#provided that the snow hasn’t frozen the ground

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Considering how I dress, I probably have the clothes to dress like I’m in mourning (which I am) but I’m not sure how practical that would be and I’m not sure it would really come across the same way if I dress like this normally, just less formal.

I don’t have a veil though, and that’s what really makes a difference

[mizumech]

Day 4: Warmth/Breeze

Hey, it’s mizumech half a day late with Day 4’s submission! This work is 1019 words long and is one of my first attempts at fluff! It’s name is ‘A circle of life’ and I reserve all rights! :)

-

It's been a bountiful year for Dogwarts.

Now that it’s winter, it’s time to redistribute the wealth, which Ren is excited about, because that always kicks off with the Winter Equinox festival.

Although the chill is beginning to set in, seeing the smiles on his people’s face makes him feel like he shouldn’t be able to feel anything but warm.

He can see Martyn leading some men in sliding the enchanting table on rollers across the ice to the middle of the town square.

Ren knows Bigb’s running around with the bakers somewhere, reveling in the newfound ability to import chocolate and drawing out old recipes for cookies and other treats.

Skizz is probably with the other knights at the bar, stirring up the atmosphere and playing with the town children.

Etho? Probably at the forge making some redstone-glass baubles with the blacksmiths and doing free repairs to the pipe systems of the people.

And Ren delights in the fact that he can sing for joy every morning in the knowledge that his people are happy, and the coffers are full.

He can hang up his armour and know that he can still protect his people diplomatically.

It is a joyous, joyous thing.

-

The festival starts with going back to the roots of what made the kingdom great.

Enchanting.

The people line up, chatting and wishing good tidings as they do, carrying bundles of little and big things alike to be enchanted.

New swords, marriage rings, armour, crossbows, earrings and more all start to pile near the table, and people cheerfully take chunks of lapis out of pouches to coat their trinkets with while waiting for their turns.

Ren shakes hands with almost everyone in line as they wait, and is only dragged away by Martyn bringing him to ice skate.

The ponds have frozen over, and someone has hung bunting bordering the edges. A child’s skates hang from one of them and snow lightly dusts it like powdered sugar on a brownie.

Martyn is laughing about something he hasn’t quite caught; squeezing his hand as he does, but the laughter rings of hammer on anvil and Ren feels like he could laugh even without the context.

Something about Martyn makes him feel that way.

A little kid skates up to him and asks if he wants a beer. They’re a boisterous one, and one Ren feels is definitely not of drinking age, but anything in a heavy mug that adults drank was probably beer to the kid.

He says yes, and Martyn pretends to gawk while lightly punching him on the arm.

“I’ll have one too, if it’s not too much trouble,” Martyn says, and it’s Ren’s turn to pretend to gawk.

“Hand!”

“...foot, my liege.”

The kid comes skating back, managing a sharp turn and stop while holding two mugs like a pro.

They hand Ren a mug of something that smells a bit herbal and a bit flowery, and he sips some appreciatively before munching on the breadstick that it had been provided with.

Martyn chats with the kid for a while until someone drags him away in turn.

“Don’t keel over, old man,” they say as they speed away, patting Ren on the back.

Ren is the one who laughs now, because he knows what he has on his hands is probably a digestif.

Does he really look that old?

Martyn looks like he’s been given…beer. Like a normal adult.

All of a sudden, Etho comes tumbling into the makeshift rink, flailing his arms as he slides, followed by Skizz slowly coming in like a beginner would on roller blades, chuckling loudly as he does.

Etho attempts some sort of turn before crashing to the ground in a heap of limbs. 

He pouts. 

“You pushed me!”

Skizz smiles as he helps Etho up.

“Sure.”

Etho huffs mock angrily.

“And now I’m gonna leave you in my dust!”

He gains speed quickly, even doing a spin and skating backwards to look at Skizz as he tries to catch up.

When he reaches the end of the pond, Etho comes to a sideways stop, spraying little ice shards into the snow in a technicolour arc.

Martyn lets go of his hand (regrettably) as he skates towards Etho, grinning widely.

“Come on, my liege!” he hollers, waving him over.

By this time, Skizz has finally reached the other side of the pond, ankles wobbling from the lack of balance and support.

“Where’s Bigb?”

“I’m here,” someone shouts, as he skates towards the group smoothly, “just got here from the bakery!”

“Bigb,” Ren shouts, "brother from another mother, how was it?”

“Hot!”

“Well thank goodness you’re in the rink now, then!”

“I guess so!”

Following that, Ren tries to meet Bigb in the middle, but ends up swerving. Into a snowbank.

“My liege!”

Ren sighs.

“I’m fine.”

-

After the officiating of two weddings, they all congregate in the game room in the castle.

Ren flops into his armchair, ankles completely unable to hold his weight anymore, while Martyn starts the fireplace.

Bigb, Skizz, and Etho eventually file in, with their respective drinks and snacks, and Etho with some board game he’s never seen before.

“So, everybody, I brought the party version of a game called Decked Ou—!”

Skizz cut him off by playfully slapping him over the head, with Bigb deciding to get in on the fun by ambushing them both with a hug.

Redstone dust flies off Etho’s sleeves and onto the rug below with a soft hiss.

-

In that moment, when Martyn sits down and holds his hand, he forgets all his troubles and woes.

The Sand People seem so far away when he is with his family, and it has been yet another blessed year together.

Another winter, and another year of life.

-

He has loved Martyn for many years, and he knows Martyn will love him in return for a long many years.

-

Even if he’s crashed into about a million snowbanks while skating and his clothes are all wet with cold, when he is with Martyn, he cannot help but feel anything but warm.

[goth-catte]

Endwalker Spoilers

The Eorzean invasion of Garlemald had been… profitable, to say the least. Naalie knew most of those troops who marched into the frozen north had done so out of selflessness, working diligently to save the lives of so many and preserve the freedom of those lands that had once fallen under that ivory banner of tyranny.

Not Naalie, though. Naalie wasn’t now, nor would she ever be, a ‘hero’. Her small, one-seater fighter plane had soared over the skies of Ilsabard and done its fair share of aid for the alliance; strafing runs had helped provide ground troops the cover they needed to advance against the magitech horrors that the empire cranked out, and her aerial daring-do brought down more than a few of the sky creations of Garlemald. When all was said and done, the commander of whichever squadron her little crew of pilots had been attached to had called them, her included, ‘heroes’, though she knew full well that she was anything but.

The sky pirate from the Ruby Sea hasn’t cared for altruism in the way they all had, she had come for one thing above all else - profit. And as the thirty-fourth rule on acquisition stated - war was good for business. Those downed magitech contractions were loaded with goods that she could strip away and sell to some people back in her favorite ports of call, the warehouses and store yards that lay abandoned were full of goods that the locals desperately needed and some were even willing to part with their own valuables at extreme markup to get their hands on them. What were family heirlooms, a beloved piece of jewelry, or hard coin when you were huddled in a cold house with naught by crumbs to eat? No, Naalie was no hero - she was the very worst of what came with the alliance.

====

M o n t h s A g o

The wind was a bitter thing blowing around the shattered shell of what had been some building or another just a few weeks prior. The roof, and two of the exterior walls, was long since gone, burned away in a fire that had not only consumed this building but nearly everything around it as well. Foliage had burnt to a crisp, leaving little more than charred stumps where a few defiant trees had once stood against the cold of northern Ilsabard.

The front had moved on, the combined forces of the Eorzean alliance pushing on into the barely-beating heart of the once-mighty empire. Naalie, though, had stayed behind with the closest thing to a friend that she still had. The years hadn’t been kind to her crew, and this war even less so; despite her insistence that she or her ilk were far from heroes, there had been several with whom she had flown that had sacrificed their lives all the same. The dead were still dead despite the real motivations that got them there, so Naalie didn’t do a thing to dissuade others from speaking highly of them.

Not herself, though. The Dortharli woman was still alive and kicking, for now, and was more than capable of deflecting any honor thrown her way by the unwitting or naive. If any of those praise-giving commanders could see her now, leaning against the husk of this building scamming some local out of their stashed valuables in exchange for a tiny canister of cereuleum for their heaters and the most meager amount of food… well, they’d certainly change that opinion, wouldn’t they?

The tail of her coat whipped wildly around her ankles, and the thin stream of acrid smoke from the tip of her cigarette joined the blustery snow kicked up by the breeze. She watched with dark, half-lidded eyes as her only surviving companion in the sky finalized the negotiations, or highway robbery, with the small contingent of needy civilians. Naalie supposed she should feel bad for them, but she’d seen suffering all over this world - why was theirs any more precious than anybody else’s? Nobody had lent her a helping hand in her own times of need.

“A’right,” the gruff voice of the grizzled Highlander, Bodvarr, said to the Garlean’s representative - if the old, bent-backed man could even be called as such. “You toss us that bag of goodies there.” He paused, his chapped lips turning up into a cruel smirk before continuing, “Or if you can’t manage it, maybe that pretty lass back with the rest of ‘em can manage it for you. That’s it, nice n’ strong.”

The elderly man gave Bodvarr a glare so mighty that Naalie was surprised it didn’t somehow strike the pirate down. She rolled her own eyes at his comments, hidden from her companion by the ceaseless flurries and strong winds. The man did an underarm swing, sending a bag half full with the household’s collected goods arcing through the freezing air and landing in the snow at Bodvarr’s feet with a solid THUNK. Bodvarr looked down, kneeling to pick it up with one hand… and the other resting openly on the hilt of his pistol. When he plucked it from the drift he balanced it in one palm, testing its weight and making sure it was a satisfactory amount inside. “That’ll do mighty fine, I think. Right, Red?”

His comment was directed to Naalie, the crimson skinned Xaela some several fulms away. She could only give a sort of disinterested shrug and a grunt of affirmation. “Good enough,” she said, taking the cue to push away from the wall. She leaned down to pick up two canvas sacks from the ground at her feet - one containing the heater fuel, the other an assortment of stale bread and staler meat they had ‘repurposed’ on one of their foraging missions. Neither really contained enough, and the sacks were light enough that she didn’t struggle with either.

Neither were worth what these people paid for them. She kicked her way through the accumulating snow to cross the fulms to the exchange area and tossed them between Garlean and Highlander. They fell with a much more solid thump, and kicked up a few flurries of their own. Naalie was the recipient of a glare of her own from the man, and his entire party, for her part in this. She wasn’t surprised, she damned well deserved it she knew.

Two quick, loud reports sounded - one from Bodvarr’s pistol, the shot going wide and missing the man and his family entirely… and one from the smoking barrel of Naalie’s, her aim unfortunately much truer than that of her companion.

There was a moment of eerie stillness in the seconds that followed, as if time itself had slowed to a stop. She felt the hammering of her heart in her chest, the echoing of the gunshot in her ears, the sting of the wind against her exposed skin. But the world, for that brief yet infinite period, stopped.

Then, abruptly, it all slammed back into motion once more.

The family was shrieking, all of them diving into the snow for cover. The old man grabbed at the sacks, tumbling forward in his attempt. And Bodvarr… Bodvarr stood still, his arm still outstretched. Slowly, impossibly slowly, the gun fell from his numbing fingers and dropped to the snow at his feet. His head turned, eyes wide with the shock of pain and betrayal, locking onto Naalie. The gaze only lasted a few beats of the heart, the final beats of his for sure, but she would remember it until her soul passed on to the next life. The hurt, the surprise, the fury. In an instant it was gone, the life leaving his eyes entirely and his body slumping backward.

“Go!” Naalie shouted at the Garleans, pushing herself up to a sit; she watched this unfolding shitshow, a myriad of horrors welling up within her as she did. “Take it all and go!” She yelled again. They needed no further encouragement. She wasn’t sure what was stronger in their glares as they gathered everything - the hatred for putting them in this spot or the gratitude of choosing their lives over her fellow scoundrel’s. Naalie would never know, but those glares, too, would haunt her for the rest of her days. As they ran off into the white-out snow, Naalie simply sat there as her own shock began to take hold.

“Fuck…” was all she could manage.

[mermaeids]

MY KINGDOM COME UNDONE: a nace fic by lilypottersghost on ao3 work rating: m | wip wc: 2.6k | ship: ace/nancy chapter one: our coming of age has come and gone

work summary:

In the aftermath of Temperance's death, Nancy isolates herself from the rest of the Drew Crew as winter falls over Horseshoe Bay and reanimated corpses start to disappear from their graves in the cemetery. But when a body goes missing from the morgue, Nancy is thrown back into Ace's life, which she quickly learns has crumbled apart just as much as hers.

read on ao3

chapter 1 preview:

Horseshoe Bay falls head-first into a bitter Maine winter. The air is so cold that some days it hurts to breathe. The snow comes in torrents, heavy and blindingly white. The nights are long.

Nancy spends the majority of her time holed up in Icarus Hall, fixing it up, taking clients here and there: petty theft, a mysterious voice in a woman’s basement, even, briefly, a missing child (who wandered into the woods and got lost). All the while, Nancy tries to conjure up explanations for the dug-up corpses in the cemetery but finds none. One night, Nick helps her set up a security camera, but it’s destroyed when she goes to check on it the following morning. The police department is beginning to lose their patience, with grieving families pressuring them to find answers. Nancy is beginning to feel hopeless herself, waking up in fear that one morning, the ground over her mother’s grave will be split open and her body missing.

All of these events provide handy explanations—excuses—for Nancy to give her friends and family: she has to organize the furniture in the mansion to make it more welcoming for business, she has to build a client base, she has to investigate the corpse case. And all of this is true. But she’s also hiding.

Because she’s losing hope. In all her efforts to clean up Icarus Hall, equal are her efforts to uncover Temperance’s secrets. Nancy scours every spellbook, every journal, every word that the witch ever wrote. And still, she has found nothing of curses and moths.

And she’s beginning to think that she’ll never be able to fix this.

It’s been a month since she left Ace in his apartment, having let him believe that she doesn’t love him back. She hasn’t seen him since. Her friends have stopped trying to reach out to her after one too many missed hangouts; the Drew Crew group chat lies dormant. Maybe it wasn’t just Nancy’s fault, given Nick’s family being here and his recent breakup with George, who is too busy with the Claw and community college to even call these days. Bess is doing well at her new job as Keeper, but she has been cold to Nancy ever since what happened with Ace, protective over him to a fault.

But Nancy is protecting him, too. Just no one knows how or why.

It’s a strange half-life, like continuing to live after one’s heart has been frozen and ripped out. Some nights, she’ll dream of it: of his lips on her neck, his chest against her cheek. But it always ends in the crash, in her confusion and despair as she holds his limp body in her arms.

Nancy sits at her desk in Icarus Hall, resting her elbows on the wood, staring at her phone in front of her. Another body was discovered missing from the cemetery this morning. She knows that she has to call Bess, that she should have done it ages ago. But she’s a coward.

read the rest on ao3

[cheesyficwriter]

Romione Week Day 3 - Traits & Trinkets

A "what-if" moment inspired by Ron's return to the Horcrux Hunt. Written for @romioneweek.

This ficlet starts out pretty dark, but if you follow it all the way through, I promise you’ll find the light. 

Never Again

The dreary darkness of winter sets in, making the days inside the tent long and the nights even longer. 

Although it’s technically Harry’s turn to take watch, Hermione offers instead, knowing by her friend's red-rimmed eyes that he could use the sleep. 

And she needs the walk. After all, each time she lays in her camp bed, all she can see when she closes her eyes is Ron — and there goes her sleep for the night. 

She wonders where he is now, if he's okay, if he's trying to find a way back. Shaking her head, she makes sure that the locket is secure around her neck before exiting through the open flap of the tent. 

It doesn't do her any good to dwell on scenarios. 

Hermione's tender, fragile skin is hit with freezing cold air as soon as she steps outside. She spots frost bitten trees all around her, mixed with the beauty of snow dancing from the sky to the ground. A cold breeze slithers down her back as the chilly winter air makes her shiver until she burrows her nose even further into her wool scarf. 

Burrow. The Burrow. Did Ron make it back home? She longs for the smell of Mrs. Weasley's cooking, and the warmth of a wood-burning fire. 

The surrounding silence can be interpreted as frightening, but for Hermione, it’s providing a sense of calm — a calm she hasn’t felt in so long. The only sound she can hear is the crunch of fresh snow beneath her already frozen feet.

As she trudges up a powdery hill amidst the cold night, she spots something faint off in the distance, compelling her body forward through the snowy banks. Hermione maintains a trained ear as she careens closer to a beaming light, always listening for sounds that could lead to danger.

Withdrawing her wand, she approaches an icy pond, encompassing a cracked, glittering exterior. Curiosity consumes her and she can’t help but take a tentative step onto the slippery surface. 

Hermione’s breath escapes her lips in short, visible bursts as she wills the nerve endings in her body to relax, knowing how precariously placed she is above a slate of ice that could give out at any moment. However, that light still remains. Crouching down so that she is eye level with the ice, she can make out something glittery and deep red beneath the surface. 

Is that...no. The sword of Gryffindor! But, how is this possible? 

She doesn’t stop to question the appearance of the treasured relic for a moment longer, knowing she must do anything she can to retrieve it. But how?

With fumbling, shaking fingers, she points her lit wand directly at the ice. The extra brightness makes it easier for her to see the precise location of the sword, knowing which exact part of the ice she’ll have to break. 

