn't and you hate yourself for that.

Nothing changed between the two of you, if anything you feel a lot closer than before. You or Connie never address that night, as if it never happened, and you were somewhat fine with that. It hurts that your gut feeling of him not having feelings for you was accurate, but that's okay, because you would always still have him by your side even if it was just a close friendship.

"Y/N!" You look behind you and see him coming at you at full speed.

"CONNIE!" You feel a bit of weight being lifted off your shoulders, seeing only one visible injury.

He joins you side by side to defend Mikasa, noticing the number of titan shifters making their way towards you was too much for you to handle.

"Are you okay?" Connie defends you as you briskly check the state of your weapons.

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"Are you okay?" Connie rushes to your side, inspecting the cut on your cheek.

"Yeah, I just have to be more careful with the branches." You wince as you feel his finger graze your injury.

"Well, we're definitely not racing anymore." He looks into your eyes and smiles.

"You're just saying that cause you know I'm better with ODM gear." You giggle and get back up, brushing off the dirt that caught on your equipment.

"You wish!" He blasts off, not giving you a chance to ready up again.

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"MIKASA HURRY!" Your anxiety starts rushing through you, ignoring Connie's question as you notice your blades were on the verge of giving out.

You see her make a quick glance towards you before zooming towards the titan that trapped Armin and quickly slices his jaw open. Before you know it, you see Connie soar in your peripheral vision to the tongue that entangled Armin and slice him free.

"ANNIE!" Connie screams out, making his way back to you and wrapping his arm around your waist.

You feel the tiny butterflies you always get when he's near you and admire his perfections for a second.

"I'm getting us out of here," He assures you as he looks into your eyes, instantly melting all the worry and panic that stirred up inside you.

"O-Okay." You whisper, the wind harshly hitting your face as Connie moves both of you to the top of Eren's titan, getting Falco's attention.

While Falco flies his way towards you, you gaze upon everything that is going on around you. You start feeling overwhelmed again, too much was going on at once. You see Jean and Pieck trying to make their way towards the Founding Titan's head but get trampled by shifters, Annie holding Armin as he recovers, and Levi and Gabi shooting their gun at every titan.

"What is- is happening?" Your voice cracks and you hang your head low with your eyes shut.

"We should've fucking known ever since Eren decided to infiltrate Marley, but it's okay. We're okay." He gives you a weak smile and a slight squeeze on your waist for reassurance.

Falco reaches the both of you and board his back with Levi and Gabi.

"Are you guys okay?" You can slightly hear the concern in Levi's monotone voice.

"Yeah, we're fine," Connie answers, completely disregarding the gash that was dripping blood on his forehead.

"We need to help Jean and Pieck." You chime in, watching them struggle their way to the neck.

"No, we-" Levi cuts himself off when he hears his name being called out by a familiar male voice.

The five of you see a blonde man with only half a body attached to one of the Founding Titan's ribs.

Zeke.

While you see his lips moving, you can't make out what he's saying. He begins waving around his arms, successfully capturing Levi's attention, but in a blink of an eye, he's dead.

Levi decapitated him.

You hear a slight gasp come from Gabi's mouth and immediately see tears start to swell up. You quickly pull her into a hug, rubbing her back as you try to soothe her.

"It's okay, Gabi. We're okay." You whisper in her ear, slightly rocking back and forth.

While you didn't know or care for Zeke much, you know how much Gabi saw him as another father, an uncle.

"I-I need my- my parents." She hiccups into your chest.

You can't imagine what's going through her mind. All of her plans to become a warrior and making her family proud was all gone. You remember what that felt like, thinking throughout your whole life that titans were your enemy and Eren would be the solution for it all, but you couldn't have been more wrong.

"I promise, I'll get them to you." You bury her head into your chest and stay still, forgetting where you are for a second.

You and Gabi share a weird relationship, especially after everything that happened with Sasha, but you were somewhat like the older sibling she never had. You nurture her when things become too overwhelming or when she was worried someone would kill Falco for her doing. It was strange for you at first, caring for someone who you thought was the enemy, but was really just a twelve year old girl who was taught the wrong things, all to be treated as a 'good Eldian'.

"The- The rumbling stopped." You turn to Connie and furrow your eyebrows.

"Wha-"

"He's right, look." Gabi points to the titans that were completely still in place, but the titan shifters were still moving in battle.

Bizarre.

"JEAN! PIECK! GO!" Levi's yell snaps you out of your thoughts, watching him fly back to Falco's titan.

You feel your heart start to pound and chest begin to tighten. This is the moment that would define the rest of your life. If Jean and Pieck weren't successful, then there's nothing left for you. Everything you and the scouts worked for would be done, ruined, over.

"God, let Jean be okay." You hear Connie mumble under his breath.

"He will." You instinctively grab his hand and give him a slight nod.

He nods back and you both turn back and watch Jean soar to the head with the TNT box. You feel him squeeze your hand, becoming more anxious as seconds passed.

"STUPID LITTLE SUICIDAL BLOCKHEAD," Jean screams at the top of his lungs, before setting off the bomb that decapitated the Founding Titan's head.

You keep your eyes on Jean, making sure that nothing is seriously wrong and to your relief, he's unharmed.

"JEAN," Connie cries out, tears streaming down his face from alleviation.

He immediately pulls you in for a hug, causing your face to start heating up. While this wasn't the first time you and Connie hugged, it always makes you feel like it's your first all over again. You wrap your arms around him, savoring this moment for what thankfully feels like an eternity. You feel his body heat radiate against yours, warming you up from the cold winds that coat you.

In the corner of your eye, you see Reiner struggling with the cord that connects with the Founding Titan's head. Wrapping his arms and slamming it to the base of the ribcage, holding it down for as long as possible.

"Shit, it's going back for the head. ARMIN, NOW," Levi commands, stirring Falco to Jean and Pieck.

God you hate what's about to come next. The loud noise, the bright light, the endless destruction that's always created, and the lost lives were things you loathe to witness.

"JEAN! PIECK! ARMIN'S GOING TO BLOW THESE BONES TO PIECES! WE NEED TO GET AWAY QUICK!" Connie reaches his hand out, pulling both of them onto Falco's back as Annie and Mikasa make their way as well.

"But Reiner-" Pieck cuts Jean off.

"The Armored Titan should be able to withstand the Colossal Titan's explosion. And most of all, Reiner's prepared for the consequences."

Her words feel like a stab in the chest to everyone listening. Even though Reiner was a traitor in the beginning of this mess, it doesn't take away the great memories you made with everyone and the thought of maybe losing him too was a lot to take in.

"She's right, Jean. We need to go." You put a hand on his shoulder, trying to give him some type of support as you hope that your words help you too.

"Y-Yeah, of course." He slightly shakes his head as Falco flies away.

While you're hundreds of feet in the air, all of your eyes are glued to the titan shifters, watching Armin's explosion destroy everything in its way, including the monsters that fought you and your friends. Although the sight wasn't pleasant in the slightest, you can't help but notice the pit that you had in your stomach was gone.

"Is this it?" You weakly smile, feelings of ease and nervousness begin to overpower everything else.

You haven't felt this much hope in years. The deaths of your fallen comrades weren't in vain; it meant something now.

"See, I told you we would be okay, y/n." He wrapped his arms around your shoulders, leaning his head against yours.

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

"See, I told you we would be okay, y/n." Connie grins as you put on your new Survey Corps jacket.

"Geez, I never thought I would ever see the day." You admire yourself, not knowing that Connie's doing the same thing.

You feel nothing but excitement when the leather hits your skin. All the hours, blood, sweat, and tears you put into your training was all worth it. You can finally be the hero you've always wanted to be.

"Well, here we are." He lightly pats your back and chuckles.

"Yeah, here we are." You hand him his new jacket and admire how great he looks as a new scout.

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

"You're always right," You giggle, snaking your arms around his waist and holding him a bit too tightly.

You both bask in each other's presence, enjoying the thought of planning out your new future. As you close your eyes and enjoy the breeze, Connie can't help but adore how perfect you look in his arms. Every time you share a moment like this, he can't help but get flashbacks from that night. He knows how badly he messed up, he should've just straightforwardly said what he always wants to confess to you but he couldn't and he hates himself for that.

He can't recall what number this was for all the times both of your lives were at risk. The times he would forget what his mission was and sought out for you if he lost sight of you. It always takes him back to the same thought, 'You have to tell them before the day comes that you can't.' It's an ongoing battle with his mind and he always comes back to the same conclusion, 'I can't get more attached, not if there's a possibility I could lose them tomorrow.'

But no, this time he feels different, he senses that something's different about this. He suddenly feels queasiness and pulls away from you. 'No, no more hiding it.'

"Is everything okay, Connie?" You feel his body tense up as you give him a concerned look.

"No, it's not, y/n, I've been needing to tell you something, for a while now actually." He scratches the back of his neck and avoids making eye contact.

"What's wrong..?" You trail off, having your mind go a million miles per hour.

"Nothing- Nothing terrible but, y/n-"

"MY PARENTS," Gabi yells out, pointing at the crowd below you.

You and Connie snap out of your conversation, leaning over to the side and see a group of people staring up at Falco.

He lands his titan and Gabi immediately flees into the arms of her parents, Pieck doing the same with her father. You can't help but feel a bit of happiness after all of this, Jean stopped the rumbling, Armin killed off Eren, and all the people you love are safe from this never-ending war.

"We did the right thing, didn't we? I mean with what we did to Eren." You change your focus back to Connie.

"Of course we did, look at the amount of lives we saved, y/n. So, no regrets, right?" He playfully collides his shoulder with yours.

"No regrets." You smile and make your way towards Jean.

Your heart always skips a beat when he says that, you think of it as your own little thing that only you two share. Every time you feel like everything in your life is going wrong, he always reminds you that even if things were to go to shit it would be okay because you have no regrets.

"Can't believe I did that," Jean mumbles, still in a state of shock.

"You did what you had to, Jean." You console him as Connie chimes in.

"Don't bring yourself down, Eren brought this among himself."

You can never forgive Eren for what did over the years. It was apparent from the beginning, but you were to naive and filled with hope to see it. Now, this is different, you lost some of the most important people in your life for his doing. There's no going back from that.

"Y-Yeah, you're right." He brings the two of you in for a group hug, leaving a space in the middle for Sasha.

"She would be proud of us, you know?" You feel a tear run down your cheek as you speak.

Fuck, you miss her so much. All the fun and stupid memories you made with her flash through your mind. All the way back to your first moments meeting her, Connie holding her back from eating all the meat during dinner; to your final moments together, cheering for a successful raid on Liberio.

"She is." Connie corrects you, a smile forms across his face.

"Yeah, she is." Jean starts tearing up, grateful for another day to be alive.

"REINER," Gabi screams, causing the three of you to interrupt your moment and go by the ledge and see something you never thought you would.

You see the centipede that Jean exploded continue to move as if nothing ever affected it. Luckily, Reiner and Armin's titans look unharmed, but you immediately feel the pit in your stomach start to come back.

"See Gabi, he's fine, ever-" Connie gets cut off by another extreme explosion.

You feel nauseous as you see what emerges.

"He-He's alive?" Your voice trembles, all the hope and happiness you just shared obliviates in a second.

Eren's titan.

"No way." Connie gasps, his body starts to shake with fear.

"What do we do now?" Mikasa's voice cracks, wanting everything to come to an end.

You can't believe it. Every fucking time you think that everything will finally work out for you, something always changes. You always end up losing someone, witnessing things that no one should ever be forced to see, and always feel empty in the end.

"We can't let Eren come into contact with the shining thing! Who knows what'll happen!" Gabi tries to pull everyone's focus back into the war and luckily, it works.

"She's right, we have to kill that thing, no matter what." Connie's voice becoming slightly deeper at the end of his sentence.

"Don't you get it? How can we kill a thing that survived Armin's explosion? We need to go for Eren." Levi's command lingers in the air.

"There has to be another way. AGH!" Mikasa starts gasping for air as she starts tightly gripping her head.

Before you could go by Mikasa's side, you notice smoke coming from afar. You don't think much of it, just assuming it was debris from the explosion, but no.

You scan everyone's faces, instantly seeing some of your comrades faces turn into pure terror. This couldn't be what they think it is. This isn't how it's supposed it, how it's supposed to end. It has to be some kind of machine malfunction that's just giving out tons of smoke. It has to be something else than the thing you fear most.

"Isn't this smoke the same thing they did.. at Ragako?" Connie's face becomes overwhelmed with horror and anguish.

"N-No..." You fall to your knees and bury your hands to your face, not being able to come to terms with what's going to happen next.

This is the end.

"Hey, Hey, look at me." Connie's voice never sounding so calm before.

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

"Hey, Hey, look at me."  Connie wraps his arms around you as tears cascade down your cheeks and soak his shirt.

"Wh- Why her?" You hiccup, feeling your chest begin to tighten and your head spin from hours of crying.

Your best friend's dead.

You can't hug her anymore, tell her any scouts gossip, or scold her when she stole your food. You can't go to her room in the middle of the night and have her comfort you when your nightmares felt too real. She's gone, forever.

"I wish I had an answer for you... shit-" He starts breaking down right in front of you, both of you begin to cry in each other's arms.

You hate this, fucking hate this. You've dealt with the deaths of your squad members and scouts but nothing like the way you feel right now.

You need to escape, you need to get rid of these awful feelings that were eating you up inside, but no matter how much you may want to escape this shithole with the only person you love, you can't.

"B-But we still have each other, right?" Connie's voice trembles, his grip becoming tighter, thinking if he lets go he'll somehow lose you too.

"Always."

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

He grabs your chin and leaves your faces just inches apart. All of the yelling and cries drown out as you solely focus on your soulmate.

"No regrets, right?" He wipes your tears away with his thumb.

"No regrets." You barely let a whisper, savoring his embrace one last time.

You feel a hand touch your shoulder and you look up to see Jean, seemingly relaxed.

"So this is how it ends for us." Connie brings Jean into your hug.

"Guess so," Jean replies, acting as if this wasn't the end.

"You know I blame both of you for all this, making me end up with the job of saving humanity." You joke, making the most of your final moment with your best friends.

"Yeah yeah, and take that to your grave." Jean chuckles as he slightly squeezes Connie's shoulder.

Connie glances Jean a confused look, seemingly not aware of the next few seconds. Immediately his eyes widen, finally accepting that this was it for you and him, and he never got to tell you.

"Y/n, there's something I need to tell b-before this is all over. Something I-I should've told you years ago." He speeds up his words, slightly stumbling.

"Yes?" Your heart drops to your stomach and you can't help but wonder if he was going to tell you what you've been waiting for since the day you met him.

"Y/n I-"

a/n : yes, i took some direct quotes from 138 & yes, i switched up dialogue between characters and actions from the book to make more sense with the reader.

[gyromitra-esculenta]

Even If the Waters Rise 3/5 (*cough*)

Shadowrun inspired Mermay part 3 out of *now* 5 - it’s a monster. In this edition: Drama, drama, and once again, relationship drama.

Also, warnings for the whole planned thing: blood, gore, and violence; cannibalism (human on metahuman); questionable jokes and questionable totem choices; ambiguous relationships; referenced limb loss/cybernetics/etc; mating cycles.

*

Give or take a few days, Jesse turns up three weeks later, lacking fangs or a sun allergy, albeit with a certain pallor to his skin and aversion to the light, but that's easily explainable by the obvious hangover he's sporting, the kind that comes with a days-long drinking binge.

"Broke up already?" Jack pours himself a drink and then slides Jesse the bottle with about half of its contents remaining. He obviously needs it more than Jack.

"Don't want to talk 'bout it."

"Good. Because I'm not interested."

He ends up with all the sordid details, anyway.

It takes over two hours for Jesse to explain that his perpetual stalker vampire ex dumped him two nights past the club incident due to him supposedly smelling like a wet dog that also found and rolled in some prime ripe carrion. Jack's not going to comment on that. To him, Jesse reeks of his cigars first and foremost, and maybe under this odor hides a note of wet canine fur, mangy and full of dust - reminiscent of petrichor but more acidic and scratching the throat if inhaled too deeply or closely. Now, it's also alcohol sweat. But those two hours are enough for Jesse to get himself back into the drunken stupor.

Jack relocates him to the couch and orders take out - settling for some suspicious pizza as the safer option out of the available, even if he has trouble deciphering the ingredients. Someone out there probably knows what exactly 'sea chicken baby' is.

To his morbid astonishment, the 'Chicken of the Sea' turns out to be a sea cucumber, bland as fuck if not for the cheese and the sauce - and he's comfortably sure it would taste better raw than baked. He eats two slices and leaves the rest out on the counter for Jesse - and the state Jesse's in, he would probably be happy with a trashcan left out in some alleyway to pick through.

By the looks of him, that's a fair assumption to make, and not at all mean or undeserved.

But the question of how Jesse tracked him down remains. Their hidey-holes over the whole coastal area number in closer to a hundred than a fifty, so it's either an incredible draw of the luck (including the dang spirit dog) or someone had pointed him in Jack's direction. He brings it up during the check-in with Sombra, sure to vent his general disposition at both Jesse's intrusion, and the required daily contact.

"I think some responsibility would do you good," she brushes him off, "so take care of the puppy instead of moping by yourself for days."

"Maybe, just maybe, I do have a reason to mope," Jack snaps at her, "ever thought about that one?"

Sombra sighs.

"I don't know what had happened between you and Gabe, but..."

"Oh, you could, just load it up."

He immediately regrets going off on her, it's not her fault. Only it is her fault, in an illogical and convoluted way - because right now, he needs someone to blame and that someone will not be him.

"I'd never do that unless you want to show me."

Fuck this shit. He's tired and emotionally drained - he didn't even think it was possible.

"Listen, Jack," Sombra continues after he fails to answer her, "you have no idea what ice I had to get through just to send him a message, and the moment he got it, he just dropped everything and walked out of the meeting."

"Yeah, his asset was malfunctioning."

"Whatever happened, you're taking it hard, and you need something to occupy your time because sitting around is doing you no favors to your state of mind."

"Then find me something to do that doesn't include babysitting the human disaster all broken up over my couch."

"The fleet." Sombra mulls something over and Jack, elbows leaning on the windowsill as he finishes his drink, looks over the almost empty street below. "I'm running into walls and I'll need help with some more traditional intel gathering."

"You need hired muscle."

"The gist of it, yes, I need someone to beat some people up so they cough their contacts up, but I'm still pursuing some other venues right now."

"Tell me when you actually have people to rough up, the downtime's killing me, and this place's a total shithole."

"I know. I'll have tickets for you and the puppy tomorrow, and I need you to keep him on a leash because you're going to Yakuza-land for the foreseeable future." He can feel her smile trying to be reassuring pressed against his thoughts. "And you have a meeting scheduled."

"Yeah, about that, one, the only thing I know is 'shakuhachi shite' and 'arigato'," Sombra laughs muttering 'oh god', "and two, he can send them again through the proxy."

"Listen, you don't really want that. And that wasn't even 'fuck off'. That was dirty talk, Jack."

"Figures. I'm..." Jack sighs, massaging his temples. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. Earlier, I mean."

"I know."

"I'm just, I don't know, angry? Not with you, you did what you had to, but... It's too much, all of it, and I'm sorry."

"I know. You'll work it out. It's okay."

"Fuck. Thanks, I guess. I'm not thanking for dropping the mongrel on my unsuspecting lap, though."

"You're welcome." She signs off and Jack pulls the plug out.

Even the mere prospect of meeting up with Gabriel after the incident gives him what he can describe only as anxiety. At least, that's what Jack decides to peg it as, something jumbled and all tied up in knots, and self-hating, and making him feel useless.

Nibbling on the third slice of the pizza and watching the sun go down, he knows what it really is, but refuses to give it the proper name. Calling it anything else lets him pretend it's nothing important and go about his life like nothing's different, even if it is - threatening to topple over and crush him under.

When Jesse starts moving, Jack forces him under the shower and his clothes into a washing machine. The thing is done with its load before Jesse is, and he dumps the debatably cleaner garments on the couch - the coyote is looking at him with an expression on its snout that's far too intelligent for his liking, half-mocking, and half-challenging. Jack turns the serape the other way. The coyote, apparently, takes a short hike all around the fabric to end up facing him again, and he could probably get into a trial of persistence with it but has a sneaking suspicion he would lose.

Fuck it. It can stare at him through the back of the couch as he undresses.

Jesse, predictably, ambles out to the shower and straight to the counter to assault the leftover pizza with the zeal of a person starving for days.

"Switch your SIN," Jack instructs him after he catches Jesse's attention with a tactical application of a ballistic shoe.

"What? Why?" Jesse mutters between the mouthfuls.

"We're flying to Japan tomorrow, would be best not to have Yakuza waiting on the ground for you when we get off."

"Why the fuck JIS?"

"Yakuza's probably involved with the fleet Som's tracking."

"They are. Fucking racists."

"You know that?"

"If anything has to do with harm to metas in the region, that's a safe bet it's them." Jesse wipes the oil from his mouth with the back of his hand, and the hand on his stomach. Of-fucking-course. "Say, we gonna be anywhere close to Hanamura?"

Jack sits on the bed, taking off his pants.

"Nowhere close. Everyone knows you there, and you're too recognizable." He stares at Jesse with contempt. "You just broke up with your main ex, you're not getting into another mess with another ex of yours. Don't make me tie you down."

"Nah, that about other business." Jesse stretches and walks around the counter in all his naked glory, stopping when Jack points with definite distaste on his face to the couch.

"You're still wet, the bed's mine, and the dog was giving me attitude."

"Whatever you say, pardner."

Jack cannot blame the sleepless night on Jesse, not directly - he doesn't snore, but maybe his presence has something to do with it. Regardless, his ensuing horrid morning disposition makes Jack snap at Jesse more than once, which Jesse completely ignores, or is simply oblivious to.

After he sends Jesse out with the trash and to wait for the car, Jack gives the flat the last once-over, making sure nothing personal is left lying around - unlikely they'll ever use the safehouse again, but good practice is good practice, and it's best not to tempt the fate.

The trip to the airport is relatively short and eventless, he only has to remind Jesse to switch his SIN once before they board. Jack pushes his bag into the overhead compartment and shuts it with a bang, taking his time before he sits and buckles into the seat.

The moment the plane rolls down the tarmac before takeoff he has to quash down his instincts screaming at him to get up and run. The lurch of wheels losing the contact with the ground below has Jack hunched and holding his head between his hands. Twitching at every suspect sound and tremor of the hull, he has nothing to distract himself with on the flight as his mind runs circles around images of a fiery inferno.

"Dude, have you tried taking something for it?" Jesse tries to start a conversation.

Jack shoots him down with a muttered 'fuck off' before returning to fighting to keep his stomach where it usually is and not in the vicinity of his throat where it battles for space with his now frantic heart. Two hours stretch into an imperceptible eternity of pure torture. Jesse waits for him to regain control of his shaking hands when the plane lands. They disembark among the last of the passengers.

The airport is a reconstructed dream of a crazy architect who, faced with a substantial lack of land, built it floating on water. Jack navigates them through the terminals to the water tram while keeping one eye out for anyone trying to latch onto their trail, hoping they look both intimidating and luckless enough to not attract the attention of any lookouts. It's not his first time in JIS, and, ironically, their best bet is using public transport. Some three years ago, the situation would be different, with the welcoming committee already waiting to bus him to his destination. Now, those bridges were burnt, and the goodwill was gone.

"What's the first rule?"

Jesse scoffs, sprawled on the seat, taking up two spaces realistically, legs kicked up to rest on the back of the seats in front of him to the distaste of the attendant.

"Not gonna risk Yakuza ink, even I'm not that stupid."

Jack stares at him with doubt.

"Except that one time."

"That one was different."

"I'm at loss for words," Jack rolls his eyes. "The second rule?"

"Don't antagonize the local racist shitbags?"

"Yeah, that. And the third?"

"Don't fuck with Yakuza."

"Good one."

"Nah, dude, not gonna go to Hanamura and fuck around, I need to go north later, check out something," Jesse shrugs. "Find someone to talk about that bear spirit because that shit was bad, man, real awful shit."

"I suspect you'll have time to do that. We can go together."

"Nah, no hard feelings, dude, but bear people don't trust that easy."

"Suit yourself," Jack rolls his eyes and nudges Jesse to get up as the tram lines up with the embankment. The taxi that drives them to the hotel rips them off, counting the normal rate several times over. Being foreigners, they are expected to pay more than locals for the same services, and making a scene would only add to the expenses - there's either some notation in the contract that would render any complaint null and void, or the local arm of the law would dismiss it anyway after they had at least ticketed them for creating a disturbance - if not outright put them under arrest on some bullshit charge. Well, Jack's not going to bother with it, it's not his money.

The hotel is one of those ridiculously posh ones, and he and Jesse draw curious glances as they pick up keycards from the reception area.

"Man, that's what I call life," Jesse announces after opening the alcohol cabinet, the first destination he chooses after walking into their shared room. Jack glances at the clock and just like that his heart is back to hammering against his ribs. He leaves his bag on the table.

"I'll be back tomorrow, do nothing stupid while I’m gone."

"Nah, jus’ gonna get stupid drunk and watch some holos."

Jack shrugs and heads out, leaving Jesse to his own devices, hoping he will stay true to his own words and not wander outside, especially not when drunk.

Gabriel's apartment is several floors up and Jack opts for stairs this time. The flight was enough excitement for the day, and the thought of forcing himself into the elevator fills him with revulsion on the spot. Halfway up, he realizes he’s only delaying the inevitable.

The heavy thing settled in his stomach is dread - and maybe, for the first time in his life, his instincts work as they should - screaming at him to run away, no matter where, just away, as he presses the card against the reader and keys in the code. Little late for that, huh? He pushes the door open, wincing at the breach of protocol: so wrapped earlier in his own thoughts he forgot about sending the text. The pad lies in the bag left with Jesse.

"I'm here," Jack announces to the room. His voice falls flat, even to his own ears. Gabriel looks over his shoulder while the screens in front of him flicker off one by one. Fucking dramatic, as usual.

"I can see it."

"I hate flying," Jack scrambles for an excuse - he doesn't need to, but it feels like he does - shrugs noncommittally, holding Gabriel's gaze. The mounting tension in the room seemingly affects only him - some misplaced power struggle Jack loses before it even began - and he breaks away the eye contact, turning away and stepping deeper into the suite. "There has to be a different method to get around."

"It is the most effective one."

The voice sounds too close, following Jack as he sheds his clothes.

"Maybe one that hits the orbit, I heard weightlessness is somewhat like swimming." He can at least give his honest opinion if they're on the subject.

"If the need arises for one."

Yeah, probably any launch of the type is conspicuous and more likely monitored, from the utilitarian point of view only reasonable if the speed is the key. Fuck that.

Jack loses the rest of his garments with the skin on the nape of his neck prickling under the scrutiny. Whether it's imagined or not doesn't matter, it's wrecking his nerves either way.

It's his turn to look over his shoulder, at Gabriel standing some distance away - shifting finally and coming closer to the bed.

"I wasn't aware flight provokes such high levels of stress for you."

Jack bites back the obvious answer - that unless he's bothered to know there's a lot Gabriel doesn't know about him - and the only time he cares to know is when it interferes with the operations. Won't lie to himself about the malice hidden under the thought.

"Now you know."

"Noted."

With Gabriel's thumb raising his chin up and the red and black eyes boring into his own, Jack falls back into the sheets. The sex is great, amazing even - it always is - but there is a certain measure of detachment that prevents him from losing himself in the act.

