#so tempted to put Graves as just ''feet'' and not elaborate

[soapsbaby]

Bunch of Deviants

Summary: Assigning one kínk to each of the main CoD characters that I headcanon them to have.

Characters: Simon “Ghost” Riley, Johnny “Soap” MacTavish, König, Kyle “Gaz” Garrick, Alejandro Vargas, Rodolfo “Rudy” Parra, John Price, Valeria Garza, Farah Karim, Alex Keller, all x gn!reader Rating: NSFW (minors DNI) Word count: 1100ish

Ghost - Size Kink

He loves using his size to his advantage and making you feel as small, and in a way vulnerable, as he possibly can. He adores the fact that he can just pick you up and fuck you against whichever surface he wants with ease.

Will place his cock on your stomach and give you a cruel smile. That's all going to be inside of you, sweetheart, think you can take it, hm?

He loves sometimes seeing you struggle a bit with his size, the way your eyes start watering when you try to fit him all into his mouth or the delicate little whimpers when he first starts pushing into you.

Soap - Exhibitionism

Soap loves to just do it whenever and wherever the possibility arises, be it indoor or outdoor. Literally you can’t think of many places you haven’t done it, be it his office, every room in your apartment, the local woods, his car, in an alley behind a club you were partying at. He's always down to just pull your underwear to the side for a quick fuck.

He really gets off on the possibility of someone seeing you or walking in on you (even though he’d probably get slightly embarrassed if it actually happened and thank god it hasn’t yet).

No… No, Baby, I don’t care if anyone sees. Let them see. Let them see how well I fuck you.

Loves sneaking off with you at events and just taking you in whichever free room you can find. He loves the thrill of acting like nothing happened afterwards, seeing you slightly struggle to walk straight. 

Price - Sugar Daddy

He loves treating you and making sure you are always taken care of. You are on his credit card with no limits.

He gets off on knowing that you are treating yourself and can get anything that makes you happy and he loves when he is at work and gets a text of you wearing whichever new clothes you bought with his money. 

He would never deny you anything (within reason) but he loves when you whine and beg for it a little bit. 

His favorite part, of course, is when he gets to take your fancy new clothes off of you or, if possible, just fuck you in them.

Gaz - Body Worship

It’s not even that it’s necessarily a kink of his, he just can’t help himself from praising and worshiping you the moment he gets to see and feel your body, let alone when he’s inside of you. 

He is so genuine when he starts praising you, paying attention to every part of your body and just babbling on about how much he loves all of it, how smooth and soft you feel.

Loves when he can take his time before sex and just massage you, kiss your entire body and take however long he needs, baffled that you are his and his alone and how lucky he is.

Alex - Bondage

He loves when he just gets to let go and have you take charge, tying him up in whichever position you’d like him in and then take him like he belongs to you. 

He loves the sensory experience of it, the rope on his skin and immobility that comes along with being tied up, however he also loves how the decision-making is taken off him and he can turn off his brain for a while and let you take charge.

Is a little embarrassed by this but he loves when he’s tied up and can’t fight you overstimulating him, just having to take it.

Farah - Sensory Play

She is not much into anything rough but she enjoys playing around with different sensations, especially when she gets blindfolded and all of her senses are heightened.

She loves experimenting with temperatures, one of her favorites is wax play, even though for her that can already be on the border of what is too painful. Still, she loves the sensation if you drip it from high up enough and the way it looks on her skin.

König - Praise and Humiliation

He thrives on you talking through it, telling him how well he is doing, how good he is making you feel, that he is your little toy that you can do with whatever you please.

You have tied him up before but it is never necessary. He will just take whatever you throw at him, so eager to make you feel pleased with obedience that there is no need to restrain him. If you tell him to keep his hands behind his back then that is what he will do without question. 

Doesn’t use that many profanities in his day to day life so it is very easy to humiliate him by making him repeat your words. “Say it, König. Who is my little fucktoy, hm?” “M… Me.” “No, sweetheart, the whole sentence.” “I… I am your little fucktoy.” “That’s right.” 

Alejandro - Breeding

His breeding kink is his biggest weakness. Whenever you tell him to put a baby in you his thrusts will start to stutter, sweet moans spilling from his lips, mi amor, you know we’re not ready, we can’t… we shouldn’t- and then, against all better judgment, he will come inside of you regardless, staying inside of you for as long as he can afterwards to make sure none of his cum is wasted.

Rudy - Edging

He likes using the time he has off work to the most and making sure he takes as much time with you as he can. He simply enjoys pushing you to the edge as many times as you can take and then eventually push you over it, making sure he keeps going and overstimulating you until you forget your own name.

He knows your body by heart, knows how to read you like an open book and can tell exactly how close you are and when he needs to stop. 

He will be so frustrating that it makes you go insane. He takes such pleasure in your desperation and at the same time is so patient. It doesn’t matter whether you are begging him to fuck you, he won’t until he has decides it’s time.

Valeria - Sadomasochism

Valeria is just into pain, going both ways. She just enjoys all of the scratching, biting and slapping that comes along with having sex with you and it doesn’t matter whether she’s topping or bottoming either.

Usually by the end of it you are both covered in bruises and scratches, she doesn’t care. She likes you marked up so everyone can tell that you are hers. 

[onecanonlife]

Tommy and Wilbur fell apart a long time ago, and there was never any time to mourn the pieces of what they were.

But here's the most important thing: Tommy doesn't give up on the people he cares about.

(Or: on grieving, graves, a past that refuses to let go, and learning to look forward at long last.)

(word count: 5,619)

--------------------

“You know,” Tommy says, “I never really got to—to mourn you. Not properly, anyway.”

He’s not sure what response he’s expecting from Wilbur. He’s not sure why he’s saying anything at all. He’s not sure why he’s here.

That last one is a lie. He scuffs the ground with his shoe, and then pretends that he didn’t.

“I wasn’t expecting you to mourn me,” Wilbur says, in that stupid, even, condescending tone of his, the one that he uses whenever he thinks Tommy has said something incredibly obvious, when he’s got an idea in his head of how things are and what people mean, regardless of the way it all actually is. “In fact, I rather thought you wouldn’t. Shouldn’t, even.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” He has no patience left. No patience left for the look in Wilbur’s eyes, no patience left for the way he focuses straight ahead, barely sparing him a glance, no patience left for the way he speaks, measured and calculating, every word he says carefully weighed against the end result, curated for intent and impact. No patience, and he had precious little to begin with. “I’m not even—this isn’t about you.”

Wilbur raises an eyebrow. It makes him look like a prick. “Oh?” he says.

“Because I would’ve,” he continues, doggedly. Now that he’s started saying it, he’s damn fucking well going to finish it. “But, y’know, you blew it all up, so we had to rebuild, and then I got exiled” —His voice doesn’t waver at all— “and then shit just kept on happening, so I never got to decide. How I felt. I never got to think about it.”

Wilbur laughs, then, and it’s the laugh that he hates, because it’s the laugh that’s not genuine. He knows what Wilbur sounds like when he’s happy, and this isn’t it. Hasn’t been it for a long time.

“Not sure there’s much to think about, there,” Wilbur says, and he scowls.

“Shut up, you prick,” he says. “And yes there was. That’s not something you get to choose. What I feel.”

“I’m not trying to—” Wilbur starts, but he shakes his head, going back to talk over him, because no, he’s not doing this. Not today, and not here.

“You are though, aren’t you?” he says. “You always do this. You go, you go mimimimi, I’m Wilbur, and I understand everything about how people think and I’m always right and you are all wrong, and you, I dunno, man. You just. You just don’t. You don’t know. You think you know things, but you don’t. You’re not always right. And I’m—I don’t fucking know why I’m bothering with this right now, but it’s not so you can tell me that I shouldn’t be. Because that’s not something that’s up to you.”

“Then why are you bothering with this?” Wilbur says, and his voice isn’t unkind, but it’s not kind, either.

“I just said I didn’t know—”

“Because if you’re asking me if you should mourn me, you already know what I’m going to say to that,” Wilbur says. “I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s the fucking problem,” he says, and tacks on a quick, “Not like that,” but Wilbur’s face has already hardened, and yeah, there’s a million better ways he could have put that, but that’s the thing about talking to Wilbur. His brain is never firing on all cylinders, as it were, because it’s too busy trying to figure out if he should associate him with warm summer days and the haze of potions and a strummed guitar or explosions and drifting smoke and blank eyes and the awful realization that what he thought would make everything right didn’t do anything at all, and that nothing would ever be right again.

And before the both of them, L’Manberg’s crater stretches out, vines trawling over the edge, leaves sprouting from between the rocks, sunlight catching on the pool at the bottom, the flag fluttering lightly in the wind. Before the both of them, L’Manberg’s crater has grown over, time pressing itself into the cracks. Before the both of them, L’Manberg is a crater. It wasn’t always.

“You make everything so fucking difficult,” he says.

“It’s what I live for,” Wilbur says.

“It’s what you died for, too,” he says.

Wilbur pauses.

“No,” he says. “It wasn’t.” But for once, he doesn’t elaborate, and Tommy glares at him. Only for a moment, because there’s no point in glaring when someone won’t see. Won’t look. Wilbur has his eyes turned to the crater, and Tommy has his eyes turned to Wilbur, and something about that is how it’s always been. The vines have grown over the earth’s old wounds, but Tommy can’t help but feel like they’ve curled around his ankles, holding him to the spot, the moment, and every moment that came before.

I never got to mourn you, he doesn’t say again. I never got to mourn you, and I feel like I should. But you’re here, and what the hell am I supposed to do with that?

Wilbur won’t hear him. And if he does, he won’t understand.