Just as Hermione starts to believe she has a plan, she doesn’t realize she’s standing on a weak point in the ice until it’s too late. She falls through the broken crack, and in moments she’s submerged into cold water that sucks all of the air right out of her lungs. Her body goes rigid in shock — she can’t breathe, she can’t think, she can’t even scream. All she can feel is searing pain. 

Despite the intense attack to her senses, she resists the impulse to hyperventilate. She’s smart enough to know that the pain is a way for her muscles to communicate properly with her brain. The icy place she came from was strong enough to support her once — she can try again. Summoning the last bit of strength she can find, she kicks her feet towards the surface.

Just as she can see the light and the small opening in the ice to allow her head to move above water, a tightening sensation around her neck constricts her airway, causing her to gurgle and choke underwater.

No. The Horcrux.

Hermione fights the suffocating chain around her neck as her limbs flail about through the water. Her hope fades as she starts to drift out of consciousness.

This can’t be the end. But she is now convinced it is. Just as her muscles are about to give out, and her fight ends, Hermione finds her body gradually making its way upward by an unknown force, and the light that had grown dim is now brightening once again. 

She’s flat on her back in a matter of seconds, the solid surface soft enough for her to know that she’s landed on a snowy bank next to the pond with no threat of falling through the ice looming over her again. 

“Hermione! HERMIONE! Oh God, please wake up. Wake up!”

The voice is distant, faint even, but it’s familiar enough for her to recognize exactly who it is.

Ron.

Is this possible? Is he truly here?

Hermione attempts to open her mouth, but no sound comes out. All of her energy has been depleted, and all she can see is white light. Is this a hallucination? Is this what death feels like?

A body hovers over her unmoving form. He’s crying now, that much she can tell from the choked sobs she can hear growing louder and louder. “Her-Hermione, please.”

I can hear you, Ron. 

“Please, this can’t be the end, this can’t be the end.” His voice is frantic, hurried, shaking her body with significant force as he rests his cheek against her chest as if he’s checking for a heartbeat. Hermione honestly can’t tell if her heart is still beating or not, but she wills herself to feel Ron — to allow herself to grab hold of his arms so he can bring her back to safety. She can’t leave her boys yet. There’s still so much to do, so much she wants to say-

All of a sudden she’s gasping, water sputtering out of her mouth as she sharply inhales cold air into her burning lungs.

“Ron.”

Finally, she can open her eyes, finding herself staring straight into a pair of deep azure orbs, wild with terror. 

“Oh, thank Merlin.” He wraps a strong, solid arm around her shoulders, folding her into a tight embrace. Being so close to him, like this, he’s warm — like the fire she has yearned for — nestling into her icy cold skin. 

“Hi,” Ron’s raspy voice murmurs into her hair, frantically rubbing his hand up and down her shoulders. “I’m here, I’m here.”

“Am I dead?” Hermione croaks. She still can’t quite believe that Ron is here. 

Much to her surprise, he lets out a barking laugh that rumbles through his chest. “No, you barmy witch. You’re not.” Lifting her chin, he locks eyes with her as a visible swallow rolls down his throat. “If you were, I-I might as well be too.”

A flood of emotion infiltrates her bloodstream, the bubbling anger she once felt — God, she was so angry at him — seeping out of her.

 “I thought I was...going to have to...give you mouth to mouth to...re-resuscitate you there,” Ron pants with the slightest of smiles, his entire body trembling. 

“As long as you came to, it wouldn’t have been a bad thing,” he adds, clearly trying to ease the tension and take their minds off of how bleeding cold they both are. Hermione doesn’t even know how to process the implications behind his statement, and she doesn’t have the energy to rack her brain for answers. 

There’s so much Hermione wants to tell him, to give him a piece of her wand over leaving her for starters, but she can’t seem to find the words behind her teeth chattering. Her cheeks feel rubbed raw, earlobes burning from the sheer cold, and her fingers move slowly as they reach up to touch her hair that drips in wet, yet somewhat frozen ringlets around her face. It all makes her wish that she had decided to wear something more water repellant before leaving the tent. 

“Bloody Hell, you’re so cold. Here, let me-” Ron moves to stand up, but Hermione catches his hand before he severs their physical contact. 

“Don’t leave. Don’t leave.” She pleads with him to stay, and he’s back on the ground beside her in an instant.

“Fuck, I won’t,” Ron breathes out, letting his forehead rest against her own. “Never again.”

Never again. Those two words are a simple reminder of how terrible the Hunt has been without him. She allows herself to take a moment to relish being close to him again, to have him voluntarily wrapped around her, attempting to keep her safe and warm. There will be time for yelling, time for hashing out their issues later — as long as she doesn’t succumb to hypothermia first. 

Ron, still appearing to be unimpressed with the amount of shivering she’s capable of, frowns as his expression turns stony. “Now, can I just say...are...you...mental?”

“I could-could ask you the same question!” Hermione argues back, her lower lip still trembling. Although there is clear anger behind her retort, she buries her nose into the crook of his neck, finding the hot breath reverberating from her mouth off of his skin to be the only source of warmth at this point. 

Her eyes catch something sparkling in the snow. She suddenly remembers: Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the Hat. Although having the sword progresses their mission, Hermione can’t help but think that Ron presenting himself when she needs him the most matters more. 

“The sword. You got it!”

“No, actually,” Ron shifts slightly, pulling Hermione fully onto his lap in a gesture that sends new blood pumping through her veins. “You did. You already had a hold on the sword when I pulled you up. Don’t you remember?”

No, she doesn’t remember. How is it that she even reached for the sword, when all she can recall is searching for ways to swim up to the surface? Perhaps the sword floated its way into her hands, knowing that she needed it?

Maybe her wand hit it with-

"My wand!" Hermione exclaims out loud, head whirling around as she searches for the familiar vinewood. 

"I've got it.” Ron pats the back pocket of his jeans. “I'll give it back if you promise not to hex me with it." 

She fixes him with a glowering stare, which seems to be enough for him to hand over her wand without any further resistance. A wave of relief washes over her as she’s reunited with her one sense of security, twirling the vinewood between her bony, frozen fingers. 

“What are you doing here? How did you find your way back?” Hermione is ready for answers and Ron nods at her with a set jaw, as if he’s prepared for her onslaught of questions. 

“I’ve been looking for you both since the moment I left,” he insists. “One night, I was clicking this.” He holds up a small, silvery object, which Hermione recognizes immediately.

“The Deluminator,” she gasps in surprise, knowing her suspicions were correct that Dumbledore knew there was an intended use for the trinket beyond just flicking lights on and off.

“I clicked it, and I heard your name — like a whisper.” His voice grows soft as Hermione feels the rapid beating of her heart picking up speed. “A little ball of light hovered over me, then it went straight through my chest.” 

Ron’s finger pokes the spot on his chest, quite near his heart, where the ball of light went through. His finger slowly sags downward until it interlaces with Hermione’s hand.

“Next thing I know, I’m here. And I see you trapped under the water-” He pauses, eyes darkening with a cloudy mist. “Fucking terrifying it was. I reached my hand down and pulled you up. Complete dumb luck that you were so close to the surface. I’m not sure what I would’ve done...I’m not sure either one of us would’ve made it out of there.”

“I hope you wouldn’t have been reckless enough to jump in after me!” Hermione admonishes.

The heat of his gaze stills her protests. “You know I would’ve.”

Hermione mimics Ron’s earlier gesture, bringing their foreheads back together as their noses touch, breaths mingling through the frosty air. Her fingers thread through the hairs on the nape of his neck, desperate to feel him, to reassure herself that he is still here and not just a figment of her imagination. 

Ron pulls her even closer on his lap, if that’s even possible. “Hermione, I’m-I’m-”

“Don’t.”

“But, I need to-”

“I know,” she interrupts again, keeping her eyes closed as she tastes their intertwined breaths, lips so close they could almost touch. “But not right now.” 

Hermione doesn’t want anything to be said that could ruin the moment. For now, she just wants to be with him. Soon they’ll have to make their way back to the tent before the frost takes them, row with each other like they’ve never rowed before, figure out how to destroy the Horcrux with the sword, reunite with Harry, but for now…

Now she just needs to hold onto Ron, and never let go. Never again.  

[sagemcmae]

Melt (A03 | Dokuga | FFnet)

Summary: Sesshomaru can be as cold and unforgiving as the winter season. It's a good thing Kagome knows exactly how to thaw his icy heart.

A one-shot written for SessKag week Day 4: White/Sacred/Purity & Truth

Excerpt: Flecks of white descend upon the forest. Minuscule shards of ice hit the treetops, causing a symphony of pitter-latter sounds as they hit leaves, branches, and eventually the snow-covered ground.

The first blizzard of winter is always a magical time of year. Kagome enjoys watching how the chilly weather transforms Edo. Inside the frost-covered huts, hearth fires provide a warm glow. Outside, the semi-frozen river moves slower than during the rest of the year.

She stands outside with her face tilted toward the sky. It’s bitter cold but Kagome doesn’t mind. She savors the feel of each snowflake as it hits her cheek. For a second, the frozen particle exists. Then it melts into a tiny droplet of water— forever changed by the heat.

Kagome smiles.

Winter hasn’t always been her favorite season. Her opinion has changed over the last couple of years. The shift is due to one particular demon lord who has been described as frosty in his own right.

Read the rest on A03 | Dokuga | FFnet

[nuclearnik]

Colder Than - nuclearnik

Fandom: Six of Crows

Pairing: Nina/Matthias

Rated: T

Summary: When a powerful witch escapes from the Ice Court, Matthias Helvar is sent to retrieve her, but as a fierce blizzard settles around them and forces them to rely on each other, things don't quite go to plan.

Deep in the northern forests, frost covers everything as far as the eye can see, and a lone figure makes his way through the trees, shrouded in darkness. It is difficult to tread lightly when each step crackles like ice beneath his feet, but he has trained for this, and he moves as silently as possible. The howling snowstorm provides cover, blocking sound and sight, the angry winds unforgiving. Though these things impede his journey, they also impede his target, and he will happily take advantage of that fact.

As he trails his mark, the barest hint of moonlight flickers through the pines above, tiny pinpricks of light too weak to help guide.

Matthias pushes on.

His target is slowing, showing signs of fatigue. Catching up to them now is easy, and he sends up a prayer of gratitude for his good fortune. All that's left to do is wait at the ready with his crossbow.

Finally, his mark stops, leaning their forehead against the rough bark of a tree, clearly worn out from running.

Now.

As he gets into position, the creature pulls back from the tree and wipes its brow, pulling down the hood covering its head and taking in ragged gulps of air.

From this angle, he can fully see it now, no longer a blurry shape in the shadows.

She's beautiful.

This horrifying being known to terrorize and haunt the hills with twisted magic is but a young woman, with eyes the color of spring ivy and dark hair flowing down her back like a satin curtain.

She looks like a Renaissance painting he once saw in a museum, all generous, round curves beneath the red cloak draped over her shoulders.

But when she lifts her hands to raise her hood and shield her head from the wind, he sees the inky blackness engulfing her forearms and delicate fingers leading to knifepoint claws.

No matter how pretty she might be, she is still an abomination and an escapee, and he has an oath to fulfill.

Silently, he maneuvers to the other side of the tree he crouches behind to get a better angle, drawing an arrow from the quiver on his back and notching it in his bow.

His superior officers want her alive so she may stand trial, so he will shoot to injure, not kill. If he can get her arms incapacitated, it shouldn't be too difficult to subdue her.

As he breathes deeply, ready to let the arrow fly on the exhale, her head snaps in his direction. He hasn't moved and has no idea what made her turn, but those sharp green eyes are locked on him and for a moment, the forest falls away. There is no wind, no snow, just her soul and his, tethered somehow, connected in a way he can feel in his bones but can't explain with his rational mind.

In the space of a blink, she tears her gaze from his and sprints deeper into the forest, buoyed by a second wind.

Muttering a curse, Matthias runs after her, his feet pounding against the ground. Silence doesn't matter now, only speed.

The snap of a twig is his only warning as something massive slams into him from behind, taking him down and flipping him onto his back, his head slamming against the frozen ground. Vision a little blurry around the edges from the impact, he tries to make out whatever is on top of him. Long, sharp teeth come into view, and behind them a gaping maw, hot breath scented with the sour copper smell of recently eaten flesh expelling from within as a low, deep growl reverberates through him.

More growling comes from the left, out of the shadows of thick trees.

Wolves.

Continue reading on AO3

[killian-spey]

Death Would Be Kinder [Ch. 2]

Prev. Ch.

[Drusilla/Spike/Calendar!Reader]

Words: 2276

Fic Concept: Jenny Calendar’s sister spends some “quality time” with the Season 2 Vampire Squad. This chapter takes place during [BtVS S2:E15]

TW/CW: violence, kidnapping, chains?

AN: Idea came from @prose-for-hire ‘s submission to the fic title game. Taglist is at the bottom, let me know if you want to be added!

You’d been sitting silently, watching Spike wheel himself back and forth across the factory. If you didn’t know better he looked like he was pacing. In reality, he was probably checking behind the pillars and corners of the factory for any sign of your friends. It seems the vampires were expecting Buffy to come looking for you. As the time dragged on, your suspicions became reality; Buffy had prioritized the threat of the Judge over saving you. You had to admit, it stung a little, but it was only logical.

Spike peeked his head into each doorway adjoining the main factory floor. You could tell he was getting restless. You contemplated your odds carefully before you decided on taking a calculated risk.

“You lose a sock?” you yelled.

“Did I what?” Spike wheeled back into the room, an odd expression on his face.

“I asked if you lost a sock.” You paused, his intense glare caught you off-guard. “You know… Because of all the pacing. And popping your head in and out of every room in the place. Somebody’s going to think you lost a sock.”

“Well, I didn’t.” He chuckled a bit before going quiet again and stalking around the factory in his wheelchair. You nodded to yourself, deciding to quit while you were ahead. After that, the only sounds left in the factory were the spinning of wheels and an occasional bumping of door frames and frustrated curses.

It had only been a couple hours of his pseudo-pacing before Angelus and Drusilla stumbled their way into the factory. Spike took one look at the state Angelus was in and hid a smirk under his hand by scratching his nose.

“Well, you’re home early. Slayer hasn’t even tried swiping the girl yet.”

Spike’s good mood vanished as he watched them come down the steps. Drusilla was beside herself, and for a moment you found yourself feeling bad for her. Then Angelus opened his big fat mouth and you remembered who these people were.

“Yeah, well things didn’t go exactly according to plan, Spikey.” He prowled the room, circling like a big cat before he gravitated towards you. Your nerves peaked and you swear you saw a glint of pride behind Angelus’ eyes as he heard your heart pick up. He stepped within arms’ reach of you and sneered.

“What I can’t figure out is, why would she abandon you like this?”

“Where’s your big blue friend?” You swallowed your anxiety and stared up at him in challenge, you weren’t going to tell him a goddamn thing. Might as well give yourself a fighting chance. If he figured it out, you were dead already. You were going to be careful, of course, but that didn’t mean you were going to let him win.

Angelus roared, grabbing your face by the jaw. He was suddenly wearing his game face front and center. ‘Buffy really rattled him, huh?’ You remained stoic, as statuesque as you could muster. If you had misjudged his mood, this might be one of your last moments alive.

Drusilla had floated her way over, leaning into Angelus and hugging his arm to her side. Your staring contest interrupted, Angelus pulled away from you. You took the free moment away from the spotlight to run your fingers against the grain of the armrests, trying to ground yourself in the feeling of the wood underneath you. Your panic was bubbling to the surface, tension and pressure building in your ribcage. You caught Spike’s knowing glance towards you as your eyes flickered between the vampires. You dropped your eyes to the floor, frozen as Drusilla subtly coaxed Angelus away from you. Before long, Angelus had stormed out of the factory again, mumbling about sending Buffy a message.

You were grateful and more than a little stunned. Drusilla saved your life. In her own, subtle way she’d dismantled Angelus’ rage and directed it somewhere else. She’d spun him out of the factory towards Buffy with little more than a subtle flirtatious gesture. You practically gawked at her as she made her way into Spike’s lap. She had these men wrapped around her finger and they didn’t even know it.

Well, maybe Spike knew, but he certainly didn’t mind. He was running his fingers through Drusilla’s hair, comforting her as he spoke.

“If you like the hostage so much, maybe you should have a little fun, Ducks.” He wrapped an arm around Drusilla’s waist to steady her as he wheeled towards you, continuing. “She was supposed to be the distraction for the Slayer, after all. That is what went wrong with the plan, wasn’t it?”

Drusilla lifted her head, gears turning as she looked between Spike and you. Your mind rushed with your fears of what she was contemplating. You didn’t put it past them for ‘playing’ to mean something rather unpleasant for you. Drusilla hummed under her breath excitedly, springing from Spike’s lap and practically skipping out of the room. Spike nodded at you, raising his eyebrows as if to say “Hey look, I fixed it!” and wheeled himself into a good position to watch from, a smug grin on his face.

Drusilla returned with two fistfuls of chains and your heart dropped. She fussed with them somewhere behind you and left the rest in a pile as she ducked off again to the other room. Spike flicked his eyes between the chains and his girl curiously, but said nothing as she flurried about the factory. When she returned, she was holding a long carrying case and a small over-the-shoulder bookbag. She dropped them beside the chains and left again without a word.

“Ducks, what is all this stuff?”