There's an invisible wall between him and Gabriel, one that wasn't there before, and the more Jack thinks about it curled up on his side, the more he realizes the fault lies with him, and him alone. Things have changed - he has changed - not Gabriel, and neither the arrangement. It's just a business transaction.

Trying to untangle the jumbled knot inside is like picking at an itching scab, only to discover there's pus underneath and nothing's healing. And it won't heal, not when Jack cannot pretend anymore he doesn't care, no matter how much he wants to. If that's what love is, it's a fucking miserable thing he wouldn't wish on anyone; he wonders if his past self also felt the same and he's merely stuck in following a preset rut. After all, the world is a cycle, isn't it?

Wanting Gabriel gone to let him sleep alone is a new one. So he can wallow in misery and self-pity in peace without the subject of his one-sided affection at his back.

Yeah. Love's an absolute utter bullshit, that's what Jack tells himself, staring at his own reflection in the still surface of the lake, fingers trailing in the water. The weathered wooden planks, blackened with tar, are far from the most pleasant to lie on - but the sun bearing down on his skin feels good and allays the discomfort.

The ripples born from his hand idly moving distort his reflection until Jack cannot recognize it anymore as his. And it isn't his, it's something else looking back at him from below the surface. Before he has time to react clawed fingers wrap around his wrist. The shining scales fading in and out of the skin glitter in the light with each minute shift.

It yanks him down with surprising strength

His skin scrapes on the wood - the water is cold - so cold - his lungs hurt with the lack of oxygen when he frees himself from the grip pulling him down - but the safety is far away - too far - and hungry mouths filled with sharp teeth latch onto his flesh.

He drowns.

The ending is the same, it's the rest of the dream that changes.

Lying cradled against Gabriel's side, with the arm wrapped around his waist and the palm resting on his stomach, Jack remains still, trying to wrest his thundering heart under control. Why he even bothers to remains a mystery because there is no viable way Gabriel isn't aware he's wide awake. What's left for Jack is to enjoy the rare closeness, something he's hard-pressed to; the satisfaction eludes him nonetheless while he watches Gabriel work. The screens close and reappear, once or twice prompted by the hand gesturing at them.

Jack tries to focus on the simple sensations: the warmth of the skin, the smell of the ocean, the lingering touch, but soon, it becomes unbearable, this picking at the open aching wound.

He moves away - the arm around his waist slackens and lets him go - and he sits up, disentangling himself from the sheets. Gabriel's attention remains focused on the screens, and Jack struggles for something to say.

"I'm going to take a shower," he mutters in the end, sliding off the bed.

The oppressive feeling of being observed and considered fades after the bathroom door closes behind him.

Of course, the whole room is done in subdued pink - salmon? - with elaborate cherry motifs running unbroken all around the walls with slight hints of darker colors. It's probably pretty and charming, and not at all tacky and lacking any real character or individual touch. Hotels always were like that.

The bathtub looks inviting, and Jack knows he could stay here for days by himself, but the reasons he's loath to are twofold. Jesse definitely constitutes one, the other one being the place that will make him think about Gabriel, and Gabriel only, the distractions available superficial.

Jack steps into the shower and, standing under the rain of warm water, he presses his forehead to the cold tiles. The voice inside his head provides him with an incessant background chant of 'you broke it' until he can't bear it anymore and punches the wall in frustration. The tiles crack.

He has no idea how long he's been in the bathroom - but Gabriel is gone when he walks out.

The pillbox lies on the pillow almost like an afterthought. Jack puts it in his pocket after gathering all his things.

He opts for the stairs again.

What he's not prepared for is Jesse scrambling to look at him over the back of the chair as he enters their room. Jack raises eyebrows at him.

"Shit! Dude. You're, like, glowing, but look like a kicked dog, but seriously," Jesse blindly reaches back behind himself for the open can of beer sitting on the small table, "you're bending the whole flow around you!"

"The what?" Jack notes the smell of cigars in the air, laced with something else, acrid and heady.

"Mana." Jesse sips from the can. "You got a fuckton of magic on you, like, a lot."

"Great. There's to hoping it won't kill me." Jack throws the jacket on the couch, sits in the other chair next to Jesse, and helps himself to the unopened can standing in the middle of empty ones.

"Don't think so, if it's bad, you'd be, like, dead ten times over, what with the potency. No spirit, for sure."

"Great. I feel nothing."

At least now, he had the explanation for Gabriel's clothes trick. Jack opens the can and downs half of it in one go.

"Offense meant, dude, but you got the sensitivity of a low-flying brick, and that means the only sensitivity you got is in the poor dude you're gonna brain."

"Thanks, I guess." Jack chuckles, toasting Jesse with a flourish. "Tell me," he vaguely points at himself, "if it does something weird."

"Will do. Wanna anything stronger with that?"

"That's what stinks in here?"

Jesse looks at him with his eyes pinched.

"Maybe."

"Pass, don't want to fuck up my lungs any more than they already are."

"Dude. You can breathe water, lil bit of smoke not gonna fuck them up."

"Still a pass." Jack finishes the beer and finds another can. "As long as it's not something you can be busted for, go ahead yourself."

Jesse snorts, apparently amused by his comment.

"It's all natural. Like, herbs and shrooms." To illustrate, he picks up a small baggie containing flaky brown fragments. "I smoke 'em, but go as well on the tongue."

This is a terrible idea. And Jack's tempted.

"No," he answers with a delay. "Especially if that's what gave you the mutt, might be contagious."

"Suit yourself." Jesse pulls out a cigar from his pocket and lights it, puffs on it lightly. Jack leaves it without a comment while flipping through the channels on the holo. They're both left with nothing to do for the foreseeable time. Jesse is more than content to spend the days idling: doing nothing but smoking, drinking, and watching tv, but Jack ventures out twice. He gives up on the whole idea of spending time outside of the hotel room soon.

He had forgotten how bland and hostile the whole of the JIS is to him despite the colors and the flashing lights, the music, and the chatter that never stops, or the cities that never sleep. It's a sea of humans only, maybe one or two occasional elves, almost no other metas, which serves to remind Jack that outside of the metropolis it's even worse.

Finding a place to drink and eat he's let in, not to mention not being faced with outright disdain when it becomes obvious he doesn't speak a speck of the language, is too bothersome.

Being confined to the hotel is not the worst thing in the world, Jack decides, not with his surprisingly stable mood, and the fact he's not fixating on the whole situation with Gabriel - only sometimes - and earthly mundane distractions are forthcoming. The majority of it, he thinks, is easily attributed to whatever Jesse's smoking the copious amounts of, and he himself is probably getting high on the fumes by the virtue of widely understood osmosis. Or ingestion. Call it what you will, it works wonders.

The idyll of the carefree quiescence ends with a dream in equal measure disturbingly different, and uncomfortably concordant. His feet are in the water - the waves wash up to his knees. He can feel every grain of sand on his skin: pressing in, irritating, ignored.

Pleasant warmth spills deep to his core, radiates from the bodies pressed to his sides - there's one hand slung over his chest - another carelessly pushes the elbow into his stomach - Jack shifts to remove the discomfort, and as he does so, he senses everyone else moving too. Like dominoes, every change of position prompts a chain reaction following down the line.

Lulled into half-sleep, this strange place in-between lucidity and unconsciousness, his eyes remain closed even with a familiar weight pressing down into almost the entire length of his body.

Something cold tickles his face and Jack finally looks up, at the silhouette cut starkly in the expanse of the pale blue sky, Gabriel's long wet hair brushing against his nose and cheeks, droplets of cool water splashing on heated skin giving him goosebumps.

Jack lifts his arms up. His fingers lock behind Gabriel's neck as he's spread open on the sand, a strange kind of pride bursting in his chest with each bite that draws blood from his skin. Nothing else exists or bears any importance but this one singular snapshot of time dredged from god knows where.

Jack freezes with his eyes wide open, his fingers almost breaking the surface of the water. The sensations - all so very specific and precise, unlike the vague suggestions of the usual dreamscapes - the sand scratching his arms and legs, and the back, the irritation lingering even now. The synthskin, even the kind slapped on his limbs, is never good enough to allow for the definition of the input and the interpretation on the level of the natural skin.

Dredged up. His own thought.

There's a sinking feeling, a frightening idea, that it's a memory. And it's not his. Jack schools his breathing; the jealousy at the effortless intimacy mixed with the shame of being an unwilling observer of someone else's intimate life swirl under his tongue. Or it's all jealousy. And spite. He grips the edges of the bathtub and pulls himself upright.

At the clinking and shuffling from the side, Jack turns his head to see Jesse tucking himself into his pants and buckling his belt.

"Christ, dude, you scared the piss outta me, like, for real."

Jack shows him the finger.

"How does your skin stay on, anyway?"

"It's just what it does? It's only fingers that do this dehydration thing."

"I don't mean that, and don't do this 'rise from the watery grave' shtick when I'm trying to take a leak," Jesse rolls his eyes, a gesture he's so fond of. "Almost pissed all over the wall."

"That's a 'you' problem, not a 'me' problem," Jack mutters, heaving himself upright and snatching a towel off the rack. He wraps it around himself while stepping out of the bathtub.

"Would be a 'you' problem if I'd turned around when you did the 'I live' routine."

Jack snorts, giving Jesse an appraising look supposed to convey his opinion on the subject matter, and moves to the main room - dripping water everywhere - where he sinks into his usual chair.

"By the way, I got my stuff arranged, so I'll be splitting in the evening later."

Jack acknowledges it with a grunt. With Jesse gone, he will probably be about ready to climb walls with the dearth of things left to do. Or return to drinking alone, which, arguably, is far from anything approximating a healthy coping mechanism.

"And you forgot toes. And the soles."

"Hm?"

"The prune looking thing, the feet do that too." Jesse drops back to the couch and plays with the remote. "That's stuff from the time we were all water monkeys, and so we could grab stuff better in water."

"No bullshit?"

"Nah, real stuff, that's why we like water that much. Some of us, at least, that's, like, where we should be most of the time."

"Cool."

"You're still a freak, though," Jesse salutes before opening a beer he has grabbed earlier from the cooler. "No hard feelings, right?"

"None. But, with the world as it is, isn't the whole evolution argument kind of moot? No-one accounted for the magic, did they?" Jack picks the plate with the remnants of yesterday's late-night snack up from the table and tries to discern if anything on it looks poisonous yet. Fried shrimps appear acceptable, to be honest, though the oil probably is a bit stale, Jack decides.

"Now, here, my dude, my friend, is the heart of the matter all those dudes who say a big man, or a big woman, or whatever in the sky did it don't get they get wrong."

"And that is?"

"And that is that even if that's all a fart of some higher power in the sky, it's still a creation, see? Someone sneezed, stuff crawled outta that sneeze, and the world began, it's still their word, ya know?"

Jack nibbles on the shrimp, deep in thought.

"Let's call that 'the great primordial snot theory' and never mention it again, deal?"

"Deal. Sounded better in my head."

"No," Jack lets out a defeated sigh, "you're onto something, but I'm definitely not going into the ramifications of a sneeze being the breath of life."

"But it has a nice ring to it."

"Yeah." Jack focuses on the shrimps, paying only nominal attention to both the show playing in the background and Jesse's mutterings while he slowly gathers his belongings that spread all over the rooms they've shared so far. Later, Jack escorts Jesse to the cab waiting for him, grips his hand for longer than needed when they shake.

"What's the main rule?"

"Don't get inked. Dude, who do you take me for?" Jesse snorts, trying to look offended and failing.

"A moron."

"Fair. Take care."

"You too."

Jesse ducks into his seat in the back of the cab and Jack shuts the door behind him - staying for a moment to see the car speed away from him before he returns to the hotel and for the first time considers the relative wasteland of devastation the room has become. After he pushes everything from the coffee table into a trash bin, he returns to the chair and checks in with Sombra.

"Feeling maudlin, are we?"

Jack shakes his head.

"What gave you the idea? Anyway, you still in Frisco?"

"Yes. Better access points to JIS networks."

"Right. Didn't cross my mind this might be the reason."

"There's good news too. When you get back from your meeting, I'll have a package waiting for you."

The meeting. He's on the last three doses remaining. Anxiety surges up in a sudden spike at the realization. He's been avoiding dwelling on the matter so well he pushed it almost entirely out of his mind.

"A package?"

"Some additional gear we will need to start digging, how to say it, organically."

"Beat people up, you mean."

"Yes," Sombra trails off slowly, a question in the air.

"Go on," Jack urges her, and after a lengthy pause, she continues.

"You never told me you only have nightmares."

"I have other dreams too." He's pretty sure of it, especially after the last one.

"Jack. Every time you enter the REM phase, you have repetitive patterns of stress. Listen," Sombra sighs, probably reading his silence the wrong way, "I wasn't... keen on sifting through all your data, I don't like infringing on your privacy more than I have to, but Gabe insisted on it, and it could've been avoided if you had talked about having problems."

"They're not really problems, though."

He can almost hear her mentally counting down.

"You consistently downplay your pain levels, you don't dream save for reliving the trauma you'd suffered, and, Jack, I tried simulating your brain activity, I clocked out after three minutes."

"I'm used to it."

"That's the thing, you shouldn't be used to it, it's not normal," Sombra huffs, and Jack's sure she's throwing things right now wherever she's physically at by now. "I'm angry with you, we'll talk tomorrow when you get the package, and I'll be less angry."

She disconnects without prior warning, leaving him alone. But that's the thing about pain, you become numb to some of it, Jack thinks, until it becomes just the background radiation of your life.

He takes a quick shower and finds a clean set of clothes to change into.

This time, Jack remembers about keeping the pad on his person, and sends the text as he climbs the stairs yet again, somewhat amazed at how three whole weeks have passed unnoticeably with Jesse there to keep him occupied - he's not going to lie, he's going to miss the bugger. Not the conversations, per se, but rather, the general awareness of his presence. Even if everyone is living their own separate lives outside of the operations, getting together is not so bad, after all.

Jack stops at the doors to the same suite as before. The code is unchanged. A few calming breaths and he walks in.

That's the thing about the constant pain, it doesn't disappear, it just numbs you down - it's a sort of resigned weary acceptance to his situation that leaves a dull ache in its wake, nothing earth-shattering anymore, but it's still there. The half-smile Jack musters at the sight of Gabriel observing him is surprisingly genuine, even to him himself. He can, and will, deal with it. His problem, not anyone else's.

"Long time no see," Jack quips at the inquisitive rise of Gabriel's eyebrow. "Hi, and all that jazz."

He doesn't expect an answer. There is none, save for Gabriel stepping closer, and Jack throws his hands around his neck while his heart flips in his chest - constricts into a singular point of fear and doubt - the touch on his hip giving him something - anything - to grab onto. Grounding, as is the finger raising his chin.

The red and black eyes regard him with moderate interest - observe and scrutinize - pass the judgment on him; Jack leans in against the instinct telling him for once to run and hide from the apex predator before him. But, has he ever listened to it when it urged him to do anything but fight? Not that he can recall such an incident.

In a small act of defiance, Jack catches Gabriel's lip between his teeth, scrapes the tip of a canine on the fragile skin on the inside, hard enough to draw blood. He waits with the bated breath for the reaction, taken aback by a sparkle of what could be amusement in Gabriel's posture, and the kiss, now tinged with the metallic aftertaste, deepening, becoming more forceful, his body pulled flush against Gabriel's, a hand on the nape of his neck.

Jack stumbles over his own feet while being led to the bedroom, lost in the kiss until the backs of his shins hit the edge of the bed, and with a gasp of surprise he lies on the covers - almost falling but also held and lowered - peeled out of his garments, and out of control. Having Gabriel's attention focused on him - and only him - makes Jack's head spin each and every time, regardless of the circumstances; a near-religious experience if he ever had to put a name to it, not unlike the moment the drifting dragon gazed at him - and through him.

He wanders back to the dream - the memory - of the beach, of the coarse sand biting into his skin; Gabriel's locks that have slipped from the low ponytail tickle his cheeks and nose as his fingers dig into Gabriel's shoulders, trying to find a way to bring him even closer. Maybe even to leave a mark - a sign of permanence - something that cannot be denied sunk beneath Gabriel's skin in a desperate attempt to put his claim on him before Jack dissolves in the smell and the taste of the ocean rushing over him, the whirling current pulling him down.

But this is what Jack knows: he is not willing to give this up, this bittersweet torture. It doesn't come as a sudden realization, more like a long-standing knowledge now unburied and close to the surface, driven home with the weight of the moisture hanging on his eyelashes. He reaches out and finds Gabriel's palm, twines their fingers together - always amazed at the contrast and the faint dark red lines following intricate patterns melting into the color of Gabriel's skin - pulls it close to his chest, its back pressing against his heart. Covers both their palms with his other hand and curls around it.

No matter how much it hurts, no matter how much it will hurt, he's not going to give this up because the alternative is far worse, it's being abandoned and empty, and lost, and having nothing but that deep-seated ache.

Like this, he can at least pretend, Jack muses, slowly drifting off.

The first time he wakes up, it is to the darkness of the night and fingers combing slowly through his hair, Gabriel's hand still held close.

The next time he opens his eyes, it's morning, and he's alone in the suite – the pillbox waits on the pillow.

[flowerpowell]

You Drive Me Crazy (Colt x MC)

PART SIX

A/N: Here’s part six, which also means the series is coming to an end! Thank you for your patience with waiting for this chapter, I hope you’ll all like it! As always I dont own the characters but I’d appreciate the feedback. And please note, this is an AU!

Rating: PG-16 

Word Count: 1598

Tagging: @agent-bossypants @brightpinkpeppercorn @confessionsofabrokegirl @lovehugsandcandy @walkerduchess @choicesarehard @going-down-downtown @long-gone-girl @client-327 @desireepow30 @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction @umiumichan @powdesiree0816 @claudevonstruke @akrenich ♥

“I love you, Ellie,” Colt repeated and within seconds Ellie threw her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately as if they never argued, as if she remembered he was her first, as if it all made sense again.

Except that it wasn’t true. That was not the reality. The reality was harsh.

It was over.

Colt hid his face between his hands, sitting on his bed, his shirt wet from tears. His tears.

He sat there, trying to steady his breath and reminiscing about what happened only an hour ago.

“This is low, even for you!” she shouted at him from behind the closed car door.

“I just said I loved you, how is this low?!”

“Oh, please! You’ll do just everything to make me stop seeing Logan! I didn’t expect you’d actually start pretending you like me not but apparently I don’t even know you!”

I don’t even know you. Know you.

He didn’t know himself either at this point.

There was no Colt he used to know. No Colt who laughed at being too emotional. No Colt who didn’t care about what other thought about him. No Colt who never shed a tear.

That Colt was gone. Dead.

This Colt was helpless, in love and needed a hug. This Colt hated this new Colt.

“Stupid feelings!” he slammed his fist into the wooden bed frame breaking it.

He needed to leave. Go far away and never look back. Leave as soon as possible.

~~~~

“Young Kaneko! Hi, come in,” Ellie’s father opened the door and let Colt in. “My daughter is not here, I’m afraid. She’s constanstly out somewhere and I barely see her these days,” he sighed.

“I actually came to you. To say goodbye. I’m leaving the town and I figured I’d tell you,” Colt shrugged gently as he felt Ellie’s dad’s gaze on him.

“Why?”

“Oh you know, nothing is happening here, really. I want to know the world. Leave this shithole, start my life. Ellie’s going to college soon too so it’s not like I have much left here,” he said biting his lower lip. It wasn’t all true. He lost Ellie before she even went to college and ever since Logan appeared, he had nothing left.

“Ellie knows?”

“I’ll tell her. I couldn’t find her.”

“You sure you want to leave? You and Ellie seemed--”

“I’m sure. Won’t change my mind,” Colt cut him off. Ellie’s father nodded and went silent for a moment.

“She’ll miss you,” the old man finally spoke. Colt shook his head.

“I doubt it. She’s going to college soon, she has friends. She’ll be fine.”

“She’ll miss you,” he repeated, “and it’s not certain she’ll go to college this year.”

“What? Why?” Colt asked alarmed. Did something happen?

“I need to pay one last installment but my visit at the hospital cost a half of it. I’m not sure if I’ll manage the get the money before it’s due.” He explained and Colt started thinking. Did Ellie know? She wanted to go to college so bad... She’ll be devastated.

“Think positively,” Colt said, “maybe you’ll have the money. I gotta go now but please, take care of yourself, sir.”

“You too, Kaneko. You too.”

~~~~

His mind was racing.

He hadn’t done it in months but he needed the money. For Ellie. For her college. For her dreams. For her freedom. For her.

He knew it was stupid and Ellie would be mad if she found out he was doing it again. That was why he only told Mona about it. She was against it too but he didn’t care. This was the only way he could help Ellie before he would leave.

“Yo, Kaneko!” A man named Salazar walked up to him with a few of his buddies. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Racing again?”

“Yup,” Colt answered shortly. He hated the guy and he didn’t come here for a small talk. He came here to race and to win the money he needed. And then leave. For good.

“Think you can win? With me?” the man laughed and his friends followed.

What a bunch of morons.

“I always did.”

“Aren’t you afraid you precious litte friend’s father, who’s a cop, will find out you took part in illegal races again?”

“And who’s gonna tell him? You?” Colt laughed and Salazar narrowed his eyes.

“You’re going down,” he said before he left and Colt rolled his eyes. Whatever. I’m here just for the money.

He walked up to his motorcycle and studied it for a second. He wasn’t afraid of losing, he knew he was good and since Ellie was his motivation, he knew he could win this. He smiled at the thought of Ellie but his face fell remembering their last meeting. He was just about to warm up, his little silly routine before every race, when his phone rang.

Mona.

“I’m kinda busy right now, Mona.”

“Ellie was here. Asking about you.”

“What?” he froze. “What was she asking? Why...?”

‘I told her where you are. And what you’re about to do.”

“What?! Mona! How could you, I trusted you!” Colt yelled into the phone.

“She came here and told me her father told her you were leaving. She wanted to know why. I told her it was partly because of her. I might have told her some things from your perspective. She thought you were pretending when you said you loved her, now she knows it wasn’t a lie. I told her you don’t know how to deal with your emotions but you fell for her. She seemed to be shocked.”

“MONA!”

“Listen, Colt. I like you but you need help. She would never know if I hadn’t told her. I spared her the details but long story short, she knows you wanted to be more than friends with her and that’s why you acted like a total ass. And she’s headed there so you’d better win that race asap before she gets there.” Mona kept explaining but Colt stood still, not sure what to think. Ellie knew everything. Shit. He quickly hung up and hopped on his bike. The race was supposed to start soon and he hoped it’s end before Ellie arrived.

It felt almost nice to be back. The adrenaline, the exicitement, it all was back.

The race started and Colt easily managed to draw ahead. He saw Salazar in the corner of his eyes, he was determined to win this time but Colt maneuvered slightly and was first on the finish line. He smirked at the “losers” and went to claim his prize when he saw her.

Ellie was furious.

She noticed him and started yelling something, something he couldn’t understand because one of the motorcycles’ engine was still working. He turned to ask the owner to stop it but saw Salazer driving straight into him, clearly trying to hit him.

“WHAT THE HELL?” Colt yelled when he jumped back dodging the bike. Salazar looked back at him, not even bothering to stop the vehicle. Colt’s angry expression quickly turned into a pure horror on his face when he realized Salazar’s motorcycle was going right into...Ellie.

“Ellie!” he screamed but she was too shocked to move and Salazar seemed to have frozen as well.

“STOP IT!!” Colt yelled running after the bike, praying to somehow make it stop.

“ELLIE!” he cried out but it was too late. She was hit and thrown with a huge force, and landed on the street. Colt felt like he was going to either throw up or kill Salazar. Preferably both.

“Ellie!” he ran up to her and looked in horror at her face, the blood dripping from her head, forming a small puddle which was doubling before his very eyes.

“Ellie, please, stay with me,” he tried to stop the bleeding with his jacket, frantically looking for his phone. Salazar and the rest of the people stood still looking at both of them with their eyes wide opened.

“Can someone call the ambulace?!” Colt lost his patience and started yelling at the crowd. They all only shrugged.

“If we call 911 the police will come as well and we’ll be all arrested. It’s not worth it. It’s better to sacrifice her,” Salazar pointed to Ellie.

“SACRIFICE ELLIE?!” Colt stood up and started walking towards Salazar with hate in his eyes. “How about we sacrifice you and tell the police you wanted to kill her, huh?”

“Dude... not worth it. He’s right,” another man cut in. Colt glared at him and then looked around at the faces of everyone.

“You’re...You’re serious? You’ll let her die because you’re afraid you’d go to jail?” he asked hesitantly. They all nodded. Salazar put a hand on his shoulder but Colt shook it off. “Accidents happen. We’re leaving and so should you,” he said and they all started slowly dispersing.

Colt stood frozen at what he just witnessed. He looked at the men driving away and then at Ellie laying motionless on the road. Then again at the men and at Ellie. And again.

Sacrifice.

Ellie.

Ellie.

Sacrifice.

He closed his eyes and whispered into the night “I’m sorry.”

He looked at her again, as if remembering her features before he spoke again. “911? I’d like to report an accident.”

[interstellarrambles]

the girl. bg. pt ii

pairing: bonnie gold x female!reader

requested: yeah! by @shutter-bug124

warnings: none?

a/n: sorry if this took a while, but I had it in my drafts for ages, before I even posted the first one, I just couldn't figure out how to end it. I hope I did it justice!

it had been a horrifically dreary week since you had last seen Bonnie. it kicked and screamed and dragged its feet, refusing to let up from the way it tortured you with every waking moment. Tommy hadn't told you much (he never did really, even when it involved you) but from what you could piece together, Bonnie was with his father, doing some business for Thomas.

now, if someone had asked, you would simply laugh it off and say he wasn't taken by you, simply caught up in the moment, and that you were wondering where he was so you could discuss business, or perhaps invite him on a piss up with Finn and Isaiah.

you wouldn't tell them that you'd been counting the days and hours since you last saw his smile, and watched his lips move. you wouldn't tell them how you planned to sew razor blades into his hat properly for him, after noticing the poor stitching that caused him many cuts on his fingers. or how you had made him a new hankie after you stained the other, one with two letters, perfectly embroidered onto the red cotton, using a golden thread you almost got into a fight over (you'd found that though your name had a certain amount of fear that came with it, it appeared as though some of the women cared less, or were at least willing to get into a brawl over some cotton). and you certainly wouldn't tell them the amount of times you had imagined him kissing you while he held your face in between his hands.

whenever you were free, you let yourself slip past the veil of reality, and into the warped sense of dreamland your mind created for you. somehow, Bonnie was always there too, kissing you. problem was, you tended to lose your grip on reality, even when you weren't free.

"oi y/n! pay attention." Thomas remarked, and you came back with a start upon feeling him slap the upside of your tilted head.

"fuck off Tom, you didn't need to slap me," whining, you fixed your hair, now messed from his attack.

"he evidently did: you were enjoyjng your dream a lot. dead to the world." polly smiled coyly, knowing exactly what was happening; after a couple of rounds at the garrison, she had pulled the truth from you, and hadn't stopped teasing you since.

"shut up Pol. didn't get much sleep last night," you muttered the last part, knowing she would only further tease you, even though you needed an excuse for your tardiness: Thomas and you had business to attend to, and this was not helping in the slightest.