-----

He collects bits of the past like buttons, or stamps, or memories.

He has his discs. He’s hesitant to play them, even now. Hesitant to take them out of his enderchest. He has his home, still in the same spot, all this time later. His hill, his hole, his garden, their bench. He sat on that bench and heard Wilbur, once, reaching out from beyond the grave, and Wilbur told him he was proud, and something in him ached in the same way that his scars now do when it rains.

He has some of Friend’s wool. Just that, just wool, because he doesn’t know how to knit, and he doesn’t know who would teach him. He can sew a little, but it was something born of necessity, of the need to patch up uniforms and close the tears over freshly dealt wounds, and he can still feel the needle pricking into his fingers, again and again and again. He never could figure out how to hold it so that it wouldn’t. He bled for L’Manberg in more ways than one.

Deep inside a chest, he has two uniforms. Blue and red and white. One is a size too small. The other is several sizes too large, and always will be.

He still goes to pray, sometimes, though not as often as he did. He got the chance to meet god and found no one there, so it’s a little tricky, these days, being faithful. But he’ll go to Church Prime, because no one else really does, so he’ll have the whole building for himself as he strides up to ring the bell, to ask for guidance and favors, to pay his homage at the feet of a higher power that he cannot believe cares. On the best days, he’s tempted to try to conduct a service. But there’s no point when there’s no one to hear it but himself. Even he can’t bring himself to put on a show for empty pews.

He prays, and nobody answers, and sometimes he can’t help but remember the void, the tearing, ripping nothingness, raking him to shreds again and again, where he was not alone and yet nobody came.

He considers visiting Tubbo. But Tubbo has his own life, and a mansion he hasn’t moved into, and a town that Tommy does not belong to, and an allegiance that Tommy does not share. He considers visiting Ranboo, but that’s either the same as visiting Tubbo, or it’s the same as visiting Techno and Phil, or it’s the same as visiting Wilbur.

So he looks at his discs and doesn’t play them, bunches his hands in wool that he has no use for, and calls out to a god he can only now offer false homage. He holds to the past, and wishes he could believe he has a future. Wishes that he didn’t see obsidian and curtaining lava whenever he closes his eyes.

-----

The first time he hears Wilbur play again, he hides in the forest like a fucking coward.

The guitar is strummed hesitantly, haltingly, interspersed with silence every few seconds, as if Wilbur is struggling to find the old positions, struggling to move his fingers just right. He wonders, then, if limbo took away his calluses. He didn’t think to look. Thirteen odd years without playing a guitar is bound to make anyone rusty. Tommy wonders if Wilbur’s fingers will bleed if he presses down on the strings hard enough, and then he banishes the thought from his mind, because something in him revolts at the idea of Wilbur bleeding. Of Wilbur trying and trying to play until he—

There is something to be said, here, about using yourself up in the pursuit of something greater. There is something to be said, here, about holding matches ‘til they burn down to the skin, about stairs without handrails, about things that are never meant to be and yet claw their way into existence anyhow. There is something to be said about pushing too far, too quick, and flying too high.

Wilbur’s not singing. Is just going from chord to chord. And Tommy hides behind a tree, pressing his back against the bark, because it has been so very long. Wilbur didn’t play in Pogtopia. Wilbur barely played in L’Manberg. The last time he heard the twang of this instrument was sitting by a campfire, plans for a van in the works, the night sky starry and welcoming above them, his chest warm in a way that had nothing to do with the flames. And Wilbur smiled at them, smiled at all of them, and his voice was light and sure, his notes soaring.

Wilbur’s not singing. After a moment, he starts humming, softly and meandering, and each turn in the melody hits like a wrench, like he’s dragging the notes out behind them, yanking at the tune whenever it goes somewhere he doesn’t like. It’s a lot of leaps and skips and jumps, a lot of highs to lows and then highs again, and something about it sounds like wailing. There are no words, and there is no happiness.

But he’s playing. He’s playing, and does that count for something? There was no music for such a long time, no music in the darkness and no music even in the light, and now there is music in the grey twilight, and it is not happy music but it is music. Wilbur is playing again, and Tommy’s not going to cry, because what kind of pussy cries about hearing a guitar? So he doesn’t cry, but he doesn’t venture out from this spot, either. He stays there, and listens as Wilbur sends his voice shooting up into falsetto and then back down again.

It’s good that there are no words, maybe. They’d be sad. He can tell.

“That sounds nice,” Ranboo says, all of a sudden, and Tommy jolts at the same time that Wilbur’s hand must jerk, a discordant clash of notes, something that can’t even be called a chord. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“You didn’t,” Wilbur says, after a pause. Tommy almost creeps out to see his expression, because he can’t picture it. Can’t tell from his voice what his face is doing. “I was just about done anyway.” There is another pause, and a rustle of clothing. Standing. The crunching of leaves underfoot. It’s nearly autumn again, and already the leaves are changing, falling.

It would be wrong of him to resent Ranboo. He’ll never admit it aloud, but he likes him. Rather a lot. Hiding it is probably pointless now, though that doesn’t stop him from trying. But Ranboo is occupying the space that should be his, that once was his. There is a van in a forest, and a guitar song winding its way through the branches and the roots, and everything is different and everything is the same, and the new story is written without him in it. He doesn’t know what he wants, but he thinks it is not this. He thinks it is not to be left behind.

And Ranboo does not know Wilbur well enough to hear the lie in his voice.

They go off together through the trees. Tommy stays. Runs his hand across the tree bark, and tries not to put his emotions into words. Better to let them drift along as is. Better not to give them voice, because whispers turn into shouts all too easily, and there is not enough space here for shouting.

-----

There’s a thing about graves. There’s a thing about graves and who gets one, and who doesn’t.

He didn’t think about it at the time, the fact that Schlatt—Schlatt the tyrant, Schlatt the enemy, Schlatt the man who had Tubbo executed—got a funeral, and a tomb, has one even to this day, and Wilbur got rubble and a room sealed off and untouched. Didn’t think about the fact that there was no burial. Didn’t think about the fact that there was no gravestone to deface or to ornament with flowers or to kick or to scream at or to kneel beside and speak to or to cry or to do any or all of those things. He didn’t think about it at the time, because there was rebuilding, and then there was a house on fire, and then he doesn’t like to think about it.

And there was Ghostbur.

Wilbur hates Ghostbur. It makes him angry, the way that Wilbur hates Ghostbur. Ghostbur was good, and Ghostbur was kind, and Ghostbur tried his best, and Ghostbur did not deserve to die in the way that he did, terrified, with no one there by his side, with only shouted numbers to soothe his terror, and Ghostbur does not deserve to be stuck in a train station for all of eternity. So he makes Ghostbur a memorial, because it’s all he can do, and the first time he’s next to it at the same time as Wilbur, he meets his eyes squarely. A challenge. A dare. And Wilbur looks right back at him, and then to the gravestone, and his lips curl into a sneer.

And he says nothing at all.

He says nothing at all for a long time. Until he does, and it’s all made so much worse.

“Would you rather he was here, instead of me?” Wilbur asks, and it’s all very even and nonchalant, so much so that it might have him fooled if he didn’t know better, hadn’t heard time and time again exactly what Wilbur thinks of the ghost he left behind him.

“The fuck kind of question is that?” he demands.

“An honest one,” Wilbur answers.

“Right,” he says. “Because you don’t lie anymore, or whatever the fuck.”

“I don’t,” Wilbur agrees, and that is a lie. Tommy would be insulted if he weren’t so tired of it. “Really, I’d like an answer.”

“What does it matter?” he snaps. “He’s not here anymore. He’s not here anymore, and you are. No changing that. I’m fucking stuck with you. You’re like, you’re like a leech, you know that? A leech in my brain.”

Wilbur smiles tightly.

“I’d rather be a leech in your brain than dust in the ground,” he says. “Like he is.”

“Shut up,” he grits out. “Don’t—just don’t fucking talk about him.”

“Alright, then,” Wilbur says. “I won’t. If it upsets you that much.”

And he doesn’t. And the grave stays.

And it is not until later that he thinks about the thing about graves again, about who gets one and who does not. There is no grave with Wilbur’s name on it. There was no soil to lay him to rest, only cold, hard stone, a room undisturbed, a monument to destruction. And had there been time, he would have thought about it more. Would have taken it upon himself, perhaps, because the thing is, in the end, that maybe Wilbur deserved better than to be remembered as the man who destroyed his nation. Deserved better than to be remembered solely by the ravine’s dark corridors and the smoke that clung to him like foreshadowing and the way his eyes looked dead, dead, dead for a long time before Tommy watched Phil plunge the sword into his chest.

Because he was not only that. It hurts to think about, how he was not only that. But sometimes, things that hurt to think about ought to be thought about. Because Wilbur was shattered edges that Tommy knows only now that he could not fix, because Wilbur did not want fixing, but Wilbur was also laughter and a gentle hand on his shoulder and the words “I’m proud of you” that lit him up like sunlight, and he was kind and he was kind of a dick and he was brilliant and Prime, maybe Tommy should have known. Should have known that there was going to be a fall. But he looked up to Wilbur like a child to a shooting star, and it’s a long time before children understand that shooting stars aren’t stars at all, and that the wonder of them comes from self-destruction.

But before Wilbur fell, he shone. A beacon in the dark. Hope, freedom. And before he was those things, too, he was Tommy’s brother. Just that, and nothing more, because more was not needed.

And he received no grave.

It’s a question of time again, and a question of mourning, and a question of how he was ever supposed to grieve when there was no time for it at all, and when a ghost shadowed his every footstep and dripped blue from cold fingers and insisted that nothing was ever wrong. But for the first time, he wonders how Wilbur thinks about it. Graves, and ghosts. And who gets a grave, and who does not.