Spike called out to her and wheeled over to the bags. He unzipped one when she didn’t answer. You couldn’t see into the bag from your position and Spike’s exasperated reaction didn’t help you either.

Drusilla returned one final time, holding a large blank canvas in each hand. The left was maybe a 20”x24” and the right was maybe a 24” square. (50cmx60cm or 60cm square).

“Which one does the artist like best?”

You paused, unsure if there was a right answer. After a couple moments you pointed weakly to the left canvas. Drusilla smiled at you and put the square canvas down. Spike scoffed as Drusilla set up an easel from the carrying case and put the bookbag on a table beside it.

She dragged the chains over to your chair and kneeled, carefully untying the knots around your right leg. You studied her face; she bit her tongue lightly as she worked, pulling at the ropes with deft, perfectly manicured fingers. After she’d untied your legs and shackled them, she let your arms off the armrests.

She took your hands in hers and pulled you up to stand for the first time in almost a day. You scanned her expression and glanced backwards towards the easel, then back to her with trepidation. She glided you in front of the daunting white canvas and left you, sinking backwards and sitting in Spike’s lap.

You stood, dumbfounded at the prospect of Drusilla wanting you to paint, of all things. She seemed unimpressed by your inaction after a few moments, and had begun whispering into Spike's ear. He'd leaned into her, pulling her closer and snickered at what must have been a rather amusing comment. He flicked his eyes at you through his lashes, a predatory glint flashing behind his eyes as his smirk grew. He straightened in his seat with satisfaction, head held high.

“Paint for the lady or get eaten. Your choice.”

Drusilla’s eyes wandered back to you and provided no comfort, but then again, why should it? You turned back to the canvas, feeling both their eyes staring at you. A calming breath later, you assessed the materials on the table.

The canvas bag she'd brought had a full set of oil paints- far nicer than you'd ever been able to afford. You didn't dare think of the poor shopkeeper she'd probably killed for them. A person just like your Uncle. He was just another obstacle in these people’s way, and for that he was murdered. You shoved the paints to one side of the small table and began assessing the tools. A somewhat rudimentary selection of spatulas and brushes. You could make do just fine with these.

You set up a palette with some blue, red, white, and black to start. A color palette often was the first thought you gave to a painting. This painting would be mostly blues, purples, and grays. Without turning your head, your eyes flicked towards the vampires just off your left shoulder in the periphery. You had never really let anyone sit and watch you paint. It was hard enough showing a finished piece to someone other than family.

You mixed a deep lilac and raised a palette knife to the canvas. You paused, unsure where to place the landscape. The creeping feeling of being watched was throwing you. The white snow canvas was taunting you, paralyzing you. But you weren't about to let it win. Any of them. You closed your eyes and just swiped the palette knife confidently in a bold first stroke. Now you had a puzzle. How does this fit into a landscape? There was no going back now, it had to work.

It was a mountain slope. The hue you used was suitable for a distant fixture seen from a twilit glade. You could lean into that, thinking on how to keep the morbid whimsy of the piece consistent as a theme. You blocked out the clearing and plotted out the forest behind and around it. It fell silent in the factory as you worked, only the scraping of palette knives and brush strokes echoing in the room. Pieces fell in place as you added gnarled willows at the tree line, white ghost pipes and fungi crawling on the foliage, and sickly green fireflies in the weeping branches and crooked thorn bushes. You didn't like how the overall feel of the piece was so damp and dreary. It felt too muted, too blue for what you'd envisioned. You added nettles to the glade in a redder purple, almost magenta, to tie the piece back into the mystical tone you wanted. A few more touches, a ray of silver moonlight here or there, and you stepped back. You contemplated the piece, for some reason feeling unfinished. The glade felt completely untouched, too alone by itself.

You almost jumped when you heard Drusilla shift off Spike’s lap behind you. You froze, dropping your gaze to the floor, unsure of her intentions. With three clicks of her heels against the concrete flooring, she stopped just behind you. So close you would have felt her breath on your neck if she were human. She leaned forward and pulled your hair behind your ear. She placed one hand on your shoulder and raised your head with a finger under your chin, guiding your eyes back to your work.

“Don’t you like it?”

“It’s not bad, actually.” Spike wheeled forward a pace or so to take a closer look at it. Drusilla still seemed to be waiting for your own answer. You studied it again silently.

It did feel telling, in an odd sort of way. It was invisibly and indescribably alive, despite the darkness and isolation. Could be a good metaphor for vampires... Alive and free only after their own deaths. Sure, they may not exactly live up to society’s expectation of a good neighbor, but you couldn’t say they let being dead keep them from living.

Still, the painting felt unsatisfactory, felt incomplete. You shook your head and pondered. You drew up a couple new colors, a ghostly blue and a red-brown clay. You loaded a palette knife with the clay tone and hovered over the painting, indecisive. The central piece as of now was a large, twisting willow on a small inclined mound of earth. The whole painting felt like background to an invisible subject. Nothing tied the eye to the painting, there was nothing to follow. No movement in a living place.

Drusilla took the palette knife from your hand and set it down. She pulled you lightly to step away from the painting, lightly petting your hair.

“Let it rest, you’ll do more later. With a clear mind,”

You let a heavy sigh escape your lungs. She was right. If you kept going now, at the end of your rope, you’d risk doing something that detracted from the painting entirely. You jerked your head up at a loud scraping sound from above you. Angelus had swung the door open on the mezzanine of the factory. He had a vicious grin and a playful look in his eyes, leaning on the guardrail and looking down at the three of you.

“Did you have fun with the Slayer, then?” Spike called up to him.

“Oh, she makes it so easy!” Angelus threw himself at the spiral staircase and rushed down them with glee.

“I barely had to lift a finger to throw a wrench in her little puppy problem.”

Drusilla twitched her head and glided towards him. She was staring at his face, fixated on something you didn’t pick up on. She swiped her thumb across the corner of his mouth and brought it to her own lips.

“Did you bring any home, Angel? I taste a young one on you.”

“Not today, darlin’. Besides, you have that one.” Angelus gestured to you and sauntered off, calling back as he left. “She wasn’t really any use anyway.”

[Next Chapter Soon!]

Tags: @prose-for-hire @soggy-enchilada @misselsbells06

[bitch-butter]

If you're alright taking prompts from that new list, maybe ” i don’t want you to miss me. it’s tearing me apart. ” with Them? Thank you, take care!

thank you for sending this in, and I'm Sorry for the wait! thank you for your patience while I wrapped up the last Rivers, I hope this has something to like in it. 🖤 it's the slightest bit shorter than I usually manage because, full disclosure, I wrote it freehand in a notebook at the beach lol but it's Something Different!

takes place in the "four months" chapter of go and part the sea, I'm sorry if that's a deepcut. be well ~

"I don't want you to miss me. It's tearing me apart."

He’s moved through the past few days like a shadow, following the footsteps of his routine up the street, around the familiar turns and bends of campus, and back, back, back. The chill is immersive, bone-deep like an ache, and every spare glance he gets of himself in shop windows, bathroom mirrors, stuns him. He should be all bruise, a towering wound with red eyes.

David was once a good student, diligent in all the things that made him a poor soldier, a slave to the mundanity of detail.

Not anymore. Not the past few days, at least, since Joe’s phone call. The line had gone dead and he hadn’t been able to stop hearing the low hum of its nothingness, so different from the high, operatic ringing of an exploded shell in his ear drums. But how different, really? He’ll be picking the shrapnel of Joe Liebgott out of his skin for years and years. Not different, really.

David can barely walk himself home after class at night, the sky empty and going a misty mix of purple and blue, an azure infinity that caught itself in the frozen mounds of snow on his street. The street he’d walked with Joe, the snow that had barricaded them in together like children in a blanket fort. He feels ashamed of his own past happiness now, repulsed by the memory of walking side by side with hope.

It’s even hard to breath like this, hard to get his feet up the stairs and ignore the happy sounds of Mrs. Geffen and the boys gathered in the kitchen. He feels like he hasn’t spoken in days. If he opens his mouth too wide his soul will climb up out of his throat and begin to wail, thrash, and die on the ground like a beached fish.

Fuck it. It feels good to think that.

Fuck it all, he thinks as he pushes the door of his bedroom shut behind him, avoiding looking at his unmade bed, avoiding thinking about how Joe makes fun of him for not making his bed, avoiding thinking about Joe in his bed, holding Joe in his bed.

His room is not his room anymore. But nothing David has is ever really his, save for the things he gives himself. He knows how to provide for himself, has known since he was a child the exact roads through himself towards happiness, towards peace. He’d been a fool to think another living person could learn to walk those roads with him.

Maybe he’d been a fool to think the roads he’d mapped through himself led to anything at all. Maybe he was never happy, just stupid. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

What does he know about anything at all?

“Nothing,” he mumbled to himself, letting his bag slip from his shoulder, hitting the floor heavily in a brutal reminder that school wouldn’t stop just because Joe was lost somewhere in the belly of America and couldn’t even answer for it.

His skin crawled with it, making him jerk his coat off harshly, almost throwing it down. But his aggression is short lived, he’s too tired, too worn down, too - the dirtiest word of all - sad.

But who cares? There are bigger things in life than a broken…affair?

David groaned at himself, pulling his only half unbuttoned shirt over his head and letting it fall from his hands as he moved. He reached for the green sweater the same as he’d done every night since Joe’s phone call, pulling it over his head with a sigh of relief, savoring its warmth, its soft, velvety feel over the wound of his body. Already he felt himself go calm, muting gently before the burn began again, low and deep in his chest.

When he’d refused to wash the sweater after Joe had left that weekend he’d known he was crazy, why shouldn’t he let himself be crazy? He wants to be crazy, and messy, and deranged, as smudged and dark as a Rorschach test, and he wants the whole world to know exactly who did this to him.

But he can’t do that, can he? He’ll burn himself to the ground silently instead.

“Fuck it,” he rasped, turning to the bottle of whiskey on his dresser and reaching for it with a grimace. This is what writers do, he thinks as he raises it to his lips. They drown.

That’s what he would tell Joe if he was here. You have murdered me.

“Murdered,” he said thoughtfully, taking another long sip, settling himself down in front of the window and pushing it open, sagging in towards the press of freezing air over his face, the heat of alcohol still over his tongue. “Murdered…”

There’s no piano tonight, but he stays there anyway, slumped towards the cold with the bottle tipping in towards his mouth over and over again.

David knows he looks pathetic. He’d like to be drunk. Once his body goes numb with the chill he relaxes, head resting against the sill as he closes his eyes.

If Joe was here David would ask him why he wanted to hurt him. Why it seems like he enjoys hurting him sometimes.

That’s pathetic, too. He’s stupid and pathetic, like a grown man drowning in an Austrian lake. He wishes now Joe would have just let him sink straight to the bottom, he would have saved them both from this. But Joe is too kind for his own good sometimes, as loathe as they both are to admit that.

Joe…

The window shutting startles him out of his doze, his head shooting up in time to see Flip grab the bottle with a critical twist of his mouth. He sets it back on the dresser before turning to David, simply looking at him for a long, pitiful moment before shaking his head, stepping over to begin urging David upwards with his hands on his arms.

“Come on, honey,” he sighed, helping David back to his feet. “Up you get.”

“I’m ok,” David managed, his voice feeling thin and boneless.

“I know you are,” Flip nodded, voice flat as he pressed him down to sit against his headboard. “You’re just fine.”

David didn’t have the strength to glare at him as Flip pulled his mussed, stinking sheets over his frozen legs, simply managing to stare down at his hands, pale and still like the hands of a corpse above his sheets. Flip plopped down on his bed with a heavy sound, reaching into his pants pocket and withdrawing a small square of wrapped paper, pulling it open to reveal a modest cold sandwich.

He shook his head automatically. “No, thank you.”

“Dave,” Flip said, bending in close enough for David to pick out the bluish haze around his pupils, his eyes like fog. “You have to eat a little.”

David shook his head, eyes on his hands. “I’m not hungry.”

Huffing, Flip looked down at the sandwich with a tight nod. “I’ll make it simple for you,” he said easily, taking the bread off the top and tearing it into bits like a boy preparing to feed the ducks in a pond. “One at a time,” he demanded quietly, holding out a tiny morsel with a no-nonsense raise of his brow.

He wants to fight, but he has nothing left to throw back at Flip. And if he ends up making someone else abandon him again in the space of a month then he might really be ready to just wander off into the night never to return, so he steels himself and accepts the bread. It slips between his lips easily enough, but he barely chews it before swallowing it down with a pained wince, meeting Flips reassuring gaze with one of measured exhaustion as he accepts another piece, and then another, and another.

“You need to pull yourself together,” Flip said softly, eyes locked on his as David swallowed down another dry bit of sustenance. “You’re a mess.”

David nodded, blinking.

Mouth bunching up, Flip shifted closer carefully. “I know how it is, alright? I know what it’s like to feel used, and lonely, and all of it, but you can’t do this to yourself,” he said quietly, his voice a quick rasp through the still-cold air. “You can’t. You’ll die.”

“I wish I was dead,” David said, his voice low.

Flip shook his head back, settling a hand against his shoulder. “No you don’t.”

He closed his eyes, feeling them burning and wishing he could weep, wishing it could be as easy as weeping. “I should be dead, I should have been dead a thousand times over,” he said, feeling thick in his throat with anguish, suddenly cold and stinging all along his body like needles of hurt were pricking out and catching on the air, tearing at him, all points of contact agony.

“Listen to me,” Flip urged, taking David’s face in his hands and jostling him until he opened his eyes once more, strands of his uncombed blond hair falling over his forehead. “You’re going to get through this, and you’ll be stronger for it, alright?”

David shook his head in the other man’s hold, a scowl of pain over his mouth. “I’ll never get through this,” he said roughly, pulling a hard breath in through his nose. “I’ll never stop feeling this.”

“You will,” Flip insisted, his hands warm against him. “You’ll be better, and he’ll be -”

“Don’t talk about him.”

“I’m just saying,” he continued, giving David a dark look. “There’s a word for the kind of person who does this to someone else.”

Swallowing heavily, David let his eyes fall back down to the sheets, his hands, the green of the sweater at his wrists like moss already covering him up like a grave. “You don’t know him.”

“Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did.”

“That’s not true,” David shot back.

“Isn’t it?”

David sighed out an uneasy breath, feeling himself rising up inside with the shadow of anger, but knowing there was nowhere for it to go inside of himself, no place to let it safely fall. “I did,” he settled, rough. “You don’t know what we saw. What he went through,” he began haltingly, attempting to select the proper words, the right ones, and falling short. “He’s not…he’s not a bad person, not even a little bit, he’s just…”

Flip looked at him discerningly, mouth turned down sharply. “He doesn’t deserve you talking about him like this.”

“He deserves better,” David said, sure enough in this fact if nothing else in the rest of his life. He can curse Joe, he can think Joe murdered him or maybe should have, but he can’t hate him half as much as to think he doesn’t deserve kindness, for David to want better for him. “Better than me.”

“There’s no such thing,” Flip scoffed, shaking his head as he combed a hand through David’s unwashed hair.

Leaning into the touch, David flattened his mouth out again. “Stop flirting with me.”

Humming a laugh out, Flip bent in to kiss his forehead. “You wish,” he rumbled, pushing his hands down David’s shoulders, easing him towards the rumpled mound of his pillows. “Lay back, there.”

Mumbling his assent, David let himself get moved eagerly, beginning to feel warm along his legs and chest with the blankets, the sweater, the booze, the hiss of the radiator that was making its last gasps of the evening. Breathing in the stale smell of his bed, relaxing down into the pool of its comfort, he watched as Flip busied himself straightening up: ensuring the window was closed before picking up David’s coat and hanging it, tossing the myriad dirty clothes on the floor into his hamper, picking up his scattered books, his torn bits of paper, evening out the rough corners of David’s life with his hands.

“You should have been a paratrooper,” he mumbled, mouth smushed against the pillow.

“I spent the war exactly the way I was meant to,” Flip brushed off, dropping a stack of books beside the bottle on the dresser, looking down on David’s prone form with a patient smile. “Do you want me to sleep in here with you?”

Sighing, David again let the knowledge of his own pathetic nature wash over him. It didn’t stop him from nodding.

Nodding back, Flip’s hands moved to his belt, pulling it open and off with an easy movement before settling it over the trunk at the foot of the bed, working his buttons steadily. David watched him undress blankly, his eyes moving over the supple ridges of his friends body and wondering if he’ll ever again be able to look at a man and not think about Joe, about the sharpness of his shoulders, the beautiful plane of his chest, the dip of his hips that was made for a mouth. He wasn’t what David ever would have expected, not anything like his fantasies hidden away in the night.

He had been better. He had been more.

His eyes feel like they burn again, and he puts his hand over them to block out the sight of Flip, only feeling safe to pull it away after hearing the click of the lamp, the feel of the mattress bending beside him. Flip and he had shared beds before, after crashing in the midst of studying, after getting too drunk on a night out and accidently nodding off, but the way Flip settled his arm over David’s shoulders is somehow everything and nothing. It’s exactly right, but it isn’t enough.

When is it ever?

“Will I ever be happy?” he whispered, his voice still like broken glass in his mouth.

Flip nodded beside him, the movement given life in their shared bed. “You will be.”

“When?”

A long pause, before the sound of a soft exhale. “When you let it be over.”