"well you need to sort yourself out. no getting pissed with Isaiah and Finn and have an early night. Bonnie and Aberama will be back tomorrow, so I need you on the top of your game. me and Aberama have some business, and seeing as you've already met Bonnie, you can help me sell him to the boxing officials later on."

Thomas raised an knowing eyebrow when you perked up at the mention of Bonnie, smirking at Polly who simply patted your shoulder with faux sympathy.

"go on sweetheart. get up to bed, and I'll wake you up in time for when Tommy will be here."

"no need. she can meet me at midday at Charlie's." Thomas added before placing his cap on and moving from the door, leaving you alone with Polly.

"don't look at me like that Pol."

she laughed, flicking you, and playing dumb to further tease you.

"who me?"

...

even though it was pretty early in the morning, the sounds of metal clashing against metal was omnipresent in the streets of Birmingham, an orchestra of workers, fires, and chains leading you through your errands.

most women were in the house, attending to their children or work, and it was too early, even for the local men to be drinking in the pubs, so, for the most part of your journey, you strolled through the streets alone. you of course, had a busy morning planned: Polly had managed to hijack your morning and had convinced you to run some favours for her, before you were set to meet with Thomas.

though it had been an extensive list, you had persuaded Finn into coming to your rescue and completing the tasks with you, drastically reducing the time needed. as a result, you had been able to spend a good hour sat by the cut with him, and you were grateful: much of the time was spent reminiscing old memories together and telling each other secrets.

but now you were back on the streets, dodging horse shit and trying to kill some time. in a rather rushed through thought process, you pondered making the trip to the boxing rings, and before you knew it, your feet were crossing the boundary.

a few nods from the boxers was all you were offered until the owner approached you with a greeting: no matter what mood you appeared to be in, people tended to treat you carefully, knowing you shared in the shelby business for a reason, and not wanting to anger you.

however now, you were feeling dazed somewhat from your previous conversations with Finn, so much so, that when someone called your name, it took you a while to respond.

"y/n?" a voice the dramatic part of you thought you were never going to hear again demanded your attention.

"that's my name," you replied jokingly, joining in when Bonnie chuckled.

"would the lady like to join me for a walk?"

he offered his arm, and although everything in you wanted to envelope him in a bear hug, you weren't sure that he would ever live it down with the boxers if he did.

"I suppose I could let you escort me to Charlie's yard," you teased, pulling him closer by his shirt, "it's a dangerous world out there you know."

a smirk found its way onto his features and you could have died there and then.

"oh come on."

the two of you quickly exited the boxing rings and as soon as you felt the cool air hit your face, a smile broke out.

"smells like home," you whispered, not noticing the way he watched you.

"you know, I hated Birmingham when I first arrived - it's all doom, gloom and so different to my home, but every time I'm with you, it feels like I'm at home,"

you laughed in agreement. birmingham was a shithole and you didn't know why you loved it so much, but he wasn't finished, "you're like a diamond in the rough."

he whispered the last part, and you found yourself only inches away from him just like before.

but you wouldn't let it and like last time.

just as he began moving away, murmuring an apology for being so forward, you placed a hand at the back of his neck, and pulled him forward.

"can I kiss you?" he was unusually speechless, but found his voice just enough to make sure you were sure, ever the gentlemen. .

"please." you begged shamelessly, only satisfied when his soft lips were pressed against yours like you were his life source. it was better than you'd imagined.

[cescalr]

ME would like to suggest some fluffy willoughby/don

Don had invited Will over for Christmas.

Their year at Whitewater College, a boarding school purely for sixth-form students, had been fine. so much as any year after what happened at Slaughter could be fine. And it was fine because Clemise was in some other country, and Don had taken a few months, but he did get over their break-up. And it was fine because Don felt somewhat - he wouldn’t say traumatised by the events of that night, but… he wouldn’t say he didn’t feel in some way terrible about them, even now, if he reminisced too long on what happened.

But. That’s that, really. Don doesn’t dwell too much. You just got’t’deal with this sort’ve thing, y’know? Deal, and move forward.

Anyway. It’s Christmas. There’s no point bringing down the holiday cheer by thinking on that.

[Fic continued under break, or you can read it on Ao3; my profile is linked on my blog!! I’d put it here but tumblr is stupid and external links break tags.]

Don looked over from his place lying down to where Will was, still fast asleep on the mattress they’d set out for him. It was early morning, still – the light coming through the blinds in lines, brightening up parts of the room and, unfortunately, shining straight into Don’s eyes.

“Fuck,” Don muttered to himself, as he sat up in order to get away from the too-bright sunlight. “Too early. Shit.”

Well. Not that early; the sun didn’t rise until it was actually morning in winter, unlike the bullshit you got during summer – but still. Regardless, Don hadn’t been quiet enough, it seemed, because Will stirred.

After he blinked away sleep, Will seemed to register what day it was.

“Merry Christmas, Ducky,” He said, as he sat up. Don had tried to get him to use the proper bed and let Don sleep on the mattress instead, but Will had refused.

Truthfully, he wasn’t so bothered about that. It meant no springs digging into his back while he tried to sleep, after all.

“Merry Chris’mas,” Don replied, “Or, It would be, if y’d stop callin’ me Ducky.”

“We’ve had this argument for over a year, Ducky.” Will smiled. “You’re too late, it’s stuck.”

Don grumbled lightly and without heat as he scooted to the end of the bed then stood (so he didn’t end up standing on Will – Don’s bedroom isn’t very big), stretched and moved out of the room.

Once he was back from the bathroom, Will was dressed.

“Y’ever ‘eard of a ‘lazy day’?” Don asked, dryly. “Y’know… what Chris’mas is t’mos’ people?”

“I have,” Will said, plainly.

“Alrigh’ then,” Don rolled his eyes. “C’mon. Breakfast.”

They were home for Christmas, of course, but that didn’t mean the teens at Whitewater didn’t throw a week-long event – mostly drinking and partying in the art department’s basement, thrown by the drama club, because of course – in preparation.

“Donnie!” A girl, rather drunk, called out. “Blakey, Donnie! Over here!”

“Lauren,” Don replied. Will greeted in kind, and the two made their way through the crowd to the girl and the rest of the group.

“Neither of you are drunk yet, and it’s five somewhere!” She exclaimed, shoving two plastic cups of some alcoholic beverage into their hands. “Also, Danny got his sister to cough up the you-know-what, so we’ve got some brownies if you want any!”

“They only just arrived, Lauren, stop trying to get our friends addicted to pot,” Sam said, sighing, as he rolled his eyes. He was sat on a free stool, a book in one hand, and a water bottle gripped tightly and protectively in the other.

“Chill, Sam,” Lauren said, loud enough to be heard over the pounding of whatever EDM mess the ‘DJ’ had decided to play.

“I’ll chill when you stop trying to spike my drink, bestie,” Sam said, dryly.

“You know I love you!” Lauren sing-songed, then grinned. “Oh, my girl’s over there – Sammy, dear, show these lot where the food an’ shit is, yeah?” And with that, she was off – Don lost her in the crowd mere seconds after she’d entered it.

Sam rolled his eyes. “C’mon then,” Sam said, standing. “Food’s on the other side.”

As they walked, Don spotted various different people he’d met over his first year at Whitewater. There was Alex, Lillian, Sabrina, Derek – to name a few.

(Of course, there was Jesse, Zak, Michael – but… well, they didn’t really count as much. Though, Zak was talking with Alex; his cousin. Maybe he’d end up a better person in the new year? Only time would tell, Don supposed.)

“Y’ gotta have fun!” Lillian said, grinning. Sabrina slung her arms around their shoulders. “An’ us homosexuals have to stick together,” She added, swinging them around to face the drinks table instead of the buffet. “meaning - I need some money; buy my wares.”

“I recommend the ecstasy,” Lillian chimed in.

“You would,” Will said, smiling, as he carefully extracted himself from Sabrina’s grip. Don stepped away, and walked over to the table. “Five o’clock somewhere,” He said, shrugging.

“Right on,” Derek grinned, appearing out of nowhere. “I heard drugs.”

“Wanker,” Sabrina rolled her eyes. “I thought you were off with your mates?”

“And miss my main friendos?” He laughed, loudly. “No-way, broseph! I’m tryin’ t’ be a bit more sportsmanly, y’know? More of a team player.”

“They’re not gonna let you on the lacrosse team, Derek,” Lillian said, “Not after last time.”

Derek shrugged. “I can try,” He said, solemnly, and then was gone again.

“Jesus Christ,” Sabrina muttered, rubbing at her forehead. “Anyone else get a headache from his sheer presence?”

“I’m still trying to figure out his species,” Sam said. “I’ve figured Alien, but what kind…” He mused.

“Doesn’t matter,” Lillian dismissed. “Drink! Food! Illicit substances to fuel our various addictions, be they basic-bitch or hardcore asshat! Let’s go!”

Don rolled his eyes, and downed his drink.

And that had been the main theme of it.

So. Don had been home for a fair few days, now; Whitewater let you home for the week before, of, and after Christmas, and Don had made the most of it. It’d been a real long time since he’d seen what few mates he’d had back home – what with Slaughterhouse and then joining Whitewater after being cooped up at home for his mandated week-long ‘recovery’ period, after which he was supposedly supposed to be all better now, off you trot, and then the Christmas he’d spent at home with his mum as the actual ‘recovery’ period, according to her, and then another whole few months before summer, but then his mates had been out of the country, so then it was another couple months until now but - whatever. He’d hung out with what mates he had left, that first week, meaning Josh and Terri and James – Josh’s girlfriend and brother respectively. They played video games and smoked in the empty park and pretty much did exactly the same sort of shit they’d been doing when his mum had been wholly convinced that he was ‘depressed’.

Then Josh and Terri and James went off to Ireland for Christmas, and – Will came to stay. For Christmas week.

And then Will got a phone call, and now he was just going to stay until college started up again, and go back to Whitewater with Don. Logically. Practically.

Don – didn’t really need to ask.

Anyway.

“Ah hope you boys are ‘ungry,” His mum said, plating them and herself a full English. “Chris’mas is the only time ah bother, so you both better enjoy it!”

“Thanks, mum,” Don said, and she smiled and squeezed his shoulder lightly as she walked past. “Thank you,” Will said.

(“Thank you for having me over, M-“ Will started.

Babs’ smile dimmed. “Babs is fine, don’t you worry yourself with formality,” She said, warmly. “Come on in, it’s freezing!”)

“Eat up,” Babs encouraged. “You’re both growing boys, and we’ve presents to open!” She smiled, conspiratorially; they’d gone out Christmas shopping with her individually, and so she knew what they’d gotten each other, and appeared to be having the time of her life with this knowledge.

Don ate his breakfast.

“So. This one of the posh twats you replaced your old mates with, then, eh Don?”

“Josh,” Don greeted. “Bit of a dickhead but the right sort.” He told Will. “Will, Josh.” Don gestured.

“Willoughby Blake,” Will said, “And not too much of a twat, I wouldn’t say. You?”

“Josh Blythe, and I ain’t no dickhead to good people, y’ prat,” Josh said, scowling a little at Don. He fished a pack of smokes out of his pocket. “Fag?”

Will smirked. “Yes;” He said, “I also, do indeed, smoke.”

“Cool,” Josh said, tossing him one. “Terri’s my girl, now, by the way.” He told Don.

“Terri… Blythe?” Don cracked a smile. “That’s a bit awkward, innit?”

“Oi, sod off,” Josh flipped him the bird, then set about lighting his own cig. “Blythe’s a plenty common name.”

“I wonder why…” Will trailed off, leaning against the low stone wall.  

“Yeah yeah,” Josh rolled his eyes. “Nothin’ James hasn’t said yet.” He scowled slightly. “Fucken’ incest jokes… made by my own goddamn brother…”

“How’s everythin’ at St. Dunstan’s anyway?” Don asked, changing the topic.

“David’s still a right prat,” Josh said, thankful for the change in track. “Ah heard George is expectin’, but she could just have the flu. Maybe she’s dyin, ah don’ fucken’ kno’. We never talk, do we? Fucken – anyway, Muhammad got into that right fancy college, so he fucked off, along with his family, and jus’ about ev’ryone else ‘as gone t’ some other sixth-form. Yanno, ‘cept me, ma brother and Terri. There are some new arseholes, but they stick to each other.”

“Dunstan’s was always a shithole anyway,” Don said.

“Damn right,” Josh stood, dropped his cigarette to the floor and put it out with the heel of his trainer. “You gotten rusty at Halo since ya fucked off t’ the posh south or what?”

“I did better than you las’ week, y’ dick’ead,” Don said, dropping off of the wall. “C’mon. Y’ever played Halo, Will?”

“It’s fucking freezing.” Will said. “Why are we walking around the town centre?”

“’Cause we got nothin’ else t’do, obviously,” Don said, stomping through the snow. “An ah wan’t’ get an idea of wha’ ah wan’t’ get for my friends, you twat.”

“Should have done this earlier on, then,” Will said, glancing around. “Most places are closed.”

“’Course they’re fuckin’ closed, it’s a Sunday,” Don said, rolling his eyes. “Doesn’ mean there ain’t shit in the windows, y’ twat.”

“Of course,” Will said, glancing around again. “What’s that?” He pointed.

“Fuckin expensive piece of shit, that’s what tha’ is,” Don said, but he walked over to the shop Will was pointing at anway. “Never been inside – ah think they’d chase me off.” He said, dryly. “Smell the fuckin working class on me or some shit, like fuckin’ bloodhounds.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ducky,” Will said.

“There’s fuckin’ diamonds on those ten-thousand pound and up watches, Willoughby, I ain’t going anywhere near that shit.”

“Come on.” Will said, “It’s the only place that’s open.”

“The fuckin’ Macdonalds is open, Willoughby – oh, for fuck’s sake, fine.”

Don walked after Will, who’d already entered the store.

Don looked around, as he caught up with his friend.

“There’s perfectly fuckin’ good watches elsewhere, Will,” Don said. “What a fuckin waste of ten grand, Christ on a bike…”

“I’ve seen better watches,” Will agreed. “But we’re looking at the ones with price tags, which is stupid. Come on. They usually put the better things near the back.”

“The ones with – Willoughby,” Don said, “What –“

“Here we are.” Will said, satisfied.

The watches did not have diamonds on them, which was preferable – but they didn’t have price tags, which was worrying.

“Why the fuck would you look at the ones without price tags?” Don asked.

“Because you can look at them.” Will said, pointing to the fact that they weren’t hidden behind what seemed like five hundred layers of glass and security measures. “And they’re not particularly garish, are they Ducky?”

“No,” Don said, warily, squinting at the watches. “Ah guess not. But this is pointless, I’m – prob’ly jus’ goin’t’ get a watch where ah got my last one, I mean, it lasted a good while.”

“It lasted a year Ducky, that’s terrible,” Will said. “Mine broke the year before last, but I’d had it for nearly nine by that point, and it broke because I broke it.”

“Fuckin’ dumbass,” Don said. “Perfectly good fuckin’ watch.”

“I am aware of that, yes.” Will frowned at the watches. “Do you like any of them?” He asked.

“Can’t fuckin’ afford any of this shit, can I?” Don asked. “Humour me,” Will said.

Don rolled his eyes and huffed, but did take a proper look at each of the watches in turn.

“That one,” Don said, pointing at a simple black-leather and silver with a white clockface and normal, black numerals and clock hands. “Most normal fuckin’ watch here.”

“Man of simple tastes,” Will smiled. Don elbowed him. “Fuck off. Not all of us are fancy posh twats – hell, I think y’d like a pocket-watch, fuckin – I know you would, you’re like that.”

“Like what?” Will asked.

“A posh, sentimental git, obviously.” Don said. “C’mon, let’s go.” He said.

“My cover’s been blown,” Will said, smiling, and Don rolled his eyes. “Fuck off,” He said, good-naturedly, grinning as they left the store.

Previous Summer:

“How are ya this fine mornin’?”

Don glanced over at Terri. “Not bad,” He said. “You’ll be off t’ Ireland tomorrow, righ’?”

“Nail on the head,” Terri said, dropping down onto the floor beside him. “Josh’s scramblin’, try’na pack all his crap. James is off, prob’ly somewhere with George.”

“Thought she had the flu,” Don said.

(George nearly always ‘had the flu’.)

“Those bitches are getting fucking married, y’know tha’,” Terri snorted. “Or haven’t ya seen the loving couple? No fuckin’ flu or baby rumours are gonna keep ‘em off each other’s backs.”

“Guess not,” Don said. “Smoke?”

“Nah.” Terri waved a hand. “Try’na quit.”

Don snorted. “Bet Josh loved that.”

“He’s a dick’ead, but you knew tha’,” She laughed. “God. Love ‘im tho’.”

“Yeah.” Don said.

“You ‘ave a girl?” Terri glanced at him.

“Did,” Don said. “Clemsie.”

“Clemsie?” Terri shook her head. “Posh fuckin’ princess?”

“Don’t,” Don said, shortly. “She had to move country, with ‘er fam’ly. We broke up ‘cause o’ tha’.”

“Shit, Don, sorry.” Terri sighed. She clapped him on the shoulder, then leaned over to look him in the eye. “Still. Better to be friends than to lose everythin’ over a long-distance piece of shit relationship, righ’?”

Don thought of Meredith and Audrey, and winced.

“Definitely,” He said. “We video call. It’s – not that… we didn’ get t’be together very long. Tha’elps, ah guess.”

“Helps a lot.” Terri shook her head, then flopped back against the wall. “’Elps a fucking lot.”

“Yeah,” Don said.

“Y’make any friends at those posh schools o’ yours?” Terri asked. “Other than that Clemsie chick?”

“Kay, Will.” Don said. “Lauren, Sam, Sabrina, Lillian, Derek, Daniel-“

“See, fuckin’ knew you’d thrive there,” She said, shoving him in the shoulder and grinning. “Always though’ y’ deserved better than fuckin St Dunstan’s.”

“So do you lot,” Don protested. “It’s a shithole, nobody deserves that.”

“Victims of fuckin’ circumstance, the lot of us,” She said, slumping back. “But I mean it.” She turned her head and looked at him. “Y’ the best o’ all o’ us, y’ prat. Accept it. Well. I mean, Muhammad’s a medical fuckin’ genius, but that’s a whole different ballpark and he’s a hopeless twat mostly, so I don’t count him If I did, he’d be the best no question – but yanno. I’m comfortin’ you, ‘ere.”

“Thanks,” Don said, dryly.

“No problem.” She grinned, and shoved him lightly in the shoulder again. “C’mon. Dad recently fixed up an old foosball table o’ his fam’ly’s, an’ I wan’na see if you’re any better than Josh or his bro,” She clapped him on the shoulder. “An’ maybe you can tell me all ‘bout your new friends, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Don said. “Sure.”

“Terri?” Don asked.

“Yeah? Oh, Don,” She unlatched the door and opened it. “Come inside, it’s fucking cold. God, I hate winter,” She slammed the door shut behind him.

“Do you know anywhere I could get a pocket watch?” Don asked.

“At an affordable price? Yes, of course, never doubt me,” She spun on her heel. “Or, rather, never doubt my dad. Dad!” She yelled.

“Wha’?” A voice boomed back.

“Y’know where we could find a custom watchmaker’s that ain’t damn expensive?”

“Yeah. I’ll drive yeh. Say ‘hello’ t’ Don for meh!”

“How the fuck does he know?” Don shook his head.

“The man has magic, I swear to god. It fuckin’ annoys me I got mum’s genes in that matter.” Terri grumbled, and walked into the living room. She dropped onto the couch, and Don followed suit.

“Is this for that boy o’ yours?” Terri asked, grinning lazily as she leaned back on the couch.

“He’s – why d’y’ have t’put it like tha’?” Don leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees.

“’Cause I like to make people question things,” She said, “Obviously.” Terri stood and moved into the kitchen, then returned with two cokes. “Here,” She tossed him a can. “It’s shit but mum’s addicted me to it, damn the woman.”

Terri dropped onto the beanbag. “Here’s to a very fuckin’ Merry Christmas, y’ prat,” She grinned as she lifted the can in imitation of a toast.

“Hear hear,” Don opened the drink and returned the toast.

“Dad’ll be done in a few minutes,” Terri said, “But – in all seriousness, is this your prezzie for Willoughby or what?”

“Yeah,” Don said. “Fuckin’ git’s as fancy and sentimental as it gets, so…”

“Y’ sentimental y’self, ya prat,” She said, fondly. “Which is why we’re goin’ the whole nine fuckin’ yards, ‘cause a custom one’s a better fuckin’ gift than any stock shit. Better quality, usually, too, ‘cause the maker actually cares about the fuckin' end product.”

“I’m not fuckin’ sentimental, much,” Don said.

“No, y’ just sappy, y’ fuckin prat,” Terri sunk down into the beanbag chair. “Don’ lie to me, Don, I’ve known ya for nearly our whole lives, mate. And I’m older, so I win.”

“If I’m sappy y’re twelve,” Don put the coke can down on the floor, unfinished.

“And proud of it,” She grinned at him. “Only way I can win arguments, I ain’t no good with words.”

“How’d you do in English?” Don asked.

Terri pursed her lips and sighed. “Fuckin failed it, didn’t ah?” She glowered at nothing. “Good fuckin’ thing I can drop out ah sixth form and jus’ go for a level four apprenticeship, huh? Or was it three…” She trailed off, frowning as she thought.

“Eh, whatever.” She chucked her empty coke can into the bin. “Score,” She grinned. “Anway,” Terri turned her attention back to Don. “You’re a total sap, I’ve got evidence. Point is, I’m strong-arming you to go the whole nine-fuckin’ yards, because even tho’ I can trust you to do it on yer own, without me you’ll totally get scammed out o’ your money.”

“Terri,” Don said, flatly.

“What? Who out’a the two of us knows trade, huh? Not you, y’git.” She grinned. “Also I wanna know exactly what inscription y’ put on the fuckin’ thing.”

“Fuck off,” Don said, leaning back onto the couch. “Thanks.”

“Mixed messages, there, oh Donald,” Terri grinned, and dodged the cushion he threw at her. She picked it up and put it under her head, her grin turning self-satisfied. “I always win,” She reminded him.

“No you don’t,” Don said. “Remember the trip to Wales, in year eight?”

“We never talk about the trip to Wales in year eight,” Terri said, automatically. “That’s the first rule of our friendship. Right above ‘we don’t talk about Alex Connors.’”

“Noted,” Don said, sitting up. “Which is above ‘there was never a Chase Johnson’.”

“See, he gets it,” Terri grinned at Don. “We keep each others' dirty little secrets, we get along.”

“Blackmail is the only reason we’re friends,” Don said, dryly.

“And don’t you forget it!” She grinned, laughing, and fell backwards onto the beanbag.

“You two. Got t’ get goin’ now.” Her dad said, suddenly appearing at the doorway. How the six-foot-five craftsman managed this had always been and always would remain a mystery.

Don’s started to believe the story that he killed a strange looking wasp that had holed up alone in it’s hive in the attic of a customer’s house and that’s what gave him his strange abilities a lot more since the events at Slaughterhouse.

After all – Meredith’s not dead, and neither is the dog. The dog which looks exactly like the one in the paintings… of a dog that had lived hundreds of years prior.

“We’re ready, come on,” Terri said, standing, and Don followed the two Blythes out of the house.

“Ah, Terri Blythe, it’s been a long time.”

“Heyo, Uncle Terrance,” Terri said, stepping up to the counter. “Ma friend ‘ere – Don, y’ remember? – needs to get a prezzie for his boy.”

“Terri,” Don said, sighing.

“What?” She looked at him. “Fuck off, you idiot. Ah’ve squinted at your act for a week, bitch, I know exactly how you feel about him. Or do we need to talk about Alex?”

“Fuck off,” Don said. “Hullo, Mr. Connolly.”

“Donald Wallace,” The man said, surprised, as he removed his glasses to quickly clean them, then replaced them on his face, mostly all the way down his nose, in order to squint at Don as if he wasn’t sure Don was actually what he was seeing. “My my, it’s been – how long?”

“’Bout a decade, Uncle Terry,” Terri said.

“Indeed.” The man replaced his lens cleaning cloth back into his pocket, like some old-timey handkerchief. “So what brings you both here?”

“Like ah said,” Terri stated, slowly, “He needs to get a present for his friend for Christmas.”

“My dear boy, it’s only four days away!” The elderly man said, agitated, as he went about retrieving various designs and sheets for pricings. “I can make it in that time, of course, and as always you will get the family discount – but you’ve left yourself very little time to plan!”

“Ah only came up with the idea yesterday.” Don winced.

“That’s even worse!” The man came to a stop, the desk that served as the counter piled high with various pieces of paper. “You’ll need to make the decision today, but you can ask for the inscription upon completion, thank the lord above,” The man narrowed his eyes at Don. “And next time, son, figure things out before the deadline!”

“Righ’,” Don said. “Will do.”

“Good.” The man sighed, relieved. “Now. Take a look,” He gestured to the pile, “And tell me which parts of which designs suit best. And remember – family and Christmas discount, so don’t say no for no good reason.”

Don nodded, somewhat awkwardly, as he started rifling through the papers. Terri wandered off, to browse through the clocks, which included watches - pocket and otherwise – lining the walls and displayed, lovingly, across tables.

“Eight years old,” The elderly man shook his head as he muttered. “And now – you’ll be graduating soon, I imagine?”

“There was an incident,” Don said, “At the firs’ sixth-form ah went t’. After tha’, we ‘ad t’ repeat lower sixth at a new place. So, uh. One more year.”

“I see,” The elderly man inspected a watch hung on the wall and frowned, then set about buffing out an invisible scuff mark. “Where did you go?”

“Slaughterhouse School,” Don said, and the man froze.

“In Slaughter,” The man – stated. It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.” Don said. “The School –“

“Blew up, yes, I heard.” The elderly man pursed his lips. “A right shamble. Still, at least you got out safely.” The man turned away from the watch on the wall, then cleaned his glasses – avoided eye contact. “… What really happened?”

Don looked blankly at him.

“I may be old, Donald, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know things.” Terrance squinted at him, then put his glasses back on. “Fracking doesn’t usually cause that sort of damage.”

“Well,” Don said. “They weren’ very –“

“Responsible Frackers, I know,” The man’s nostrils flared. “They give it a bad name, that company. No, what I mean is – stories spread. Legends… an old clockmaker hears things.” The man sighed, and looked at the pictures of his customers on the wall behind the counter.

In a few of them, there was a familiar dog.

“Big fuck off mole rats,” Don said. “We had to blow it up.”

“We?” The man’s head snapped over to Don. “How many people killed them?”

“… Dunno,” Don said. “Mr. ‘Ouseman killed one, mostly, then we beat it the rest o’ the way dead. Then – I used Will’s snuffbox to get another, an’ the lighter Will’d been bequeathed to blow up the school – usin’ the gas,” Don explained. “Clemsie killed a li’le one.”

“I see.” The man paused. “Well. I suppose we’ll see how that turns out eventually.”

“Wha’ d’y’ mean?” Don asked.

“Here.” The man said, instead, handing Don a stack of designs. “Find your friend a pocket watch. And think up an inscription, while you’re at it! Don’t leave that as last minute as you left this! I need to talk to my niece. If you’ll excuse me…” And with that, the old man had bustled him off and walked away, over to Terri who was poking a stuffed cat.

“Merlin died then?” Don heard.