Who is mourned, and who is not.

Who is given up on, and who is not.

The question echoes once again: “Would you rather he was here, instead of me?” And this time, Tommy hears no taunt in it, no mocking, no cruel joke about the ghost who deserved so much better. Only bitterness, and exhaustion, and resignation. Like Wilbur already knew what answer he would be granted.

That’s a realization of some sort, that Wilbur believes he prefers him dead. It’s a realization of some sort, but he doesn’t know what kind.

There’s ghosts and there’s graves, and there’s the living and there’s the dead, and both are left waiting for relief that never comes. It’s thirteen years in a train station and it’s months without knowing what to think, without having space to breathe, without being able to process that his brother was unwell and then that his brother was gone. It’s too much time and too little, too much distance and too little, and Ghostbur did not deserve what he got, but neither, he thinks, did Wilbur.

That thought feels right. And wrong all at once. Bitter, heart-wrenching. That Wilbur deserved better. They all did, that he knows—but Wilbur did too. And that thought is muddled up in all the rest, and he doesn’t know what to do with it, but it’s there. If there’s anything to be done with it at all.

-----

Here is a fact: he kept Dream alive for Wilbur’s sake.

Here is another fact: he doesn’t know if he regrets it.

Because here is the thing: he remembers that day, remembers the pain and the fear and the devastation, and he remembers the moment it all turned around, cowering behind Sapnap and behind Eret until the time came to step forward, to take the axe in hand and deliver the blow, to deliver himself to safety, finally, finally. And he remembers the words bitten out from Dream’s mouth, panicked, desperate, and he remembers what he said. He will never forget.

And the decision, in that moment, was far easier than it had any right to be.

It became harder, later. Because he made the decision thinking, in large part, of the person that Wilbur used to be. Of a quick, charming tongue and flashes of smiles and music and song and leadership and knowing what to do, always, and Prime above but Tommy missed that person. And so maybe he deluded himself. Maybe he thought, in that dark room, with the portal swirling behind him and the entire server at his back, that he could get that person again. That Wilbur would return, and that it could all go back to the way it used to be. Discs spinning in the sunrise, the server at peace, his brother with him.

But death put those thoughts to rest.

Because death proved to him that Wilbur had only gotten worse. Because in death, Wilbur was happy he was there, did nothing but talk to him and make him play competitive solitaire as he was torn apart atom by atom. Because Wilbur—he became so very certain that Wilbur, if released, would bring nothing but harm to the server again, would tear everything down, because there was something in his voice, in his eyes—

But that was then. And now, Dream still lives in prison, rots but lives, and Wilbur has a burger van in a forest with a friend and spends most of his days lounging about or making eyes at Quackity or talking up a storm but doing jack shit, and Tommy doesn’t know what to make of it, and doesn’t know how to admit that maybe his idea of what Wilbur would be like and what Wilbur would do wasn’t entirely accurate.

And he still doesn’t know if it was worth it. Worth the constant fear, worth knowing that one day, Dream will be out, will come to him, will try to finish what he started. He tried to prevent it and only made it worse, only led Ghostbur to his doom by his innocent, trusting hand, and Dream resurrected—

A monster, he would have said, once. He no longer knows if that is fair.

Because here is another fact, one that he is only now beginning to understand: Wilbur is very, painfully human. He’s always known, and yet he hasn’t, because once, he thought Wilbur hung the stars and the moon and all things bright and glowing and good, and he thought that Wilbur could never be so human as to be fallible, and then it turned out that he was wrong. And it was easy, in the aftermath of that, to figure that Wilbur was perhaps some kind of monster instead, and everyone around him said as much.

But that, he thinks, goes too far in the other direction.

His hopes will never be realized. He will never have the old Wilbur back. He clings to a past that clings to him right back, that has him in a chokehold and will not let go, but Wilbur is something else entirely. The rest of the past does not live and breathe, is contained in his overflowing chests, in uniforms that don’t fit him, in the church’s empty hall. The rest of the past is made of things he can hold, but he has never been able to hold Wilbur. Not then, and not now. And there is no hope of making of them what they once were.

There is no going back.

So was it worth it, then? To keep Dream alive, and to receive this, this man who varies between manic energy and calculated calm, who speaks with a whip in his tone at some times and unbearable softness at others, who proclaims Dream his hero and then claims he would have killed him, if he could, for what he did? Was it worth it, and is it worth it, and how is something like that measured at all?

Wilbur is a tightness in his chest when he speaks and a ghost that won’t leave and a ghost that died and a thousand words like a thousand stinging hornets and no picture that could encompass all of them, all of what they are and were. Wilbur is Wilbur, and Wilbur is not safe, not anymore, and perhaps Wilbur is not even good—but there, that, that is wrong, and he won’t make this mistake twice. Wilbur is good, it’s just that he’s forgotten that, and Tommy is so, so very tired of having to be the one to try and remind him. And Wilbur is empty space and Wilbur is a space too full and overflowing around the fractured edges, and Wilbur is too bright and too loud and too quiet and too little and too much, and even now, even still, Tommy does not know where they stand.

Was it worth it, to have this?

He doesn’t know. But sometimes, he imagines what it would be like if Wilbur were still dead, if Wilbur were never, ever coming back in any shape, in any form, and his throat closes up and his eyes sting, no matter how much he has laid out his hatred for the man, his regret at going into the prison that day. He tries to imagine a world without Wilbur in it, in which he has given up on Wilbur, and even now he doesn’t like it, even though maybe he should, and that is, perhaps, answer enough.

-----

“Why do you keep coming here?” Wilbur asks him.

“I dunno,” he says, instead of a hundred other things. “Why don’t you ever fucking leave?”

Wilbur just looks tired. There are bags under his eyes. Tommy thinks he can guess why; he so rarely slept during their exile, but Tommy is thinking about limbo, and train stations, and how whenever he closes his eyes, part of him is convinced that his heart has stopped beating. He wonders if Wilbur, for all his sunrise-obsession and constant movement and moments of utter wonderment at the world around him and the way he doesn’t move whenever a creeper approaches him, feels the same way.

“There was a reason I asked Ranboo to do this with me instead of you,” Wilbur says, suddenly, apropos of nothing. Tommy feels himself still. “I mean—actually, I asked Phil, and Phil was all, oh, Wil, go and make friends, and I was like fuck you I’m not twelve years old anymore but Ranboo’s pretty great so it worked out. But I—I guess what I’m getting at is that I don’t get it. Why you choose to keep coming ‘round here anyway.”

“Yeah?” he asks. “What’s not to get?”

Wilbur shoots him a look, eyebrows going up and mouth slanting all sympathetic-like.

“Tommy,” he says, slowly, as if talking to the child that Tommy has not been in a long, long time, “I’m not what you want.”

Several answers form in his head, and then dissipate just as quickly before he’s able to reply. “‘S that right?” he says, and something boils within him, hot and snapping and popping.

“I can see it when you look at me, man,” Wilbur says, and he doesn’t even sound upset. “You’re—and I mean, I don’t blame you for it. I was awful to you, Tommy. I don’t deserve anything less than your scorn. But you and everyone else, you’re all waiting for what I’m going to do next. You’re all waiting with bated breath. Scared of the next disaster I’m going to cause. So you don’t—you don’t have to be here, Tommy. Not if you don’t want to be.”

There are so many things he could say. Your disasters always cause the most damage to yourself, is one of them, and then there’s a simple, you think I don’t know that? Because how many times has he told himself that same thing? That he doesn’t need to be here? That it would be better for him if he wasn’t? And some part of him must listen, because he’s not actually here all that much. He has other things to do. A life outside of this, outside of this forest on the edge of a fake desert and a van that makes pretty shitty burgers and one Wilbur Soot, like a portrait from the past and yet nothing like that at all, because portraits are shadows, still images, permanent and unchanging, with mo mutable future, and Wilbur Soot is none of those things.

He has a life. He has Tubbo, still, even if it’s all changed. He has others. He’s not alone.

Wilbur’s right that he doesn’t have to be here.

“Stop fucking doing that,” he says. “Stop trying to make my decisions for me.”

Wilbur’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m not—”

“You are,” he says. “You always are. It’s my fucking choice whether I want to be here or not. And I’m making that choice. Not you. Me. And sure, maybe one day you’ll manage to get rid of me for good, but you’re gonna have to fucking work at it, and I don’t see you trying.”

“I thought you didn’t want me here, Tommy,” Wilbur returns, and the words seem to fall so effortlessly, like easy acceptance, and why, why is it this of all things that Wilbur seems to take in stride? Why is it this and not a thousand other things? Why is it this and not the fact that despite it all, despite every warning sign and every indication that maybe it might be better for him to give up after all, Tommy is still here?

“I didn’t want you gone, either,” he snaps, and Wilbur falls completely silent. So he continues, because who knows when he’ll have a chance to say this again? That’s the thing about chances; they’re difficult to count, impossible to anticipate, and he bollocksed up the first one he got, to try to break through. “I never wanted you gone in the first place. So maybe I don’t—maybe I don’t fucking know what I want. Because I never got to just live with that. There was never a chance to—there wasn’t even a fucking grave for me to visit. I never got to figure anything out, and now you’re back and nothing’s the fucking same, so maybe I don’t know what I fucking want. Maybe I don’t fucking know if I want you here, but I didn’t want you gone. I didn’t want you to be dead. And then you were. You just were, and I couldn’t—did you expect me to be alright with that?”

It’s a question of mourning, and a question of graves, and a question of chances and who deserves them. And Wilbur just looks confused.

Fuck him.