David knew it to be true. David always knows a second before everybody else does.

He keeps his silence then, letting himself fall away into the dark while Flip holds him, keeps him anchored bodily to the bed even as his mind leaps through the shadows and trips and falls past memories, ghosts, shapes in the night. From the clock in his father’s study a pulsing, wooden beat over the familiar coat closet at school, the place he went with curiosities, the place that led to Georgia sun burning down towards Joe’s eyes in the French twilight, the high-low rasp of his voice in David’s ear telling him: back, back, back.

Spin backwards through the feeling, like a man in a car accident. Collide with the memory:

Joe’s face beside him on the same pillow, the long, long night in Austria, his eyes dark against David’s like shining stones, bowls of dark berries smeared richly over his face. His mouth is parted in the moonlight, pale and pink and unattainable the way he always was. Always is.

“I don’t want you to miss me,” he said, his voice a distortion.

It’s tearing me apart, his eyes finished for him.

David watched the memory like a director, noting the ways he wished his eyes would have lingered, the invisible tells he should have seen, and he wants to set fire to it. Joe had never lied to him, David had simply lied to himself. He had seen what he’d wanted to see, but it had all been right there for him to catch.

“Joe…”

“Wake up, honey,” Flip said gently, a hand in David’s hair to ease him back into wakefulness. The room is darker still, the radiator silent against the wall and the air cold as death all around, leaving them pressed warm together beneath the blankets in a parody of the way he and Joe had held one another. “You were dreaming.”

David blinked into the dark, feeling at once horribly cold, solid. “It isn’t over,” he said surely, his voice slurred with residual sleep.

Flip watched him, silent, his expression hidden away in the shadows.

“I won’t let it be.”

[sepialunaris]

Theorizing Amelia and One's backstory based on implicit storytelling

Hmmm infinity train possibly not getting a continuation got me thinking more about Amelia and One-One's implicit story throughout the books. Since the train in Book 4 still works on One's "in a literal sense [the passengers] are numbers to him" and "if they dont sort their problems they'll die here" ideal and not post-Tulip "every passenger's wellbeing and progress is important," the state of the train prior to Ryan and Min is a big mystery, and what specifically happens after to Amelia and One One is another mystery.

I saw @suppuration 's post (which unfortunately can't link since, mobile) about how Book 1 of Infinity Train is about One One experiencing and learning to act as a denizen for Tulip, and while he was mindwiped it must have a big impact to how he does his role as the conductor now and before, when he was just one entity.

Long analysis ahead

One = Simon

Book 4 One reminds me of... Simon. Simon "but you are not a person" Laurent. One is colder and more aloof towards passengers, and seeing them as just "numbers," which is similar to Simon's views at nulls and lack of respect of agency. While he got amnesia and his experience with Tulip made One-One realize his inactiveness has also hindered the purpose of the train as well as a sense of guilt on things that were not his fault (Amelia's cars in the train), he does strive to change, but Amelia still remembers and internalizes what she knows One was in the past, hence she still refers to his old name and had to read his instruction card to remind herself of his new ideals.

Moreover, Book 4 shows Stewards being in charge in train maintenance in the past. Reddit AMA said that in the present the Stewards are almost all destroyed in the coup besides the one Amelia outfitted with weaponry and One One used as transport in Book 2. Book 3 saw One One using humans like Amelia for maintenance, which shows that he is more willing to give agency to the passengers rather than lock them up in place while the Stewards do their jobs. So unlike Simon, there is growth.

Amelia = Hazel, but not really

One conforming to rigid power structure and not really considering anyone's agency like Simon and Pre-Hazel Grace makes Amelia seem like Hazel in this metaphor, which is appropriate that she is her 'clone' or imaginary child. And like Amelia entered One's and life resulting in his mysterious split, Hazel entered Simon and Grace's lives to split them (even if One One dont go separate ways like them, and stayed together) after she experience a personal loss that they caused or 'denied to unreverse' (in Amelia's case). Hazel made them both the chance to question, rethink, and restart their ideals but Simon didn't take it, while Amelia at first tried to give constructive feedback to One before executing the coup and also fell into One's problem of not recognizing others' agencies by 1) throwing away One One and possibly removing his memory 2) forcibly taking away the support system for the passengers to navigate their problems like Ryan and Min-Gi thinking its giving them agency to "individuate" and be on their own, when in the case of Ryan and Min it just reiterated their trauma.

Also her contradictory way of thinking is why in the end Amelia's belief of the other passenger's agency ends up being fallible and destroyed as she becomes more violating and just altogether doesn't want passengers to leave their cars. And I'm highkey convinced that the reason the Ghoms exist (but not in Book 4) is that she created them to prevent people from moving around freely, as there is no therapeutic reason for them to exist (that said the hand monster exists, but it is only in 1 car while Ghoms are numerous and everywhere in the wasteland, so this monster may explain One's aloofness to their wellbeing even further). She does have Ghom orb and used it in Atticus, so its really reasonable to think so. Plus it would be a logical thing that would add up to her numbers a lot and make Samantha the Cat dread her, yet still not make her numbers reach the top like Simon after directly trying to murder his friend.

Amelia's Loss

Though we're not sure because of how little screentime we have of them in Book 4, I do think Ryan and Min-Gi's attempt of staying together is a big foil too for Amelia's experience of abandonment, loss, yearning for the past, and loneliness. Therefore the Steward's first appearance was to reonnect the boys to their past by giving back their stuff, despite Amelia saying that she did that to "individuate" them (this may be directed for all the passengers but in this book's context it is about Min and Ryan's commitment to each other), and the second appearance Amelia specifically says "[they] are on their own." By the lens of Ryan and Min, Amelia is portrayed as a force that desires to separate them, not in a malicious nor personal manner, but maybe a projection of her own trauma of codependency with Alrick and not wanting the same to befall to Ryan and Min (it may also be jealousy but she hasn't shown any displeasure of that sort so it seems more like bad faith analysis) and the pther passengers. And in the end she releases everyone in the train from their 'dependency' by decomissioning the Stewards. Her actions, especially the former does have understandable motives and she isn't intending to harm anyone, but it happens anyway because in the end she disrespects their agency and pulled the whole train from under the rug.

Amelia = Lake & others

And the story of agency is central in Book 2, and how Lake fights for their recognition as a person and getting off from the train, to the point they have to confront One-One about it. It was the first time One One's imperfection is shown and how even now his standards for denizens has gotten better but not the best. Though he does end up respecting their agency and puts thought to it too. And a minor detail is that he mentions Atticus too in Book 2, meaning that he remembers him personally due to his experience as a denizen instead of just an instrument like in Book 4 (eg: Denizens like Kez being frozen kept of the blue during Steward visits), and he appreciates Alan Dracula too. So he did grow, even if its not perfect and his cold tendency and lesser view on denizens is still there. Yet One and Amelia's ideals of hierarchal superiority and the concept that denizens are worth nothing bleeds down to the Apex, who follows Amelia's footsteps after she has decided to refuse her former ideal to "individuate" passengers (as she has already used her outfit when finding Grace and if we think Amelia made the Ghoms then yeah it tracks), as well as Grace and Simon's own coping mechanisms of dealing with traumatic abandonment and loneliness being parallels to Amelia, through manipulating others and intruding on people's agencies respectively.

However, what I find interesting is that, like Lake, Amelia also got to the engine room and got to ask for favors from him. While the context is not clear as well as her lack of companions, if we parallel it to Lake's story and also considering Amelia's fallible interest to humanize the passengers to One, something similar might've happened.

Her story parallels with Ryan too, that wants to subvert expectations within his life even recklessly so at times that ends up hurting people (just like how she took over the train and hurt One and the other passengers), yet he deals with life better even after abandonment by Min. She also parallels heavily with Morgan, who was dependent on Jeremy and tried to isolate herself from her friend, Kez. And the big thing that Amelia lacks in this scenario, unlike Lake and Ryan, is that as said before, the distinct lack of companions she has. No one like Jesse or Min-Gi to ground and provide her company besides her desire for Alrick to come back, and doesn't show interest in forging new relationships and instead focused on her own stuff, just like Morgan grieved when Jeremy was gone. Amelia was both isolated and isolated herself further when she couped the train, and in the end like Morgan she turns from a caring person to someone that revokes agency. Though Morgan, in the end does decide to grieve herself and opens a window for her to reconnect with Kez, unlike Amelia who lost that opportunity and fell further to the dark due to cruel circumstance and her own actions.

And as for the reason why One One was split is mysterious and currently unexplained, Idk if this is an appropriate idea to connect to, but I feel like there's a possibility that he could've split himself or gave himself amnesia, as a way for him to deal with self isolation and or trauma from betrayal. Maybe he was even inspired by seeing Ryan and Min's commitment to each other? But again it is farfetched to judge as something tracks as of now.

Soo... tl;dr what i think happened.

During this era One only interacts with the passengers by maintaining the trains through the Stewards, without consideration of their well being or agency, hence the hand monster/Docent exists

Amelia enters the train and fights her way into the engine room to meet One, possibly asking her stuff back too

One decides to receive input from Amelia, who intends to humanize the passengers to him by giving them back their stuff, while akso taking interest to cultivate independence on the other passengers to avoid codependency like her

Amelia falls back to her dependency and asks One to bring Alrick back, he refuses, and she hijacks the train

As a way to give them freedom, Amelia releases all the passengers the rules the train binds them to and destroys all the Stewards that acted as maintenance before

One is sent to the snow car for 33 years. He is either split or mindwiped by Amelia or he performs this action himself

Amelia's idealism wavers over time and she gets obsessed in find orbs to create Alrick. Becomes more militaristic and creates her Conductor persona, outfitted the last Steward with guns, and created the Ghoms with her cannon

In order to make sure no passengers try any funny stuff and let her focus on her quest, she uses the Ghoms to make sure they are within order, and prefers passengers to no longer leave their cars. She ultimately has no control over that though therefore she can only minimize the problem

Book 1 happens, Amelia is ousted and decides to work under One One as a human steward and to fix her mistakes to repent

Feel free to add on or critique things because I might've missed/misintrepreted a lot

[whenisitenoughtrees]

the point in just drowning another day

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Janus murmurs, voice entirely too knowing, entirely too understanding, and Patton doesn't know that he can handle the depth of this empathy. “You deserve to have the support that you’ve been trying so hard to provide.”

Patton is struggling far more than he wants to admit, both with his loneliness and the crushing weight of the mistakes he's made, and it's sending him spiraling. It doesn't help that apparently, his amphibian traits are here to stay.

Content Warnings: depression, mild body horror

Word Count: 6,900

Pairing: Moceit

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

It is a grey day today.

He hasn’t had one in a while, but he’s sensed it approaching for the past few days, so he supposes it’s his own fault that it hits this bad; he willfully ignored all the warning signs, pushed aside his fatigue and his slowly souring mood, telling himself that he was alright, that he was being silly, that the feelings would pass. And now, the world is grey, the colors leeched from it like a black-and-white film, and a weight sits heavily on his chest, making every breath a struggle.

He needs to get up. He knows this. Knows he should have been up hours ago, that he should be making breakfast, eggs and sausage and pancakes, should be smiling and happy and ready to greet the world. The others are probably waiting for him, wondering where he is, why he’s not there.

Only, they’re not. And he knows that too. For the past month, family breakfasts have dwindled to a rarity; Roman spends all his time in the Imagination, Virgil almost never leaves his room for anything, and whenever Logan makes an appearance, it’s only to grab food and leave, heading back to his work and his planning with barely a backwards glance. Too often, he prepares meals alone and eats them alone, at an empty dining table, the room silent except for the fridge humming in the background. The house is empty and still, and he sits alone with his thoughts and the knowledge that he has failed all of them. That he has no one to blame for this but himself.

If he had been less strict, could this have been avoided? If he had been more open to others’ opinions, open to change? If he had been better at understanding Virgil, less eager to shut out Logan, more perceptive of the issues that Roman tried so hard to hide?

He’s losing his family, has already lost them, inch by creeping inch. And it’s all his fault, and the morning dawns grey and cold, and no matter what he tells himself, he cannot persuade his body to leave his bed.

It’s not that he’s comfortable. He’s not. His mattress feels too lumpy, his blankets too hot, too stifling, and his pillow too soft and yielding. His skin itches, too, itches like it is trying to crawl off his bones, but he can barely make himself move at all, cannot stir from his curled up position. One hand lays near his head, in his line of sight, and one by one, he twitches his fingers, raising them off the mattress before letting them drop again. He tracks the motion, almost fascinated by the way his muscles shift, as much as he is capable of being fascinated by anything right now.

Something about the hand looks odd. It feels odd, too, large and clumsy, almost disconnected from the rest of him. He thinks he should probably be alarmed by this, but he can’t work up the energy.

He needs to get up. He knows this. The hours are slipping away. Soon, it will be too late for breakfast at all.

He lies there and thinks instead. Thinks of all the harm he’s done lately, to Thomas and to the rest of them. Thinks about how Virgil has pulled away from him, how he skipped over Logan’s contributions, somehow convincing him that he doesn’t care about him. How he’s been fighting so hard against the idea that Deceit and Remus could help Thomas at all, how he labelled them as the things that make Thomas bad, only to find out that Janus, at least, has been advocating for Thomas the whole time, and if that is the case, perhaps Remus, too, is not nearly as terrible as he’s always believed.

He thinks about the bitterness on Roman’s face as he sunk out. The disbelief in his voice, the betrayal, the pain. He thinks about the fact that he hasn’t seen Roman since, that Roman has locked the door and refuses to answer, no matter how much he pleads and apologizes.

He lies there, carried by the grey day haze, and thinks that apologies don’t really amount to much, in the end, because apologies don’t fix anything. They don’t reverse time, don’t repair shattered trust or heal deep wounds. At best, they are a bandage, helpful when the injury is small but utterly ineffective otherwise, and these wounds are like vast chasms rending them all apart.

Patton thinks that he might be the bad one. Bad for Thomas. Bad for his family.

So maybe, he should just stay here. Should stay in bed, away from everyone, at least until he figures out what to do, how not to hurt them anymore, but really, wouldn’t they be better off without him as a whole? Without him there to impose his rules, his black-and-white mentality that has done so much damage? He has tried so hard, these past few weeks, to adjust his worldview, to make room for change, but how much does it really matter when he has already broken so much?

Not that he has much of a choice right now. He can’t get up.

So he lies there. Minutes blend into hours blend into seconds, and he has no idea how much time passes. Surely it is afternoon by now. He hopes everyone found something to eat.

His skin itches.

He’ll be fine, eventually. He is well aware of this, well aware that grey days pass, like melting snow revealing blooming spring flowers. Except, not like that, not exactly, because these days, the melting snow seems to reveal nothing but cold, hard ground, frozen through. But it is easier to walk on ground than through snow, easier to smile and laugh and pretend that everything is alright, to tell yourself that everything is alright, when you don’t have to fight just to walk, to keep your balance.

It’s repression. He is well aware of that, well aware of the consequences, of the toll this takes on him. He does listen when he is told about these things, even if it might take longer for the message to sink in, for the rest of him to catch up to what his brain already knows. But he can’t deal with his own problems right now, not until everyone else is alright again, and really, most of the time he thinks he’s got a lot of nerve to have problems at all. He’s the one who hurt them, so what right does he have to be acting this way, like he’s the one with a broken heart?

The grey thickens. Tears blur his vision. He feels like he’s inhaling thick fog, like every breath comes in hard and labored.

He could stop breathing, if he wanted. He’s not human. He doesn’t need to breathe to exist.

It’s tempting. Tempting to just… stop. To discorporate his human form, to spend a few days as an automatic function, to spend a few days without remembering, without worrying, without the guilt that is a constant weight on his shoulders. But it would be a reprieve he’s done nothing to deserve.

His skin itches.

He doesn’t expect the knock at the door. Under any other circumstance, he might jerk in surprise, but his body is held fast as if by molasses. So he lies there, looking at the door through half-lidded eyes, and wonders if he’s supposed to answer. He doesn’t think he can, doesn’t think his mouth will cooperate long enough to form words, and his tongue lies thick and unwieldy behind his teeth. If he doesn’t say anything, will they leave? Assume he’s sleeping, perhaps? Or will they come in and see him like this, miserable and drowning and unable to do something so simple as sit up in bed?

He doesn’t know which option he likes less.

It doesn’t matter, though, because the door cracks open, bright light spilling in from the hallway, and he has to squint at the figure silhouetted there.

“Patton?” someone asks. Janus’ voice.

He doesn’t reply. Can’t. Maybe if he says nothing, he’ll leave it be. He’s not up for a debate, or for wading his way through another moral quandary. Janus seems to like both of those things, and lately, Patton has been more than happy to engage with him, to draw out sharp words and sharper smiles and occasionally, genuine laughs that do something to his stomach. Janus has been the only one willing to spend any time with him at all, these days, and he cherishes those moments, gathering them up like fallen leaves and clutching them to his chest as a reminder that he still has a purpose, that he can still make this right.

But not today. He can’t do this today.

Janus steps into the room, closing the door behind him, and the vague hope he’d mustered deflates, like a sad, punctured balloon. That’s what he feels like right now. A sad, punctured balloon. A sad, itchy, punctured balloon. And Janus is going to see that he feels like a sad, itchy, punctured balloon, and he doesn’t know why, but the idea sends an ache radiating through his chest.