“Not all pets can live forever,” The man sighed. “It’s a burden some must face alone.”

Don looked back up at the pictures.

1891

1912

1925

1956

1993

2001

2014…

Don frowned, then shrugged, and looked down at the designs.

Design 3048: Forever.

Design 246: Eternal.

Design 13: Infinite…

Don raised his eyebrows, then shrugged, and started picking out parts of the designs he thought Will might like.

Previous Summer:

“The Johnsons moved to America?”

“No Idea where they go’ the money either, mate,” James said, leaning back on the couch. Terri, from her place on a cushion on the floor, chuckled. “Inheritance, got’t’ be,” She said, as she dispatched of a few grunts. James nodded as he circle-strafed around a hunter.

“No wonder I ah’ven’ seen Mikey ‘round.” Don said.

“They didn’ tell nobody,” Terri scowled. “Fucken’ Lillian didn’ even bother tellin’ her bes’ friend, the wanker.”

“Lisa cry on your shoulder ‘bout it?” Don asked.

Terri grimaced as she picked up an energy sword, then started running around hitting elites with it. “Yes.” She said, glowering at the TV. “There was snot and everything. Fucken’ wan’ed t’ punch Lil’ for tha’.”

“Can imagine,” Don said.

“’Course y’ could, y’ sap,” James said, and Don elbowed him, which caused him to fail in circle-strafing and get shot.

“Bastard,” James said, elbowing Don back, and Terri laughed, finding an enemy-less corner so James could respawn.

 “Willoughby Blake,” Terri said. “Don kno’ yer ‘ere?”

“I have it under good authority that you’ve known him for a very long time,” Will said, “And I was wondering if you could distract him for a – short while, while I go get his Christmas present?”

“Fucken’ell, mate, what’s with posh bastards and waitin’ ‘til the las’ minute?” Terri grumbled, but she stepped inside, and left the door open. Will hesitated before following, and stayed at the door while she put on her boots. “Relax, y’ twit,” She waved a hand, before she started doing up the laces. “I don’ bite.”

“Alright,” Will said, and moved to lean against the wall.

“Da’, I’m off! Seeing the Wallaces!” Terri shouted, as she stood. Terri grabbed her coat off of the stairs, at the end of the bannister, and threw it on. “Fucken’ cold out, innit?” She said, as she walked out of the house. Will followed. “Yes,” He said. “Quite.”

“Post twat,” She said. “You be good to Don, y’ ‘ear meh?”

“I-“

“Don’ even,” Terri warned. “I ‘ate liars. Now go ge’im somethin’ fucken’ nice, and don’ le’im say ‘no’ ‘cause ya spent money on it, ya hear me?”

“Roger that.” Will said, “Ma’am.”

Terri snorted. “Ge’ the fuck out’t’ ‘ere, y’ posh bastard. An’ I expec’ somethin’ nice enough, too, for the good fucken’ advice ah give ya both, y’ blind twits.”

-

“Initiation’s simple, bitches.” Terri slammed a crate of beer onto the table. “Drink me under, an’ ah’ll respect ya fer life.”

“Y’ for real about this, Terri?” Don asked.

“Well, no, bu’ it’ll ‘elp,” Terri said. “Wha’, col’ feet already, Wallace?”

“No,” He rolled his eyes and gestured with the beer he’d already picked up. “Jus’ remember when Mikey drank you under the table?”

“Not my best momen’, bu’ I’m tryin’ t’ recover from tha’, ‘ere. Whoever ‘andles their drink bes’ wins.”

“Ah know who’s gonna fucken’ lose ‘ere, then.” Don said.

“Fuck off, Ducky,” Will said. Terri grinned.

“Fuck’s sake, Willoughby,” Don downed some of his drink.

“Don, Donald, Duck, Ducky. Ah ge’ it, tha’s cute,” Terri grinned, leaning back on her beanbag. She downed a beer, then slammed the empty can down on the floor. “Pacing’s for wimps,” She announced to the ceiling.

“If y’ say so,” Don said. “’S no’ fuckin’ cute.”

“I’m older, what I say goes, it’s cute,” Terri said. “Get me drunk enough, Blake, mate, an’ I’ll tell ya stories about ‘ow much of a sap ‘e is.”

“Fuck off,” Don said. “Or I’ll bring up Cha-“

“Two can play at tha’ game, Donald Wallace,” Terri said, interrupting, as she reached over for another can.

“I have to say, I am curious,” Will said, supressing a smile of amusement. He was onto his second can.

“Ah-ah,” Terri waved a hand at him. “Y’ get t’ know Don’s embarrassing shit, but ah jus’ met ya. Which means y’ don’ get t’ kno’ mine… problem ‘ere is if ya ‘ear Don’s from me, ‘e’ll tell ya about mine. So, yanno, that ain’ ‘appenin’.”

“Shame,” Don said, downing his drink. “Really.”

Lunchtime on Christmas Eve saw a small get-together, with the two Blythe families and the Wallaces.

“Lisa’s still fuckin’ angry at Lil’, an’ she’s over at her gran’s for the yearly fam’ly gatherin’, so she ain’ showin’ up this year. Jus’ us lot, Mrs. Wallace,” Terri said. The two families would be leaving later on, to be in Ireland for the next day. Cutting it a bit close – but then, that was the Blythes, for you. Both sets of them.

Babs smiled at the two sets of Blythes as she stood aside and let them in. “It’s Babs, Terri,” She reminded the girl, like she’d been doing for years. “Come on. Group photo – Don, grab the camera, I’ll go get Dad.”

“Mum-“ Don started, but she was already gone. He sighed, shook his head. “He’s fine where he is,” Don mumbled, but he went to go get the camera anyway.

“Ev’ryones ‘ere,” Don said to Will. “Terri, James, Josh, David; ah, Terri’s dad, an’ Mr. and Mrs. Blythe.”

“So all the Blythes, then,” Will said. “Christmas eve dinner?”

“Fucken’ lunch, mate,” Don said. “Dinner’s later.”

“Ah, but it’s breakfast, dinner, and supper or tea.” Will said.

“Fuck off,” Don said. “We’re doin’ a fuckin’ group photo. Mum’s gettin’ dad’s urn. Let’s go.”

Will nodded, and followed Don into the living room. It wasn’t too cramped, but it was a fair bit cramped. Babs placed the urn on the mantlepiece of the electric fire. “Ev’ry one, gather round, I’ll jus’ set up the camera.” She said, taking it from Don. “Found out a remote activation method, bloody handy,” She explained as she went. The Blythes used the urn as a dividing line, and made sure to leave enough space for the three remaining individuals. “C’mon,” Terri said, gesturing. Don walked over and stood next to his dad, and Will, being tall, went on the back row, between and behind Terri and Don. “There we go,” Mrs. Blythe muttered, then smiled at them. There was space on the other side of the urn for Don’s mum, though it was a bit of a squeeze, and as Babs set up the camera, she asked everyone to move a bit closer in, so they were all in frame, and posed properly. Babs then quickly squeezed into place, and they all smiled at the camera as the flash went off a few times.

“Great!” Babs smiled, and Mr. Blythe – Josh’s dad – clapped his hands. “What’s for Lunch, eh Babs?” He asked.

“Sunday roast,” She grinned. “Wen’ all out for it, so be grateful it’s not sandwiches. Le’s go eat!”

"Present time!" Babs said, clapping her hands once after she'd received confirmation that they'd finished eating. "I'm gon' go grab somethin' while you two start - go on, go on!" She gestured, herding them into the living room before absconding up the staircase. 

"Camera," Don said, knowingly, then flopped down onto the couch. 

Presents from their friends had been coming in since the Christmas holidays started - Don's not entirely sure how Lauren knew to send Will's here, or how or why she'd convinced Sam and the others to do the same, but he hadn't paid much attention to that. Will had brought ones that Clemsie and Smudger and Kay and Hargreaves and Wootton had sent - after all, if it does anything, living through what happened at Slaughterhouse at least makes you a permanent entry on the Christmas shopping list - and Don's had arrived last week. The various Blythes' presents were also under the tree, a couple joint presents; Josh's family got Don and Will and Babs one present each, so that made three presents from the four Blythes, and David got Don and Babs - the Wallaces - some chocolate, but Terri gave Don and Will and Babs a present each - so four from the two Blythes. 

Trying to figure out which bag of presents had been from which Blythe family had been somewhat futile. Thankfully, the individual presents were a bit more obvious. 

(Both families were - bad at tagging, still, though.)

"Alright, which first?" Will said. Don sat up, stood up, and walked over. "Let's get the Blythes over and done with," He said, "Can' fuckin' figure out which is which for them, an' it's bugging me."

"Indeed," Will said, picking up one that had 'Will' on it in sharpie. Don picked up his, and dropped back onto the couch. He opened it, and a note fell out - Terri's, then; she always wrote little notes that she stuck inside the packaging, instead of on it. 

Told him you like him yet, dickhead?

- T. 

Don resisted the urge to facepalm and hid the message amongst the wrapping paper. "Who's your from?" He asked. Will was struggling with an overly sellotaped lump of a present. He found a place he could rip it from, though, and quickly did so. "Terri," He said, frowning slightly at a message written on paper with, of course, sharpie. It bled through, but Don didn't try to read it via the back of the paper. Will scoffed, lightly, and dropped the message, which disappeared into the wrapping paper. "Your friend has an interesting sense of humour," Will said. 

"She's like tha'," Don said. "Always 'as been."

Don grinned at the copy of a Halo game he didn't yet have - a present that was as much for him as for her, likely since co-op was the only way she ever accepted anyone play Halo - and placed it down on the couch next to himself. "What'd she get you?" Don asked.

"A - puzzle box." Will frowned at it. He shook it, and there was something inside it, but how to get in there was - well, a puzzle. "... Interesting choice."

"She got me a cardboard box once," Don said. "And a coat hanger."

"Why?" Will blinked at him. "No' sure," Don shrugged. "She got 'er own boyfriend - b'fore they were t'gether, obviously - a keytar once. Tha' was mem'rable." 

"... Alright, then." Will said, for lack of a better response. Don wasn't sure what you could say to that, anyway. 

They made their way through the rest of the presents, and on the fifth Babs entered the room. 

"Candid." She said, grinning, and Don sighed. "Mul'iple, actu'ly."

"Mum," Don sighed, and she laughed. "Come on, Don, grab Dad, would you? ;E's still in the dinin' room." Well. The kitchen/diner, since it was one room with a table crammed in the corner. 

"Alright," Don said, standing. "Yeah, I'll get him."

Don left the room, and Babs sat down on the couch. 

"See, I've known Don for a very long time, bein' 'is mum an' all," Babs said. She turned and smiled at Will, "An' I knew 'e liked tha' Clemsie girl from the momen' 'e saw 'er - an' ah can tel when he's grown t' like someone, too."

Will didn't reply.

"My boy's go' a big 'eart, and 'e cares abou' you," Babs said, plainly. "An' I'm no' gon' warn y' abou' no' 'urtin' 'im, b'cause ah kno' y're no' the type," She said. "So jus' let y'self be 'appy, Will. Y're a good kid; y' deserve it."

Babs stood and set up the camera as Don entered the room. "Will, be a dear and take the photo, wou'd y' please?" Babs asked. "Don, bring y' father over 'ere." A few flashes later, the photos were taken. "Ah've got' go take a few presents round to our Jackie's," She said, "So ah'll be back soon enough. You two carry on with the presents, don' wait for me." And with that, Babs was gone. 

Don shook his head slightly, and moved to the tree. "Which next?" He asked.

"Ah - why not the Lawrences?" Will asked.

"Then the other 'slaugh'erians'" Don grinned. "Sure." Don tossed Will his present from Smudger - customary, generic; they hadn't really gotten to know each other, after all, Smudger and the rest of the group, since after the events of Slaughterhouse and everyone went home from that police station, well, the Lawrences moved country, so. Don put the riculously expensive chocolate - the same as what Will had gotten from the male Lawrence - aside, and then grabbed Clemsie's presents for them both. He handed Will his, then opened his own. 

Don, a letter read, Merry Christmas! It's been such a long time - we should all really meet up in the new year. Kay will be back in England in the summer, and we'll be visiting family then, so I could pull some strings. It'd be nice, to see everyone again. Staying friends after everything that happened - well. It feels like a good idea to me. 

I hope you and Will have had a good time at that new college - I keep getting letters from Wootton, bless him, about the place his mother sent him to this time. At least Hargreaves is keeping an eye on the poor boy; much like you, they were lucky enough to get sent to the same place. I'm pretty sure if they could, the Hargreaves would have adopted Wootton already, but - well. Given how often he's with his actual family, he might as well already be Isaac's little brother. 

We really should all speak more. It's not like we have phones and skype or email or anything... certainly, we have a lot better than letters. I mean. Really.

See you both in the new year!

Signed,

Clemsie. 

"Got a letter," Don said. "You?" "Yes," Will nodded. "Something about getting the gang back together, as it were."

"'S no' a bad idea," Don said. "Ah mean. We 'aven' spoken in around a year. Tha's a while."

"True," Will said. 

"Guess we'll see if Smudger's therapist thinks it's a good idea," Don said, because though they didn't all keep in much contact, they did say the important things occasionally - usually on gift-giving days. Really, they did need to keep in better contact.

Ah well. That'll be a new years resolution, then. 

Don turned to the present, which was a simple photo album. I heard you take photography, now, some paper masking-taped to the inside cover read. Here's a place to store it all. :)

Signed, Clemsie.

Signed, Smudger. 

"Huh." Don shrugged and put down the album. "Alright."

Will put down his present from Clemsie and ostensibly from Smudger - obviously the presents were from Clemsie, but Smudger had signed the notes masking-taped onto both, if not the letters. 

Don took the present from Kay Will handed over to him and opened it. 

Clemency's gotten it into her head we're going to catch up in the summer. I'll see what I can do, since I will be back in dreary old England, but in the meantime - I heard you take maths. 

You might want to train up your logic if that's the case, so I've given you a 'how to' book on chess, free of charge. I usually make people pay for this since I wrote it, but. We're friends, and it's Christmas, so.

Just try and fucking beat me next time we meet, I dare you, Wallace.

Signed,

Kay. 

Don shook his head and held up the book in response to Will's identical copy. They grinned, slightly, at each other, then reached for the next presents. Hargreaves sent them both identical copies of dungeons and dragons, which he'd presumably sent everyone, and Wootton had sent them fudge. After that, it was Babs' presents - a scarf for Will and a camera for Don (who attempted not to think about how much that cost; most of the Christmas shopping budget, probably) - and then it was time for the presents they'd gotten each other. 

"You first," Will said, handing over his present to Don. Don took it - internally thankful his present didn't go first, for a multitude of reasons - and opened it. 

After the cardboard box and the wrapping paper had been put aside, Don looked at the watch - repackaged, likely, so Don couldn't see the price just from looking at its original box. It's the one he'd pointed out as the one he'd liked best, simple and sleek and fucking expensive, probably, and completely out of his range. 

"Will-" Don started but - "Just take the present, Ducky," Will said. 

Don tried to read his expression, for a moment, but gave up and nodded, slowly. "Well? Go on then, Willoughby, open yours," Don said, gesturing, as he finished removing the protective wrap from the watch and put it on. 

Don waited as Will unwrapped the pocket watch, and waited as Will took a moment to look at it. 

"I..." "Just take the present, Duck," Don said. Will smiled at him, and Don smiled back. 

"There's an inscription," Don said, gesturing. "On th'back."

Will closed and turned over the pocket watch. 

Bequeathed. 

Don watched his face, quitely - Will's reaction was immediate. Many feelings were quickly telegraphed across his face, but Don only caught a few - wonder, surprise, but chief among all - 

Panic. 

Ah. Shit. 

Will stood and walked out. Don hesitated, but this was much less life-threatening than the last time he'd hesitated to go after Will - so, he went. It didn't feel much less nerve-wracking, though, but Don didn't focus on that part. 

Don had heard the front door close, and sure enough - when he opened it, Will was there, out on the cold, snow-covered pavement. 

"Y'kno', if y'ate the gift, y' can jus' tell meh - y' don' 'ave to leave the 'ouse y' dramatic git," Don said. It was cold, and he was still in his pyjamas, and the posh twit currently stood outside his house was probably the most interesting thing to have happened to his little council estate street in years, but at that moment Don didn't rightly care much what Mrs. Johnson saw from between her half-closed curtains, or what Clara-Anne Jenkins could spy on from behind her blinds.

"It isn't that I hate it - It's more - I -" Will stopped, mid-sentence, frustrated enough to start pacing, back and forth, crunching a short path into the snow.  "'S'more wha', Willoughby?"

Will didn't reply immediately, just let out a breath that clouded in the cold air. 

"It doesn't matter, Ducky." Will said.

"'Course it fuckin' matters, or y' wouldn' 'ave left th'fuckin' 'ouse." Don pointed out, reasonably. 

"Donald." 

"Willoughby." Don walked over, mindless of the cold and the snow, and frowned at the other eighteen-year-old. "I don' wan't' renact a fuckin' soap-opera, jus' tell me wha' the fuck is wrong."

"Nothing's - wrong," Will said. "I just - I didn't... No-one's ever thought I or... anything about me was worth remembering. Especially not - something like that. Something that..."

"Important?" Don asked, quietly. 

Will nodded. 

"Well. I do." Don said. "Fuckin' 'ell, Duck, o'course I do."

Will stared down at him, for just a moment - and then, carefully, a move you could almost call furtive - leaned forward, and pressed his lips (cold, chapped - but soft, softer than he'd have thought) to Don's. 

Somewhere far away, a door slammed shut, and Will moved back. 

Before he could get the wrong idea, Don caught Will's hand with his own. "Y' kno', Will, I kno' yer cold-blooded an' that, but I'm fuckin' freezin' out 'ere."

Will laughed. He let himself be led back inside the house. Don dropped his hand and closed the door, then turned to look at Will again. Before he could say anything, of course, the door opened. 

"Candid." Babs said, grinning. "Tha' was a beau'iful momen', really; one for the scrapbook."

Don sighed.

"First've all," Don said, "Mum, what the fuck, d'y' think y're doin'?"

Will grinned. "I, for one, think it's sweet. I should like our moments together to be captured."

"Ah, shut up, ya sentimental git." Don rolled his eyes. "Mum, 's weird, y' really don' need to."

"Actu'ly, Don, ah do," She said, frankly. "Mem'ries're precious thin's. Bes'to capture 'em so they're no' forgo'en." 

"Alrigh', alrigh'-" 

"Great!" Babs clapped her hands. "Now. Who wants lunch?"

[thisdiscontentedwinter]

Baby Daddy - Chapter 1

If you've read Well, This is Awkward, then you already know the premise. This is not that story! This is the longer and angstier version that I promised. Updates will not be every day though, because I need to learn how to prioritise! Also, this fic is a gift to @emmaseasall, who has had a hell of a year, and whose birthday it is today! Happy birthday, Emma!

You an also read it on AO3, and find the Chapter Index here on Tumblr. 

Back when Laura was a kid, her Uncle Peter was stupidly in love with this girl who was stupidly in love with this movie where this girl missed the train, and that one little action changed everything. Laura, nine-years-old and allergic to boy germs and anything gross like kissing, had not been impressed, either with the dumb movie or with the dumb girl. Luckily she only had to suffer through a few instances of Uncle Peter “baby-sitting” and making out with the girl on the couch before he dumped her for her twin brother. Because Peter has always been an asshole, apparently. Point is, Laura hated that movie, but there are moments in life, okay? There are moments that can change everything.

Laura likes to think of that, sometimes. She’ll sit on the fire escape of their shitty apartment, drinking coffee so black it tastes like tar, and smoking cigarettes because it annoys Derek, and she’ll wonder what might have happened if only one tiny thing had been different.

Is there a universe where Derek didn’t stumble into Kate Argent’s path?

Is there a universe where their family didn’t burn?

And is there even a universe where Laura met a crazed werewolf in the woods, and her shock at seeing it was Peter was so great that she didn’t step back quickly enough, and the last thing she felt was his claws slashing across her throat?

Maybe.

There’s a universe for everything, right? Accepting that makes it hard to hate what happened, because it could always be worse. Laura is the alpha now, and Derek is her beta, and Peter is—well, Peter is Peter, but he’s much less crazy now—and the universe is random, and chance is a fucking bitch, but Laura thinks she’s finally figuring out how to listen to it and take a goddamn hint.

And right now it feels like the universe is slapping her in the face with this…this kid.

The kid has been coming into the diner where Laura works for a few months now, always late at night, and always buzzing like he’s on something. They get a lot of that in this neighborhood, but the kid doesn’t smell of anything except Adderall, which Laura guesses explains his twitchiness. He’s about eighteen or nineteen, probably a student by the weird hours he keeps, and he always pays his bill in small change. He tips well, but usually in pennies and nickels, which is a pain in the ass, but better than no tip at all.

And he smells like something that—for the first time since coming back to Beacon Hills six months ago—feels like home.

He smells like the Preserve. He smells like long summers spent running barefoot in the woods. He smells like loam and pine needles and abelia blossoms. He smells like home the way it was—long days and golden twilights and wood cracking in a campfire.

Laura hasn’t been able to set foot on her family’s property since she came back. She and Derek share a shitty apartment on the shitty side of town. Laura can’t bring herself to go and stand where the house once did. She’s seen pictures online; the charred bones of the Hale house are a favorite for local photographers, and they popped right up on Google maps when Laura was looking to see where the Goodwill store had moved to. It hurt enough to see the ruins online; Laura doesn’t want to see them in person. Not yet. She’s not ready, and she doesn’t think she ever will be. She wants to remember it the way it was, and that’s hard enough already.

In the meantime, she serves the kid coffee as charcoal black as the burnt cedar frame of the house she was born in, and tries not to look too obvious when she leans in to inhale the kid’s scent.

It’s a Wednesday night, almost midnight, and the kid has been sitting on a plate of curly fries and a cup of coffee that Laura has refilled three times already in the hour he’s been there. He’s pale, with dark shadows under his eyes. He’s hunched over a textbook, highlighting relevant passages. When Laura refills his mug for the fourth time, she notices that most of the page is highlighted.

“You’re at the community college, right?” she asks him.

He blinks up at her. “Yeah. Accountancy.”

“That sounds inter—”

“I hate it,” the kid snaps. He scowls down at his textbook. “I fucking hate it so much.”

Laura blinks at the sudden venom in his tone.

“God,” the kid says, closing his textbook. He sighs, and rubs his hands over his face. “Sorry. It’s been a rough week, and I’m an asshole at the best of times. Sorry.”

Laura glances around the diner, but her only other customer is Harold, the town’s elderly drunk, and he’s asleep in a booth. She sits down opposite the kid. “Want to talk about it?”

The kid narrows his eyes at her. “Are you serious?”

Laura shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I just figured everyone in town already knew my deal,” the kid says. “I’m Stiles. Stiles Stilinski. My dad’s the sheriff.”

Laura looks at him blankly.

“Oh, you really are new in town, aren’t you?” Stiles snorts. “My dad got shot in the line of duty about eight months ago now, right before I graduated high school. He’s been on sick leave ever since. I was supposed to be on a full ride to GWU in D.C., but my dad’s sick pay barely covers the mortgage, let alone getting him any home help, and the way the insurance company is dragging things out, he won’t see any money from the county for years yet.” He closes his textbook, and sighs. “So my plans changed, you know?”

His voice is calmer now, but there’s something in his gaze that’s a little distant, as though he’s staring right past Laura, right past Beacon Hills, into a future that he never got the chance to live.

“Yeah,” Laura says. “I know. My name’s Laura.”

Stiles’s forehead creases. “Yeah. It says so on your name badge.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Laura Hale.”

There’s a flicker of recognition in his eyes, and then he pales. “Oh. Oh shit.”

“I know a few things about rough weeks,” Laura says.

She knows a few things about giving up her dreams as well. And she knows guilt, and loss, and pain and fear. She was scared, and she ran, and a part of Peter will never forgive her for that. It’s okay. A part of Laura won’t forgive herself either. But eighteen-year-old Laura was still a child in so many ways, too young to step into her mother’s shoes. Too young to know what to do, when she felt so afraid and so alone. When all her pack bonds had been severed by the fire, except the one tethering her to Derek. And even though Peter had still been alive, breathing on his wheezing hospital ventilator, she hadn’t felt him. She’d thought he’d gone too, the parts of him that were him, and there had been nothing left but the machine. She’d been so wrong about that.

Stiles throat clicks as he swallows.

Laura smiles slightly at him. “If you want to bitch about how unfair your life is, I’m not going to judge you for it. I’ve been there.”

Stiles exhales heavily. His fingers beat a nervous tattoo along the laminate tabletop. “Sometimes I resent my dad for getting shot. How fucked up is that?”

“Pretty fucked up,” Laura says quietly. “Sometimes I hate my family for dying. I mean, how could they? I wasn’t ready to be the one in charge.”

Stiles swallows again, and looks away quickly. He swipes at his eyes quickly with the sleeve of his hoodie. “Yeah. I get it.”

From over in the other booth, Harold snorts himself awake. “Wh—wha—”

Laura reaches out and puts her hand over his. She squeezes gently, and his scent softens again into that sweetness that is reminiscent of the Preserve. “I should go deal with him.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. He flashes her a smile. “Thanks, Laura.”  

“Anytime, Stiles.” She stands, and goes to refill Harold’s coffee before he can complain. When she looks around again, Stiles has gone back to his textbook, his posture more relaxed now than before they spoke.  

***

Laura and Derek live in a loft on Lincoln Street. It’s semi-converted, which Laura thinks means the developer ran out of money before he finished turning the place from a shithole into something actually habitable. The loft is caught somewhere in the middle. It has running water and heat, but also holes in the walls. The rent is cheap though.

Derek picks up a job as a bouncer at some dive bar downtown. Peter calls it playing to his strengths; he gets to wear his leather jacket and get paid for glowering. The hours he keeps are as bad as Laura’s. They’ve both become more or less nocturnal, and Laura worries it’s like taking a step backwards. At least she has her regulars to talk to at the diner. Who does Derek talk to? Nobody, probably. He goes to work when it’s dark, and comes home when it’s dawn, and if he says more than two words to anyone during his shift, Laura would eat her hat.

If she owned a hat.

She worries about Derek. She worries about his silences, and his scowls, and sometimes she wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and see if the brother she remembers falls out: funny as hell, and fun to be around. A little smartass, just like a younger brother should be. The thorn in her side, and the pebble in her shoe. She misses him, probably as acutely as he misses the old Laura.

She was different too, back then.

Laura and Derek don’t need the money their jobs bring them, not now they’re back in Beacon Hills and have access to the Hale vault again, but they’re both used to living like this. Sometimes Laura wonders if it means, in their hearts, they’re still running. Laura is still afraid, she supposes, but her alpha wolf is growing stronger. This is herterritory. Laura doesn’t want to run anymore. She wants to stand.

She wants to rebuild a home in her territory. She wants to rebuild a pack.

She lies awake at night, listening to Derek’s heartbeat through the wall, and decides that they’re home now.

They’re home.

She just needs to start believing it.

No, more than that.

She needs to start acting like it.

She has her territory back: she needs to build a pack.

***

The weeks draw on. Summer softens slowly toward fall, and Laura starts to look forward to those strange hours when Stiles wanders into the diner, and takes a seat in a booth with all his books spread out around him. He’s usually tired, anxious, and his scent smells a little bitter with it, but he always has a smile for her, and they fall into an easy familiarity. He reminds her of a little brother. She lost two of those in the fire. Three, if she counts Derek.