There’s so much more to say, and he can’t say any of it at all, and the past chokes him like a knot of vines or a clump of flowers in his throat, but he’s still breathing. He’s still breathing, breathes again, whatever, and Wilbur is the same. They’re the same in a lot of ways, maybe. On the other side of the final death, trying to hold onto and release the years gone by all at once. Moving forward, but stuck in quicksand, and they’re never going to get out if they don’t let each other.

“You’re my brother,” he says, and that’s all. As if that explains everything.

And maybe it does.

Wilbur blinks.

“Ah,” he says.

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Fucking ah.”

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur says.

“You’d better be,” he says.

And impossibly, the vines uncurl, and the flowers come floating up, and when he takes a step forward, it comes easily.

There is a van in this forest, and it is not the same van. Some distance away, there is a crater in the ground, and nature has draped itself over the ruins of the lives they once had, and the flag still flaps at the bottom, and they are never, ever going to be able to rebuild what they lost. The crater will always be a crater, a scar in the earth. Healing, healed, grown over and stitched shut, but still a scar.

And there is a man standing in front of him who is not the same man that he knew. Not the same man that he claimed for his family, and who claimed him in return.

But he is not the same, either. Perhaps nobody and nothing is. The past clings, and he clings tighter, but perhaps he needs to loosen his grip, because despite everything, there is a future out there, somewhere past the next sunrise. They are going to get older. They are going to live. So he has his discs and his uniforms and his wool and his prayer, and he has this, too, because it is his choice. To take a step forward, and wait to be met in the middle. To dare to turn ahead, to believe that there is something awaiting him. The both of them.

And he thinks he might finally be able to let himself grieve. Grieve, and let go. Grieve the dead, and what they had, and what they might have, and grieve for the fact that there was no grieving, no grave.

And then, let himself hope that they will have better after all.

-----

The next time he hears Wilbur play, he steps out from behind the tree.

And maybe the song is a little less sad.

And maybe nothing will ever be the same as it used to be.

And maybe it will be alright.

[darkpoisonouslove]

Keep You Alive

Summary: An arranged marriage could be the end of the world for a queen whose heart is not her own anymore. It’s when Griffin has to make sure it won’t be the end of her life, that fear truly sets in in the place of trust long gone. Bringing back something dead will be a feat – magic or no magic. And the strongest magic in existence is against her. AU.

This has sat unedited for a long time and now that I felt the Griffin and Valtor feels returning, I finally broke it out of its little prison. What can I say? I'm a sucker for arranged marriages.

CW for some violent descriptions, mentions of blood and murder and sexual content.

Griffin's heartbeat punctuated each of her steps into the cold stone of her bedchamber. Their bedchamber. At least for the night. In the morning things would be different.

Her palm was clammy in Valtor's warm grip that never faltered despite the discomfort that had to bleed through to his end as well. He'd barely let her out of his reach all evening, and not once out of his sight. If he'd chosen to share her life and she'd agreed for her own sake and not that of her kingdom, it would've moved her, would've sent flutters through her heart. She wasn't above romance. It was above and beyond her.

Now the treacherous organ had leapt in her throat beating as if the tremble in her vocal cords wasn't straining her composure and self-control. The door closed behind them – her guards sealed outside to leave only silence in which her pulse pounded against her ears. And his. The quiet couldn't hide her like the celebration had.

Her wedding had been one of great splendor, talked about in the whole of the Magic Dimension. A feast of bread and wine from the rich wheat and grapevines her land bore. Silk and jewels from Valtor's mothers. No parental blessing or a hand to lead her down the isle where he'd waited like death coming to claim her at the end of the line. She should have taken another path but there'd only ever been the one for a queen with the naive heart of a free woman.

Valtor had unveiled the world in front of her only to capture her eyes in the frozen cage of his. He'd whispered a compliment of her beauty on the tail end of his loudly proclaimed vows of emptiness. He'd kissed her hand countless times with his burning lips and her mouth only once. But once had been more than enough to stain like the pouring wine. Spilling red. Dripping blood. The words were spiraling in her mind like the rusty railings of the winded staircase she was tumbling down. Right to where her own bed awaited like a tomb for the coffin of his embrace.

His arms were around her and pressing the smooth fabric of the dress into her skin. Like an ice block sticking to her flesh to rip it off upon removal. She'd bleed to death but her foolish heart only pumped her veins fuller of red too dark to be a precious stone. She could almost smell the smoke rising from the ashes in her lungs where his breath lingered. But fear was good. Fear made you alert and sharpened your senses. Fear kept you alive. And that was her one goal tonight – survive her own wedding night.

Valtor's deft fingers found the laces of her bodice to differentiate from the stillness of his hand back when hers had rested in it. He'd been... not inept–as much as she wanted to call him that, she couldn't afford delusions–but stilted, as if the life had drained from him. And now he'd drain hers instead of working for the creation of a new heir for her kingdom. There'd be no more heirs if she didn't play her role right, no more autonomy... no more peace.

Her lips were swallowed in Valtor's kiss silently slithering over her senses like a starving snake. His fingers threaded in her hair to make the elaborate hairdo–designed to hold the crown on her head–give way like a broken dam with just a few strategical touches. The pull of his power was wringing tears from her soul as her hair spilled down her figure just like his breath flooded her lungs. He had more magic than her, his mothers more still – the only ones to still yield the craft in its full potency. She had to count on their arrogant use of it, on their lack of strategy to defeat them.

The taste of sweet wine and sugar from the buffet of pastries was bitter all the way into her throat with his tongue shoved in her mouth as if to block out her air. Their first kiss had been far less vindictive out there in public and she had to give him credit for his own acting if not anything else. He was at least putting decent effort into her assassination.

It was her own breath assaulting her ears once he let her have a gasp of oxygen. She was panting next to his barely quickened inhales, the puffs of cool air in a jarring contrast with his flushed cheeks. His adrenaline had to be rushing as high as hers. The only thing they had in common was the opposite ends of her murder they stood on.

"You're breathtaking," Valtor lied through his teeth, his facade impeccable with all the magic underneath filling potential cracks. All she had to fight him with was her own wit and skills.

She let a smile crawl on her face despite herself. If it were as breathtaking as he claimed, he'd drop dead from suffocation. And if not, it would be a horror show to haunt him for his crime against her. "Are you sure at least half of it isn't just the dress?" She wanted it gone as much as he did. At least then they could stop pretending this farce had anything to do with love or her happiness. It was all about politics. That was all her life was ever going to be. Funerals over politics.

"To be honest, I haven't even noticed the pattern." That would be hard to believe if not for his keen gaze keeping track of her mannerisms and words in search of telltale signs about her awareness of the truth. "I've been thinking of what's underneath," he sent her stomach lurching at the thought of what would come after the stardust of her wedding crumpled in her feet. After her death.

"Why don't you find out?" her voice tempted, no deception in play. "Or are you afraid?" Challenges were the way into his head. She'd figured as much while he'd been prying around into her heart. He hadn't had one for her to return the favor. "I didn't bite when you pulled off my veil." She hadn't had to. He'd bitten the bait as the wedding ceremony dictated.

"Did you expect me to be bolder?" Of course not. He was no fool despite his arrogance. "We were in public."

"You've been a perfect gentleman all evening." Except for plotting her murder. She was no fool either. "Why don't you drop the act?"

The lightness dropped from his face leaving serious features carved in ice. He'd be the most gorgeous statue she'd seen. Instead, he was the vilest being she'd encountered. A charming prince to her face and a murderous backstabber when she turned away.

His fingers reached under the fabric and she assisted the dress off of her body to spare herself his prints on her skin after the few times she'd let them leave his mark on her being. His gaze was more than unbearable, flaying her alive for him to wear her title as his own once her kingdom was annexed by his mothers' empire to be erased from history. No name would mark her downfall, nor that of her land. No grave would remember her existence. So she wouldn't remember his in her being, wouldn't let him leave traces of it on her body. Not again.

Valtor let her step out of the dress of her own volition–a last courtesy to himself as he devoured the sight of her nakedness after he'd taken her underwear along with the masquerade–before pushing her back on the bed with the roughness of an animal. Something sparked in his eyes that could have singed her with a surge of passion had she chosen him to bed her. Now it was just a dull pain in her lower stomach from the nerves knotting themselves there as she waited to be burned alive.

Instead of his magic it was his scorching skin on top of her pulling a squeak out when his weight pinned her down and her nipples brushed his chest. He was lying on her, naked in the second it'd taken him to climb over her despite the stumbling from the wine or other intoxication. His hot flesh roused goosebumps on her own as her stiff muscles writhed in confusion below.

The hum he stole from her with his kiss carried her unbridled surprise like a charge of magic. She was revealing herself, caught off guard by his naked frame. His cock was pressed into her hip, hard as a rock and bruising her with the pulse of arousal it sent through her despite the cause of it being her own blood in his mind's eye. And his hands grabbed her thighs pulling them apart to open her up to him and fill her with the impulse to give in. His hot mouth on her neck singed her alertness and his muscles pressed into her, crushing her resistance.

He reached between them and a whine tore from her lips. Enough to startle both of them with her genuine desperation and distract him to give her the time to catch herself. All thoughts of his cock emptied from her head. Only the memory of the liplock she'd had on him was left after the wave of his magic, tangible even to someone with much less of it.

She grabbed his wrist with a couple inches to spare between her throat and the razor sharp point of the dagger he'd conjured. "If you kill me, you'll be dead by the next full moon." Her eyes burned into him the same way his skin did under her hand as he drove the blade through the air between them. His strength ate away at hers while his magic scorched her fingers like he'd set them on fire.

The blade stabbed through the bed on her left piercing her ears with the wail the mattress gave. It was like a shriek of death and the cry of a newborn all at once. She was alive. She just had to keep it that way.