“I could sense you lying to yourself,” Janus says, but his voice is far softer than his words would imply. “Are you alright?”

He blinks, slowly. He supposes that it’s fairly obvious how he feels, fairly obvious that he’s not alright. And even if it weren’t, Janus sniffs out lies like a bloodhound on a trail.

“Feel not great,” he manages. It takes a monumental effort to force the words through his lips, and they hang heavily in the air, thick and distorted. “Sorry.”

Janus crosses the room and kneels on the floor next to the bed, holding steady eye contact. His eyes are mesmerizing, one brown and one gold, both staring with an intensity that Patton wishes he could find it in himself to return. His expression is cool and blank, but a small divot presses between his eyebrows, and if Patton had the willpower, he might try to smooth it away.

He doesn’t, though, so it’s a moot point.

“You don’t need to apologize for the way you feel,” Janus says. “It’s alright to be sad.”

He understands that. He does. They did a whole video about it, once, back when things were so much simpler, the stakes so much lower. Back when he still felt secure in his ability to guide Thomas well, to help him be the good person that he knows he is.

But how can he explain that he doesn’t feel sad? That he feels nothing but grey and empty, disconnected from himself and his body and his emotions, left with nothing but constant ruminations on the past and all the ways he’s messed up. Even his guilt feels distant, like it’s surrounding him but unable to touch, kept at bay by the grey cloud swarming his thoughts and dulling his vision. He wishes he felt sad, wishes he felt guilt, that steady companion, wishes he could feel anything at all. But he is an empty container, filled by nothing but swirling grey smoke, no substance there at all.

And he can’t get up.

Janus lets out a slow breath, brow furrowing even further when he doesn’t respond. He reaches forward and takes his hand where it is lying on the mattress, rubbing his thumb across his knuckles in a soothing, repetitive pattern. It would feel nicer if he took off his gloves, if he allowed skin to skin contact, but Patton won’t push for that, wouldn’t even if he had the strength to make the words leave his mouth.

He’s not sure what he did to deserve any comfort at all. Especially not from Janus, who perhaps has the most right out of anybody to hate him, after all the years he spent pushing him to the side and calling him evil, who he still hasn’t properly apologized to, not really.

Perhaps he’s here to see if he can get him out of bed. Breakfast has long since passed, but perhaps there’s still time for a late lunch, if he could muster up the motivation to prepare it. And Janus does represent Thomas’ self-preservation, so it would make sense for him to want to make sure that all of the sides are doing their jobs.

But for a long time, Janus says nothing at all. Just holds his hand, lightly traces patterns into his skin.

“Is there anything that I could do to help?” he asks eventually, voice low and earnest. It is almost enough to banish the grey, if only for a moment, because it has been so long since any of the others trusted him enough for this question, trusted him enough to help him or to ask him for help, and he wants to say yes, wants to ask him to spend time with him, to watch a movie, maybe, or cat videos on the internet, because nobody’s done that with him in weeks, and he’s so, so lonely.

But then he remembers why he’s lonely, why they’re avoiding him, and the grey filters back in. Because it’s his fault, and if he cannot face the consequences of his actions, then what good is he as Morality?

So he makes a noise, one that comes out halfway between a grunt and a whine, and hopes that’s good enough to appease Janus’ question, to make him feel that he’s done his duty.

Janus frowns at him, and his hand stills. Patton expects him to pull away, but instead, his grip tightens slightly, and he tugs Patton’s hand toward him, inspecting it. Patton watches, vaguely confused, as his frown deepens, and he pushes back the sleeve of his pajama shirt to look at his forearm.

“Patton,” he starts slowly, “are you aware of…” He trails off, gesturing, and Patton stares at him, trying to read his meaning in the lines of his face. It’s something he’s concerned about, clearly, which makes Patton think he should be concerned too; maybe even alarmed, seeing as the point of contention seems to have something to do with his arm. He can’t work up anything more than a mild curiosity, but that is enough to get him to angle his head to look at what Janus is referring to.

At first, he doesn’t notice anything wrong. He feels an odd dissociation from the entire limb, as if what he’s seeing isn’t attached to his body, much less something that should concern him. And the more he stares, the more unreal it appears. But eventually, his gaze drifts to what Janus likely believes to be the issue: his skin is covered in mottled patches of green, each blemish appearing stretched and dry and flaky. They itch, too, itch just like his entire body has been itching, and if these blotches are the cause, his entire body must be covered in them. As if in response to his consideration, the itching, scratching sensation increases, almost enough to motivate him into movement.

His body is so heavy, though, and his mind so sluggish. This seems like something he should care about, something that should scare him, and the fear is there, he thinks. But it’s lurking beyond the grey fog, and it can’t touch him.

“What is it?” he murmurs, or at least tries. It comes out sounding more like, “Whazzit?” but it’s intelligible, at least.

Janus runs a finger down his arm, a feather-light touch that sends shivers down his spine.

“Are you sure you want to know?” he asks.

Patton stares. What is he supposed to say to that? He doesn’t much care to know about anything right now; all he wants in this moment is to bury himself in the covers until this horrible emptiness goes away.

Maybe it will be gone by dinner. Maybe he could make dinner. Make dinner for people who aren’t going to eat it. Stick it in tupperware in the fridge and let it go bad because nobody but him is eating it.

“Itches,” he says, his eyes slipping closed. “Don’t feel good.”

As he says it, the grey slides away a bit, as if it were waiting for such an admission, and the overwhelming influx of sensation catches him off guard. It’s more than just an itchiness; it’s a tightness, too, like his skin is a bit too small for him, and he is struck by a need to squirm and scratch. Something is wrong, he realizes, and the fear that is creeping into the corners of his mind is worse than the grey emptiness, because even though his brain has begun to process the world again, his limbs still feel too heavy to move, his chest too constricted to bring in enough air.

He whimpers. Janus sucks in a breath, and he opens his eyes again to see that he’s changed position, has shifted to sitting on the edge of the bed rather than kneeling on the floor, and is leaning over him, arms hovering above his body but not touching.

“I’m going to help you sit up,” Janus says, “unless you have any objections.”

Patton does not, in fact, have any objections. The grey is receding far faster than it came on, leaving him at the mercy of all the fear and sadness and guilt that he’s been contemplating, and with each passing second, his panic grows, because his body is not cooperating with him in the slightest and something is wrong.

Janus gently pulls him upright, and he slumps forward, all of his weight crashing onto Janus’ chest. Janus appears to take this in stride, wrapping his arms around him in a hug that Patton would very much enjoy if he could return it, but his arms refuse to listen to him, hanging by his sides like limp, bloated noodles.

“You don’t currently feel like you have an outlet for your emotional distress,” Janus says starkly, bluntly. “You’ve been repressing it in an effort to focus on fixing your relationships with the others, but the fact that that is going nowhere only worsens your state of mind.” He pauses. “The last time you experienced an instance of  severe emotional distress, you turned into a giant frog. It is… possible that after that display, Thomas now associates you with… amphibian-like traits, shall we say, to a degree, just as he associates me with snakes.”

His breath catches, and the memory comes flooding back in full force. The terror, the awful sensation as his body transformed, as his mind worked at a fever-pitch, desperate and confused until he didn’t even know what he was saying anymore, until he resorted to such terrible tactics to try to work everything out, until he lashed out in anger and pain and hurt Thomas--

He can’t hurt Thomas. He can’t. He can’t do this again. He won’t let himself do this again.

The itching increases, like millions of tiny needles being jammed into his skin over and over again. He needs to calm down, he knows, because if he’s going to stop this he has to be calm, but the grey has abandoned him to his emotional turmoil, and he tries desperately to press it all down, because he knows that repression is bad but it has to be better than this, better than turning into a monster again--

“I think some healthy, open-ended discussion would do you some good,” Janus continues. “So, not that I care at all, but if you wanted, we could-- Patton? Patton, you need to calm down.”

He’s trying. He’s trying, but he can’t, and it’s too late, because he can already feel it happening, can feel his body begin to twist and warp and change no matter how hard he tries to stop it, no matter how hard he tries to ground himself, to keep himself human. And Janus is saying something, something loud and urgent, but his voice rings and echoes and Patton can’t understand a word of it.

So he closes his eyes and stops fighting it. There is a single, gut-wrenching lurch, and his hands hit the bedspread as he fumbles for balance, and then everything is silent. He should open his eyes, should face the music, but he doesn’t want to see Janus’ expression, whether it be anger or fear or disgust or scorn. And he doesn’t want to see the mess he’s surely made of his room, the destruction, like last time, doesn’t want to open his eyes and find that he’s looming over everything else, that he’s cracked his ceiling and crushed his bed.

“Oh,” Janus says. His voice is still oddly echoey, and Patton can’t interpret his tone at all. “Oh. Well. Ah, I totally expected this. Definitely. Um. Oh, gosh.”

Is he flustered? Surely, that can’t be right. He’s pretty sure that Janus doesn’t do flustered. But he has to know, now, has to look, so he opens his eyes.

He expects to be looking down. Instead, he finds himself looking up. It is Janus that towers over him, rather than the other way around, Janus that towers over him with unmitigated shock written on his face. Patton blinks, just to be sure that he isn’t seeing things, and as he does, his brain helpfully provides him with a million other things that are wrong with this picture; the ceiling, for instance, is miles above him, and his bed is as vast as an ocean.

He tries to speak, tries to ask what’s going on, but all that emerges from his mouth is a shrill squeak. He attempts to stand, then, or at least sit up, but every effort sends him sprawling on all fours, his limbs clunky and uncoordinated and unfamiliar. His panic mounts as he finds himself unable to do much of anything at all, and he flails, trying to attain some amount of control.

“Oh gosh, okay,” Janus says, and leans down. “I know this is scary, but you’re fine, I swear. Actually, honestly swear. You’re going to be absolutely fine.”

Everything clicks then, and Patton goes still, staring at his own limb stretched out in front of him, long and thin and green and four-toed. He’s a frog, he realizes. A tiny frog. His whole body feels so odd, so different, out of place and completely foreign, and it’s because he’s a frog. Not a weird, giant, humanoid frog monster, but an actual frog.

He focuses back on Janus and squeaks again. For some reason, Janus’ right cheek reddens.

“Fuck,” he mutters, glancing away, and Patton would chide his use of language, but he’s pretty sure by now that he can’t talk. “Okay, um, you’re not cute at all, so don’t even ask. But this is definitely not normal, and it will definitely last for a very long time. Accidental transformations always do.” He frowns, tilting his head slightly before shaking it. “You know what I mean. Which is to say that I myself am occasionally a snake, so I know what I’m talking about.”

He blinks. He didn’t know that Janus could actually transform into a snake, though now that he reflects on it, he supposes that there’s no reason why not. It makes him wonder just how much more he doesn’t know about him. How much he never bothered to learn.

Okay, so. He’s a frog now. A small, squeaky frog. So, this is a lot better than he thought it would be. And Janus is implying that this will wear off eventually, so he can just… stay here, right? Stay in bed, not bother anybody else with this? Wait until he changes back? Bit by bit, the fear drains out of him, leaving him exhausted. And with the fear gone, the adrenaline dissipating, the grey creeps back in. Not as bad as it was before. But enough so that remaining in bed for at least the next few hours sounds very, very appealing.

He looks up at Janus, his eyelids drooping, and tries to convey that he can leave now, that he’ll be fine with just… sitting here for a bit, on his covers, until everything goes back to normal. However long that takes. However that’s supposed to happen. He should probably be more worried about how to reverse this, but now that the terror of the moment is over, he finds himself willing enough to allow things to happen as they happen. He’s not sure he could marshal the energy to force himself to change back even if he knew exactly how.

“Wait here a moment,” Janus says suddenly. “I’ll be right back.” He stands and sinks out directly, and Patton watches him go, vague disappointment filtering though his mind. Sure, he didn’t want Janus to think that he is obligated to stay with him, to deal with the mess that he is, but some part of him had hoped that he would stick around anyway. The grey seems to lift, a little bit, with someone else by his side, seems to shy away from the warm presence of another person’s voice.

Minutes pass. Or perhaps it’s hours. He has long since given up keeping track of time, and in the middle of a bed that is far, far too large, in a body that is entirely familiar to him, Patton feels himself begin to drift.

But then, Janus comes back, rising up in the middle of his room, a laptop tucked under his arm, several blankets thrown over it. Patton rouses himself with some effort, staring as Janus approaches, gently placing the laptop and blankets on the bed.

“I thought we could watch a movie, if that’s alright,” Janus says, and pulls a DVD case apparently out of nowhere, holding it up for inspection. It’s The Aristocats, the title written in swirling golden letters, and Patton can’t help but let out a croak in surprise. Janus shrugs, glancing away.

“I figured you would like this one,” he says. “I mean. Disney and cats. So.”

The right side of his face once again flushes a bright, cherry red, and even like this, even in this fugue-like state, Patton is absolutely touched. Not only that Janus cares enough to remember what he likes, but also that he wants to spend time with him? That he would drop any other plan he might have had to watch a movie with him, presumably to help him feel better?

He didn’t know that frogs could cry. But tears well up in his eyes, and he blinks them away.

“Just an idea,” Janus says, his eyes going wide. “We don’t have to. We could pick another movie! It would be such a problem to pick something else!”

No!

Patton wants to scream, wants to shout, because he’s misinterpreting his tears, because in this moment, Patton barely has the strength to want anything at all, and yet there is nothing more that he wants than to watch this movie with Janus. But he can’t speak, can’t make his vocal cords produce anything more than squeaks and croaks, so he pushes past the grey to do the only thing he can think might work.

These limbs are unfamiliar to him. But he knows a few things about frogs, knows how far they can jump. So jump he does, surprising himself with the power in his own back legs, and launches himself at Janus, who flinches, stumbling back, but too late to prevent Patton from sticking his landing, right on his cheek.

“Oh,” he says, stammering. Patton is certain that he has heard Janus stutter more today than in all the years he’s known him. “Um. What?”

Patton takes a moment to breathe, and to comprehend the fact that his feet are literally sticking to Janus’ skin. He adjusts himself, settles in more firmly, and then lets out a loud, intentional croak.

It’s all he can do. He just has to hope that Janus understands, understands that he doesn’t want him to leave, that he doesn’t want him to change a single thing.

“Oh,” Janus says again. He takes great care not to move his mouth much, takes great care not to dislodge Patton, and it would be enough to coax a smile out of him, if frogs could smile. “Are you… is this alright, then?”

He croaks again, and the muscles in Janus’ cheek twitch as he resists a smile.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll get it set up, then, shall I?”

And he does, popping the movie into the laptop’s disc tray and wrapping himself in soft blankets as he settles against the headboard. He arranges the blanket in an odd way, creating a series of folds on his shoulder, and it is not until he gestures at it that Patton realizes that it is meant for him, that Janus purposefully made a place for him to sit. He jumps down, almost falling before he steadies himself, barely preventing his limbs from tangling with each other, and snuggles into the soft fabric, reveling in the way it brushes against his skin.

The grey is still present, still pervasive, filling him with an emptiness, with a void. But the void itself has filled a bit, filled with warmth, with the knowledge that Janus is doing this for him, even if he doesn’t quite understand why.

The movie begins to play. He turns his attention to the screen, and even though his mind wanders, slips away at some points, he does feel a little bit better, a little more present, a little less like he wants to stagnate in his room forever.

Janus is quiet throughout the first stretch of the movie, though Patton can sense him shooting him glances every now and again. But as Duchess meets O’Malley for the first time, he speaks up, face forward, eyes fixed on the screen.

“The first time I transformed was confusing,” he murmurs, as if to himself, though surely, he hasn’t forgotten that Patton is there, that Patton can hear him. “Thomas was so young, and I didn’t know what was happening. The scales had been appearing for a while, but I never thought that I could change so completely. It was a moment of emotion, frustration at not being heard, when Thomas got in trouble that a white lie easily could have prevented. One minute I was having a meltdown in my room, and the next I was a snake.” He chuckles a bit, as though the memory is fond, though it doesn’t sound that way.

How much distress was he in, Patton wonders? How confused was he, how scared, his body warping and changing and no one at all there to help him?

“This is all to say that I’ve since learned to control it. I’d demonstrate, but I hardly think that turning into a snake while you are a very small frog would put your mind at ease.” Janus sighs, fiddling with the bottom of his capelet. “But you can learn to control it, too, provided that these traits stick.”

Patton wishes he could say something, anything at all. But his voice is gone, twisted so that small sounds are the only thing he can produce, so he stays quiet, listening to Janus talk. In a way, it’s a blessing, the inability to respond. None of the impetus of the conversation is put on him, so he feels no pressure to muster up replies that would surely be lackluster, given his emotional state, or lack thereof.

“But that’s not really the point right now, is it?” Janus says softly. “The more pressing concern is why you transformed this time. You must have been on the verge of it for hours, subconsciously holding yourself back from it.”

He shifts. He’d woken up itchy and uncomfortable, his mind buried in the grey and unable to do anything about it, unable to move at all, much less rouse himself into action. He hopes that this won’t happen every time he has a grey day. He can’t afford to lose time like this. There’s too much to do, and though grey days are bad enough on their own, he can force himself to work through them, sometimes, when the haze isn’t too strong. He can’t do that if he’s always turning into a frog when he gets overwhelmed.