Most days she counts Derek.

Stiles bitches a lot about having no money, but not in a way like he’s angling for any. Why would he be? He has no way of knowing that Laura has any more than he does. He bitches to her like he expects her to be in the same shitty boat, and she was. For years she and Derek had been living from paycheck to paycheck—whenever either one of them could actually get a paycheck-- because that was just another thing Laura hadn’t known: how to access the money their parents left them. Wasn’t like she could just walk into a bank, tell them who she was, and expect them to hand over the cash. That was something Peter had sorted out for them when they were back in Beacon Hills, because Peter knows about lawyers and insurance and inheritance and all those things that Laura didn’t.

There was so much she didn’t know, and she was afraid that if she’d asked some stranger that hunters might have found where she and Derek were.

There was so much she didn’t know.

Stiles is the same. She watches him sometimes, as he painstakingly goes through letters from the hospital, from the insurance company, from banks and lawyers, trying to get a handle on exactly how much debt he’s drowning in. And it’s hard. She can see that written in his creased forehead.

He’s not much older than Laura was when her world fell apart too.

Laura feels a rush of sympathy for him.

“It’s hard,” she says, helping herself to one of his curly fries and dipping it in the pool of ketchup on his plate. “Do you have anyone you can ask for help?”

“No.” Stiles makes a face. “I mean, the Department did a fundraiser and that helped a lot, but all that money went straight to medical bills, you know?” He drags a hand over his face. “It’s hard, but it’s not like we aren’t managing. It’s just… things are tight, that’s all. We’re stuck in this shitty place where Dad’s not well enough to work, but doesn’t actually hit any of the right criteria to get benefits. And he’s busting his gut with his physical rehab, but you can’t rush that either. Just… ugh. Once he’s well enough to go back to work, things’ll get a hell of a lot easier. It’s just… it’s just gonna be rough for a while.”  

Laura knows that feeling.

The next night, Stiles tells her about his Jeep, and the five hundred dollars he’s been quoted to replace the starter motor.

“Guess I’m catching the bus to college now,” he says, inhaling the steam from his coffee.

So no, he’s not starving to death or living on the streets or anything, but every time she sees him Laura thinks he’s been a little more battered by his circumstances, a little more worn down. And he’s always so tired.

She wants to help him, but she knows he won’t take charity.

“You know,” she tells him, “you’re here every night. You might as well wash a few dishes.”

“Yeah?” His face brightens at that, and he flashes her a smile.

She likes Stiles. She likes his scent.

He reminds her of family.

She wants to rebuild her pack.

Really, when the idea hits her, Laura’s surprised it took as long as it did.  

[quietemptydiariess]

Space Sapphics with Swords  - Valkyrie & Gamora // Valmora 

Cover By: @babybluepeaches

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Chapter 1

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A/N: Hey girls, gays, and nerds! My name is Michael-Michelle. I’m little nerdy 17-year-old bi wlw who loves writing. This is my first fanfiction in a while. I have also never read GOTG or Valkyrie fanfic, but trust me, I’m trying. Gamora and Valkyrie are my absolute favorite MCU characters (besides the Black Panther and Spider-Man characters).  I love them and based on the similarities between their backstories, cinematic characterization, the fact that Gamora is somewhere on the fluid-sexuality-hella-gay spectrum in my head, and Valkyrie is canonly bi,  I thought it only made sense that the two of them would date and have a beautiful connection. 

Special Thanks: @starsandsupernovae @storibambino @natashalieromanov @dramaqueenamby  (These lovely ladies either helped me with writing advice, coming up with ideas and/or  being a beta reader. Thank you so much)

Tags: @probablysapphic  @accurate-incorrect-marvel-quotes @verycorrectavengersquotes  @bannerkhov @lyricxavierlove @musicals-and-emo-music @comfysapphics @rosepetalrichie @hallowyn @hadesapphic @artemisthevalkyrie @theadultdemon @mariel-wtf  @ginger-chesire-cat @remembe-rr @beepboopblu @nebulapologist @bluearrow126 @sergio-so @wine-mom-of-nine-boys @joey8song @stripes2607 @elliesdinaa @whisky-adventures @hamushino @superswimluv @mxlti-fangirl @peter-bi-quill @hettolandija @general-geya @puggleplayer124 @belissimabitch @psychopat70 @annecraycray @spearcast @loveisevely @starsandsupernovae @rebellionrogers @higheverwave @theywontletmeusetheoneiwant @flourished-in-blotts @thenerdyjew @slythxr @widowout @sohotthateveryonedied @youshiverwhenyouhearmyname @bisexual-unicorn0 @magicalhudson @umniyah-s @vr1nda @dayzor @yuki-stark-22 @supremestoverlord @eluwutime @thanos-is-a-grape @thequeerpeer @liketotallynat @anonymousrobinhooqueer @insyndiar @levi-snk @isolemnlysweardanhasnolife @sasha-drakonov @mistycreature @your-anonymous-bitch @sliver-wolf-karma @whereiscarmensanfrancisco @too-shook @centerpointstation @trashyhipsterfangirl @huhawkeye @happywlwsuggestions @fairies-midwife @fantastic-fantasy-fanfics @daughterofavaloncosplays @shabalaarr @deathbystarlight @blackblerddev @autoboty @jellyheart

-

Gamora sat quietly aboard The Milano behind Peter Quill as she observed the fireworks that were vibrantly out in space to commemorate his father, Yondu the Ravager. He sat in his captain’s chair silently sulking over the recent loss. She silently fondled with her green nails as she pondered about the fact that if he had just listened to her when she warned him about the cavern filled with skeletons on Ego’s planet, this all could’ve been avoided. Her internal dialogue was quickly interrupted. The hologram com system rang, as a call came through.

‘’What the hell..’’ Gamora overheard Peter scowl. He slowly hit the receive button, and the transmission came through, the hologram popping up and then came Irani Rael's face.  "Guardians, we need you here urgently- Oh my, what happened?" The Nova Prime asked, seeing Quill's deadened face. Quill scowled, his face hardening.  "None of your business," he shouted.

 Gamora quickly sprinted from her chair and clamped her hand over his mouth before he could finish his sentence. "Um. My Apologies, he's just lost somebody important to him, I hope you aren't offended. How urgent is this business?" She explained to Irani Rael before noticing a dazed anger across Quill’s face, the same as when he shouted at her to be happy for him since he finally found his family. Gamora removed her hands from his mouth.

Irani Rael blinked, "Oh... I'm sorry for your loss..." "No, you aren't!" Quill yelled, about to throw a punch at the hologram, his fist about to go through it, before Gamora caught his hand in midair. Peter ignored her hand before continuing his tirade, "You just want my fucking help!" She sensed it was a bad idea to pursue further and switched back to the main reason for calling. "How long will it take you to arrive here?" Rocket and Drax had just walked in as the question was asked, being led by Groot who Gamora had told to run and get them. "Maybe a couple of days at best?" Gamora explained. Ro The Nova Prime sounded confused. "Where in the universe even are you?" "In the middle of nowhere," Quill spat out bitterly. "But we're not in Knowhere, we're-" Drax blinked in confusion as Quill quickly cut him off. "He means Nowhere important ," he amended his statement, glaring at Drax. "Well, please arrive here as soon as possible, we have a situation that has to be resolved quickly," she said, glancing at the four of them, and at Quill last. "I am Groot?" the sapling asked, holding his branchy hand above a screen that was already set to Xandar. Apparently, he'd already forgotten about what had happened last time. "No!" The four all yelled, as the sapling brought his hand down on the screen and their wild ride began.

         †††                        

Scrapper 142 better known as Valkyrie leads the way down a narrow lime green hallway through a Sakaarian building with Thor and Bruce Banner following close behind her. She suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and sighed. She was about to reluctantly reveal moderately intimate details about herself to the brother of the murderous goddess of death who killed her fellow Valkyries and a man she felt an odd connection with but only met minutes prior. ‘’Look, I’ve spent years in a haze, trying to forget my past. Sakaar seemed like the best place to drink and forget, and to die one day.’’

"I was thinking that you drink too much, and that probably was gonna kill you..’’ Thor replies.

They arrive at a door to their destination.‘’I don’t plan to stop drinking. But I don’t wanna forget. I can’t turn away anymore, so if I’m gonna die, well, it may as well be driving my sword through the heart of that murderous hag.’’ Valkyrie proclaims a smirk spreading across her lips. ‘’So, I’m saying that I wanna be on the team,’’ she confesses, taking Thor up on his previous offer. ‘’Has it got a name?’’ Valkyrie questions.

‘’Yeah, it’s called the Revengers.’’ Thor and Bruce mutter.

‘’Revengers?’’ Valkyrie scoffs.

‘’Because I’m getting revenge. You’re getting revenge.’’ Thor explains. Valkyrie ponders the name with a satisfied expression. ‘’Do you want revenge?’’ Thor asks Bruce. ‘’I’m undecided,’’ Bruce mutters.

‘’Also, I’ve got a peace offering,’’ Valkyrie exclaims proudly. She opens the front door to her apartment revealing - Loki. He is as restrained as anyone could be, sitting in the middle of the apartment with a dozen chains around him.

‘’Surprise’’ Loki shouts. Thor tosses a bottle. It bounces off of Loki’s head. ‘’Ow’’ Loki exclaims in pain.

‘’Just had to be sure.’’  Thor jokes dryly. Thor walks further to Valkyrie’s apartment which reveals Bruce.

‘’Hello, Bruce’’ Loki cordially greets.

‘’So, last time I saw you, you were trying to kill everybody. Where are you at these days?’’ Bruce sarcastically asks.

‘’It varies from moment to moment,’’ Loki replies. Val’s apartment is a shithole. Bottles everywhere, blood-spattered clothes in the corner, a knife in the wall, etc. Banner gives Thor a look like “she might be crazy.” Thor responds with a “No, she’s cool” gesture.

Valkyrie lays something on a table. Unwraps it to reveal an  old Asgardian sword. Thor’s eyes go wide as she sharpens it.

‘’Is that... a Dragonfang?’’ Thor asks, his eyes reminiscent of a child’s on Christmas morning.

‘’It is.’’ Valkyrie coldly answers, still trying to adjust to welcoming memories of Asgard into her conscience.

‘’My God. This is the famed sword of the Valkyrie,’’ Thor says, still fixated on the sword, gleefully balancing it on his fingers.

Valkyrie walks to the other side of her apartment, becoming annoyed with the side conversations, and decides to change the subject back to the matter at hand. "So, Sakaar and Asgard are about as far apart as any two systems. Our best bet's the wormhole right outside city limits. We can refuel in Xandar, and we should be back in Asgard in about... eighteen months?"  

"She is right. Going through the wormhole is the safest and most logical option"

“In case anyone cares what I think, that's a great idea” Loki interjects. “And you’re going to need all the help you can get. I have what you need. I’d suggest you get me out of these chains."  

Valkyrie parted her lips as a smile spreads across her face.  

†† †                                                                        

The ship finally landed in Xandar, Gamora parted her lips trying to catch her breathe, as she was clinging onto the counter. She noticed Drax stood his ground as if nothing was happening at all. ‘’Gravity is nothing, to the mighty Drax,’’ He chuckled. Gamora rolled her eyes and peered over to see Quill grunting, gagging, of exasperation as vomit almost spilled out of his mouth.

Quill tried to land without damaging anything, still feeling lightheaded and dizzy. He gritted his teeth as he looked over at Groot, "This is all your fault." Groot stared at him blankly not registering his frustration.

In that moment, the ship door was opened, Rhomann Dey stood at the door in confusion. "I thought you said you'd only be here in a couple of days." he quickly helped Mantis up, who had fallen to the floor in the passageway. All the Guardians gave each other quick glances as they realized they had all forgotten about Mantis. Quill finally landed on his feet, stumbling and shaking slightly. Almost knocking over Rocket, who held Groot firmly in his hands.  "Hey! Watch it." "I am Groot," was the last thing Quill heard before it all went pitch black. † † †

Gamora whipped her head around as soon as she saw Peter blink his eyes open slowly, gradually taking in his surroundings. He suddenly panicked as he felt cords and equipment attached to his chest and tried to the swipe off the things that were attached to him. ‘’No! Get it off me! Get it off’’

"Hey! Everything's okay, Peter," Gamora gently grabbed his hands and stroked his face. Peter blinked and looked up into Gamora's eyes. She was visibly concerned with a warm reassuring smile across her face….he had never seen that expression on her face before.

He blinked and finally took in his surroundings properly. He averted his eyes from Gamora to the white bed he was laying in, to holograms flickering on the walls. There were little wireless buttons attached to him, connected to the holograms, which were projecting a model of his body and showing his heart rate. Drax suddenly stood up from where he'd been sitting on the floor, to further investigate the model of Peter. "It appears your fragile Terran body could not handle the pressure as well as the Mighty Drax’’ Gamora glared at Drax. "They checked all of us for and only kept him in here because..." she trailed off. "Because of what, Gamora?" Quill demanded, sitting up straight. At that moment, Irani Rael walked into the room. "Oh, good, you're up. We have several questions to ask you, Peter Quill. Please come with us." She indicated that the others could come too, as the Nova Prime's assistant quickly took the things off Peter's body and switched off the holograms. Quill gave the others a confused look as he reluctantly got off the bed and they followed behind Irani Rael.

They followed the Nova Prime, Quill dragging behind slightly, as she led them into the Nova Corps' Mission Control Centre, where they had been when she'd commended their actions in the Battle of Xandar, and informed Quill that he was only half-Terran. He glanced out the windows, grimacing, as the others chose to stand inside the room, and focus on the Nova Prime, except him, who was avoiding her gaze. "Peter," Gamora snapped. "This is important, you idiot." "I don't care," he grumbled, staring out the window, down into the clean and tidy streets of Xandar. The sinking feeling within him was making him want to run back out of the room and leave Xandar never to return. "Oh, yeah, so you had something to tell us?" he quipped impatiently.

“Recently, across every single known planet, there was a great wave of destruction that swallowed up many things." She gestured to the screens where gigantic walls of blue goop suddenly bloomed up and began swallowing up civilization, the holograms projecting the sound of screams and destruction as people ran away in terror. The others, Gamora most of all, remembering the destruction of Zen-Whoberi, stared at the holograms in shocked horror, having not seen what had been actually occurring on other planets while they were on Ego, trying to stop the egotistical planet from destroying the universe. “Oh...my god..." Peter gasped felt his eyes water as he thought about what could have happened if he hadn't resisted his father, if his father hadn't mentioned his friends or family, or if his father hadn't broken his Walkman... He could remember physically feeling Ego spread himself to the other planets, seeing the destruction his father caused with his help, through the tendrils that had drained him of energy... "This happened on Xandar, as well. There were two times when its progress halted, and we were able to analyze what it was then." The Nova Prime looked down at Peter as he looked up slowly. "It was something...something we'd never seen here before. Except in you." Peter felt his heart beat erratically as he frantically stepped away from the Nova Prime, his eyes widened in horror as her words sunk in.

Peter Quill held his hands up, like a barrier between himself and Irani Rael, "In my defense, I was not responsible for anything that happened," he pointed at the screen of blue goop, then sighed. "Okay, maybe I'm somewhat responsible..." he looked down at the floor, thinking of Yondu. "But I didn't mean for any of this to happen! I didn't want it to happen! He used me against my will!" Peter looked up again, looking the Nova Prime directly in the eyes, before frowning. His frown turns into a blank stare then utter confusion.

The Nova Prime continued to further explain and ease Quill’s confusion. "The reason that we called you here, and after hearing what you said just, it does sound like you know what happened. We thought that because you are the Guardians of the Galaxy, you would know something and be the incident, even without your genetics," she nodded to Quill. Quill stared at her. "You made us come all this way just to tell you something, you could have said over a hologram call?" he huffed

"We could have but now that we have seen you in person, we realized it was important to keep an eye on you in a stable, enclosed environment after this incident. We needed to see if you were physically affected by these events."

Peter separated his lips to protest. Irani Rael continued to further clarify, "This is not jail or captivity. You will be free to go once we have determined that you haven't been physically harmed, which may take up to a couple of days to a week." Gamora stepped behind Quill and put her hand on his shoulder. “I think we should do this, just to make sure you're okay." Peter blinked a couple of times. Gamora was acting a lot more caring than usual, and it was weird.

"I think it is a good idea to have your weak Terran body checked over" Drax addressed Quill first. Quill groaned, and held his hand up to his forehead as a little voice piped out, "I am Groot!" Quill tried to ignore Drax looked at the Nova Prime again. "So, this is just temporary, right? And You just want us to give you some information" The Nova Prime nodded, and then Mantis decided to pipe up as well, "I also think it a good idea to stay here. I might be able to help, as well, and I know a lot about Ego." Irani Rael frowned. "Ego..? He actually exists? Was he the cause of all this? Xandar has heard tales...but there are many false legends floating around in the universe." Quill sighed and looked around. "Okay, we'll tell you what happened. But first... Is there anywhere to sit down?" he asked. He knew it would take a while to explain everything. Quill's short version of events which included, "I have a crazy planet as a father who wanted to take over the whole universe and I had to commit patricide to stop him," wasn't satisfactory for the Nova Prime. Drax almost made matters worse by telling the Nova Prime that they'd stolen batteries from the Sovereign after she'd asked them how they'd met Ego.

Gamora came to rescue just in time, with a bare minimum explanation. She recalled that their ship needed repairs so they'd landed, and that was when Ego had passed by and introduced himself. Groot had tried to interject some facts a couple of times, but the Nova Prime and her assistant had struggled to understand his limited vocabulary, Quill explained about agreeing to go to Ego's planet with Gamora and Drax. Mantis spoke up to vice that she'd met them, but recounted that she'd only really been in the company of Ego before, and a couple of his children, once or twice, but never for a long amount of time. "I thought something seemed off, though, about the whole thing, especially when Mantis wanted to tell Drax something, but didn't," Gamora looked over at Mantis. "And then my sister came along and we found a cave with many skeletons lying around. That was when I knew something was wrong." "Wait, what?!" Quill stared at Gamora. He knew Ego had many children... What he hadn't known was their tragic fae that ended in death...

Gamora’s facial expression fluctuated, as a confusion morphed into realization, "I never got to tell you... When we got to you, there was no time to explain." Quill shuddered and shifted in his seat. He swallowed before speaking. "Ego needed the power of two Celestials to pull his plan off, and I couldn’t go along with..." He didn't feel the need to explain what he'd almost done. That he first went along with Ego’s plan or he'd only snapped out of it when he thought about his mother and his friends. Just minor details. Nothing worth mentioning. "And then we arrived and smashed that asshole into the ground with our ship!" Rocket smashed his small fists together gleefully as if it had been his pleasure. "I am Groot!" the tree piped up to protest Rocket’s inaccuracy.  "Yeah, I know it didn't work, shut up, I was getting there," Rocket waved Groot off. "We just had to get a bomb to go off in the core of Ego's planet to destroy him," Quill interjected, pressing his hand to his forehead tiredly. He was visibly agitated and tired of talking.  "We were all in the ship by the time Ego was destroyed, except for Quill, and Yondu..." Gamora trailed off. There was a silence. A beat. "And then Yondu died saving me...," Quill mummbled. Rocket then explained that he'd accompanied them to go save Quill. The Nova Prime processed this information slowly. Yondu the Ravager.  She made a mental note of that name.

Quill pushed his chair out and stood up. "Okay, that's all we have to tell you. We'll be leaving now." He turned and headed towards the door.

"Peter! You know we can't leave yet," Gamora said sternly. "Yes, your fragile Terran body is extremely capable of breaking," Drax added in. "I'm fine!" Peter waved his hand at them. "Stop calling me 'weak' and 'Terran'?" The Nova Prime stud up to address him, "Peter Quill, Wait" she began, "Have you considered what being half-Celestial entails?" Peter blinked at her. "No way. I'm just Terran," he protested. "Ego said that I would be when he died.’’ "Did it occur to you that he was just saying that so that you wouldn't kill him?" Gamora snapped, also standing up. "Yeah, it's not like you stopped being Terran when your mother died," Rocket pointed out. "Don't bring my mom into this!" Quill shouted angrily. "The only thing that concerns her is that she was unlucky enough to fall in love with that asshole!" "I am Groot!" the trree interjected. "Groot is right, there is no way to tell whether your father was telling the truth or not." Drax chimed in.  "And we do not have enough information on Celestials to discern whether what this Ego said is true or not," the Nova Prime added. "You know what? You guys can fuck off" Quill shouted angrily. "I'm a fucking Terran and that's all!" He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him with a bang as he stomped angrily leaving the building. They're all wrong, he thought. Drax stared after him and then turned to the others. "Do you think he will ever accept it?" Rocket shrugged, "Who knows? You nothing ever goes through that thick skull of his." "I am Groot," Groot politely reminded Rocket that the same applied to him. "You can just - shut your sap hole, alright" Rocket growled. Gamora looked to Mantis, who shuffled her feet a little. She was about to speak before deciding not to as her antenna dropping slightly. The Nova Prime sighed. "After hearing what you've just told us, I fear what might happen if he doesn't accept himself... If only we had more information about half-Celestials... We didn't even know they could exist," she admitted. "We should go after him," Gamora decided. "Before he kills himself like the idiot he is," Rocket added. "It shouldn't be that hard, considering he is half-Terran," Drax pointed out. "Oh c’mon, are you still hung up over that?" Rocket asked, exasperated. "What? It's true," Drax blinked. "I give up on the both of you. It seems like I always have to be the mature one around here" Gamora scowled and headed off to find Quill.

As Gamora walked through the streets of Xandar in search of Peter Quill, for what seemed like forever, her feet and ankles began to ache with pain. It was as if the lack of sleep due to the Guardians most recent adventures from defeating Ego, to Yondu’s death, and now this unexpected trip Xandar was all catching up to her. Gamora yawned and rubbed her heavy eyelids. She stopped in the middle of her tracks as she noticed a small bar on the corner.  

"Peter can wait. I need a drink first"

†††    

‘’If we’re going with my plan, we need another ship. The wormhole will tear mine to pieces’’ Valkyrie speaks up.

‘’She’s right. We need one that can withstand the geodetic strain from the singularity.’’ Thor nods in agreement. Banner gives Thor a quizzical look.‘’And has an offline power steering system that could also function without the onboard computer.’’ Bruce proposes, looking between Thor and Valkyrie for approval.

‘’And we need one with cup holders because we’re gonna die. So, drinks!’’ Valkyrie boasts while smiling and cheerfully holding up a bottle

‘’What do you say, doctor? Uncharted metagalactic travel through a volatile cosmic gateway. Talk about an adventure.’’ Thor offers Banner before the two of them high five.

‘’We need a ship’’ Banner points out.

‘’There are one or two ships, absolute top-of-the-line models-’’ Valkyrie begins to reply.

Loki interjects the conversation while sitting a few feet away, still held captive in chains.‘’I don’t mean to impose, but the Grandmaster has a great many ships. I may even have stolen the access codes to his security system.’’

All eyes turn to Loki. Valkyrie throws her bottle at him. It smashes above his head. Loki winces.

‘’And suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing.’’ Valkyrie raises an eyebrow, setting her hands on her hips

Loki chuckles a devious smile. ‘’Heavens, no. I’ve run out of favor with the Grandmaster. And in exchange for codes and access to a ship, I’m asking for safe passage through the wormhole’’

‘’You’re telling us you can get us access into the garage without setting off any alarms?’  Thor steps forward in Loki’s direction, intrigued by his brother’s offer.

‘’Yes, brother. I can.’’

Banner whistles drawing Thor and Valkyrie’s attention. The three of them huddle together, debating Loki’s offer.‘’Okay, can I just... A quick FYI, I was just talking to him just a couple minutes ago and he was totally ready to kill any of us.’’

‘’He did try to kill me.’’ Valkyrie concurs.

Thor huddles closer and chimes into the conversation with a horrific childhood memory.‘’Yes, me too. On many, many occasions. There was one time when we were children, He transformed himself into a snake, and he knows that I love snakes. So, I went to pick up the snake to admire it and he transformed back into himself and he was like, “Yeah, it’s me!” And he stabbed me. We were eight at the time.’’ Banner shakes head in disgust as a horrified look leaves his face. Valkyrie furrows her eyebrows and doesn’t seem the least bit impressed. Loki suppresses a smile.

‘’If we’re boosting a ship, we’re gonna need to draw some guards away from the palace,’’ Valkyrie explains in Thor’s direction

‘’Why not set the beast lose?’’ Loki mutters, his eye staring at the floor.

‘’Shut up.’’ Thor points his fingers and adverts his attention to Loki

‘’You guys have a beast?’’ Valkyrie questions, smiling excitedly from ear to ear.

‘’No, there’s no beast. He’s just being stupid. We’re going to start a revolution.’’ Thor mumbles

‘’Revolution?’’ Banner asks

‘’I’ll explain later.’’ Thor whispers, glancing at Banner

‘’Who’s this guy again?’’ Valkyrie questions, motioning to Banner

‘’I’ll explain later.’’

†††    

Korg sits with his cellmates. He’s talking to Miek. ‘’Is that some sort of protoplasm, all the stuff that’s coming out of you? Or are they eggs? Looks like eggs.’’ He asks Miek, as a purple like liquid spills out of him.

Suddenly the obedience disk of Korg and his cellmates powers down and stops glowing. As Korg stands up, another rock falls off of his body and Valkyrie appears at the door to his cell. She marches inside while holding a high-tech rifle. ‘’I’m looking for Korg.’’

‘’Who’s asking? I know you’re asking. Is anyone else asking, or is it just you?’’

Valkyrie tosses him the high-tech rifle. ‘’The Lord of Thunder sends his best.’’

Korg proudly catches the rifle, ‘’The revolution has begun…’’

-                            

Inside the Warsong ship Valkyrie is all focus, as she fires shot after shot, trying to keep the Grandmaster at bay, and flies across Asgard. Banner nervously sits shotgun. ‘’Good shot!’’ Banner compliments.

‘’Thanks.’’

-

Thor’s ship and Valkyrie’s ship now zip through the city in tandem. On the horizon, we can see the Statesman, the enlarged Grandmaster, and his Riot Control team raining down hell on the revolting prisoners.

Inside the commodore ship Thor sits in the pilot’s seat. Valkyrie comes in over the radio. ‘’Open the doors.’’ She commands. Thor looks over the console and flips a switch.

While Inside the Warsong ship, Valkyrie steers down, dropping altitude. Her whole ship spins upside down, yet her cockpit is still right-side up. Valkyrie turns to Banner and chuckles, ‘’I hope that you’re tougher than you look.’’

‘’Why?’’ Banner turns to her unaware of what’s to come.

Valkyrie maxes out the throttle. The ship accelerates. When she’s under Thor’s ship, Valkyrie presses the eject button and Banner is launched upward into the sky and out of the ship. He begins to flare his arms all around and a shrieking scream leaves his mouth.

Thor sits at the controls inside the Commodore. An incoming scream of increasing volume can be heard. “aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH’’ Banner is shot up into the ship and has a rough landing. He struggles to stand as he grabs onto the floor and crawls into the ship.

Thor chuckles at his friend and then returns his focus back to the piloting the ship. The ship is being fired upon by another pursuit vehicle.