"I've poisoned you," she fired out before he could change his mind and slice her throat open anyway. She held his gaze as it flared, the intensity of it licking at her to consume her or melt her skin.

"Wine?" was all he asked as he sat on top of her, his arms trapping her between them like thick steel bars.

"No." That would have been too risky with so many people around. "It was my lipstick." He'd ingested the poison at the wedding ceremony. And she'd ingested it, too, from his tongue stuffing her mouth. "It's a slow poison. Designer. It's tied to the phases of the moon and I'm the only one who knows the antidote." She'd been tempted to use belladonna and be rid of him, watching him struggle as even Belladonna failed to help her son. Even her magic wouldn't be able to counteract extract from the plant. But Griffin didn't want the revenge of the three witches. She wanted them to leave her alone. "It needs to be taken every month. Otherwise, the newest tide of the poison will kill you. So if you want to live, we're stuck together," she had to sell this even without his charm at her disposal. Considering she wasn't entirely convinced of being his only option. He always had tricks up his sleeves. Could she count on him being naked when he'd pulled a dagger on her out of thin air? "No more weapons in my presence. And you can't go to your mothe-"

"I won't." The reply caught her off guard again unlike his mothers' departure in the late hours after the wedding reception. They'd distanced themselves as insurance in case something went wrong. They'd renounce Valtor's actions and have an alibi. He was on his own as well. Under their control.

"You understand that I find that hard to believe after your attempt on my life." She could still see the gleam of the blade – brighter than her eyes and colder than his. It was just her magic suppressing the shaking of her muscles that nearly left her wishing for the fire he hadn't used on her. Or for the heat of his body. His erection still burned against her skin.

"I wasn't going to kill you," Valtor's words had her teeth grinding together before she could swallow the load of crap he was trying to feed her in revenge for the poison.

"Were you planning on keeping a lock from my hair then?" She'd push him off of her but just the thought of any more of him touching her was too much. She couldn't stand the beauty of his appearance and the ugliness of her own attraction to him despite the knowledge in her head.

She'd known his behavior had been an exercise in decorum and his courteousness had been practiced. Yet she'd still fallen for his horrible attempts at jokes that had been too genuine to be anything but, for his sharp mind that couldn't have been an imitation just like the diamonds he'd given her, and the look in his eyes when the sparks had died to leave behind an emptiness begging to be filled. She'd sworn no one could fake that. He'd deceived her and she had to accept it. Sooner if she wanted to be alive for the later.

"I was going to use the dagger, yes," Valtor had her attention pinned to the bed with a knife as well, dissecting it with the emphasis in his voice, the frustration in it. As if she was the traitor between the two of them. "I was going to draw blood from the hollow of your throat to bind us together with magic."

"What?" The hollow of her throat? How was that an explanation? A justification of his actions? Was that supposed to make her feel better? She was a sacrificial lamb in a game of politics, nothing more. She wouldn't be able to look at a chess set ever again even if she got the opportunity, if she survived her wedding to him.

"My mother can read minds."

Lysslis. Then her plan would have been no more than a delay of the inevitable. If Valtor wanted it, she'd die after Lysslis read her mind for the antidote. She was fully dependent on him slicing into her neck like she was a woodcarving.

"I was going to bind us together by mixing our blood. That way when she tried to read one of our minds, she'd see nothing. As if the 'voice' has jumped into the other."

Vocal cords. Her throat. Griffin brushed her fingers over the delicate flesh. He would've given her a fighting chance against his monstrous family and she... She gasped. She'd poisoned him in return.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She'd poisoned him. Poison! She'd thought he was her murderer. She'd swallowed her heart about a thousand times that day alone, the broken pieces slicing through her insides every single one of them. If she'd leaked blood, she would've flooded the whole planet. If she'd let herself cry, she would've shriveled into nothing after the sorrow had spilled from her body. "Why didn't you tell me? You should have told me!"

"I couldn't risk it. I thought she might read your mind."

Her blood froze solid in her veins when she had to move. What good was being safe in the future if she'd betrayed the past to his mothers? She had to warn-

"She didn't deem it necessary," it was the disgust with which Valtor spat out the words rather than their meaning that left her shivering as the ice freed her. "Probably thought it was a waste of efforts since you were to die anyway. They were so secure in their victory. I couldn't risk putting you in more danger. Or myself." His hesitation clenched her heart with her own distrust mirrored in him. "It would've been harder to keep my plan from her if I'd let you in on it. Our interactions always linger on the surface of my mind."

She was flushing again, this time from the warmth of the confession accompanied by that of his skin against hers. She laid her hand on his chest covering his heart, no flinching from him to choke her. "Valtor-"

"I thought you trusted me enough." His gaze stabbed her with the icicles it shed right over her vulnerable flesh. "I would've explained. I wanted to make it as painless as possible and sex magic can be used to a great degree for relieving distress, both emotional and physical."

Oh. Well, she hadn't known that. She had the archives she'd inherited from her mother and knowledge she'd gathered with Ediltrude and Zarathustra and Faragonda and there was still much more. He knew more than her after studying under the only ones that still possessed primal magic. All she'd had in her mind had been the warning she'd gotten and the dagger he'd held above her ready to shatter her skull.

"You were terrified of me," Valtor cupped her cheek and the familiar tenderness had her shaking as the terror oozed from her pores to stick to her skin. So much for her collected facade. "I thought you were just nervous because of our wedding night but you thought I'd kill you? Did I fail that hard at conveying my feelings for you? I know I was being subtle but I was certain we were on the same page."

They had been. They had been and then that page had been torn out of her hands. Her eyes welled up with tears when Zara accidentally tore a hair while braiding her locks but she hadn't even been allowed to cry or scream at his assumed betrayal. She'd had to keep her agony inside where it'd charged at its prison and broken all of her bones.

"I had a source that informed me of the plans for my assassination. A source that I've known longer than you," and that was miraculously still safe thanks to both their unassuming power that was safe in Griffin's mind, "and when you never tried to hint something was wrong or warn me in any way... it sounded reasonable."

They'd said they'd wanted a peace treaty between the Ancestral Empire and the Council's Sovereigns and their allies. Then why pick her as a side in the marriage? She was barely on peaceful terms with the Council, only thanks to her connections and her refusal to bow before Belladonna and her sisters. She'd been the perfect victim to show both sides what happened to anyone who opposed the Empire. Killed. Her kingdom annexed. Her heritage erased like it'd never existed.

"You should have told me before pulling a dagger on me." Even if she hadn't asked before she'd poisoned him. She couldn't have afforded it but he could have explained once in the safety of her bedroom. He'd acted every bit as suspiciously as she'd expected him to.

"Griffin, I'm so sorry you had to go through this," Valtor pulled her into him and she inhaled him. Still, she couldn't nuzzle her head in the crook of his neck, couldn't even hold on. "But poison?" Valtor's wide eyes betrayed his worry. "I never realized your extensive herbal knowledge could be used to such a hostile advantage." The joke fell flat and his chuckle broke its spine with nothing to land on. "Please, tell me there is an antidote that will neutralize it for good."

Griffin nodded. Of course, there was. She wouldn't have put on her lips something that could kill her if she skipped her monthly maintenance. The whole point had been to remain alive. "It will take time to prepare, however."

"Then it will be our second order of business. We still need to bind our blood together." His fingers wrapped around the hilt of the dagger and his muscles met no resistance pulling it out of her poor mattress. She was the one swallowing at the screech the insides of her bed made as the blade slid through them on its way out.

"Do we have to do this right now? Can't it wait? At least until the morning?" Possibly never? The only thing she wanted was to curl up in a ball and sob her eyes out, every shuddering breath a reminder that she was still alive. Though, a knife to the throat was definitely preferable to Lysslis in her head. Or Belladonna's frost and Tharma's lightnings coursing through her veins.

Valtor studied her for a moment, the blade motionless in his hand yet it drew her cautiousness. Her gaze darted to it to return to Valtor just as quickly but the message was clear. "You still don't trust me." No question about it. It was a fact. To both of them now.

"I want to. I really do."

The softness of his hair between her fingers. The warmth of his laughter vibrating in her ears. The hardness of his erection pressed into her. She wanted to feel all of that without flinching every time he lifted his hand to stroke her cheek or slid it down her body to grab at her curves. But it wasn't up to her. They were alone in the bedroom but there was a whole kingdom that she carried on her shoulders. She couldn't stumble and shatter it. Not after she'd refused to bow and let it be taken.

She shook her head. "I know how this game is played." He'd been honest with her but not open. Even his reasons couldn't illuminate the shadows of doubt in her mind where the monsters hid from obliteration. She just couldn't close her eyes and turn their shine on the inside to free herself of the creeping suspicion. She didn't have that power.

"I am not playing a game. And neither are my mothers."

Valtor raised the dagger and Griffin pressed herself into the mattress even though she had nowhere to escape. A jolt shook her when Valtor pierced the headboard with it leaving the blade sticking out. Her headboard. As if ruining her mattress hadn't been enough.

"We don't have to do the spell at all if you're not comfortable with it. But once my mothers learn you're still alive, there will be retribution. Towards both of us. We have to be ready for anything. They knew I was fond of you and thought it a bonus test of my loyalty. It would be in our best interest to get this done as soon as possible." Valtor shuffled down, letting the world loom over her without his body on top of hers to shield her.

"Wait!" Griffin grabbed at him, relieved by the pause that followed even if the silence wound tight around them with nothing more she could say. Everything turned to ash on her dry tongue despite how hard her voice clawed at her parched throat.