“I do hope you know that your feelings are just as valid as anyone else’s,” Janus says, and Patton stiffens. “To be sure, you messed up, and the others have every right to be upset, but I challenge you to find any one of us that hasn’t accidentally screwed everyone else over at some point.” He pauses. “Or even on purpose. Which you are assuredly not guilty of.”

The words buzz in his head, vibrating in the fog, and Patton’s not entirely sure that he understands what Janus is saying, not entirely sure that he has the energy to try. What do intentions matter? Messing up is messing up, and even if he didn’t mean to, he’s hurt everyone in the mindscape. If it wasn’t anything to be upset about, he wouldn’t be upset, would he?

“And of course, it’s not like they’re to blame for this at all,” Janus continues. “It’s not like they’re being immature, hiding away in their rooms and refusing to confront their problems.” He shakes his head. “Patton, you have to understand that it is not your job to ensure their emotional competence. All you can do is try your best, and if they refuse to meet you halfway, that’s on them, not you. You shouldn’t blame yourself when you’re obviously doing everything you can to own up to and fix your mistakes.”

Patton croaks, the denial ripped from his throat. He’s never seen it that way, didn’t think that he could see it that way, but Janus’ voice is streaking the grey through with yellow and gold, forcing him to confront the root of the problem in a way that he never has before.

“There is no such thing as a perfect person,” Janus says. “You’ve learned that by now, learned that Thomas himself is nowhere near flawless. But that applies to you as well. You’re allowed to make mistakes, to learn and grow from them. No one should expect you to be right one hundred percent of the time, and that includes both yourself and them.”

Once again, his eyes well up with tears, and this time, they drip down, splattering onto the blankets.

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Janus murmurs, voice entirely too knowing, entirely too understanding, and Patton doesn't know that he can handle the depth of this empathy. “You deserve to have the support that you’ve been trying so hard to provide.”

He falls silent, then, the movie still playing but long since forgotten, and Patton has to take a moment to absorb what has just been said.

He’s not too hard on himself. He can’t be. Everything he’s said and thought these past few weeks has been true, completely and utterly; it was his mistakes that drove the others away from him, and it is his responsibility to correct those mistakes. And if the others don’t want to see him, don’t want to talk to him, then that’s fine. It’s their right, and he doesn’t blame them at all, can’t possibly blame them when most of him believes that they’re right to do so, right to avoid him, because after everything, he can’t possibly deserve--

Oh.

But Janus says he does deserve it. That he deserves help, that he deserves support. Who, then, is right?

“Think about it this way,” Janus says, as if sensing his struggle. “If your positions were reversed, if, say, Virgil had messed up and everyone was avoiding him, would you think that’s what he deserved?”

Well, of course not. Everyone deserves love and support, even when they make mistakes, because--

Oh.

The realization comes crashing down with the force of the loudest thunderclap, and something deep within him twists, wrenches at his heart and at his stomach, and all the breath is knocked out of him as he suddenly finds himself falling forward, landing hard on Janus’ lap, arms and legs achy and all too human. Janus yanks his arms out from under the blankets to catch him, his lips parted in surprise.

“But I hurt them,” Patton says, the words ripped from him as if by force, desperate, like the world might just crumble into pieces if he doesn’t get an answer. “I hurt all of them, so much.”

“And their hurt is valid,” Janus says. “Each one of them is entitled to their anger and their pain. But Patton, so are you.”

He bursts into tears at that, the dam breaking at last, and he lurches forward, flinging his arms around Janus’ neck and burying his face into his shoulder where the blankets have slipped away. Janus makes a startled noise, and then brings his arms up to embrace him, holding him tight and close as he runs the gamut of all the emotions he has been pushing back.

“You’re loved,” Janus says. “They all love you, even though it may seem otherwise right now. They love you, and they’ll be ready to show it again, in time.” He pauses, and his next sentence carries a strange weight, a slightly different tone, a reticence and a rushed eagerness all at once. “And I love you, Patton. Please don’t forget that.”

He sniffles. “Even though I’m getting snot all over you?” he asks into his shirt, and Janus laughs, startled.

“Even so,” he answers. “It’s snot an issue.”

Patton gasps, thrilled despite himself. He still can’t bring himself to display the reaction he would normally have, but he manages a weak smile. “Pun,” he says, voice still muffled by fabric.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Janus says. “I would never in my life crack a pun. Lies and slander.”

Patton pulls back a bit, enough to see his face, and is shocked to find that he is crying too, though he looks much more dignified than Patton is certain he does. For a moment, his heart fills with an overflowing, overpowering love, and before he can think better of it, he leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. Janus’ breath hitches, but Patton doesn’t back down, staring him straight in the eyes.

“I love you too,” he says, and in the moment, doesn’t know exactly how he means it. Just that it’s true, and right now, that is enough. “Thank you.”

He pours all of the sincerity, all of the emotion that he is capable of right now into the words. He needs Janus to understand how much it means that he is here, with him, willing to help him and to hold him.

Janus stares at him with something like affection and something like awe.

“You don’t need to thank me,” he says. “Not for this. Never for this.”

And Patton sighs, shifting position until he is leaning against Janus’ chest, tucking his head under his chin and turning his head so that he can see the movie. It’s almost over by now, Edgar receiving his just desserts.

“I still don’t feel great,” he murmurs, because he doesn’t. Better, now that he’s let his emotions out, now that he is human, now that he has someone with him, holding him, caring about him, loving him, but the grey still hovers around him, still lands heavily on his chest and in his head. If human contact were enough to solve it all completely, that would be a wonderful thing, but the greyness isn’t so simple, isn’t so easily banished. He doubts he’ll be able to gather the energy to make dinner tonight. He may not even feel better by tomorrow morning.

But Janus is with him, supporting without judgement, and that makes all the difference.

“That’s alright,” Janus says, kissing the top of his head. “You don’t need to be. Would you like to watch another movie? And by that I mean actually watch, not leave it on in the background as we discuss deep, abiding emotional issues.”

He manages a shaky laugh at that. “I’d like that,” he whispers. His voice emerges hoarse and thick, and it takes too much effort to get the words out. “Could we do Tangled?”

“A terrible choice,” Janus says, and summons the DVD with a wave of his hand, reaching around Patton to place the disc in the laptop. The title screen begins to play, and he adjusts the blankets so that they are both fully covered, and Patton curls into his side as the narration starts.

He still feels bad, and he knows he has so much more to work through. But the deep, aching loneliness has abated somewhat, and he knows that the greyness will fade away too, eventually. Until then, he has Janus here, with him, wrapped up in soft blankets, a comfort movie playing for both of them, and confessions dancing in the air between them, spoken but not quite elaborated on, not yet. And that’s alright, because there’s time, because the sun always shines brightest after the rain has passed.

He sighs, snuggles in closer, and allows himself to simply be.

Writing Taglist: @just-perhaps @the-real-comically-insane @jerrysicle-tree @glitchybina @psodtqueer

[mew-oconnor]

S with JZX & NHS

S/19: Walking to their home through a storm. Also posted on AO3.

Set during the Cloud Recesses lectures. Contains a non-graphic appearance by Nie Huaisang’s library of smutty literature.

Nie Huaisang curses under his breath as he hurries down the path, hunching his shoulders to protect his precious books from the pounding rain. Gusu summers are wet enough that the storm shouldn’t have caught him off guard, but the morning had just been so clear and warm that he’d gotten complacent, heading out to the back hill to do some private reading on the sunwarmed rocks and maybe spot a few birds. The sky had given him less than five minutes’ warning between the first clouds rolling in and the rain pouring down, which with Cloud Recesses’ meandering paths and spread out buildings, wasn’t anywhere near enough time to get back to shelter.

In Qinghe, this wouldn’t be a problem, he thinks sourly as water runs down the back of his neck, sneaking through his hair and under his robes. The Unclean Realm may sprawl, but it sprawls like a hulking beast, haunches tucked under itself, ready to spring. The largest empty spaces are the training grounds and the gardens by the main family’s quarters, and those are all bordered by roofed walkways, to shelter under when the winter snow is gusting.

There’s a pavilion coming up on his left, if he remembers correctly; maybe he can take shelter  there until the worst of the storm passes. He pushes himself into a sprint, gasping for breath as he hurtles down the path and rounds the corner—

There’s a person in the way.

Nie Huaisang wheezes as the collision knocks the wind out of him and throws him down onto the path, losing his grip on one of the books. The other person lands on top of it, but they scramble to their feet before Nie Huaisang can even get his breath back, hauling him up and dragging him bodily into the pavilion.

“Watch where you’re headed!” Jin Zixuan snaps, dumping him on one of the stone benches. There’s smudges of mud flecked across the front of his pale robes, the Sparks Amid Snow on his left shoulder stained with spots of dark brown, and the hand that isn’t locked around Nie Huaisang’s elbow is clutching the dropped book, bent open to an illustration halfway through.

“Sorry!” Nie Huaisang finally manages to catch his breath, leaning against the small table and setting down the two books that have survived his rainy mishap. “Sorry, ah, sorry, Jin-xiong, I didn’t see you there, but—you didn’t seem to see me either, right?” He lets out a nervous laugh.

Jin Zixuan huffs and rolls his eyes. “Careless,” he mutters, and then, “...are you alright? That was a rough landing.”

Nie Huaisang takes a moment to assess his body. A line of bruises is forming along the outside of his right leg, from knee to hip, and his elbow feels like he’s skinned it, but it’s nothing serious; around anyone else, he’d make a big fuss to get pampered, but there’s greater tragedies to bemoan right now. “I’m fine, but...”

He stares mournfully at his now-ruined book, crumpled and dripping in Jin Zixuan’s hand. It’s a new one, a cutsleeve volume devoted to a sordid tale of bondage and overstimulation, rare and exotic—such a shame that the pages are now likely soaked and the ink running. Jin Zixuan hasn’t seemed to realize he’s holding it yet.

Now that’s a thought; Nie Huaisang pulls out his fan to hide a smile. The sight of the haughty young master of Koi Tower holding a book of cutsleeve pornography, the clear illustrations of male pleasure spread out behind his fingers, is an amusing (and quite attractive) one, but he would like to find out if any part of the book is salvageable. “Ah... Jin-xiong... if you wouldn’t mind, could I have my book back?”

Jin Zixuan glances down at the volume—and then drops it like he’s been burned.

Nie Huaisang can’t help it; he bursts into laughter, cackling at the way Jin Zixuan stumbles back, eyes wide in shock, cheeks flushing bright red. “Why are you always carrying such things around in public?” the other boy hisses, glancing down at the offending literature once and then very determinedly looking everywhere but.

The book has, somehow, landed face up, open to the same page. If the illustrations have been damaged, then Nie Huaisang can’t tell from this distance; they’re just as easily discernable as they had been before the unfortunate rainstorm.

“Is this subject matter not to Jin-gongzi’s tastes?” he grins, reaching for his other books. “Don’t worry! This humble servant has a wide assortment of literature to satisfy all manner of desires and interests! With your arrangement over, it’s only natural to indulge your curiosity—”

He’s not expecting the hands that slam down on top of his own, pinning them (and his books) to the table. “You’re. In. Public!” the other boy bites out, his face less than three hands’ widths from Nie Huaisang’s own, and the panic brewing in his eyes makes Nie Huaisang cut his teasing short.

In the split second he has to choose a course of action, he makes note of three things. The first is that all of Jin Zixuan’s objections so far have not centered around the books themselves, but rather looking at then where other people could see. The second is that this is maybe the first time in five months of lectures that he’s seen Jin Zixuan without an entourage.

The third is that he quite likes the sensation of Jin Zixuan’s hands on his own.

“What if...” he says as the silence starts to stretch out for a litte too long, making the carefully calculated move to bite his lip a little when he pauses. It’s bait for a reaction, subtle enough to play off if it’s not appreciated, but judging by the way Jin Zixuan’s eyes flick downward, it’s working well enough. Very interesting. “Hypothetically speaking, of course, pure speculation, nothing more, but... what if we weren’t in public?”

“We?” Jin Zixuan blinks, clearly caught off guard by the implied invitation, but still letting it coax him away from his fears. To his credit, he manages to gather himself enough soldier on. “We’re still—anyone could see—”

“Yes, but what if we weren’t?” Nie Huaisang leans forward, up, peering coyly out from under his eyelashes as he brings them even closer together. His thigh protests lightly, but it’s it worth it for the way Jin Zixuan’s elegant throat works as the other boy swallows, thrown off by his proximity. “I wouldn’t tell. No one would know.”

He isn’t just talking about the books anymore.

Jin Zixuan’s grip has gone slack; Nie Huaisang easily slips one of his hands out from under the other boy’s and sets it on top—lightly, just a little pressure, a little warmth—enough to be thought-provoking. “Well?” he prompts.

Jin Zixuan glances around, making sure they’re still alone, and then lets go and takes a step back. He hesitates briefly as his boot brushes against the book still open on the floor, before bending to pick it up, carefully close it, and set it back on the table, all without looking. “You’re... wet,” he says slowly, as if he’s waiting for someone to yell at him for saying the wrong words, “and cold, and... with your low cultivation, you could easily get sick, so... it’s only right and proper for me to walk you back to your room. To make sure you get there safe. And dry. And without any more... books damaged. Right?”

Nie Huaisang beams and doesn’t even reach for his fan to hide it; he can give Jin Zixuan this much, as a reward. “That sounds perfect, Jin-xiong! Thank you, you’re so good!”

Jin Zixuan blushes again (very prettily, in Nie Huaisang’s opinion) and then steps out into the rain again, to where an umbrella has been lying discarded this whole time, sitting upside down at the spot where they’d collided. He picks it up and hurries back to the pavilion, brushing a little mud off the umbrella’s crown, and Nie Huaisang has the abrupt realization that the reason it had been left sitting there during their whole conversation is because Jin Zixuan had chosen to grab him and his book instead.

Despite the wind and his waterlogged robes, that thought makes him feel rather warm.

“Are you gonna get up, or is that beyond your level of cultivation too?” Jin Zixuan says, and then immediately grimaces, clearly regretting his words.

It’ll take a lot more to offend Nie Huaisang than that; he grins and stands, stowing his fan in his robes and gathering up his books. “How can I resist, when you ask so nicely?” he teases, just to watch Jin Zixuan blush again and look away hastily as he joins him.

The umbrella isn’t big enough for both of them, but as long as Nie Huaisang’s books are sheltered under it, he doesn’t really care. He’s already too soaked for it to make much of a difference, and his cultivation isn’t actually low enough for a little water and a stiff breeze to hurt him (no matter how often he may pretend otherwise). Still, it’s a stroke to his ego, the way Jin Zixuan lets him cling to his elbow and centers the umbrella over him, leaving one of his own arms unprotected, the mud-stained Sparks Amid Snow exposed to the pouring rain.

They don’t meet anyone on the walk, which is probably for the best, despite the part of Nie Huaisang that wants to show off just how much progress he has made on this new conquest (in just ten minutes, too!). In no time at all, they’re back to the covered walkways of Cloud Recesses’ most frequented areas, but even though the umbrella is no longer providing an excuse for closeness, Jin Zixuan doesn’t shake Nie Huaisang off, and Nie Huaisang doesn’t let go himself until they reach his rooms.

He opens the door and then pauses halfway through, pulling out his fan and tapping it to his chin as if he’d just had an idea. “Oh! It would be discourteous of me to not offer refreshments after you so kindly sheltered and guarded me on my perilous journey. Perhaps you could join me for some tea?”

Jin Zixuan doesn’t respond right away, frozen just outside, a variety of emotions flickering across his face. They’re mostly too fast for Nie Huaisang to read, but he manages to pick out a few—apprehension, nerves, and... something else, something deep-seeded, a fear he can barely see—

Oh.

Right.

This is a Jin he’s talking to. Someone who’s grown up in Koi Tower. Someone who has to deal with Jin Guangshan as a father.

“Hey,” he says, setting his fan down on the small shelf by the door, “you can say no at any time, alright? And so can I, to anything. Nothing’s gonna happen unless we both agree to it.”

Jin Zixuan slumps a little, tension bleeding out of his shoulders. “Yeah, okay,” he sighs, and steps inside.

Nie Huaisang smiles, and shuts the door behind him.

[monchikyun]

XIII. give you everything

Connor can’t help but laugh when a palm lands on his cheek ever so softly. 

“You’re aware that I can’t feel physical pain, right?” 

“Shut up,” Gavin pretends that he’s bothered by that rhetorical question, but the hint of a smile trying to force its way in doesn’t go undetected. Ever since the morning, his face has been graced by the shade of red Connor can’t get enough of, which is the main reason for his good mood.  

Somehow they ended up playing rock-scissors-paper and Gavin insisted that the loser should receive some form of punishment, “to spice it up a little”. He thinks that the man just wants to test how advanced his programming is, to find out whether he’s even capable of losing. The truth is he could accurately estimate Gavin’s move if he concentrated enough, but then this would be no fun now, would it. 

Of course, he had to draw paper in their first round and the fact that Gavin immediately went for scissors was all but unexpected. The man himself can be sharp like a knife when you touch the wrong side of him. 

Connor has a hard time admitting to himself that he lost on purpose because he can’t quite figure out why. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Gavin mumbles and invites him for a rematch. 

He supposes there are better ways to spend their free time, but since no one is willing to talk about what is going on between them, childish games count as the next best thing. 