‘’Hey Loki’’ Bruce waves in Loki’s direction. ‘’Wait, why are still tied up -?’’ Bruce raises an eyebrow. ‘’Brother tried to kill me again while we were distracting the guards. The chains are for safe measure.’’ Thor shouts over his shoulder from the cockpit.

‘’Hi, I’m Korg and this is my friend Miek. It’s nice to meet ya. Here for the revolution.’’ Bruce turns to his right and jumps back as Korg addresses him. He gives a tight-lipped smile and a nod in Korg’s direction. Banner turns his direction to the floor as rocks fall off of Korg’s body. ‘’Thor...Who is he again?’’

‘’He’s a friend that I met in the contest of champions. I’ll explain later’’

‘’Shouldn’t we be shooting back or something?’’ Banner asks, trying to catch his breath as he’s finally able to stand upright.

‘’Yes, we should,’’ Thor confirms. He realizes they’re going to need some help to win this battle. ‘’Where are the guns on this ship?’’ he asks Valkyrie, into the radio.

‘’There aren’t any. It’s a leisure vessel.’’ Valkyrie answers back between firing shots.’’Grandmaster uses it for his good times, orgies and stuff’’

Thor and Banner look around. The ceiling has mirrors on it and the floor is covered in a Sakaarian Persian rug. ‘’Did she just say the Grandmaster uses it for orgies?’’ Banner yells from behind Thor. ‘’Yeah. Don’t touch anything.’’ Thor replies, trying to get rid of the fire from behind.

Valkyrie’s ship is hit. She rotates the cockpit to face backward and opens fire, taking out the attacking chase-ship. But now in Val’s cockpit... Sparks. Smoke. Alarms. In the distance, Valkyrie clocks the Grandmaster’s Riot Ship raining terror down on the masses. A look of determination as she pops the hatch above - her ship is now a convertible.

Warsong zooms out from under Thor’s ship, still accelerating. Valkyrie has turned her ship into a missile, and its trajectory is the Grandmaster’s riot control ship! Grandmaster is still taunting his former captives below when suddenly, Warsong slams into the Statesman, specifically the Grandmaster’s projection! Enlarged Grandmaster stumbles, struggling to maintain his balance.

Warsong explodes while the Statesman is knocked off kilter and goes down for a hard landing in the market!

Thor and Banner witness the fiery explosion of Valkyrie’s kamikaze flight path. ‘’NO’’ Thor paincks. His heart sinks and sadness falls over him for a second. And then he notices a spec coming out of the explosion. All of a sudden, Valkyrie hits the ship’s windshield and grabs hold as residual smoke wafting off of her.

Thor pilots the ship out of the city into the Wastelands as six Sakaarian fighter ships race after them information. The fight proceeds as the ships battle across the Wastelands and then out over the Sakaarian Ocean.

Valkyrie is still on the windshield. A beat and a shot of gunfire. One of the pursuing ships wings the Commodore, causing it to lurch. ‘’Get inside!’’ Thor mouths to Valkyrie, squinting his eyes to see her as he fights the Sakaaran sunlight blaring against the ship’s windows.

‘’In a minute!’’ Valkyrie yells back. She pulls herself up and then runs down the roof of the ship. Thor and Banner follow the thumping of her footsteps. In full sprint, Valkyrie leaps off and lands hard on the lead Sakaarian ship. She begins tearing into the enemy ship with her bare hands!

Thor and Banner exchange a look. A beat. Thor motions for Banner to take his place as pilot of the ship and leaps out of the chair, ‘’I should probably go and help.’’ Thor abruptly exits, leaving Banner at the ship’s controls. ‘’Here, take the wheel.’’

Banner takes a seat, but shakes his head in protest, ‘’No. I don’t know how to fly one of these.’’

‘’You’re a scientist. Use one of your PhDs.’’ Thor encourages.

‘’None of them are for flying alien spaceships!’’

-

Thor leaps into the middle of the high-speed battle. Thor and Valkyrie seem almost superhuman, as the two Asgardians begin jumping between their pursuer’s ships, taking out guns, engines, and pilots with their bare hands.

Thor rips out an engine block and uses it to crush a pilot. Valkyrie drags her blades down the entire underbelly of a ship before backflipping to another. The two of them go back and forth, passing each other mid-flight a few times. One by one the Sakaarian ships go down.

Banner is frantically steering the ship, doing his best to dodge all the incoming fire. He peels away and is followed by Topaz, who is in her own chase-ship. Banner notices a button with a little explosion icon. ‘’Okay, come on. There’s gotta be a gun on this thing. That looks like a gun.’’ He frantically mutters to himself.  Banner presses the button.

The ship’s lighting changes, like a disco effect. Weird dance music blasts over the PA, followed by Grandmaster’s voice. ‘’It’s MY BIRTHDAY! It’s MY BIRTHDAY! It’s MY BIRTHDAY.’’

Banner is so confused. Then he hears fireworks.

Massive plumes of powder paint shoot out of the ship followed by a huge colorful fireworks display. And then a rainforest’s worth of confetti is dumped from the hull. Topaz is suddenly in the middle of a party smoke screen! She tries to fly her way through all the fireworks and streamers, but ultimately she hits a hard crash landing in the ocean.

‘’Yeah!’’ Banner smiles to himself

Meanwhile, Thor and Valkyrie land together on the one remaining Sakaarian ship. Valkyrie leaks a smile to Thor. Thor yanks off the cockpit cover, Valkyrie tosses the pilot, and together they push forward on the throttle. The ship speeds forward. Just then Banner pulls the Commodore back on the scene, hovering above them. They leap up towards the Commodore’s open doors as the ship crashes and explodes behind them!

Thor and Valkyrie join Banner in the cockpit of the Commodore.

‘’Guys, we’re coming up on the Wormhole’’ Valkyrie shouts. ‘’Here we go!’’

The Commodore ship is swallowed up by the towering nightmare that is the wormhole.

The ship’s onboard computer shorts out. Darkness in the cabin. All around them the hull creaks. They’re under strain.

The Commodore heads toward the end of the wormhole. Debris flies all around. Thor, Valkyrie, Loki, Korg, and Banner are all in extreme pain, as their ship is being torn apart.

-

The ship finally landed in Xandar. The Revengers all crawled to their feet as they made a crash landing. Korg carried Miek as he went to help the other to their feet. At that moment, the ship door was opened, Rhomann Dey stood at the door in confusion. ‘’What do we have here. Another ship with a crash landing? That’s a popular theme today.’’

‘’We’re just traveling through to get to Asgard. We’re fine.’’ Valkyrie spoke, standing up from off the ground. ‘’You all seem to have landed pretty hard. Let’s get you all settled checked out’’ Rhomann Dey waved his hand, dismissing her explanation. Thor, Loki, Bruce, and Korg all followed behind as he led the way. ‘’We’re fine, really’’ Valkyrie shook her head, trying her find her balance.

‘’I need a drink actually. Do you know where a bar is? Ah, nevermind...I’ll find it.’’ Valkyrie limped off to find the nearest bar as the remaining revengers stayed behind.

†††    

Gamora practically bum-rushed her way into the bar, the hard stomp of her boots ringing through the floorboards. This current mission was a lot more stressful than she originally thought. But, right now her focus wasn’t about the mission. It was on alcohol.

The crowd parted to make way for her arrival instantly, partially because of their recollection of her work with the battle of Xandar, but also partially because of the look of utter exhaustion and irritation spread across her face. Gamora threw herself into one of the barstools with an exhale of satisfaction, alleviating the ache in the arches of her feet, before turning towards the bartender. “A beer, please.”

A slow chuckle to her right jolted her out of the thoughts racing about in her brain. “I can’t tell if you just had the best or worst job of your life.”

Gamora couldn’t help but laugh, before turning towards the other woman. “Ugh. A lot has happened in the past few days...I’ve been on some missions...and my ship crash...and now here I am.” She sighed sheepishly towards the ground, raising an eyebrow at the large beer stein in the women’s hands. “What about you. Bad day?”

“On the contrary,” Valkyrie grinned impishly, pursing her lips as she raised her glass in victory. “I had a damn good day. So I’m celebrating.”

Now Gamora was curious, turning in the squeaky barstool to face her. “Celebrating what?”

“If you must know, I successfully avoided getting sucked into a black hole in Sakaar, lead a ship full of three idiot dudes, a robot, and a talking pile of rocks safely to Xandar, and in about eighteen months I will be in Asgard just in time to stab a sword through the bloody dying guts of the ugly hag that ruined my life” Valkyrie replied with a giddy smile.

The bartender returned with Gamora’s drink, Gamora thanked him before returning her attention to the conversation.

“So, what happened on these mission of yours that made your ship crash and made you land here? And where’s the rest of your team”

“What’s with all the questions?”

“I’m a damn good judge of character. You seem like someone I can stand the company of while I’m sober. and I would like some company. That’s rare. I like that.  Plus, I don’t feel like going back to my shipmates right now and I have all night. So, spill”

“Well...My shipmate, he is from Earth and found his biological father. His father needed up being a living planet aiming for universal domination. We killed him, his death has caused destruction on Xandar, and here I am ” Gamora added. “Sometimes I think I’m the only sane member of my team. I just needed a break.”

Valkyrie did not seem the least bit surprised by Gamora’s travels. Gamora assumed by her reaction, she had experienced something similar.

Valkyrie nearly snorted into her beer mug. “I assume that there’s nothing out of the ordinary or odd about you?” She stared drunkenly into Gamora’s eyes searching for a response.

Gamora slammed down her bottle a little harder than necessary on the bar. “You don’t know me,” she warned, her eyes darkening. Valkyrie was surprised that the outburst was brought on through sobriety. Gamora had only taken a couple sips of beer.

“Relax, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Valkyrie waved a hand in her general direction as if it explained everything she was trying to convey. “And I mean, I’d like to...to get to know you”

“I’m not really the sharing type” Gamora laughed, trying to lighten the tone that was sharper she intended, though Valkyrie didn’t seem all that offended. “Neither, I am but like I said, I’ve got all night.”

Valkyrie stared down her mug for a moment, swishing it around with a flick of her wrist. She seemed almost mesmerized by the movement. Gamora inferred by the numerous finished bottles next to her that she was inebriated.

“I remember you mentioned Asgard earlier. Is that where you came from? Are you Asgardian?” Gamora asked, breaking Valkyrie’s trance. “Yeah, I hated it there. Most of them are conceited.  The whole damn history is based on family feud and ego.” Valkyrie took another generous swig. “Yeah, ‘Asgardian pride’ my ass.”

When Valkyrie seemed like she wasn’t going to elaborate, Gamora instead turned in her stool to face the rest of the bar, observing the other people around here. Some people were playing darts, and others were engrossed in conversation at the pool tables.

“And what about before Sakaar?” Gamora asked reverting her attention back to Valkyrie. “I’ve heard tales of it...but I’ve never been there.”

“I moved to Sakaar...after leaving Asgard,” Valkyrie said and continued. “I never really had a problem there. I had more freedom there, honestly. It’s just that the freedom was weird. The Grandmaster always favored me as his best scrapper. But, I could never to go long without a find or there would be consequ-”

Very suddenly, midway through her thought, a sobering look passed her face, her eyes somewhat glassy as she fixated on some random spot behind the bar. Gamora turned to see if she could tell what Valkyrie was looking at, but she was simply just staring off into space. Valkyrie starred directly at the wall into space while continuing her trai of thought, “Valkyrie. Valkyrie is my name. Well, my nickname. It’s the title I had back on Asgard. I led a battalion of women called the Valkyrie who would guide the fallen to Valhalla. And, one day, we had to battle Hela. It didn’t end well.”

“Meaning…” Gamora asked, although her mind already arrived at the most probable conclusion.

“Meaning I’m the only one left...Just like you.” She slammed her mug viciously against the counter, as beer spilled everywhere.

“You know, I’ve been around for awhile. I’ve seen a lot and heard a lot. I’ve heard about you. The ‘deadliest woman in the galaxy’, isn’t that what they call you? And didn’t you lost your family? I know a little bit of what that’s like.”

Gamora could feel her fingernails digging into her palms, though she knew Valkyrie didn’t mean any harm. That was a personal gripe with her identity that needed to be dealt with. Maybe she did have more in common with this stranger in the bar than she realized. She could tell from the way that she spoke of her past life, Valkyrie was recovering from years and years of trauma, just trying to survive, just like her. Gamora remembered that feeling before she had the Guardians. And now being apart of the Guardians had made her more comfortable, being susceptible to love, and people that genuinely care. She could tell Valkyrie would need time to get to that point herself, and people that would put in that time to help. Gamora wanted to be that person.

“It’s not something I like to relive,” Gamora murmured. “And I imagine the same goes for you.”

“I had to watch her sacrifice herself...right in front of me.” Valkyrie glanced at Gamora, “My...my girlfriend.” She then let out an unsettlingly painful laugh. “Why am I telling you this? God, I must be really fucking drunk.’’

“We don’t have to talk about all this now,” Gamora offered with a kind smile. She was admittedly incredibly curious, but it wasn’t the right time, the right place, and neither of them were in the right state of mind. Her own thoughts were feeling muddled as her brain felt buzzed.

“Good, because I don’t want to,” Valkyrie said shortly, though not unkindly. “Tell me, is there anything fun to do around here? I haven’t been in Xandar in awhile. I have already been to all the places that serve good alcohol on this planet, but what if I want to just fight? Not for my life, but just for the fun of it I love a good sparring match.”

Gamora smiled a little at this. She had never fought simply for the fun of it. Only to stay alive and see another day. The thought of it was fun. Her thoughts than lingered to how uneasy Valkyrie had seemed just moments ago. It was obviously uncomfortable and sensitive territory. She brought herself back to reality and out of her haze.

“I don’t. But, if I find any, I will be sure to let you know. You seem like the kind of person that’s good with a sword.”

“Thank you,” Valkyrie nodded. She leaned in a little, poking Gamora in the shoulder with a single finger. It was clear that if she wasn’t before, she was well on her way to being tipsy. “Y’know what, Gamora? You’re not so bad. You’ve got a real hard edge, but I could get used to someone like that.”

As Valkyrie leaned in to poke, Gamora starred closely at the woman. She had a face that was stunningly beautiful, a beautiful mischievous child-like smile, wise but warm eyes, accompanied by amazing muscles and an unforgettable confidence.

Valkyrie starred closely at Gamora and studied her as she leaned in to poke her. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with mysterious eyes, amazing bone structure, vibrant ombre hair, and an effortlessly badass aura.

“Keep in contact?” Gamora asks, bringing them both out of their respective trances. “I could use someone outside of the crew on my ship.”

“As could I,” Valkyrie says. “Especially someone as gorgeous as you.” Gamora smiles for a second.

“Thank you,” Gamora replies. “I will see you soon, Valkyrie.”  Gamora gets up from her bar stool, pays her tab, and lays a small piece of paper on the counter with her contact information inside.

The name Valkyrie had never sounded as perfect than it did coming from Gamora’s lips. Even more perfect than Valkyrie's favorite weapons.

Valkyrie let out a nervous hearty laugh, to distract from her notable flirting a couple moments ago.

“One more?”

“Sure,” Gamora replied, shortly before returning to her barstool and getting a refilled bottle, as did Valkyrie, to clink their beers.

“Cheers.”

(photo credit: @gyllent)

-

A/N: Updates will be every Wednesday. This and the next two to three chapters will all be set up for what’s to come.  I included a good chunk of Ragnarok to refresh your memory. GOTG2 takes place in 2014 but please suspended belief that it and Ragnarok both take place in 2016,  for sake of this story.  Thank you so much for reading!

[musicalmontgomery]

Forever and Always

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings: sadness, death, swearing?

Pairing: billy hargrove x reader

an: first fic in a month???? oops? i’m sorry yall, but this shit is sad af. i cried. also, it’s kinda shitty. definitely not a pulitzer. oh well [[also, the song is forever and always by parachute. give it a listen]]

Billy always called. Even if he was only going to be 20 minutes late, he made sure to make an effort to ring up your landline to let you know. He was supposed to have been off four hours ago, and you still hadn’t heard from him. From your place at the kitchen table, you held the phone in your lap, dialing out phone numbers from the address book beside you, while you stared out at the half-empty driveway as if you could summon the blue Camero into its place.

Sighing, you loosened the grip your eyes held on the pavement to flip the pages to find one of his station buddy’s phone numbers. It took your shaking fingers three tries to spin the dial on the rotary phone in the right way.

“Hello, this is the Hinton residence,” the voice of a woman answered on the other end.

“Hi, Pam, it’s (Y/N). I was just wondering if you guys have seen Billy or if Jimmy was late coming home tonight.” You knew the anxiety was evident in your voice, but if there were anyone to have understood, it would be Pam, for she had made the call to you multiple times.

“No, I’m sorry, (Y/N). Jimmy was off tonight. Why, is something wrong?”

“He’s just late. I wanted to make sure that he hadn’t gone over and forgot to call. Thanks, hon” You returned the receiver to the cradle and turned your gaze back to the window. You stared longingly at the empty parking space where he always parked his car. It seems silly, but you swore you would never take the sight of the vehicle for granted again. Pulling you from your thoughts, the phone sings out its ringing song. You quickly pick it back up to your ear, where it’s spent the last hour.

“Hello, this is a message for (Y/N). Could you please let her know it’s urgent?”

“This is (Y/N),” you answered.

“My name is Rosa; I’m a nurse at San Francisco General. This call is about your fiancé, William Hargrove. Something has happened, and we think you should come right now.” You quickly brought the call to an end with an urgent slam of the phone. But as soon as this need to move began, it ended just as fast. Your mind slows as it fills with a fog.

Big fat snowflakes fluttered down from the heavens above to land gently on Hawkins, Indiana. You and Billy strolled downtown, hand in hand, looking at the pure serenity of the town as if for five minutes it wasn’t some godforsaken shithole that you had ditched together three years prior. No matter how much you both hated the place, you made a return trip annually to celebrate Christmas with your families. It had become a Christmas Eve tradition to take a walk through the town alone and just reminisce about the times you shared as teenagers, wild and in love. Soon, you reached Benny’s diner where you always split a strawberry milkshake, just as you had on your first date in your senior year.

This year, however, Billy stopped short, steps away from the entrance. He brought you into him, lips crashing to yours like the waves crashed into the shore to seek refuge from the sea. After moments of feverish hands fleeing from the side of your face to tangled in your hands, they finally settled on your hips, and the boy in front of you slowly pulled you from him. Ever so carefully and cautiously, he sank to a single knee and pulled a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his denim jacket. He unfolded it over what felt like a million years before finally beginning to read.

“So, I know you probably want heartfelt, in the moment, on the spot words. But I can’t give that to you. Maybe it’s because I’m so afraid that if I do it that way, I’ll forget half of the things I wanted to say, or maybe it’s because you taught me the importance of thinking before you say something. So, if that’s what you want, blame yourself, because I got this from you. I got everything from you. I got my real self-esteem and security. I got closure with things that have happened in the past and been able to disconnect from the people who have hurt me and held onto the people who have loved me. I got the love of my life. I got you. This amazing girl who happily moved over thirty hours away from her hometown so that I could live in the place I grew up in and be close to my dead mom. I still don’t know why you picked me. I watch you get ready for work every morning, and all I can think is: ‘how did this woman ever fall in love with me?’ Even now, I still don’t get it. But I never want you to second guess my love for you. I never want you to think that we weren’t meant to be, because I promise you we are, baby girl. I want you to be my one and only. I want you forever. Forever and always. I want you through the good, and the bad, and the ugly. We’ll grow old together. Forever and always, baby. It can just be you and me sipping strawberry milkshakes in the crappy lighting of a rundown diner that you still manage to look amazing in. I want you by my side. So, (Y/N), love of my life, my one and only, my forever and always, will you give me the great honor of being your husband? Will you marry me?” Dropping the page of scribbles onto the snow below him, he pulled a small box that housed his mother’s ring from his pocket. Carefully so as to not drop it onto the ground, he opened it to show you the physicality of what he had to offer you.

Halting and just barely bringing your vehicle to park, you thoughtlessly marched up to the front desk, somehow asking for Billy, even though the words coming through your mouth had never quite registered in your head. A nurse from her nearby station came over to introduce herself as Rosa, the woman you had spoken with on the phone only twenty minutes earlier. She guided you through the endless maze of hallways as she explained that they had tried to get a hold of you for an hour, but only getting the tone of a busy line before successfully getting through.

“I’m sorry,” you replied. “I was trying to find Billy, so I called nearly our whole address book.”

“It’s fine. Now, your fiancé is only just getting out of surgery. He has a lot of internal bleeding, and he severely burned his lower limbs. Our team of surgeons has done the most they can; now it’s his job to pull through. Some of the other men from his station are here in the waiting room, and a few are in surgeries themselves. I know that it may not seem like it, but he was lucky to have made it out alive. From what I understand, there was one that didn’t. I do need to be honest with you, though. Things do not look very good. He has a chance, but it’s slim. I think you need to prepare to say goodbye. He will be awake, and he will not look very good, or even himself.” Rosa’s voice kept droning on after this, but your mind blocked it out, still reeling over the words ‘prepare to say goodbye’. She’d only had him for four years, and now she was supposed to say goodbye? What happened to forever and always?

The two of you finally approach a room where Rosa stops. Holding your face into a hard composure, you stared at where “Hargrove” had been scribbled onto the dry erase board hanging from the door. Letting out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding deep inside your lungs, you began the short trek from your place in the hall with Rosa to your new place sitting in the chair pushed up to Billy’s bed. His hand grasped into yours, you squeezed it tight in search of that familiarity that you always found in it.

“Ow, babe.” Billy squeaked. You swiftly released your hold, on to feel him tighten it ever so slightly.

“What are we gonna do, Will? I’m not going to let you die, William.” You couldn’t keep your straight face anymore as your tears tumbled down the paths of your cheeks.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re going to get married; I don’t care if it’s in a big church, or city hall, or fuck, even a drive-thru in Vegas. And we’re going to move out of that stupid one-bedroom. I’m going to get promoted to Captain after surviving this; I can just feel it. I’m going to buy you a big house just outside the city, on the hillside or the suburbs. We’ll squeeze a few puppies out of you, and raise them with tenderness and love. They can play hockey and take piano lessons. I’ll be the nice parent, and you’ll have to be the tough one. Before we know it, we’ll be going from cleaning mudpies they make in the backyard to bong spills on the basement carpet. But we’ll love them anyway. I’m gonna love our kids so much. Soon, they’ll grow up, and it’ll be just me and you again. I’ll take you for strawberry milkshakes, and we’ll watch sunsets from our porch. We’ll babysit our grandkids that our children named after us to prove how amazing we were. This time, we can both be nice because they’re not our kids. And we’re going to grow old together. Forever and always, just like we say. Just like that cheesy note you keep on the fridge says.” The words shake out of his mouth between hisses of pain and sighs of momentary sighs of relief. Your unoccupied hand reached up to pat away the sweat beginning to line his forehead, and you ran your fingers through his now shortened hair. You could still remember the day he cut off his mullet, in exchange for a more traditional look. He hated it with every fiber of his being but seeing the sparkle in your eye as you no longer saw the mop mess sitting atop his head helped him to grow into liking it. He had stalked obnoxiously into your local Waffle House that you worked at. At first glance, you expected it to be just another customer, not even recognizing him until he took off his aviators to reveal the eyes you’d spent hours staring into. Your face quickly lit up, a broad smile stretching across your cheeks. While there were days that you missed the mullet and the crazy teenager that came with it, you loved this haircut.

“We’ll have a daughter named Maia, and a son named William. They’ll have your blonde curls and my (Y/E/C) eyes. They’ll be the cutest kids you’ll ever see, but not in that way that you only think they’re beautiful because they’re your own kids. They’ll be beautiful for real,” you added onto his fantasy.

“Of course they will. Look at who their dad is.” The man lying on the bed before you who only slightly resembled the Billy you had known chuckled, holding onto his bruised ribs. “I’m kidding. It’s all because of their mother. Their beautiful mother.”

“No matter what happens, it’s just going to be me and you, right, Will?” Any sense of laughter and airiness had floated out of the room, to be replaced by a severe tone hanging above.

“Babe, we gotta be real now. It hurts. It hurts more than any pain I have ever endured in my life, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep holding on and doing this. If something happens, you need to let go. You may be the love of my life, and this might hurt me so much, but you might also be the love of someone else’s life. And as much as I want to be selfish about this and tell you not to run to someone else when I go, I want you to be happy. That’s all I have ever wanted. I just wish I had married you first.” Small sobs shook through his bones as the salty tears streaked down his cheeks. Between the pain of the accident and pain of losing you, he could feel himself losing his strength and energy. His breaths started to get raspier, becoming far and few in between. Rosa walked in from her place in the hall with her head ducked so you wouldn’t see the tears falling from her own eyes. She lifted an oxygen mask up to his mouth and adjusted him slightly to fit the strap around the back of his head. Taking a few deep breaths of this, his weak hand slipped out of yours to rest on the bed beside him.

Pulling yourself away, you rushed out of the room, Rosa coming up behind. Holding yourself up on the railings that lined the hallway, everything that you’d been holding in through the last hour of sitting in the room came pouring out. The small nurse behind you rubbed your back and soothed your cries with soft hushes. You couldn’t breathe as you felt the sterile walls closing in around you, locking you into your misery. The two of you stayed this way for the next 10 minutes, her never leaving you but circling an open palm between your shoulder blades.

“I’m going to marry him.” As if out of nowhere, the words squeaked out of you, shaking with your ragged breaths.

Rosa quickly arranged from for the chaplain from the small chapel downstairs to come up to the 6th floor and wed you, just as you were meant to do months from now. The elderly couple next door offered you their wedding rings after hearing all that had happened through the paper thin walls, promising you that they brought good fortune and long lives of love and happiness.

With the bouquet of flowers from the gift shop donated by the nurses, you and Billy held onto each other’s hands and listened to Father Charles speaking on the tie between love and long life. Glazing over the words he speaks, you focused on the palm pressed to yours and gave it a tight squeeze. Billy looked up at you, and you swear in this light and in this moment, you didn’t see anything else. It’s as if God has sent down his most heavenly angel to peer up at you. You didn’t even look at the cuts and bruises that had formed on his brow but saw Billy. You saw the seventeen-year-old boy who held you close in his arms at the prom you begged him to go to, never letting you know how much he was genuinely enjoying it. You saw the eighteen-year-old boy driving down the highway, the California sun bringing out the highlights of his golden hair as you escaped the small town you had once called ‘home’ back in Indiana. You saw the nineteen-year-old Billy, excitedly telling you about landing his dream job at a fire-station, and how he was going to save lives. You see twenty-year-old Billy, staring intently at a piece of paper with a knee on the ground while the soft flakes of snow gather around his face to create a picture frame for your single favorite moment.

“I think it’s time for the vows. Do you want to say your own, or use the standard ones?” the priest asks, drawing you from your fantasy.

“We’ll say our own,” you and Billy spoke in unison. The audience made up of the nurses, his station buddies that had been in the waiting room, and the old couple from the place next door gave out a laugh.

Father Charles encouraged you to begin, so taking a big breath, you did.