"I can't watch you flinch away from me. It's the same as stabbing me with the dagger." His tired eyes skipped into the distance as if to find support of his words in the past. The realization gripped her throat worse than slicing it open would be. "If you can't trust me, then don't cure me from the poison. It will be torture to live when I've finally found someone I could love and then driven them away," he slapped her in the face without even moving. Maybe that was the key to the impact. He was as still as a statue. Cold, hard stone colliding with her fragile flesh.

"I wanted nothing more than to trust you but you never tell me the whole story," she sat up. If he viewed her as an opponent, then she'd be one. "First, it turned out you were their son, then, you showed me you had magic, and now all of this. I try to understand but every time I feel secure in our relationship and in knowing who you are and what I mean to you, you crack in half and there's a whole another person under the crumbling shell... and I need to start again."

"If I wanted you dead, I would've killed you already," Valtor's irises were bursting with flames. A sight very similar to Tharma when she got angry.

Griffin closed her eyes and pushed her frustration out through her clenched teeth. "And I can still kill you." Looking at him hurt with his insistence to follow up on her threat, every step they made leading them closer to that despite their unwillingness. "This is getting us nowhere." She had no strength for more. They had to put an end to all that.

She spun around and grabbed the dagger, pulling it from where he'd wedged it in her headboard. It took up the last of her energy and she was running only on resolve as she pointed the sharp tip towards him. Slowly she inched closer until the edge of the blade was pressed in his chest to no reaction from him. He stood there like he was made of stone but he wasn't. The heat of his skin was tangible on hers and his hot blood would spill if she applied gentle pressure.

"Well? Aren't you scared?" She was putting all her efforts into steadying her hand. One wrong movement would be fatal whether she cut through him or not.

"Afraid of what? Put this into context so I can be fully honest with you. Not leave anything out." He was pushing on purpose and she had to stab him just for that. He was lucky he was her weakness.

"Afraid of pain? Of humiliation?" She'd seen his ego. If it stood between them, he wouldn't see anything over it and if she poked it, he would never forgive her. No matter what he said about his feelings for her. His ego was his weakness and it could be exploited against both of them.

"What humiliation is there in being claimed by a woman?" Claimed? Did he think she was going to cut a brand into him? After he challenged her to kill him? "You are my queen and I vowed to be yours." She leaned forward, falling, the dagger nipping at his peck before she could brace herself against the bed. "I meant that, whether you believe it or not. And I am yours to kill, too."

"What about pain?" her voice trembled with the weakness she couldn't afford in her hand.

"Pain... Pain is a reminder. You can only feel it if you're alive. Breathing is pretty much a guarantee for pain but at least you know you are still in the game." Much too poetic for her. All she got from pain was pain. It was why she'd asked him to be careful with his words.

"What about pleasure?" she lowered her arm, the dagger still clasped between her fingers but now too heavy to hold in vain.

"Pleasure doesn't tell you anything. Not even if it's real or not. But it sure leaves you wishing it was." Valtor looked at her, his gaze clutching hers. "You want the truth? I did consider killing you with this dagger. I was afraid of what defying my mothers would mean. So I considered completing their order. Once again. Like every single time before but I couldn't use my magic. I would take the dagger and carve it into your heart until there was nothing left of it and all your blood was soaking my hands, my skin, all of me. Until your pain soaked all of me so I'd remember–always–that I was alive and you were not. That you'd been alive until I'd spilled all your pain and left you to die to save my own skin." Valtor paused, drawing in a shaky breath. "I can't watch you bleed, Griffin. But I will if it means you're safe. I will cut into your throat and hope the burning reminds you that you're still breathing. I know that's familiar to you, it's real. And you're the most real-"

The dagger clanked against the floor. Somewhere in the far end of the room. Somewhere they wouldn't have to look at it and he'd only be able to look at her.

The sound broke them loose from their respective traps and she lunged at him. Valtor met her halfway, opening his mouth for her tongue to claim him, this time truly. Not like those kisses before that they'd both poisoned. They didn't have to be each other's pain. Only each other's lives. No matter what had been carved on their beings by uncaring hands and pointy words.

Valtor laid her back down on the stabbed mattress. His care morphed smoothly into passion as his hands roamed her body squeezing at her curves and caressing her responsive flesh. She threaded her fingers in his long blond locks to hold his mouth where she could reach it and suck on his lips, trace her teeth over them and nip at his pain receptors.

His hand traveled down her body in lieu of his busy mouth and found its way between her legs to stroke her willing arousal to the surface of her being after the heavy conversation. It didn't take long for her nipples to perk up against the warmth of his chest. His fingers dived in her wetness after a couple pulls on her purple strands once he got the hint of her own tugs on his hair even if some of them had been just passion and not a hidden message.

One last reassurance sought–as if her frantic breathing was not enough confirmation of her craving–and Valtor filled her. Too slowly for the pleasure to explode inside her, her lungs only fully expanding once his whole length was inside her to breathe in their closeness, no fear tainting their joint existence. It was just the thrill of Valtor's touch that set her skin ablaze and sent her heart racing.

The chamber was filled with their shared sounds, a whole concert taking place in private and leaving no room for the stifling silence they'd entered to. The air around them was alive and vibrant with their movements–maybe even some magic–as she met the thrusts of his hips and he left hickeys wherever the hitches in her breath drew him like a map.

Her nails dragged over his back to leave her own traces and hold on as she pressed her cheek to his chest listening to the deep groans he spilled for her. It wasn't the pain that made him tremble like the strings of a harp under her fingers, nor was it fear. It was the mark of her presence that drove his voice inside her mind and if he could trust her pleasure, she could trust his pain, his blade in her throat.

She bit into his shoulder and held on like a bloodthirsty hound while the waves of orgasm shook her. If they took her away, she'd carry a piece of him with herself. His arms around her held her in place, though, held her whole and the confession of her pleasure tipped him over the edge of his own orgasm.

"Griffin," the strained grunt of her name against her ear was like a gunshot missing her body but still carving into her ribcage. Only, it didn't dig into her heart.

It cut it loose from all the strings it sliced itself onto every time it moved, shaken off her throne by the hands grabbing for her crown. She was safe in Valtor's lap, in his arms.

[boneswriteswords]

I have seriously fallen in LOVE with your writing now. Thank you so much but I would love to request another if that's alright! Iv always wondered what Jason would do if hid s/o turned out like him? Drowned or killed in some way only to come back stronger than before ?

***sneaks in and posts this after letting it sit here for 100 years***

Sorry. Hope you like it anyway. Its not my best but I tried. 

~~~~

Jason cried behind his mask, garbled wounded sounds from broken vocal cords. He clutched you to him, drenching himself in your blood as it trickled to a stop. You were gone, had been for hours, and he was frantic. He rubbed against your rigid skin, desperate to return the warmth and color to it.

Grey didn’t suit you.

He couldn’t feel your thumping heart against his chest. He regretted every moment he took it for granted.

“Jason. Sweetheart. You have to bury her.” His mother’s voice echoed inside his head, strong in all its softness. He shook his head, clutching your corpse tighter against his chest. He would not put you in the ground. It was cold and dark and you deserved the sunshine. You deserved to see the day.

“Oh my sweet boy,” she sighs and he can feel her phantom fingers stroking his head, “You must let her go. You must honor her. Let nature take its course. It will be okay.”

For the first time in his life, he doubted his mother’s words. How could anything ever be okay again? He lost you. He failed you. He miscounted and those stupid teenagers ripped you apart before he could catch them. Your screams echoed inside of his rib cage. You had cuts all over your hands and arms, skin jammed under your fingernails and blood on your lips and teeth and bruises on your eyes.

You had fought them. Viciously.

But they had been too much for you.

Jason wished he could resurrect them, pump life back into them just to take it away again. He had raged, slashing at the group recklessly until parts of them started flying off with the force of his machete. Torture wasn’t really his thing but his time with Freddy had showed him the benefits of a long drawn-out kill. He wanted them to experience the pain they put you through before your body gave out, before you had fallen helplessly into death’s waiting arms.  

He regrets their short deaths and promises to get his revenge on the next group of teenagers that show up. They were all the same and all of them would fall victim to his blade.

“Jason,” his mother coos again, “We can’t leave her here. Let’s put her close to us. They did like that spot beside your cabin. They used to read out loud to you as you cleaned traps. You can watch over her there.”

Another wail, a sound that can only be called a hybrid between agony and haunted, burst from his mouth. You did like to sit outside and read to him while he worked. You had said that you liked being close to him and, this way, you could spent time together while doing different things. He wasn’t really interested in the stories but the soothing lilt to your voice kept him calm and focused.

He had known that you loved him then, that everything he felt was reciprocated and he didn’t have to worry if you left. You had sought him out instead of running. You had chosen to spend your time with him as a companion instead of locking yourself away from him, thinking of a way to leave.

And now you were gone and he’d never experience the feeling he got when he saw you approaching, book in hand and sweetness dusted along your face, ever again.

“Oh my sweet boy,” Pamela shushes as her son moans, distraught “I know it hurts but you need to get her buried. Come on now.”

You were buried in a well dug, perfectly shaped hole. Jason didn’t go six feet down, it was too dark and he didn’t want you to be scared down there. He crafted a headstone from a chunk of rock with the tools he had around the campsite. He couldn’t spell so he engraved a love-heart into the stone instead of your name.

Pamela watched on with fondness, her hands guiding his when they started to shake.

Jason, changed in ways he had never understood before, returned to his life before you. He was no longer the man he had been before he had known your soft eyes and kind touch. His killings became more brutal. More drawn out. He chased them more. He skinned and flayed his victims in ways that even Freddy was intimidated by. His trappings became more elaborate – filled with ways to break their spirits before he broke their bodies. He leaned into a nature that wasn’t completely his but fit him well enough all the same, determined to uphold your honor and destroy those who sought to taint the land you were a part of now.

He visited your grave consistently, making sure it remained untouched and nice. After a month, he saw that grass had started rising from where he buried you and he wept. He was tempted to pull it all out but his mother reminded him of how much you liked nature. You liked grass.

So he left it.

He left the grass that grew on and around your grave.

He left the dandelions that sprouted soon after.

He left the ladybugs and butterflies and all manner of critters that came to hang out alone.

He left the bush that began sprouting from the hole.

A cycle of seasons passed and he remained the same, standing guard over the camp and your grave. You had become your own legend, the counterpart to Jason and Pamela. The last batch of campers had told ghost stories of you, weaving words of malice as they compared you to Davy Jones’ chest. How finding your grave was supposed to bring them protection.Their deaths were brutal but Jason savored the way your name sounded out loud. He made sure to rest his weary head beside your headstone that evening, his hand buried in the dirt under the bush that grew there.

He had no need for sleep but his dreams offered him the comfort of you alive in his arms so he took to doing it regularly. Freddy didn’t touch his dreams any more. The last time he interrupted a dream of you hadn’t been pretty and neither of them had really recovered from the incident.

On the anniversary of your death, he woke up to something feeling very wrong. He could feel his mother nudging him, urging him to wake up. She sounded pleased but something in Jason’s stomach told him that there was something wrong. Something was different. The energy around the camp had changed.

“Go to the grave Jason,” his mother urges, “Go now.”

He did, anger rising to the surface as he turned down the path that led to your cabin. Was someone at your grave? Had someone escaped his notice and found your resting place? He knew that finding your grave had become a sort of game for those who intruded and bringing back proof that you existed was ‘desirable.’ There were ‘bragging rights’ associated with the desecration.  

Jason would not allow it. God himself would tremble at the fury he would unleash on those who dared lay a hand on your grave.

As he neared, he could feel the presence of another and he was fully expecting to find intruders to slaughter. He couldn’t hear any and he couldn’t see any but someone was here.

He wasn’t expecting to see you.

But there you were, sitting in the dirt beside your headstone, confused and terrified and new. The bush was gone. The dandelions were gone.

If he had a heart, it would have stopped. Distractedly, he could feel his mother smiling.

“Jason,” you whimpered, eyes wet and wide as you gazed at him, “Jason.”

Jason has never moved so fast in his life.