And Connor really enjoys the limbo they trapped themselves in. It’s just warm enough without the possibility of leaving burns. Luke-warm, if he’s being honest with himself. A bit bland. Still, he could live with that. He can ignore the longing in Gavin’s eyes if it keeps them safe like this. 

“Guess I win this time.” Gavin’s fist uncurls in disappointment, preventing Connor from enveloping it in his ‘paper’. 

“You sure you didn’t cheat with your robo mind-reading power?” There is nothing but playfulness seeping from his voice, still, Connor can’t believe he even has to ask. 

“You really do think highly of me, don’t you?”

“So that would be a ‘no’.” He squeezes his eyes shut and winces in anticipation. 

“I’ll be gentle, I promise.” 

And he is, imitating the slap he got just a couple of minutes ago. 

“Seriously? Well, that was kinda underwhelming.” He sounds almost dissatisfied. Connor never considered Gavin was into that kind of stuff but one never knows what the other person might be hiding. Not that he minds, it’s just a piece of information he needs to get used to. 

“So was yours.” He smirks at him, creating a petulant frown on his friend’s face. 

“Good point.” At least he doesn’t initiate a fight. It would be a shame if something ruined their so-far peaceful day. 

The snow has finally stopped falling, letting a ray of sunshine peek through the thick clouds. He would suggest taking a walk if Gavin hasn’t coughed three times in the past two hours. Connor has been monitoring his vitals, not noticing any significant change to his health, but that might have been only thanks to their current sufficiently heated location. At least according to his scans it is so, because the detective’s hands rub his arms up and down in an attempt to get rid of the cold only he can feel. 

“If only you had a perfectly comfortable sweater to wear.., what a pity,” Connor shakes his head in theatrical sorrow. 

“Oh, wait.” 

The darts coming from Gavin prick his skin without having to look at him at all. Now, this is fun. 

“You do!.” 

The man seems offended by his toothy grin, which makes it grow even wider. 

“For phck’s sake, Connor. I told you I’ll wear that over my dead body.” 

“Guess I’ll have to kill you then.” 

He means it as a stupid joke, but the air turns serious as soon as his mouth lets out those words. 

“Sorry.” 

He shouldn’t be the one letting himself be carried away by the moment, no matter how carefree it might have been. 

But Gavin doesn’t react to his feeble apology, busy making himself smaller to contain some of his bodily heat. His temperature is still within the norm, but that doesn’t tell him anything about what might happen in the next several hours. Days. 

He repeats his actions from the night before, placing his blanket around the man’s shoulder, letting his hands linger a little longer than they should. 

They spend the rest of the day wasting their time by playing all the games from Gavin’s childhood that Connor would never have the opportunity to experience otherwise. It’s a nice gesture, if that indeed is the intention behind it. Could be that this is the detective’s idea of dealing with boredom. And since they’ve decided to forget all about their work while they’re here, there weren’t many options left if they wanted to avoid all communication that could direct them to the forsaken grounds, also known as a personal dialogue. 

Connor almost had to force-feed Gavin the lunch he ordered for him, fighting against his endless excuses of not being hungry. He needs the strength if his condition is to worsen, and he’d make sure he gets it, even if it ended up in him having to shove a spoon inside his human mouth and nearly choking him to death. The man does sometimes act like a misbehaving toddler, but he figures that’s just a part of his charm. Besides, he likes taking care of him, it makes him fulfilled, for more reasons than one. It reminds him that he’s capable of so much more than just police work. 

It’s late in the afternoon now, the sky has gone dark and their carefully structured conversation quieted down into a pleasant silence. The only light source in their room is provided by the muted television which no one pays any attention to. 

Gavin is sitting on the ground, backed propped by the side of his bed. He’s still snuggled in Connor’s blanket, cradling a cup of tea the android has made for him. 

He has packed plenty of supplies with him, thinking they might come in handy. It’s better to be over-prepared than the opposite, an opinion that this trip has confirmed to him. 

Connor has just got off the phone with Tina, assuring himself that Sumo is being adequately spoiled. He really misses that oversized lump of fur, but the dog is doing just fine without him, so he has nothing to complain about.  

Checking up on Gavin he notices his temperature has risen above what’s deemed healthy. He sits next to him and retracts the skin on his hand, pressing it on the man’s forehead to extract the precise reading, just to be certain.  

“Yeah, I know,” Gavin says, clearly defeated. He shifts a bit and looks at him like he’s seeing the most beautiful being in the world, setting the now half-empty cup aside. 

“C’me here.” 

Maybe it’s the medicine he took twenty minutes ago finally kicking in, making his brain all mushy and body too clingy, but Gavin magically pulls him in his lap and holds him like he’s the last of his kind. He rests his head on the android’s chest, and Connor is too weak to deny him this show of vulnerability. Even if it’s likely drug-induced. They stay like this for a while, basking in each other’s touch, breathing in the tender atmosphere. Their hands have found each other too, fitting together like opposite poles. His spare one is threading through Gavin’s hair, messing it up on purpose. Connor loves seeing it like that, it feels intimate to him. A secret side of the man reserved only for those who are closest to him. It’s nice. Too nice. 

The moment is so overwhelmingly light it doesn’t even occur to him how dangerous his actions are. How those small acts can wedge a rift between them if he isn’t careful enough. 

But it’s too late to back out because Gavin kisses his chest, the place whereunder his mechanical heart beats loudly. And it doesn’t stop there. He traces those kisses up along his collar bone, his jaw, his neck, eliciting a content hum from him in the process. When he comes close to his lips, the man hesitates for a second that seems like an eternity, but ultimately decides to give in. 

And that where Connor draws the line. Snapping out of his trance, he quickly shoves his hand in front of his mouth to prevent Gavin from doing something he won’t be able to take back. 

“I’m sorry,” comes the muffled expression of regret. He truly loathes having to say that phrase so often because he apparently can’t do a single thing right in his life. 

He climbs off Gavin, dropping his body right next to him instead. 

“Why,” the man breathes softly. 

“I- I can’t. I can’t give you everything you want, Gavin.” He tries to communicate his despair through his doleful gaze, which his friend appears to be drowning in. 

“What-” Connor grabs the upper side of Gavin’s hand, guiding it towards him in an answer. It discomforts him greatly, but he leads it to where his genitals would be if he had any. He’s not the only one unsettled by this, for he senses Gavin struggle against his grip and at this point he has no choice but to set him free.

“You phcking toaster, you think I don’t know that?” he laughs without mirth. 

“You think that… that I want you just for your body?” 

Connor has hurt the man again, despite trying to do the exact opposite. 

“...no?” 

“No!” It’s not that difficult to believe, but not as easy when the truth has been spoken out loud. 

Gavin leans back into him, resting his head on his shoulder. At least they haven’t spiralled down the path of pretend animosity. 

“You don’t mind that I’m not a man?” Connor has never really regarded himself as one. It’s a label that doesn’t feel right to him. He’s simply himself, a human-like android who has been given a soul. There is no need for something else.

“I don’t care what or who you are, Con. As long as it’s you that’s inside, I wouldn’t mind if you were a phcking jellyfish, I’d… I’d love you all the same.” 

“You… you love me.”  The world around him gets blurry as he can’t quite process what he just heard.

“Is that so surprising, tin can?” Gavin chuckles, his own tears audible in that delightful sound.  

He wants to say it back, every inch of his being is urging him to do so, but his brain has frozen over and refuses to receive any command his heart gives him.

The words are stuck in his chest, leaking out through his close eyes, unable to be turned into any shape. They stab him with their intensity over and over, making him want to pluck them out and throw them at the person who has created them. 

“I-”

“You don’t have to, Con.” 

Maybe neither of them is ready to carry the weight behind that sentence just yet.

@a-convin-new-year i had to change the title a bit to suit my story hope you don’t mind 

[mageemoulton]

At a public meeting at Mount Meigs, Alabama, Aug.

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[sternbagel]

I’ve been a little stuck on some of my other projects so I decided to flesh out another thing about my RDR OC that’s been sitting in my head for some time.

Notes: set in October 1898

TW: canon-typical violence, period-typical racism, probably incorrect translations Spanish phrases, very little editing

Companion to this

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Winter is on its way. She feels it, icy tendrils creeping into the October air as it whips around her, through the brush and the trees. It’s worse here, up in the westernmost part of the Grizzlies, where the many rocky cliffs provide little to no buffer against the high winds. No snow has fallen yet, too early in the season. But even when it does, it’ll continue to weigh heavy on bare branches long after the lowlands have begun to bloom again. 

She’ll return to lower altitude soon, ride out the worst of the winter somewhere warmer, like New Austin, maybe. Visit some friends, maybe. Take a break, definitely. But first, she has to finish the business that brought her up here in the first place. 

“There you are.”

Behind her, a horse snorts, impatient. She knows what’s coming, been through this enough times. The horse doesn’t enjoy the extra weight placed on her rump during the ride back to the sheriff’s, but she does appreciate the extra sugar cubes and apples she gets afterwards. And the nice, fresh stable she gets bedded down in that night while her rider gets a room at the closest hotel. It’s only ever one night before they’re back in the wilderness. Sometimes staying just outside town, but for that one night, they live in as much luxury as the area allows.

“Easy, Moonbay,” she whispers, standing up from the frozen tracks in the dirt. “Let’s go get him.”

She mounts the dapple black Thoroughbred and combs her fingers soothingly through her white mane. Her legs squeeze Moonbay’s sides three times, urging her into an easy canter. The mare’s got long strides, meaning it isn’t long before they come up on the rider’s target: a nasty piece of work she’s been tracking for three days. He’s only worth fifty dollars, one of the cheaper bounties she’s been after in the last seven years, but once she read that he killed a mother and two children while robbing their small homestead, she’d set off immediately. 

He’s riding with three other men, but she’s not worried. She’s faced far worse odds before and come out with only a few new scars. She just hopes she doesn’t kill the bastard by accident. Giving them shit while listening to them squirm and curse her out on the long ride back is the best part.

She pulls Moonbay to a stop and pats her neck before dismounting, not bothering with hitching her before crouching and continuing forward. Moonbay’s a brave horse, and even when the gunfight startles her, she doesn’t wander too far off, always returning shortly after the firing stops, with or without being whistled for. 

The men have stopped at the roadside, one of them standing amongst the trees to take a piss. She’ll deal with that one first. Removing the bow from its place over her shoulder a few moments later when she’s creeped close enough, she nocks the arrow and makes her slow, silent approach. He’s whistling some tune, completely oblivious to her presence.

One, two, three deep breaths, she peeks around the side of the tree acting as her cover, and draws back the string. A fourth breath leaves her lungs, and the arrow flies. The string flicks against the few strands of her black hair that have come loose from the braid, and she blows them out of her face at the same time the body thunks against the leaf-covered ground.

“Jim? You smack your head again? Dumb bastard.”

They’ll discover her soon enough, so she throws the bow back over her shoulder and reaches for her two LeMat revolvers. Her thumbs run over the AT engraved in the grips of both of them as she waits, still concealed by the trunk.

“Jim? The hell—” He stops once he sees the body, arrow embedded in the temple. “What the hell—Carl, Clyde, we got a problem!”

The echo of her revolver immediately follows the man’s exclamation. He, too, falls to the ground to never get back up. She stands quickly and rushes towards the shouts from the other two men at the road. Emerging from the treeline, she spots both of them. Both of their guns are raised, but they’re facing the wrong direction. Clyde, the actual bounty, is atop his horse. If he doesn’t fire at her after she kills his lackey, he’ll surely take off. So she aims one gun at the horse’s feet—not to hit it, just to spook it into hopefully bucking Clyde off—and the other at the lackey’s head. She pulls each trigger at the same time. The lackey’s death is instant, but the horse doesn’t spook quite as much as she thought it would. The other three horses, however, do, bolting off in different directions while voicing their sudden fear.

She’s quick with her guns, but not quick enough. Once her shots are fired, Clyde turns in his saddle and fires off a shot of his own. She can’t raise her guns to threaten him before a bullet whizzes into and then out of her left arm. The gun in her hand clatters to the ground.

Retaliation is swift on her end, as she lets out a swear of “¡Chingado!” while firing off a shot at his shoulder. Anger and pain tear through her, along with the thought, If I kill him, I kill him. She’ll have to visit a doctor now, so a quiet ride back might not be so disappointing at all.

It doesn’t kill him, but it does knock him back off his horse, who then takes off with a scream. 

Oh, ahora quieres cooperar.

The gun she’s still holding is holstered before being replaced with the lasso attached to her hip as she strides purposefully to where he’s landed in the dirt. Her left arm screams and throbs with the pain, and she faintly registers the blood rolling down and off of her hand, but she has work to do. The man rolls around, pulling his knees up under him to attempt to stand up, looking frantically for his own dropped gun. His heels are just digging into the ground and he’s almost stood back up when her lasso tightens around his torso. A hard yank, and he’s stumbling towards her before landing on his back again.

“Bitch!” he spits. 

She keeps the rope taut as she approaches. “Heard that one before.”

“Greaser cunt! Fuck you!”

Baring her teeth and sucking in a furious breath, she yanks the rope again. He grunts painfully and she halts her approach, his head in easy kicking distance. “Better watch your mouth, asshole, or you’ll be headin’ back to the sheriff’s as a corpse.”

A devious grin that she does not like spreads across his face then. “Only place I’m headin’ is out of here, after I finish with your corpse, that is.”

The rope instantly becomes slack and in a swift movement—swifter than she figured he’d be able to move after being shot in the shoulder and thrown off a horse—he stands up, charging at her with a knife drawn in his right hand. He’s smart enough to come at her left side, but she’s also smart enough to throw her right side forward. There’s not enough strength in her left arm to be able to fend off the knife, so she reaches for it with her right arm instead. Her left fist collides with his stomach, though it’s not much help, only forcing out a quiet grunt and leaving a bloody fist print on his jacket. Then she grabs his left wrist with her own; two weakened arms wrestling with each other. He sneers as they struggle, and it only makes her madder. 

Anger in most situations actually helps her, gives her some clarity and more power behind her movements. In this one, however, it proves to be a detriment. Rather than use the rest of her body to throw him into the ground and wrench the knife away before grabbing her own, or her gun, she reaches for her knife with her bloody hand. It’s enough of an opening for Clyde to yank his arm back, away from their bodies. Her fist is still clenched around his wrist, so she’s pulled off balance. Wrapping his weakened left arm tightly around her neck and pulling his back flush against his chest is a task, as she’s not going down without a fight, and she’s stronger than she looks. She hasn’t let go of the wrist holding the knife, but while having the tables turned on her, he was able to position the knife less than a foot from her head. The rising pressure around her throat forces her to choose between the immediate danger of the knife or trying to loosen his arm with hers, still throbbing and leaking blood.

Her knife is sheathed on her right side, and the gun that belongs in her left holster is laying uselessly on the ground, far out of reach.

Fuck.

He opens his mouth to say something, no doubt some terrible snark or string of curses at her, but at the same time, they notice the wagon caravan come into view. 

Thankfully, he seems just as surprised as her, so it’s not his backup. Plus, he swears, “Shit,” under his breath and in her ear as he continues to struggle with freeing his hand from her grip. 

There are two riders in front of the first wagon, and neither of them look happy about the scene they’ve stumbled upon. The white man is in a brown leather coat barely hiding his burly frame with a worn black leather hat sitting atop his head, a few strands of dirty blonde hair peeking out from underneath. His dark bay Andalusian stamps its feet underneath him, smelling the blood, but doesn’t move otherwise as he dismounts swiftly, carefully. The other man to his left also dismounts his gray Appaloosa, who only snorts and throws her head, not moving either. He’s brawny as well, though his shoulders are broader, and he’s wearing a thick hooded black sweatshirt, no hat. She thinks he might be mixed race, black and Indian, maybe, long raven hair tied into a loose ponytail similar to how some of the Navajo men she’d met years ago wore theirs, but skin much darker than them. Closer to Josephine’s, she thinks a split second later, along with I need to write her when I get out of this.

Both men approach slowly as Clyde flashes the knife in his hand. He struggles to push the knife closer to her face, but she keeps it still, muscles whining with the strain.

“Easy, partner,” the one in the brown coat says calmly, accent something close to a southwestern if she had to guess, holding his hands out and away from his guns. There’s an underlying threat in his tone. “Let her go, and we’ll let you go.”

There’s very little in this world that she hates more than being a damsel in distress and being used as a bargaining chip or hostage. If he lets her go before she frees herself, there’s no way in hell she’s not shooting the bastard right in the face. 

She bares her teeth again and spares a glance at the other man. He’s already watching her like a hawk with deep, perceptive brown eyes, and shakes his head subtly as if he knows what she’s about to do. 

“And why should I trust you bastards?” Clyde asks with a sneer.

Slowly, so as to not alert Clyde, she shifts her weight onto her left leg. Then, once satisfied that she’s anchored enough, she makes her move. Throwing her right foot back quickly, she tucks it behind his ankle and kicks forward, throwing him off balance this time. Her left hand joins her right and she pulls his arm downward, her shoulder digging into his chest as she throws him to the ground, hard. The dirt beneath her boots shudders with the impact and she hears the breath leave his lungs. In a swift move, one she’s practiced many times for moments such as these, she reaches for her right holstered gun with her left, pulling the hammer back before it’s left the holster, then shoots him in the face, point blank, before he’s able to even begin trying to scramble to his feet.