“William Alexander Hargrove, I want you through everything that may be thrown our way. I won’t let this ruin us. I vow to love you every day from now until the end of the world, in the same way, I did when we were just a couple of kids without a clue. I vow always to hold you when you cry. I vow to stop stealing fries from your plate and eat my own. I vow to kill all of the spiders. I vow to keep that page that you wrote when you proposed hanging from the fridge. I vow to do everything I can to keep you here. I want you forever; forever and always. I want you through the good, the bad, and the ugly. We’ll grow old together and always remember whether happy, or sad, or whatever, we’ll still love each other. Forever and always.” By now, your tears are hitting the floor, and your hands rattle like wind through the leaves. The heart monitor standing on the other side of his bed is only letting out slow beeps. It feels like whole minutes are passing between each of their mechanical noises.

When he spoke, his voice was so quiet you could barely hear it.

He merely says, “(Y/N) (Y/M/N) (Y/L/N), I’ll love you forever; forever and always. Please just remember, even if I’m not there, I’ll always love you. Forever and always.”

You each carefully slip the second-hand rings onto the others’ fingers. Letting go of your hand, he waved Rosa over to whisper something out into her ear. Silently, she went into the bag of personal belongings in his drawer to pull out his Virgin Mary necklace, offering it out to him. He weakly dropped it over your head, lining up the pendant with your heart. Without saying a word, the two of you held each other here for a few minutes, his hand on your heart and your hand combing through the blond strands of his hair. The minister in front of you cleared his throat and officially pronounced you husband and wife.

With a kiss of passion and fire, the short chirps from the monitor gave out into a long monotone hum.

[fallen029]

A Dragon’s Love.7: Birthright

Previous Chapter

It wasn't like Orion was just able to put out of his mind what happened between his idol and mother. No way he would ever be able to. Every time he saw his mother glance at Laxus or the man spoke to her, he was on edge. At first, the thought of them together repulsed him (for good reason) and, though he didn't like it, the thought of it did bring one interesting option into play.

What if they…actually got together? And then Laxus would be his mother's boyfriend and then he would have even more access to the man. They would spend, no doubt, every single day together. And yeah, it would be disgusting to think about, his mother being with Laxus (or any man), but he figured he could stomach it if it meant that the man was around more.

Or forever. Because, deep down in a place he didn't even acknowledge, he had some sort of hope that maybe…they'd get married. And then Laxus would be his stepfather and it would just be great and everything would be perfect and he wouldn't even care much, what happened to his real father then.

It was a dream, he knew, but just as nice of one as all his others. They could be a pretty great family together, he figured. The master and his mother already got along so well (which was clear after what he'd came home to) and he and the man were on pretty good terms. He wasn't even angry with him anymore. Really. Just…well, he really wished he hadn't found out about it, but not angry.

The longer time went on though and the less he saw the Master and his mother even interacting outside of work, Orion was pretty certain it was just as much a pipe dream as the one that he could ever become as strong as Laxus. That one was pretty high up there too.

The man was his hero, after all.

He was gone so much around then though, as it was time to start taking even more jobs, to impress the Master and hope for his favor when it came to S-Class trials. Not that Orion thought he had to worry much as, the way he saw it, by taking him into his inner circle and practically making him one of his boys, the man had already shown that he was definitely getting his shot that year.

That only got him hit though, when he said as much to Erza.

"Do not take this as a game," she told him harshly as the boy only rubbed at his head. "Master Laxus has been very kind to you over the past few years, but do not take it for granted. All he has done for you has no bearing on the trials and you are foolish to think otherwise. Even bloodlines are not strong enough to sway them, but you think that his being so kind to you is?"

"You didn't have to hit me," the boy grumbled simply. He was spending the day over at her house, supposedly training, but mostly just helping the woman clean up around the place. With that done, he'd sat down to lunch, but apparently, Erza would rather assault him instead. "I was just joking."

"Well," she huffed, "do not joke on such serious matters."

"You know," he grumbled, "when I finally do become S-Class, I'm totally going to get back at you for all the things you've done to me."

"Being S-Class would not mean that you will outrank me," she told him simply. "And besides, what things? All I recall are good things."

"You just hit me!"

Erza didn't seem to get that, but it was okay. He wasn't sticking around long at her house that day anyways. She was going off on a mission and, honestly, he wanted to get some real training in. Part of impressing for the S-Class trials was taking jobs, sure, but another big half of it was how much you've improved physically and magically. He had aim down, sure, in the bag easily, but his transformation magic could always use a little work. And recently he'd been slacking on learning new spells to infuse with his arrow, so he headed out to the woods to get to work on all that.

It was while he was out in the forest though that he ran into Laxus. And for once, honestly, he could say that it was completely by accident. He wasn't seeking the man out or even hoping to find him. Not at all. Really, it seemed more like the slayer was seeking out him. Sorta.

"I thought I smelled your scent," Laxus remarked where he stumbled upon the clearing the boy was in. He wasn't doing anything then, training wise, and was instead seated on a stone at the edge of the clearing, sharpening some of his arrows. He'd heard the man approach and didn't look up in shock at his appearance. "It's dangerous to train out here all alone."

Still, he didn't look up. "I'm not a little kid."

Laxus, who had his hands in his pockets, coat hanging off his shoulders, only stared at him. Orion seemed to have forgiven him, for sleeping with Mirajane, but their relationship had taken a big change. He seemed less in awe of the man and more neutral to him. He could tell that he wasn't pissed over it any longer, but still, Laxus knew it would take some time to get things back how they were.

"Okay," the man said slowly as he only came further into the clearing. "Sharpening arrows, huh?"

"Yep," Orion remarked dryly, running the metal along the arrows edge. "Has to pierce flesh."

"You do know that we don't kill our enemies in this guild, right?"

Shrugging, Orion didn't glance up. "Never heard anything about not roughing them up a bit before you sending them on their way though."

There was never any doubt for Laxus, really. That was his boy. Coming to a stop in front of him, the slayer gave him a once over.

"You ain't even gonna ask me where I've been?" Laxus asked. "You think that I just came out here, to have this conversation or somethin'?"

"You're comin' back from some conference or something, right?" Orion still wouldn't look up from him. "Or something?"

"Or something."

"And you couldn't take the train because you get motion sick and you hate it, so you'd rather trek through the forest." That time, he did glance up at him, blue eyes meeting his. It was not nearly as nice as when they belonged to his mother. "It's not some big secret. You can't travel so you come through here."

"I didn't say it was a secret."

That only got a shrug from the teenager which, Laxus knew he shouldn't care about. At all. Orion worshipped him for years and he acted indifferent. Why couldn't he pull it off when the kid wasn't?

"You weren't at a conference though."

"Huh?"

"Bickslow and Freed were talking and you were taking some woman out on a trip, right?" He went back to his arrows. "I heard them."

Considering he hung out with the men so frequently, it wasn't the first time that he'd heard of Laxus' many exploits (when else was he supposed to brag about them if not when Freed and Bickslow were around), because he had. A lot. Even before that, it was well known that the man got around. Especially when he first became the Master.

…The more he thought it, it kinda made sense that Laxus and his mother…

No. It still didn't.

"Yeah." Laxus only shrugged a little. "Took her to some hotel on the beach. Kept complainin' about how I never took her anywhere and- And I shouldn't be talking about this to you. Never mind."

"I just told you," the boy grumbled, "that I'm not a kid."

There. Laxus was back in the power position. And, with a toothy grin, he said, "So what then? You sayin' you've had a woman before?"

He thought that the boy would blush or look way or grumble out an obvious lie and they could just be done with it. There. Laxus would be in control again and there was nothing Orion could-

"Yeah, I've slept with a girl before." He was still messing with his arrows. "I have a girlfriend."

That was news to Laxus. And, with a frown, he said, "Who?"

"You don't know her."

"I don't know her or she doesn't exist?"

Laxus was feeling something in him. Something…fatherly. Orion, however, felt like he was being teased. And, well, considering the source, there was a very good chance that he was.

"You don't," he grumbled, "know her."

"Come on." Laxus lifted his foot to kick at the boy gently. "Which one is it? One of the Salamander's brats? Gray's? Who?"

He shoved at Laxus' foot. "She's not from the guild."

Laxus dropped his foot. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I take it she don't live in Magnolia either."

"Nope."

Snickering, the man said, "And nobody knows about her either, huh? Not your mom or your aunts or you-"

"What difference does it make?"

With a grin, Laxus moved to take a seat on the rock as well, Orion having to scoot over some to accommodate this.

"I had one of those," he told him. "I mean, I had a lot of those, I guess, when I think about it." Orion only rolled his eyes as the man continued. "But in the beginning, there was just one. You know, the usual. I'd go see her after every job and she'd wash my wounds and I'd buy her things. It's was a shithole of a village. I saved it once. When I first became S-Class. I'd go back there constantly. Then weekly. Then monthly. And then I had other women to fill the void."

That time, the teen only blinked. "It's not like that."

Laxus was reminiscing then, mostly, but still shook his head then. "Of course not, boy. You love her, huh?"

Well, that was a rather embarrassing thing to say to your idol, whether he'd broken your trust and faith a little or not.

"I dunno," Orion said, glancing at the man. "Did you love that girl?"

"What girl?"

"The one you were just-"

"When I was a kid and didn't get what it meant? Sure. I did. I guess."

"Then you didn't?"

"At the time I did," he told him slowly. "I mean…it's complicated. You wouldn't get it."

Right. Like that was something to say to a kid. Snorting, Orion glared down at the arrow in his hand. Laxus only glanced up at the sky, thinking.

"I only ever loved one woman," he told him slowly, as if dropping the façade, if only for a moment. Orion couldn't figure out why, but Laxus knew. The other main guys in Orion's life were an overgrown, (faux) man and a crazy seith with little wooden babies that he spent more time with than he ever did women. Mostly Orion just had women to guide him and, knowing the ones involved like Laxus did, that just spelled disaster. No, he'd have to be the one to offer out some fatherly advice, it seemed. It was only fitting. "But I'm an ass. And things got tangled. And…"

Orion wasn't sure anymore what the man was trying to tell him. He definitely wasn't teasing him, that was for sure, but was he trying to…give him life advice? Or something? That didn't seem exactly right either.

But it was. Laxus was trying to figure out not only how to tell the boy what he was feeling, but exactly what it was that he was feeling. He wasn't sure. Just that he should tell something to Orion. Something important.

Like…not to get anyone pregnant that he might really care about because she would die. But not in those words because then he'd have to explain why that would happen and, well, Laxus just wasn't up for a big reveal that day. Or any day.

That didn't manage to come out though as Orion only glanced at him again before speaking for himself.

"I just thought that…you know, that you were interested in…" Then he had to clear his throat and work up some courage. The tides had shifted and they were not in his favor. He knew, of course, that it was just Laxus that he was talking to. Nothing serious. The two played cards together. The man respected him. One day they'd be at the same magical level. Still though, the words got a little caught in his throat and needed some forcing to get out. "My mother."

Laxus only blinked. "W-What?"

"Nothing. Never mind. I just meant-"

"Orion-"

"No, I-"

"Me and Mirajane are friends," he told him then. "That's all. Very good friends. And… I thought we weren't going to talk again about-"

"We're not. I already said never mind. Just forget it."

"The demon's too good for me," the man told him simply. "Way too good."

"Yeah, whatever."

"I'm not kidding, Orion." Shaking his head, he said, "Your mother deserves someone a lot better than me. And she knows that. She doesn't even want me. It was just… It was stupid, for us to… But it happened. And it's over. So don't think about it anymore. You're not even supposed to know about it."

With a frown, he moved to set the arrow in his hand down before pulling another from his quiver. "Yeah, okay."

Reaching out, he tapped the boy in the back of the head, messing up his spiked, white hair. When the kid glared at him, Laxus spared him a rare grin.

"Your mom thinks you're out on jobs all the time," the man said. "So you're actually with this girl, huh?"

"I am out on jobs," Orion told him with a shrug. "Most of the time."

"I miss that."

"Huh?"

"The adventure," Laxus told him. "Going places. Now that I'm the Master…"

"It's an overrated dream?"

Laxus paused for a second before nodding. "I guess you could put it like that, yeah."

"It's like what they say, right?" He fully turned to look at the man then. "Be careful what you wish for."

Slowly, Laxus nodded. "Yeah. Be careful what you wish for."

Orion could remember the weeks after that passing very quickly. The trials were upon them again in no time and, that year, there was no way he was letting anything stop him from getting there.

Mirajane declined going that year as well, though it had less to do with him and more to do with Master Makarov.

"I'll just stay here, Lax," she told him one day in the office. He was at his desk, smoking a cigar and glaring down at some papers on his desk as she stood to the side of it, staring worriedly at him. "And take care of him. Then you can go without worrying, huh?"

"Not worried," he told her before taking a puff of his cigar. "I know what's gonna happen."

"Dragon-"

"I just want to get the trials over with so I can get back home before. That's all."

Reaching out, Mirajane rested a hand against his head, stroking his hair tenderly. "You know I'll take good care of him."

Laxus knew she was trying to be soothing, but really, the gesture felt more like something she'd do to her son than to him. Still, he only nodded.

"Yeah, demon," he sighed. "I know."

"He'll be in good hands."

"He'd rather be with you than me anyways," he said, trying to laugh. It didn't come out quite right though.

"Don't say that."

"It's true."

"Oh, Lax."

"I've made my peace with it," he told her simply before taking another puff of his cigar. "People die. It happens. He's had more years than most get. He's in pain now and I want it to end. He's ready, so I am too."

Her hand stilled then and he could feel the solicitous gaze she was casting his way, but he only grinned, wry as it was.

"I got somethin' better to focus on right now," he reminded. "You know."

"I know."

"It's not every day that a father gets to kick his son's ass."

Instead of mentioning the fact that Laxus very much so had made it sure that he didn't have a son, she just smiled back at him. "Or that a father gets his handed to him."

Glancing up at her, he said, "He has to make it to the end first, you know."

"I know."

"And keep Gajeel's little bone crusher from ruining it before it begins." That time got a long inhale before he blew out the smoke. "Of course, considering he's getting another shot at it too, I don't see that as a problem."

"They might kill one another," she pointed out. "On the trials. If they go up against one another."

"Eh. Worth the risk."

And was it, too, for the two teenagers when they heard their names called a few days later. Radic had all his stupid guild friends around him, cheering him on, but still, Orion felt his gaze fall to him rather quickly and, when he returned it from across the hall, they had a moment to just glare at one another.

As far as they were both concerned, making a fool of the other out there on the island would be just as important as coming back S-Class. And if they couldn't have one, the other would do just as nicely.

That night, Radic went out with his father, for a few last minute pointers or whatever and Orion, after promising his mother he'd see her before he set off the next day, went to see Makarov.

The man wasn't well and, fearful that he might not be around when he got back from the trials, he wanted to spend as much time with him as possible.

"You've done well," the man told him as Orion sat as his bedside, watching him. They were in the former master's tiny house and were completely alone. The teen's mother would be along eventually, with the man's meal, but for awhile, they could speak without the fear of an interruption. "Very well. Whether you make it or not-"

"I am," he told him. "I have to."

Makarov's eyes were shut, but he did smile at that before holding out his hand. Orion was quick to fill it with his own.

"There is something to be said for confidence," he told him simply. "But there is also something to be said against it."

The man's hand was cold in his palm, so Orion just held it tighter, as if to warm it. There was nothing he could do for the frailty, however. He was reminded, if only a little, of a trick the man used to play on him, when he was younger.

"Shake hands, Orion," he'd say, whenever they'd meet and, always the diligent little boy, he would move to do so, gripping the older man's tightly. Makarov would always make his hand grow massively, usually startling the child, who would let go and jump back in fright. "What's wrong, Orion? It's just a hand."

At the moment though, it wasn't just a hand. It was one that the teen had watched get bonier and more wrinkled over the short few years that were his life. And that was outstanding, considering it had been so bony and wrinkled before.

"Hey, Master?"

"Mmmm?" He seemed to be drifting off and Orion knew that he should let him sleep, but there was something he wanted to say first.

"I'm just…" He couldn't help it and hung his head then, hunched over in his chair. "I'm just really glad that you've been there for me. That's all."

Makarov only laid there though and, after a moment, slipped his hand from the boy's before reaching out to pat him on the head instead as Orion just tried hard to hide his sniffles.

"And I," the man whispered, "am just glad that you let me."

The next morning came, inevitably, and Orion was forced to put all thoughts of the man out of his head. He had to. There was no room in there to focus on him, as much as he hated it. He had a shot, finally, at the one thing that every person in the guild dreamt of all their lives. And, on top of that, he had a chance to earn the respect of Laxus Dreyar, his hero to the end.

It was really something to look forward to.

"There's always next year," Mirajane had told him before he left.

"Mom, that's why you say if I don't make it," he complained as she only hugged him. "Which, by the way, I am."

"Mmmm. Just don't get discouraged, okay? I mean-"

"Do you really not have any faith in me at all?"

Of course she did. And he knew it. Usually she was more optimistic, but he figured she was more worried about him getting hurt than anything else. Anyone else in the guild? Let 'em have a melee, all out war if they wanted, until they were all bruised and bloodied. Just not her son. Not her baby. Her siblings? Friends? Her? Fine. Orion was different though. And he always would be.

He needed to keep her out of his mind then too though, of course. It was the only way to sty focused. He had enough arrows to last him, he was pretty sure, and his bow string looked alright. He had a backup, incase he had to restring it, but he hoped that didn't happen.

The whole ride on the ship out there, Radic stared him down. Even with all the other people around, it seemed that Orion was the only one he cared about. It would be nice, the other teen knew, to finally put that rivalry to bed. Because when he became S-Class first, there was nothing the other kid could say to him. Nothing any of them could. All those damn kids of the slayers, they'd have to bow to him. They could have the blood of all the powerful wizards running through them, that was fine, but it was no match for him.

He mostly spent his time staring off the ship, out at the water that surrounded. The deep blue reminded him of his family, given it was about the color of all their shared irises. He was glad that he looked like them and not his stupid father. It made him feel even closer to his mother. He was a Strauss. No matter what.

The island was huge. That was what stuck out to him overall. Not to mention the massive tree. It was all just so encompassing. And…well, he didn't really use word much, but beautiful. Striking, really.

Not that he was there to take in the scenery or anything. No, he'd have time for that when he was the one helping the Master with the trials (which he would, every year, he had no idea why any S-Class wouldn't, it was awesome). Considering he and Laxus were so close already, the man would probably want him around then anyhow.

It was business right from the get go. The second they were on the island, there was something to do. It was Erza that gave them instructions, as the Master was off somewhere, along with the other two S-Class that were there (Jules' mother Juvia and another one of Orion's mother's friends Cana), apparently to be revealed later. In fact, during the entire grueling process, he never even ran into Erza again and not Cana once, until it was all over. Juvia, however, was who he faced off with in the second task.

And damn if he hadn't always underestimated her. He knew, of course, given her status and the stories of how she was before Fairy Tail (though those were few and in between in those days) that she definitely wasn't someone to be taken lightly. She had him trapped in her Water Lock spell to nearly the point of submission until some quick thinking had him transform into Gray Fullbuster and, well, she was much easier after that.

Much.

Hehe. His mother came in handy sometimes after all.

There were other things, of course, but that was his first huge victory on the island, and, well, it was sweet. Then he got stuck walking around for a bit and got to check out the first master's grave. It was all a bit much to take in all at once. He'd heard about the island his whole life and, well, even if he didn't become an S-Class afterwards, he was glad that, at least once, he got to see it.

Although, Orion was slightly disappointed that he never got a chance to face off with Radic. Later he found out that the boy had encountered Cana early on and was taken out. Orion was a tad disappointed, really, as he had hoped to have some grand, final battle with the other teen, but what could you do? Besides, he had himself to focus on.

His magic was severely diminished by the time that he found himself standing before the Master, both just staring at one another, Laxus with his jacket hanging off his shoulders and Orion just trying to catch his breath.

"You made it," the man remarked, though his tone gave nothing away. "Orion."

The boy wasn't sure if he was surprised or impressed, but he knew that it didn't matter. He would have to beat the man which, as he was standing there, crossed his mind truly for the first time was impossible. Laxus was a brute. And he'd had a hard day. The sun was going down and where they were, under the cover of a heavy amount of trees, it was pitch black. Orion was worn out.

There had to be some way to get around the man.

Thinking that perhaps if he caught him off guard he'd have a better shot, he pulled an arrow quickly, on infused with a paralyzing spell. It flew too, right to his target, across the clearing over at where Laxus was standing. He'd opened his mouth to speak, but, quick as a flash, he was just standing there, arrow in hand. Orion thought he was seeing things.

Did the man just catch his arrow?

"I," Laxus grumbled as he tossed it to the ground, "was speaking, you brat."

The Master could catch… Oh, no. How had Orion never thought of that possibility? That was literally his whole attacking force. He shot arrows. But Laxus could catch them. Which meant…

He'd come all that way for nothing? Seriously?

"Now," the man went on as he came closer. "You've made it this far and, now, you're gonna have to prove yourself to me. Which, yeah, I know, won't happen, so here's the deal, huh? You don't have to completely beat me; then we'd never get a new S-Class wizard. Just get me down for more than ten seconds and it's yours, kid. But first," Laxus said, pausing slightly. Orion only moved to pull another arrow from his quiver, though he didn't have time to get it in the bow. No, Laxus was already to his next point. "You gotta prove that you can take a few hits of your own!"

That had to be have been the most blinding pain the teen had ever felt. Laxus shot a blast of lightning at him and, honestly, even the slayer thought he'd over done it. The whole area lit up as the shot made contact and it was all Laxus could do to not bite his tongue completely off.

The kid was supposed to dodge it!

Damn it.

But he couldn't show that he was worried. Or concerned. Just had to stand there, coat still swaying from his shoulders as he stared over at where the boy had fallen. It had been a powerful hit, after all. He figured that he'd give him a chance to shake it off.

Then he didn't get to his feet.

"Come on, kid," Laxus sighed, heading over to him. "If that's all you got, then let's head back to the beach, huh? Maybe in a year or two we can- Orion, it's not a joke. Get up."

He frowned down at the teen when he didn't move in the slightest, just laid there, sprawled out on the ground, eyes closed. For a moment, Laxus only stared. Then, gently, he kicked at the boy. Nothing.

"O-Orion, get up. Boy, seriously." Was he breathing? Laxus couldn't tell. His coat fell from his shoulders then as he moved to get onto his knees, bending over the teen's body. "Orion! Are you… Oh, shit. Mira's gonna… Orion, wake up. I didn't mean to! I- Shit!"

It was the teen's turn to be quick. With reflexes that the dragon could admire, the hand that had loosely been holding that arrow, suddenly sprang up, getting the head in contact with Laxus', the edge knicking his cheek.

"The hell did you-" Laxus stopped speaking then as paralysis took over. Orion only shoved up from the ground, though it wasn't as smooth as he'd have liked as he truly was injured from Laxus' attack, before moving to push the man over before leaning over him that time. From his knees, he moved to hold his bow and arrow over the man, from close range.

"Ha," Orion laughed, grinning over at him as he aimed for the slayer's eye. "Ten seconds, Master, or you get a patch to cover that scar."

Ten seconds had never felt longer. Orion counted it down in his head though and, to his surprise, so was Laxus. Because exactly at ten seconds, one of his hands shot up and socked the boy in the jaw. That could have been a bad call on the part of the slayer, what with him having an arrow trained on his eye, but Orion fell away from him as he let the arrow go, it's trajectory sending it flying across the clearing.

"You little shit," Laxus growled as he only moved to jump the boy and continued his beating. "I was worried about you!"

He took quite the beating too, from the Master, before the man got to his feet and left the boy there, bloodied and bruised, as he went to go retrieve his coat.

"Get up," he growled, not glancing back at him. Orion was just laying there though, not playing that time. He was hurt. "Now." When he didn't move, he glanced back at him. "Get up, Orion, I can't fucking carry you back to the beach. Not if we're going to say that you've made S-Class."

That got him up, though it was with a loud groan and a confused stare intermingled with his grimace of pain.

"Why would we say that?" he asked through clinched teeth. That was more out of pain than anything else. "I lost."

"You did," he agreed. "But that wasn't the wager."

"But-"

"The challenge," Laxus went on as he turned to face him, "was for you to get me down for ten seconds. You did."

"Yeah, but… You could move, couldn't you?" He hung his head then. "I thought that you were paralyzed, but you weren't, were you? You could move the whole time, huh?"

"But I didn't," Laxus told him. "Which means-"

"Which means you cheated."

"No," he said. "It means-"

"Yes, it does! You let me win because you…because…" He wasn't sure why, really, other than what he said next. "Because you like my mother and you think-"

"Hey." Laxus' tone was back to its usual gruffness. "I've told you before, you and your mother are two separate things to me. I don't put up with weak. If you were a little runt, I wouldn't waste my time on you, no matter what Mira is to me. You're here because you deserve it. And I didn't give you anything. You're smart, kid. You got all the way here. And the only reason I wasn't paralyzed is because I'm probably more powerful than what you're used to. Just strengthen the spell from now on and you'll be fine." He was standing above him then and, shocking Orion, held out a hand to the boy. "Now come on. Let's get down to the beach. We got a new S-Class to celebrate."

When the boy took the man's hand, it felt right. And Laxus only lifted him to his feet before shaking his head.

"Your mother sees these bruises and I'll be dead," he grumbled, looking over the teen. "Don't tell her they're all from me, huh?"

They weren't. Even though Laxus was, rightfully so, the toughest thing he'd faced on the island, he was far from the only. Still though, none of that mattered then as it really sunk in.

He was S-Class. Him. Orion Strauss. It felt surreal.

Things only got better down on the beach. Most everyone else had already taken off earlier, as they were all dismissed, but there were a few people still milling about. Erza, of course, was one of them.

And he didn't remember a time he'd really hugged the woman, other than then. She did that thing, sometimes, where she claimed she was hugging him when she'd slam his head into her armor, but he was still pretty certain that was just child abuse, pure and simple.

That time though, it was a real hug, and it felt as good as the Master helping him to his feet.

But still not as nice as his mother.

It was late then and Laxus told him that they could just spend the night camping out on the island, and it sounded great to him. The slayer and him went off from all the others and he didn't even bring his headphones. They just went off, further down on the beach, and watched the stars and Laxus told him all about the island and its lore. Orion only laid there on his back, staring up at the sky, that silly grin never falling from his face. His body hurt and he was pretty sure he'd be sore for weeks, but it was worth it. All of it.

"I love this island," he told Laxus who just laughed and nodded his head.

"It's a great place, isn't it?" The slayer was lying on his back too and moved to hit his hand against his chest, over where his shirt covered his guild mark. "You gonna help me with the trials from now on? Huh? I think Cana's getting tired of having to stay sober for a day to help out and your mother is-"

"Hell yeah." He was quick to nod. "I-"

"Of course," the man went on. "That's a whole year away. I'm sure you got big plans now, don't you? Now that you can take any job you want?"

Slowly, Orion relaxed. "Yeah. I wanna take an S-Class job the second we get back. All alone."

Laxus had to smile too then, remembering the first time he went off on his own. "Is that all you're gonna do?"

"Well," he said slowly, "I'm gonna go see-"

"That girl again?" Laxus groaned. She'd been worked into a few conversations before and, honestly, he was tired of listening about her.

Leave it to his son to be in love and committed and annoying.

It was his first though, so he'd cut him some slack.

"Well, yeah," Orion said, glancing over at the man. "I have to go tell her all about the trials and-"

"And let her heal you back to health?"

That made him look back up at the sky. Instead of answering, he just said, "You know what's next."

"Hmmm?"

"I gotta rise through the ranks," he told him before punching at the empty air above him. "I'm gonna take out everyone above me. The Salamander, Black Steel, Freed, Mom, even you and Erza. It's the only way."