~~~~

End 

~~~~

[wangxiangiftexchange]

Winter Solstice Gift for krysaniar

Happy holidays, @krysaniar! I wrote this for your "good uncle Qiren finally approves" prompt. I hope you enjoy!

This is set in CQL-verse, but some details from the novel or the other adaptations may have found their way in.

Read on AO3

*****

Approval Rating

They invited Lan Qiren to dinner at the Jingshi one month after Wei Wuxian returned to the Cloud Recesses.

He told himself that it would be just fine. He'd seen Lan Qiren already, after all - Wei Wuxian had gone to pay his respects on the day he arrived in a stilted but blissfully brief meeting in Lan Qiren's office, and they'd seen each other in passing a couple of times since then. Well… in passing, and at a distance. He got the feeling that both he and Lan Qiren were doing their absolute best to keep out of each other's way.

But a quiet dinner at home shouldn't be so bad. Lan Wangji would be at his side, and Lans didn't talk during meals anyway, so in all probability Lan Qiren would come and go without saying a word to Wei Wuxian.

"It's just dinner, right?" he said as he and Lan Wangji set the table. "It's not like your uncle is going to, I don't know, come over here and kick me out of the Cloud Recesses. He would've done that already, right? Right? Lan Zhan?!"

"He will not," Lan Wangji said, placidly arranging the covered dishes that had arrived from the kitchens, each with its own warming talisman stuck to the side. "And even if he made the attempt, I would not allow him to succeed."

He said it so easily that Wei Wuxian's breath caught. Lan Wangji had already given up so much for him, had stood against the wishes of his family and his sect for Wei Wuxian too many times in this lifetime and in his last one. He didn't care what the Lan elders thought of him, but he loved Lan Wangji too much to want to be the cause of continuous strife between him and his family. He knew what it was like when tension lingered and twisted until it festered in a family; he'd grown up in the Jiang household, after all. He didn't want to see it happen to the Lans.

It was why he'd suggested inviting Lan Qiren to dinner in the first place - a peace offering in the form of a nice meal featuring the blandest food that the Cloud Recesses kitchens had to offer, and with Wei Wuxian making a solemn promise to himself to be on his very best behavior. No amount of dinners would ever make Lan Qiren approve of him, but Wei Wuxian hoped that after a few somewhat acceptable experiences in each other's company the old man would tolerate his presence, if only for Lan Wangji's sake.

Now he put down a bowl and nudged it into place, unable to meet Lan Wangji's eyes. "I don't want to cause any more trouble here, Lan Zhan. Especially not between you and your family."

"It is no trouble to tell Uncle that Wei Ying is my soulmate," Lan Wangji said, undaunted. "That I love him and wish never to be parted from him again."

"Lan Zhan!" It was nothing that Wei Wuxian hadn't heard before - multiple times a day, even, since his return - but it made him flustered every single time. Already he could feel his face growing warm. "You can't just say things like that."

"I must," Lan Wangji replied, his voice grave. He was smiling though, a small soft thing that was entirely too much for Wei Wuxian's poor heart to handle. "Lying is forbidden."

So of course Wei Wuxian had to dump the rest of the bowls he was carrying - thankfully, all empty - onto the table with a clatter so that he could throw his arms around Lan Wangji and kiss him. That was the rule: when Lan Wangji was sweet, he had to be kissed. It wasn't as if Wei Wuxian made the rules.

(He absolutely made the rules).

So if they were pink-cheeked and had barely finished setting the table when Lan Qiren arrived for dinner, it wasn't his fault. Well, it was entirely his fault, but Lan Qiren already expected him to be a terrible influence at all times, so Wei Wuxian figured he was just living up to expectations. Judging by the way Lan Qiren frowned at him as he walked through the door, he had a feeling that he was right.

Throughout the meal he could tell that Lan Qiren was taking in all of the signs of Wei Wuxian's presence in the Jingshi. He watched as Lan Qiren's gaze lingered by the door, where Wei Wuxian's well-worn boots leaned against Lan Wangji's pristine white ones, before straying to the nearby sword stand where Suibian now sat alongside Bichen. He caught Lan Qiren looking at the table where Lan Wangji liked to play the guqin, a place that Chenqing now called home. He frowned at Lan Wangji's desk, which they had taken to sharing and which was now looking a little cluttered with the addition of Wei Wuxian's inkstone and haphazardly-arranged brushes, and frowned harder when he noticed the new work table in the corner that Lan Wangji had brought in for him, its surface covered in a jumble of open books and stacks of talisman paper. At least the jars of Emperor's Smile were securely hidden under the floorboards, but Wei Wuxian wouldn't be surprised if Lan Qiren could sniff them out, somehow.

Lan Qiren's brows drew closer together as he gazed around the room, and his expression grew stonier as the meal moved from one dish to the next. This was a mistake, Wei Wuxian thought dully, his stomach so bunched up with tension that he couldn't do more than pick at his food. Even the rice and vegetables covered in chili oil that Lan Wangji had asked the cooks to make especially for him weren't the least bit tempting.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Lan Wangji darting frequent, concerned looks at him, and when Wei Wuxian finally turned towards him to try and smile in reassurance he was so jittery that he knocked over his tea. He righted the cup with an ungraceful amount of clattering and minimal mess, but the weight of the glare that Lan Qiren sent him from across the table did nothing to settle his nerves. Lan Wangji took his hand then, which did help to calm him, even when Lan Qiren's eyes immediately snapped to their joined hands.

"So, Wei Wuxian," he said once the meal was over and they had all put down their chopsticks. "You have returned from your travels."

"Uh. Yes?" He thought that had been obvious enough when he'd visited Lan Qiren weeks ago, not to mention the times he'd run into him since, but maybe he'd thought Wei Wuxian's presence in the Cloud Recesses was some kind of waking, recurring nightmare.

Well, Wei Wuxian reasoned, it wouldn't be the first time I've been thought of as a nightmare. It was not a pleasant reminder.

"And you are here to stay." It wasn't a question, and Lan Qiren looked like he already knew the answer, if the tightening of the skin around his eyes was anything to go by. He looked like he was suffering from a sudden and painful migraine.

"Yes," Wei Wuxian said, this time without any hesitation. Lan Wangji squeezed his fingers once, and Wei Wuxian squeezed back. He wouldn't leave Lan Wangji again.

Lan Qiren's eyes flicked once more between the work table in the corner, the cluttered desk, the swords and boots by the door. He stared at each object in turn, as if he were seeing them for the first time. Beside him Lan Wangji sat rigidly watching his uncle; Wei Wuxian could feel the coiled tension all along his arm, and rubbed his thumb against the back of Lan Wangji's hand, wishing he could take it away. After a moment some of the tension leached out, but to Wei Wuxian's well-trained eye Lan Wangji continued to look as anxious as he himself felt.

Finally Lan Qiren turned back to them - specifically, to Wei Wuxian. He looked like he'd swallowed something especially bitter. "Did you know that this was once Wangji's mother's home?" he said at last.

Wei Wuxian nodded. "Zewu-Jun told me some time ago."

He thought Lan Qiren might elaborate on that but he fell silent again, his gaze heavy and searching where it fell first on Wei Wuxian and then on Lan Wangji. At last he sighed heavily, as if he'd come to a decision.

"It was never a happy home," he said gruffly. "It is good to see signs of happiness within these walls at last."

For a long moment, Wei Wuxian was too stunned to react, but then Lan Qiren was rising and Wei Wuxian had to be half-dragged to his feet by Lan Wangji. He thought he must have misheard, but Lan Wangji was clutching his hand so tightly that he knew he'd understood Lan Qiren correctly, and that Lan Wangji was just as surprised as he was, though of course he didn't let it alter his expression. Unlike Wei Wuxian, who was left gaping like a fish until he belatedly remembered to close his mouth.

"Wangji, I expect you to bring Young Master Wei the next time I invite you to dinner," Lan Qiren said, as if casually inviting his most despised former student and the most hated and distrusted man in the cultivation world to dinner wasn't the most shocking thing he'd ever done.

"Yes, Uncle," Lan Wangji replied, inclining his head.

Lan Qiren nodded sharply, as if satisfied, before turning to Wei Wuxian. "And I expect to see you there, Young Master Wei." He sounded slightly pained, but also like he meant it. Besides, Lan Qiren was not in the habit of saying things that he did not mean.