A beat passes while she pants and slowly holsters her gun. “Fucking bastard,” she says between pants.

“Huh,” Brown Coat breathes. He grabs his gun belt, suddenly the picture of a relaxed cowboy. “Nice move.”

She looks at him, nodding silently, before turning to grab her discarded gun and lasso. She whistles loudly for Moonbay.

“Ma’am,” the other man says, taking a cautious step forward. Only when she looks at him, brows raised, does he continue, voice deep and baritone. Soothing, in a way. “Can we ask what that was about?”

At first she doesn’t answer, just regards them warily. They are dangerous, that much is apparent in the way they carry themselves, the way they dress, and the weapons they carry. But they don’t seem to present her much danger at the moment. The threat in Brown Coat’s voice was gone when he spoke. Nothing but worry, confusion, and intrigue show on either of their faces. So she relaxes. A little. “His head’s worth fifty bucks.”

Black Sweater chuckles lightly and Brown Coat opens his mouth to say something, but he’s cut off by two other voices as they come up beside the men. The first belongs to a much older white man with deep lines but bright perceptive eyes, the second to a white woman in a plain dress, blue eyed, her black hair pulled into a high and tight bun. 

“Arthur, Charles, you two okay?”

“What happened?” 

Brown Coat turns to them and holds up a calming hand. “Everyone’s okay. ‘Sides the bounty she was after.”

The woman perks up once she lays eyes on the other. “Oh, hey, you been shot.” She sounds genuinely worried. About what exactly is unclear.

“Ma’am, you should go see a doctor about that,” the older man says gently.

“I will,” she replies with a one-shoulder shrug. “Gotta collect my money first.”

As if on cue, Moonbay appears in the treeline with a soft nicker. Once she sees the other people, she stops, ears flicking forward and nostrils flaring curiously.

Black Sweater takes another few steps forward, hands still raised harmlessly. “It won’t be easy to get him back by yourself.”

She can tell he means no offense, but it still pulls her lips into a slight frown. “No, but I’ll do it.” Then her mouth twists into something uncomfortable as a memory surfaces, but she quickly plunges it back under and pulls her face back into a neutral expression. 

“You don’t have to do it alone.”

A strange offer, from people she doesn’t know. It must show on her face, because the woman speaks up again.

“We’ve got some space in our wagons, and we can get ya stable until you get to the doctor.” The woman motions back to the wagon caravan, and it’s then that she notices the other four wagons and riders, hanging back at a reasonable distance but watching with interest. “And Arthur can stow your bounty on his horse.”

Brown Coat looks at her sharply. There’s no malice in his voice or face, rather amusement and surprise. “Why you volunteerin’ me, Abigail?”

“Why not?” she shoots back with a teasing smile. “You got experience takin’ bounties in, don’t’cha?”

“That’s true, but—”

“Just stow her on my horse, Moonbay,” she interrupts the two. She doesn’t notice that her mount has stepped closer, so she startles when the mare nudges her good shoulder, expecting a treat or checking up on her. Or both. “Hey, bonita.” As she reaches up to stroke Moonbay’s nose, a sudden wave of exhaustion rolls over her. The fight hadn’t been long or particularly bloody, but it’s been a long three days and the numbness in her arm is starting to fade away post-battle. Meaning all the pain will start to register, and she has no medicine that’ll ease the pain nearly enough. And this bullet wound is bleeding more than usual. 

“Okay,” Black Sweater—Charles, if she heard the name right—agrees, taking more steps forward until he’s at Clyde’s body. “Think she’ll be okay next to a wagon, or you want one of us to lead her?”

“I didn’t agree to go with you.”

Nobody seems convinced by her tone. 

“You don’t wanna bleed out on the way there, do ya?” Arthur asks.

She frowns more at that, like a petulant child. They’re right. They know it, she knows it. And something tells her that these people won’t bring her any harm. That their offer of help is genuine. She can’t deny that getting her wound tended to while sitting comfortably in the back of a wagon doesn’t sound enticing.

“Come on,” Arthur waves her forward before making a move to go to one of the other wagons. “I’ll go speak to Dutch. Uh, what’s your name, anyhow, ma’am?”

For the first time in a long time, her real name worms its way to the tip of her tongue. She quickly bites it back. Why, why now? Not that the name would mean anything to them, but still. It’s a part of her past she keeps locked away for a reason. These strangers have no business knowing her business. So she takes a deep breath, watching them for a moment, before relaxing her shoulders and nodding. 

“Alberta Taylor.”

“Well,” Abigail says, holding out her hands, “I’m Abigail Roberts. Come on, Alberta Taylor. Let’s get you taken care of.”

She nods again. “Just Al is fine.” Then she turns and announces over her shoulder, “Best one of you lead her. Moonbay, esta bien, hermosa. Buena niña.” 

Moonbay throws her head up once, snorts, then lowers her head as Charles approaches. She still seems a bit wary, but doesn’t flinch under his gentle touch and soft words. Satisfied that she’ll behave, Al turns back to Abigail, who is leading her past the first wagon. She’s uncomfortable with the many sets of eyes now on her, but ignores that feeling and the pain.

Besides, after they get her to the doctor, she’ll likely never see these people again. So she can stomach this unease for the time being. 

[bangtan-madi]

Year of the Rabbit — Two: Frostbitten

Pairing — Jungkook x Reader, Hoseok x Yoongi

Tags — best friend!Jungkook, non-idol au, flower shop au, gym au, florist!MC, gym owner!Jungkook, friends to lovers, slow burn, mutual pining

Genre — fluff

Word Count — 2.6k

Summary — Blame it on the storm or the secret feelings or the snow-in, but one thing is for sure: a lot can happen to two best friends when they're confined to their stores overnight.

Warnings — language

Part — 2 / 5(?)

Previous — Next

Seven minutes past seven, the lights over your head begin to flicker. One by one, the seconds tick by, and your heart palpitates with their rhythm. Laptop on the desk in the office of the small, upper room, the very last thing you need right now is for the power to cut out. You're nowhere near finishing your orders; your work night is far from over.

Par the course of your luck these days, the lights shut off thirty seconds after they begin to fail. Just before you can let out a string of frustrated curses, they return to their former glory.

A huge sigh of relief passes from your lungs, and you slump back in the uncomfortable office chair, wondering how the hell Yoongi does it for hours on end.

"I need coffee," you murmur, pushing the laptop away and placing your phone on the desk.

Trotting over to the machine on the other side of the upper floor, you find Hoseok's assortment of beverage selections perfectly organized in a tiny cupboard. The upper floor of the shop is split into two rooms: The first is the office, which is where Yoongi does a lot of the business-end tasks that keep the store operational.

The second, smaller room is a place Hoseok claimed as his own. It's hardly bigger than a closet, but the younger of your partners took it upon himself to create a sanctuary of peace and quiet. There's a coffee machine and a tiny cabinet on one side of the room. The other has a sofa-bed, decorated with a plush throw-pillow and a battery-powered heated blanket. You've had plenty a study-session, cat-nap, and girl-chat (with Hoseok, of course) in this room.

You pop the switch on the kettle and start boiling the water, plucking a Hazelnut dark roast from the vast array of flavors. On the wall facing away from the door, there's a tiny window that reveals the expanse of Seoul. On a normal day, it allows just enough light to get by. This evening, however, there is no such blessing. The sun went down over an hour and a half ago, and the weather has worsened. Snow and wind blast against the side of the building, the remnants of winter releasing their fury on the Lunar New Year.

As the water boils, your thoughts turn to Jungkook, this time out of concern. He hasn't texted or called since he left for your apartment, which makes you assume that the service is down due to the weather. When he exited the shop, there was a dusting of white powder on the ground. Now, you were one inch away from a proper blizzard. Peering out the tiny window, you can hardly see the sidewalk or streets. There must be at least a foot of snow on the ground. From the angry black sky and thunderous display overhead, it is only going to get worse.

"If you're smart, you stayed at my place," you murmur, hoping that your stubborn excuse of a best friend headed his inner warning system.

But then again, who are you kidding? Jungkook doesn't listen to anyone, especially the little voice in his head that advises against danger.

After your coffee is brewed and you begin to stir in the sugar, a loud crash sounds outside the shop. Thinking it the wind picking up, you ignore it and continue to add sugar to your desired amount.

It happens again, this time with added vocals. "[Y/n]! Open up!"

You drop the spoon and rush from the room. Definitely not the storm; the wind doesn't howl your name.

When you reach the top of the stairs, you see a familiar figure huddled against the glass door. A bicycle tightly grasped in one hand, the other presses against the glass in an attempt to peer inside. Jungkook is hardly dressed for the weather, wearing the same black jeans and oversized black sweater as before.

Without thinking much longer, you take the stairs two at a time and unlock the front door in a hurry. Thrusting it open, you grab ahold of Jungkook's snow-dusted sweater and drag both him and his bike into the shop. It takes all your strength to fight the wind enough to shut and lock it once more.

"You biked here in the snow?" You turn on your heel, shooting the shivering man a sharp look. "Jeon Jungkook, what the hell were you thinking!"

Jungkook tosses his bicycle onto the floor, frozen metal hurting his chilled fingers. As he blows heat into his clasped hands, he mirrors your tone with, "That you were gonna be here all by yourself, i—idiot! You're the one not answering your damn phone. I c—called you four times and texted you at least a dozen! Every time it went straight to v—voicemail."

"Yeah, that's probably because the cell service is shit right now!" you snap. "Storms always blow it out, and it's not like we have wifi."

"That makes it so m—much better!"

As if the situation couldn't get worse, the lights flicker once again, this time shutting off with a loud pop. You give it a few seconds, waiting for it to return like last time, but no such event comes.

You thrust your hands into the air with frustration. "Oh, this is great. Now, we're gonna freeze together."

The Busan native chuckles softly. "Already ha—half-way there."

Your gaze shifts from the darkened lights overhead to your best friend. For the first time since he blew in a few moments ago, you see how cold he really is. In the dim light given by the near-constant sheet lightning, his features are unnaturally pale. His fingertips are scarlet, and his entire body shakes violently. If the storm wasn't so loud, you would be able to hear his chattering teeth.

"Shit, Jungkook," you murmur, reaching for his hands with concern. Your warm touch causes him to hiss, but he doesn't pull away. If anything, he lets you pull him closer. "How long were you out there in that?"

"Well, I left your apartment when I couldn't get a—ahold of you," he chatters quietly, letting his eyes slip closed as you attempt to encase his larger, tattoed hands in your own. "Elizabeth the 3rd is fine, by the way. Fat and happy and com—completely oblivious."

"When was that?"

"A little after six-thirty?"

Your eyes widen, shifting from the attention on his frostbitten hands to his slightly opened eyes. "Kook, that's almost an hour in temperatures below zero! Forty-five minutes, at least! That's so dangerous. You could've died!"

"What's the alternative? L—Leaving you here at the shop by yourself?" He shakes his head, droplets of melted snow flying off the ends of his damp hair. "Not gon—na happen."

Your heart aches a little at his kind and selfless nature. He didn't even think twice before hopping on a bike and facing the storm to get to you, just to make sure you were safe. Now he was paying the price for it.

You pull him closer, taking his hands and shoving them into the pockets of your university sweatshirt. You'd been wearing it all night, so it was plenty warm. Jungkook is surprised by your actions, and you roll your eyes at his wide-eyed expression.

"Don't get any ideas," you tease. "You don't want to lose your fingers, do you?"

Jungkook snickers and allows his hands to greedily absorb the warmth you and your sweatshirt provide. "I'm more worried about what you might do."

You turn your head to glance over your shoulder, towards the exit. "Do you think we can get out of here? Hail a cab or get an Uber?"

"I don't know, [Y/n], it's really coming down out th—there. And on Lunar New Year? I doubt we'll see anyone for a while. They're all at festivals freezing their asses off or at home with family."

"I hate it when you're right," you sigh, turning back to face him and rubbing your hands up and down his arms. "We've gotta get you warmed up, though. You're freezing."

The brunet attempts to brush off your concern. "I'm fine, really. I'm warming up al—already."

"Lies. You're riding the end of an adrenaline high. Once that wears off, you're going to crash and really regret coming back for me." You point towards the upper rooms. "We have a battery-powered heated blanket that gets pretty damn hot. Follow me."

Forcing Jungkook's hands to remain in your sweatshirt pockets, you tug him behind you, up the stairs and into the tiny retreat room. The darkness makes you have to take it slower, but you know the space like the back of your hand. Once inside, you shove him onto the tiny sofa bed and wrap him in the blanket, turning the heat up to high.

"Here," you say, taking the mug of coffee and pushing it into his hands. "Hold this. Drink it slowly so you don't burn yourself."

Jungkook takes a sniff at the coffee, but then pulls back and looks up at you. "But this was yours."

You shake your head. "Yours now. You need to warm up, Gym Bunny. Start drinking."

He scowls at you in defiance of being told what to do, but eventually gives up and takes his first sip of the warm beverage. Feeling how it warms him up from the inside, the second sip comes much more happily.

As you peer out the tiny window, Jungkook inquires, "How long do you think the st—storm will last?"

"I heard something about it lasting until the morning, so we might be here a while. It doesn't look good out there. Definitely not safe to leave the building. The service is out, and no one is going to drop by. I think we're stuck here until we can manage an exit ourselves."

"In that case..." Jungkook reaches out to grasp the edge of your sweatshirt, tugging you over to him. You hesitate in moving closer, both nervous and concerned about his still shivering figure. "It's only going to get colder in here, Flow—Flower Child. Might as well huddle for warmth while you can."

"Fine. But just so you know, I hate this rom-com bullshit...and if you cop a feel, I swear to god, I will kick you back out into the storm."

Jungkook chuckles as you relent. You slip onto the tiny sofa bed and under the heated blanket with him. His free arm wraps around your shoulders, bringing your head to rest against his shoulder, while his occupied hand holds the mug of coffee. He offers it to you with insistence.

"C'mon, one sip won't hurt. 'Sides, you're the one that dumped seven cups of sugar in it."

"Well, that's the last time I give you my coffee. Next time, you can freeze."

"Then who would you complain to about customers?"

You take a sip of the coffee, silently agreeing that you had gone a little heavy on the sweetener. "Hobi or Yoongi. We all have the same customers, you know."

"Yeah, except Yoongi will just stop selling to them rather than complain about it and Hoseok is sickeningly positive enough to see the good in everyone."

"Fair point."

He takes another sip of the coffee when you return the mug to his tattooed hand. "I honestly have no idea how those two work so well together. Business and personal, I mean. They're just so different."

"Opposites attract?" you offer. "They've known each other ever since high school."

"Yeah, I never got that full story."

"Yoongi moved to Seoul by himself after he moved out of his parent's house in Daegu. Not a great situation there, but that's not my story to tell. He met Hoseok at school. The ray of sunshine was class president and took a liking to Yoongi. He kinda took him under his wing, as they were in the same grade despite being a year younger. I'm honestly so glad he did; god only knows what Yoongi would've gotten into on his own in a big city. He's one of the few that got out of a bad situation, and he attributes a lot of that to Hobi."

"So who asked out who?" Jungkook asks, hoping to pass the time with casual conversation as the feeling slowly comes back to his extremities.

The question catches you off-guard and makes you laugh. "Believe it or not, Yoongi asked Hoseok. Twice. Hoseok turned him down the first time, thinking that they might ruin their friendship. He should've known that Yoongi doesn't give up when he wants something."

"So...they were friends first?"

You nod. "I mean, I've only known them since college, but they haven't changed a bit. I think being friends gave them a foundation for their relationship. From what Hobi's said about the pre-dating period, they were pretty much the same. Sure, there's a lot more kissing and, uh, stuff now that they're a couple, but they're still best friends."

A silence falls over you both as you enjoy the warmth under the heated blanket. Jungkook finishes the coffee, and you're relieved to see his shivering halt and color return over the next half hour.

The storm still rages outside, and Jungkook sighs as the wind blasts harder against the side of the building. "We can't stay here," he murmurs.

"Where can we go?" you reply, not eager to leave the confines of your warm cocoon. "You said it yourself: we're stuck until this passes."

He shakes his head and turns to look at you in the darkness. You can barely make out his features, even if they're only a foot away from yours. You hadn't realized you were this close until now.

"You're starting to shiver." His hands grasp yours, and it's only then that you see he's right. Your fingers have started to tremble, and your teeth are chattering slightly. "We can't stay here. No power, no heat, we'll never survive the night." He pauses, glances quickly to the door, then back to you. "I have an idea. Do you trust me?"

Your reply comes without hesitation. "More than anyone."

The words bring a smile onto Jungkook's face, and if it weren't so damn dark, you might've thought he was blushing. But that can't be right...

He grabs your hand, stands and drags you with him, and tightens the heated blanket around your shoulders. He's given up his portion of the warmth to keep you comfortable. When you attempt feeble protests, being too tired and cold to put much effort into fighting him, Jungkook places a warm hand over your mouth.

"Just do as I ask, just once, okay?"

"But you'll get cold again," you murmur, words muffled by his fingers.

The brunet moves his hand away from your mouth, dropping it to the blanket as he pulls the edges high enough to have the front draped over your head in a makeshift hood.

"Where we're going, we won't need the blanket." At your perplexed expression, he chuckles and reaches for your hand. "You'll see what I mean. Trust me, this idea is genius."

"Famous last words."

Taglist — @kookie-off-his-kookie​