Shaking his head, Laxus said, "I hope you do, boy. I really hope you do."

The next morning, they set sail back for Magnolia bright and early. Orion went to the guildhall first, with his mother in mind, but she wasn't around. His Aunt Lisanna was though, who hugged and kissed him and was really embarrassing (he ate it up though) before she told him that Mira was with Makarov, at the old man's house. Laxus wanted to see his grandfather too, so he accompanied him there.

"I wanna tell Master anyways," Orion said with a grin as he and Laxus walked side by side down the street. "If he's up, I mean."

"I'm sure he'll wake up for this," the slayer told him with a slight grin.

At the house, Mirajane was cleaning up in the kitchen. At the news though, she dropped the dishrag in her hands and rushed over to her son to hug him. He'd always like her hugs the best. It just made him feel so safe.

"I'm gonna go tell Master, okay?" he asked as she let him go, her eyes focusing then on all the bruises he had. "Mom?"

When she nodded, he rushed off, passed the current master, who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. He waited until Orion disappeared down the hall and into Makarov's room to go over to Mira.

"You didn't just give it to him, did you?" she whispered. The slayer frowned at the accusation.

"Of course not," he grumbled, though it was hard to hide his grin. Not to mention the pride. "He got it fair and square. I'm sure he'll get around to telling you all about it."

And man if Laxus didn't like watching Mirajane when she was happy. Honestly, the demon was downright ecstatic then and, unable to contain herself, she took to hugging him too.

Their baby…

"Master?" the boy in question was whispering then as he came over to the man's bedside. "I'm back."

Makarov was hardly lucid then, as Mirajane had already given him his morning medicine, and only whispered the teen's name.

"It's me," he confirmed. "Orion."

"Orion," Makarov whispered, holding out a hand. When he took it, it was colder than the last time.

It's only a hand, he thought to himself.

It was forever etched in his memory, too, what happened next. Makarov had opened his eyes and was staring up at him, almost blankly, while the teen only smiled.

"I made it, Master," he told him, cupping the hand with both of his own, trying to warm it the best he could. "I'm S-Class. I beat Laxus. I did. I-"

"Orion." That time, it was less of a question and more of a statement. And, for a moment, he seemed more alert as he tried to sit up. "Listen."

"To what, Master?"

The man's eyes met the boy's blue then as he stared hard at him. "It's close now, boy."

"What is?" he asked softly, though he knew. Of course he knew. "Master?"

Not answering, he said, "I can't… I promised them, but I can't go knowing…"

"W-What are you talking about? Did you not hear me? I'm S-Class." Orion thought that the man was confused. Or that he was having a spell or something. "Master-"

"I promised Mirajane and your father, but I can't…" His eyes seemed more attentive than they had in weeks. He was staring right at him. "I can't go without you knowing."

Orion almost dropped his hands. His father? Was he going to tell him-

"I've loved you since I saw you," the elderly man went on. "Your mother let me hold you and I knew that I couldn't… But I love her too. And to watch something happen to her… It's was an impossible choice."

"What are you talking about?" The teen's words were hardly a breath. He felt like he was dreaming. "Master?"

"You," he said, never breaking the gaze once, "have always been mine. No matter what anyone has told you."

"I don't-"

"Laxus just wanted to save your mother," Makarov went on. "That's all. I promise."

"I… What?" His head was starting to hurt. "What are you trying to-"

"They can do what they wish, they can tell whatever lies they feel are right," Makarov whispered as he sat up and reached his other hand out to lay it against Orion's cheek. "But you have always been my grandson. And you always will be."

The words weren't making sense. They were, but they weren't. All at the same time. Was he telling him…

"Are you," the boy whispered, "saying that Laxus is…"

Makarov only nodded slightly, letting his hands fall, both of them, before he moved to lay back down. "Oh, Orion. They'll hate me, but I had to make this peace. The curse is yours by birthright, but so is all the goodness that comes from it. You're a Dreyar, above all else. And I couldn't go, lying to the only child I've ever raised that truly cared for me the same."

There was a noise then, a knocking, on the bedroom door. It, along with almost everything else though, didn't make sense to Orion. It was Laxus' voice though, that snapped him out of it.

"Gramps," the man called out as he opened the door. "The boy isn't tiring you out, is he?"

Makarov was just laying there then, exhausted, as Orion only glanced at the doorway. Laxus was…

But that didn't…

And…

"Hey," the slayer growled as, suddenly, the teen took off running, shoving passed him and out of the room. "What's your problem? Gramps, what did you-"

"I'm sorry," Makarov told Laxus as he drifted off back to sleep. "But you weaved the web. Not me."

"What are- Hey!" Suddenly, it hit Laxus. "What did you tell him?"

Not that he was waiting for an answer, as the slayer was turning even as he spoke to go after the boy.

"Orion!"

He was rushing through the house though, for the front door. Mirajane, having heard the commotion, came to check on them.

"What are you all- Ori, where are you going?"

Away. Far away. He didn't even stop. Only swung the door open before making his escape. He had to get away from all of them. He couldn't…but…none of it…

"Laxus?" Mirajane looked to him as he just came to a stop then, there in the living room, staring at the open front door. "What's wrong? Where's he going?"

The slayer only stood there, panting slightly as his own head started to ache. Glancing at the woman, he could only shake his head.

Gramps was right. He knew it too, as he only stood there, not knowing for once what his next move should be. It was tangled damn web.

And finally, they'd all been caught.

Fanfic

Archive

[purplesurveys]

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[tinkeredobsession]

다이아몬드

my blog titles shall be random exo songs from now, I shuffled my playlist to get this title and I think it’s a timely one amidst all this negativity surrounding me. diamond in a rough or to remind myself to cherish myself like a diamond?

Just to pen down some of my thoughts for the past two weeks. 

Ever since the start of this year, or rather it probably stemmed from last year, my mental health hasn’t been the best. I’ve been pushing myself to do many things, yet I don’t derive joy in doing anything. It may be an after-effect of a combination of things that happened in my life, thus the immediate withdrawal into my shell. Before this whole CB in my country, I lost all drive to socialise, lost all motivation in studying and bettering myself. I felt like I was stuck in a blackhole. I was constantly sucked out of all energy, I try to climb out of it but I immediately fall back because I grew tired. There were so much worries plaguing my mind and I couldn’t seem to escape it no matter how much I tried. Insecurities would flood and weigh my mind down, it was physically and mentally tiring. More often than not, I begin to doubt myself endlessly, my abilities, my lovelife and more. And during CB, it became worse. Being cooped at home made everything worse. I had more time to myself which also means more time for my mind to run. Even until today, I still have doubts about my career choices. I consulted so many people before deciding on one. But I am still holding on to the other as a backup plan, that’s how indecisive I am. Doesn’t help that I feel like my lovelife has also been a shithole and I am not even sure if I will ever be ready to commit.

I’ve been mildly interested in fortune-telling / tarot card reading etc etc. Basically I just want a glimpse into my future because I hate the unknown, but that’s the beauty of life isn’t it? In any case, when I had the breakup, I was pretty active in searching for tarot card readers to pacify myself of anything, and I was so enlightened at the end of it. I always believed that I was a little bit more spiritually inclined compared to others, I don’t know why I would think that but yes I always had the feeling thus I always over-read into certain horoscopes predictions and what not. 

About two weeks ago, I chanced upon this “free” tarot reading on one of the online website and decided to go for it. It seems pretty legit, her reviews were generally good as well and I didn’t see why I shouldn’t do it. It wasn’t free after all, had to pay $25 for her to spiritually feel my energy and all. It was a $25 well spent although it was truly a slap in my face. Anyways my question was about love so I asked about finding love and what not. She told me right from the start that the energy surrounding my love life is stagnant and it’s also largely because I’ve been holding back a lot and being unsure about what I want. There were also a lot of deep rooted fears and anxiety as well as insecurities. Although I knew this about myself, it was still a slap in my face. Of course the whole “what you put out, you receive” holds true and if I want to attract love, obviously I had to put myself in alignment with what I want to attract. She suggested that I meditate and I did start doing so just to cleanse a little bit of my energy. I was a little hesitant and skeptical (ha, the accountant part of me jumped out) but I decided to do it anyways. One of the things in the meditation was about how I would view how people respond to me differently because I have changed my energy feel. It has been holding true thus far, I don’t find myself getting so irritated at my mom anymore and am starting to appreciate what my friends and family have done for me. It’s really the little things that count. Not sure whether the whole attracting love will come to me, but I shall see!!

Oh and I also followed this tarot reader on ig and she has this random pick-a-pile where you pick the pile you feel like you resonate with and she will read out the cards and interpret its meaning. It’s pretty fun and I recently picked one that is about self-love. The reading was spot on. I resonated with the cards about the lack of ability in being vulnerable about feelings and the fact that I always want to be there for people but feels like nobody is ever there for me. I managed to open myself up to one of my closer friends about this and was glad he listened to what I had to say and comforted me. I felt like I was able to finally release whatever I have been bottling up for the past few weeks or months and it felt like I had let out a big fart, might not be the nicest but at least I am more relaxed now.

Overall, I’ve been feeling better than I did. I’ve been working out to perspire all the toxins in my body!!!! I also put out a story on my close friends list on ig to inform them about the career choice I have made and it seems pretty positive so one less thing to worry about! I also ended one of my last few finals today and it feels really good that I am finally ending. Albeit a little bittersweet it’s the final stretch of my education life and I probably won’t ever get to experience schooling anymore. I will take some time to reminisce about all my school days when I am done with my last final. Things are beginning to look up for sure, which is why I decided the quote of the day to be that ^^^. 

I do hope the days from now will only get better! 

[ecotone99]

[RF] The Mask

It began on a Saturday. The pitter pat of rain thumped innocuously at Damien’s window. It was a silent kind of day. Then his alarm sounded. A fist shot out immediately, striking it, sending it crashing to the floor. Damien groaned. “Fuck me,” he exclaimed. “I need a drink.” He fished around and came up with a bottle of clear liquor. His head pounded. “Rum. The other white meat.” He took a deep drink. Damien was fat. There was no delicate way to say it. At 5’8” and 278 pounds, he was one fucking big guy. It was a point of contention. It drove a wedge between him and his parents. The rings in his face, his purple mohawk, that drove another. He kept odd hours. He could afford to. His writing career made just enough money that he was his own boss. It was liberating. Those cocksuckers working at banks and restaurants had it all wrong. It had been a rough week. Robert’s dad had a stroke. A bad one, by the sound of it. He paused mid sip. He had a late lunch with Robert in an hour or so. What was he gonna say? What could he say? Sorry your dad is gonna fucking die? “Thoughts, and prayers, and my thumb up my ass,” he grumbled. Damien was an Atheist. Had been since approximately age fifteen. His mother was a Roman Catholic who meant well, but had her head up her cooch. His father was a lapsed Jew or something. His phone vibrated. It was Paul. Damien ignored it. He’d deal with the overzealous editor when his head wasn’t throbbing and his balls didn’t ache. But of course, his balls always ached. That was his cross to bear. He fucked around for a minute longer, then against his better judgement, stepped into the shower. God yes, but that steaming water always felt good. Damien always did his best dissociating in the shower. He sat down, back against the wall, and tried to forget. Thump. Thump, thump. “Five more minutes, Martha.” He stuporic eyes shot open. “Who the FUCK is Martha?!” “Damien, you in there?!,” Robert shouted mildly. “It’s time to go, man.” “OH, FUCK.” “Just give me a sec.” he gave everything a rub down, washed his asshole and his balls, and quickly shampooed his hair. It was 45 minutes past their lunch date before he even got dressed. “Hey man, you okay?,” Robert inquired, voice laced with concern. “Am I okay? Bro, I’m worried about you. Robert managed a weak smile, and shrugged. “I mean, what can I do, man? It’s a bad scene either way. I just hope he doesn’t suffer on the way out.” Damien met his glance, could see the pain in his eyes. They were best friends of over 25 years. More like brothers. “It’s gonna be okay, Robbie.” He embraced his friend tightly. “Don’t call me Robbie,” he said. They sat in saddened silence. Normally, eating at Red Robin marked a happy occasion. “What’re you ordering, man?,” Robert said. He tried to smile, but couldn’t. “The fucking shrimp basket.” “Shrimp basket? Is it fried?” Damien laughed wryly. “Ninja, it’s a fucking Red Robin. Everything is fried. The goddamn soda is fried.” Robert smiled, for real this time. “Thank you, Damien.” “For what?” “You know what. For having my back, like you have since forever. You know the doctors say he has less than a month now.” The news stopped him cold. “A...a month?,” he stammered. “Yeah. Shit sucks.” “How’s your mom taking it?” Robert shrugged. “About as well as you’d expect. She’s 68. And stoic. She doesn’t let me know it’s bothering her, but I can tell. I can tell.” “The thought of your mom in an empty bed eats me up inside,” Damien said with a quiet fury. “Me too, man. But hey, he’s not dead yet. Let’s make this last month count.” The two men are their meal, reminiscing about the past, discussing their hopes for the future. The meal was delicious. A funny thing, Damien thought. Death always made him hungry. Hungry, and horny. He would have to scratch that particular itch later. The thrusting was vigorous. They moaned together, at the end. When it was over, the man, naked, lit a cheap cigar. Soon the motel room stank of tobacco. “You should at least learn to smoke a real cigar,” the woman said. “Fuck it,” Damien said, bringing it to his knee, holding it down in a desperate act of self mutilation. “Jesus, fuck, Damien,” she exclaimed. “Why do you have to be so goddamn self destructive?” He smiled, a twinkle in his eye. “You’re just jealous.” “Fuck you,” she laughed,” taking the cigar from him. She pressed it down against her inner thigh. “Fuck, that feels good.” Lazily flicking her nipples with her free hand. Damien squeezed her breast. “Admit it,” he lulled. “You like me.” Mischief burned in Karen Harper’s eyes. Mischief, and something else. “Miss me with that gay shit,” she said. Then he kissed her. She pulled back after a couple minutes, voice heavy. “Are you okay?” Damien smiled with an impish charm, and sighed. “Yeah. Fuck. No, actually. I don’t know why I just lied to you.” What’s wrong?,” she inquired, laying a hand against his shoulder. “It’s my best friend Robert. His dad just had a major stroke. This wasn’t the first time, either. He...,” his voice cracked. “He’s dying.” She stroked his shoulder comfortingly. “Damien...I’m so sorry. I lost my father 6 years ago. He had a massive heart attack. It was a total shock, we never saw it coming.” “I’ve known him my entire life. His wife is crazy about him. It’s killing me.” She took his head in her lap, stroking his hair. They stayed like that for a long time. At some point, he fell asleep. Sometimes, in our most vulnerable moments, the void is filled. But never for long. “How’s Dusty doing?,” Paul asked. Damien just hadn’t been able to put him off any longer. The editor was a big man. A huge man, actually. All of 6’7” and pushing 350 pounds of muscle. Of course, Damien had shown up reeking of brandy and pot, but that suited Paul just fine. The Goliath worked hard, and partied harder. “Not good,” Damien sighed wanly. “He hasn’t got very long.” “Shit. It’ll be okay.” “No,” Damien said morosely. “You’ll be okay,” Paul urged gently. “No, I fucking won’t.” “Christ, Damien, I know that. But it’s what people say. I’m limited by society’s options.” “It’s a mask,” Damien said. “Just say what you cunting mean, Paul.” “In that case.” He grinned. “In that case, I’d like to inform you that I’d 100% let Lady Gaga shit in my mouth.” Damien cocked back his head and laughed shrewdly. “Hey, me too.” “Damien, do you want the world to remember you when you die? Is that why you write?” “Huh. Well, art is a very selfish and egotistical pursuit.” “You didn’t answer my question.” “I want them to celebrate,” Damien said. “Celebrate what?” “Life. I want them to get drunk, high. To fuck in the middle of the street.” “What about your body?” Damien shrugged. “Skin my tattoos, cremate my fat ass, and for the sake of baboon pussy, don’t pray for me.” “I don’t give a fuck what happens,” Paul said mildly. “I just wanna get high.” “Why did you call me here, Paul?,” Damien arched his eyebrows. “For another one of your horseshit deadlines?” “Dude, I already said.” He held up a big old white bag. “To get high.” Damien grinned boyishly. “You know me too well, Paul. Way too fucking well. It’s eerie.” 30 minutes later, they were in Paul’s immaculate black Mercedes. Paul was driving (Damien didn’t have a license). Actually he was gunning it. He was jamming it to Lynyrd Skynyrd in erratic fashion. “Sweet home Alabama! Dun nun nun nun nun nun nun! Where the skies are so blue!” “Man, FUCK Alabama!,” Damien cried, smashing a mailbox with a wooden bat. “He leaned out of the car, a savage grin on his face . “Nothing in Alabama but buttfuckin hicks and weasels!” “Man, I’m FROM Alabama.” “So? Fuck you too,” he laughed. Paul twitched, did a line off his steering wheel. Started laughing. “Man, you’re right. I hate my hometown. Fuck Alabama. Big old shithole, man.” “Fuck Alabama,” Damien agreed. “Hey, Paul?” “Yeah?” “Can you take me home? I wanna be alone. Some of my best writing is done fucked up.” Paul nodded. “Sure, buddy.”

Damien fell, facefirst onto his bed. He had a nosebleed, but didn’t care. Didn’t give a single fuck. He fished around and found his half empty rum bottle. Took a deep swig. “Where did I put my mothershitting blunt?” “He groped for it, staggered, finally found it. The sweet, aromatic smell of pot permeated the room. He inhaled deeply. “Fucking aah, he declared.” He was just about drifting off when his phone began to ring. He looked down at his phone. 5:23AM. It was Robert. “Hello?” “Damien? Sorry to wake you.” “No. No, I was up. Everything okay, man?’ Even though he knew it wasn’t. Even though a late night call like this could only mean one thing. “No. He’s gone, Damien. He died about an hour ago. I’m sorry.” Even though he knew, fucking knew that Dusty Chavers was dying, the news hit him like a train. It was oddly physical. He felt sick, cancerous. “I’m sorry, Robert. I loved your dad very much.” “I know you did. I know it’s late. I just wanted to tell you.” “Robert, I won’t let you or your mom face this alone.” “Thank you. I gotta go. I have other calls to make.I love you, Damien. Goodnight.” “Goodnight, Robbie.” He made it to the very end of their phone call, then he projectile vomited. Right onto his bed. Fuck it. He would clean it up later. He couldn’t think. He could barely see straight. He was so high and drunk and fucked up on coke and weed and grief. There was only one place to go. Only one place he COULD go.

“Robert’s dad is dead,” Damien said quietly. She put her head on his chest. “I’m so sorry. I know you’re not okay. It’s NOT okay. It fucking sucks.” “Do you have a hole inside your soul, Karen?,” he asked. “I have an emptiness inside of me that I just can’t seem to fill. With food or booze or weed or anything good or bad. What is this emptiness inside of me?” He slammed his fist against the end table. “This desperate need to connect to others.” Tears began to fall. “Is this what being human means?” She touched his arm. “Would you read me one of your poems?” “What does that matter,” he said bitterly. “Please? Just do it.” “Okay,” he said tonelessly. “Whatever. I call this one Statuary.” He cleared his throat, struggled not to cry again. He began:

“The girl raises her glass, Alas, alas, So fast, She withers.

The forest chants, Enchants, Recants, Laments her whispers.

Her corpse is frost Touches the moss, So green, Obscene.

Among the lumber, She still slumbers, Slumbers, Slumbers.” She put his hand on her breast. “That was beautiful. “YOU are beautiful,” she whispered. “I...I don’t know what to say.” She shrugged. “Yeah, well. You were right. I DO like you.” His brown eyes shone.. He did not speak for a long while. “Miss me with that gay shit!,” he replied finally. The void is real. And it is cruel. And it wins more often than not. Death is a foregone conclusion. But one thing our species has is heart. We are stubborn, motherfucking pricks. The void is real, no doubt about it. Let’s make that bastard work for it.

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[thedesperatehousehusband]

2018. The Year That Was.

The Desperate Househusband is going to use the first post of 2019 to take a retrospective look back at 2018. I realize that most year-end reviews were written and published two weeks ago but sometimes I am not able to be timely. So deal with it. But I want to discuss the highs and lows of the year. The trials. The tribulations. The beer. The food. The travel. Just the shit that Juan and I did over the course of the year. To reminisce. To remember the year that was.

January

Bitch, I don’t know what I did in January of last year. It’s damn near 13 months ago. My mind is not the steel trap that it once was. Alls I can recall is that it was colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra on New Year’s Day. I think it was 2. I remember this because Juan’s dad was visiting us from Mexico and that type of cold weather about does him in. So let’s just skip forward to…..

February

First, February always brings my birthday. I celebrated my 44th year on the planet and I gotta tell you, it’s all pretty fucking good. Yes, I have some stress and there’s a bit more creaking in my rusting bones but, dammit, I don’t look 44. Expensive creams, y’all. Along with my birthday, we visited our friends, Andrew and Angela, in Granger, IN. Folks, there is nothing going on in the greater South Bend shithole region. Which is why Andrew and Angela are moving to Grand Rapids, MI in June. We look forward with much excitement about visiting them in their new home in such a craft beer mecca. As if on cue, we attended the Brewer’s Guild of Indiana’s annual Winterfest at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Mama Mia, is that an event! Sample until you can’t sample no more then enjoy a nourishing and gluten-rich snack from the box of Wheat Thins that’s hanging around your neck.

March

The end of winter took Juan to his annual pilgrimage to South By Southwest in Austin, TX. Oh, how he loves that event. The hipster-ness of it all. He learns a lot then applies it back at work. My work travels took me half way across the world. Or maybe more. I’m not sure how to measure it but I went to Sydney, Australia for a business trip and, fuck a duck, is that journey! Business Class or not, 13.5 hours in a tin can from LA to Sydney is intense. But Australia has long been one of the places I yearned to visit most and it did not disappoint. We didn’t get to do ALL the fun stuff but we did all we could on our days off. The Opera House is the real deal. Koalas actually DO HAVE chlamydia. Aussies eat a LOT of red meat. Red wine is next level. Craft beer is OK. And kangaroos are impossible to smuggle across the border. Customs did not take kindly to little Bindi, who I was trying to bring home as a pet.

April

April was a good ass month because it involved a very, very, very amazing evening at Alinea in Chicago. It’s the first time we ever did the downstairs tasting menu that happens at the same time to all 16 (or so) people. It’s indescribably incredible. Along with Alina and it’s 2 Michelin stars, we also managed to hit 2 ADDITIONAL restaurants with Michelin stars that weekend. Thus creating a theme. I hate to brag, and others say this, but we are living our best lives and I don’t care who knows about it.

May

As he does each May 14th, Juan celebrated his birthday. Turning 42 in New York. We travelled to the Big Apple for our first theater excursion of the year. We saw Angels in America, which was a 2-day theatrical event of epic proportions that left us bereft and exhausted but it was amazing. We followed that up the Mean Girls and My Fair Lady. Then we hit the upfronts. A very special TV network week that is for work. Getting to preview the fall TV lineups, meet celebs and mingle with our TV reps never disappoints. We closed the month with a #ohiobeercation over Memorial Day weekend. We enjoyed time in both Columbus and Cincinnati. There is good fucking beer in Ohio. Rhinegeist is such a happy place as is Brew Dog. We also eat really, really well in C-Bus and Cinci. Do I remember where we ate? Not exactly. So you’re just going to have to take my word for it.

June

I’m positive we did shit in June. I’m certain we saw a Cabaret show or two. I’m sure we went out for beer. I’m sure it was hot. But I’m not recalling anything overtly special about June. Let’s just say that June was a relaxing month of summer fun and the return of My Dad’s Sweet Corn at the Farmer’s Market. If you live in Indy and this is not your corn of choice, you are dead to me and I actually think you’re dumb.

July

I do remember July very vividly. Independence Day was quite possibly the hottest I have ever been. EVER. We went to Metazoa Brewing’s 4th of July Fest. We nearly melted. And I kid you not….the band playing outside in the sun experienced a keyboard that ACTUALLY melted. It was so fucking hot and humid and miserable. But we are NOT afraid. We went to the fest. We hung with Joe, Cathy, Jon and Kelly for fireworks at Joe & Cathy’s place. Then we took showers to wash off the sweat that was pouring out of all bodily orifices. My drawls were beyond damp and moist. We also returned to Chautauqua for a road trip adventure with the Sullivan’s. The Chautauqua Institution is one of our favorite places and we are so lucky to have experienced it so many times with such wonderful friends.

August

There are many highlights each year but August 2018 is our big month as it involved a 2-week European holiday to Copenhagen and Stockholm. Two places that we could truly see ourselves living less the darkness that consumes the winter. I need more daylight than Stockholm in January can muster but it’s pretty killer when it’s still light at 10:30 PM in August. These cities are lovely. Just delightful, cultured, civilized places that prioritize the things that are important to us. Art, food, design, wine, beer, cocktails, fashion, culture, music, architecture. And when you can spend two weeks debating where you ate the best cardamom buns each morning, then you have had a successful vacation.

September

I feel like we sat on our asses a lot after our Scandi vacation in August. So September is feeling quite quiet. But we did make another trip to Granger to see Andrew and Angela with the added benefit of getting to meet their baby, Benjamin Jack, for the first time. We ate that baby. Completely gobbled him up. Andrew took us on a day-trip through Southwest Michigan for beer and autumnal fun. We drove around with the baby, who was incredibly good and basically just slept in his stroller while we enjoyed beer al fresco. Good parenting is so rare.

October

I don’t know if it’s a full-on tradition but in 2017 and 2018, October brought was road trip vacations. Or Beercations as they have become to be known colloquially. This year we trekked to Nasvhille, TN. What a fun-ass place. We ate really well. We drank really well. We bought very cool jeans. We walked around cool neighborhoods and the Vanderbilt campus. We listened to music. Then we drove home. I would for sure do that trip again. It’s a perfectly lovely 4-day weekend and an easy drive. You’re on the same damn highway the whole time.

November

I feel like November was incredibly busy and stressful but I’m not necessarily recalling major events. We had the Cabaret’s fundraiser which featured this insanely talented Swedish woman named Gudrun Carling. Our dear friend from Atlanta, Erika, attended with us. We did Thanksgiving at my mom’s and we let Whole Foods do some of the work. I gotta tell you. That’s the way to go. Their sweet potatoes, gravy, cranberries and jalapeno cornbread were right on time. The stuffing was less so. But we have long been spoiled by Juan’s mom’s stuffing recipe which is second-to-none.

December

What a wacky month December was. We jetted off to NYC for our second theater weekend the first weekend of the month. This is when we saw Harry Potter & the Cursed Child Part 1 & Part 2. Holy hell. It’s one of the coolest things ever. We spent a full day in the exact same theater seats. We also saw The Prom which is a hilarious. As well as the Ferryman which is not hilarious. But it wasn’t supposed to be. As soon as we got back to Indy, Juan left for Santiago, Chile for a TV shoot. He was gone nearly two weeks. He returned just in time for the Nutcracker and the final few days of work. We enjoyed a few days at home before going to my mom’s for Christmas. Then a few more days at home before heading to Mexico City for New Year’s with Juan’s dad. We ate alllllll the food.

And now it’s January so we need to get back to work because all this travel and fun shit ain’t free. We work to live not live to work but we still have to work.

Happy 2019!