"Thank you, Master Lan," Wei Wuxian managed to say as he and Lan Wangji bowed together. It might have been his imagination, but when he straightened up it seemed that Lan Qiren's expression had softened incrementally before he nodded once more and took his leave of them.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian said a few moments later, as they stood together in the doorway of the Jingshi watching as Lan Qiren made his way down the pebbled path. "Did that really just happen?"

"Mn."

"So I wasn't hallucinating when your uncle invited me to your family dinners? Because it almost sounded like he… approved of me staying here, didn't it?" He turned to Lan Wangji, eagerly searching his face. "Lan Zhan, are you sure this isn't a fever dream?"

Lan Wangji's eyes were glittering with barely concealed amusement. "Wei Ying. You are awake."

"But how can this be?" Wei Wuxian exclaimed. "He never wanted me here before. He's always wanted nothing more than to be rid of me. Why would he welcome me now, after - well, after everything?"

"I do not presume to know my uncle's mind," Lan Wangji said. "But I think, after everything that has happened, he knows more about you, and more about me as well. He may not understand everything between us, but I think he does accept it, or wishes to, now."

And that… was something Wei Wuxian would need more time to wrap his brain around. He suddenly felt exhausted, as if they'd just finished a particularly grueling nighthunt instead of a meal. He sighed and hooked his arm around Lan Wangji's waist, tugging him close.

"I never expected that to happen," he admitted eventually. "Lan Zhan, I had a lot of time to think during all those months I traveled. Too much time, maybe. And I never thought your uncle would accept it if I came back here. Sometimes it made me think… that maybe I shouldn't come back at all." He felt Lan Wangji tense against him but Wei Wuxian just hugged him tighter and plunged on. "But I wanted to come back, Lan Zhan, I really did. So then I hoped Lan Qiren would tolerate me eventually, or just ignore me. I don't need anyone else to want me around, I only need you. And I figured if I could just carve out a place by your side so that I could stay and never have to leave you again, that would be enough."

"Wei Ying, that place has always been there," Lan Wangji said, and brushed a kiss into his hair.

The late summer evening was warm, but there was a cool breeze sweeping down from the mountaintop. It ruffled Wei Wuxian's hair as he watched the sun sinking lower in the sky. After a moment he rested his head on Lan Wangji's shoulder and said, "Lan Zhan, I'm glad I'm home."

"So am I," Lan Wangji said as they continued to linger on the steps of their house, together.

[imaginaryelle]

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 (Thanks, as ever, to @morphia-writes and @miyuki4s for betaing!)

*

The transportation array drops them in a small clearing with a flash of fire at their feet, a few lingering notes from Chenqing, and only slight disorientation. Lan Wangji has read that the use of the teleportation talisman is heavily taxing to the spirit and can often cause physical disruption in the user, but Wei Ying shows no sign of pain or confusion, and nor do Jin Rulan or Liu Weixin, who, if the array’s design can be trusted, also contributed spiritual power to the effort. Jin Rulan even manages to look somewhat bored by the process.

“I don’t understand why we all have to come look at whatever this is,” he says as soon as Wei Ying lowers his hands and the glow of the array at their feet fades. “Why can’t we just—” he cuts himself off and stares hard at Wen Sizhui, who wears an expression of distinct discomfort. “What?”

Wen Sizhui bites his lips and looks to Wei Ying, who has gone still.

“The buildings were burned down,” Zhou Xiuying reports quietly.

Lan Wangji follows her line of sight and strides quickly through the trees, but he can already smell the smoke in the air, lingering and acrid. He reaches the edge of the forest and sees only ash and rock in the large space where the compound once sat. There are no smoldering embers and no half-burnt husks to mark the structures; only lines of soot and the pattern of paving stones show any indication of the size or use of the space.

Wei Ying grabs his sleeve, and he realizes he’s walked right up to the edge of the ward’s inscription.

“Don’t touch it.” Wei Ying guides him back slightly. “How many people were here?” he asks.

“None.” The guards were dead when he left. Still, Wei Ying obviously has doubts. He raises Chenqing to his lips and plays a low and beguiling melody, coaxing and haunting by turns.

On the other side of the ward, ashes swirl in still air.

Rise.

Drift gently around ghostly faces—two, then three, the four, then more, until seven ghosts are drawing themselves together along the inside of the ward. They ripple as they cross over the etched lines, but seem to suffer no other effects; perhaps it is truly inert now, or deliberately broken.

Wei Ying cocks his head to the side and whistles, sharp and commanding. The ghosts rearrange themselves. There are men and women, some are old, others in the prime of life. Wei Ying turns and looks expectantly at Zhou Xiuying.

“What do you see?”

“They all died violently and without proper funerary rites,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest, her sword gripped tight in her hand. “They can’t move on in peace.”

Wei Ying nods and shifts his attention to Liu Weixin, who presses his lips hard together and squints at the ghosts, as if that will improve his assessment. He sketches a talisman in front of his face and pushes it outward. Each spirit takes on a dull red glow, strongest at one end of the line and diminishing with each ghoul in succession.

“You’ve put them in order by the strength of their resentment,” Liu Weixin determines. Relief spreads over his face as Wei Ying nods again.

Jin Rulan scowls and stares off at the trees instead of meeting Wei Ying’s gaze.

“You wanted to go night hunting,” Wei Ying says, as if this is a familiar impasse.

“This isn’t night hunting,” Jin Rulan protests, waving his arm at the line of ghosts. “There’s no hunting involved.”

Wei Ying waits.

“That one suffered lingchi” Jin Rulan huffs, gesturing at a ghoul who bears innumerable cuts on his face and hands. It’s an unusual and harsh sentence, carried out for only the highest of crimes. Lan Wangji finds looking at the marks difficult; it is too easy to remember waking to the smell of blood and rot. Jin Rulan, he notes, also averts his eyes quickly. “And that one was drowned. Happy now?”

Wei Ying just grins at him and turns to Wen Sizhui.

“These ghosts were probably suppressed when the ward was active, and the fire was built into the design.” He points to three portions of the etched diagrams. “Whoever was here, burning the buildings was always part of their plan.”

“Mn. Make a copy of the ward; it might be useful later.” Wei Ying looks back along the line of ghosts. “Shall we try Inquiry?” he asks, and wheels on his heel to face Lan Wangji.

“I cannot,” Lan Wangji admits. Even if he carried a guqin, the spiritual power required is currently beyond his grasp.

Wei Ying’s face scrunches up. “I don’t suppose you know a transposition for dixi? Or perhaps Zewu-jun has one for xiao?”

There is no such transposition. “Inquiry requires seven strings.”

Wei Ying sighs. “Well, it was worth a try. They’re not too talkative. I think some of them had their tongues cut out.” Wei Ying turns back to Jin Ling. “How do you suggest finding out more about them?”

“Evocation requires a physical medium.” Jin Ling’s nose wrinkles. “Maybe Trace?”

“Could be helpful,” Wei Ying agrees. “Do you all have paper?”

Lan Wangji watches with interest as they produce paper and grind three grades of ink, from a watery gray wash to a thick, rich black.

“One of yours?” he asks, as Wei Ying steps back to watch his disciples work. But Wei Ying shakes his head.

“He Sect. They introduced it at a discussion conference a few years ago, for determining a spirit’s location of birth and death, along with their movements in the week before they died.”

It’s clever. Without a physical medium or sufficient knowledge of the guqin, determining more of a spirit’s history could lend valuable insight to pacification efforts. A spirit’s family or the site of a disturbed grave might be found much more quickly. Lan Wangji nods approval, and Wei Ying smiles lightly.

“Come watch,” he says as Zhou Xiuying and Wen Sizhui quickly settle cross-legged beside their prepared paper and ink. Jin Ling and Liu Weixin are only a few moments behind.

It is an interesting process. The ink blooms over the pages, gradations of definition outlining mountains and forests, roads and lakes and even crisp, dark characters—town names and Sect enclaves. A trail of footprints mark the last few days of a life.

The results are mixed. Only two of the ghouls seem to have died here, a few days’ journey caught between Moling and Gusu—a man bearing a cursemark that covers his neck and torso, and a woman who shows clear signs of death by qi deviation. The lingchi victim’s map shows a death in Yueyang. The drowned ghost met his end in Caiyi. The others record deaths in Tanzhou, and Yingchuan and Qishan.

Jin Ling glares at his papers. “This can’t be right,” he says. “Maybe it didn’t work.”

“It worked,” Zhou Xiuying insists. “Trace doesn’t allow spirits to lie. It’s a physical record of the soul, not a question.”

“Perhaps someone moved them for a night hunt?” Wen Sizhui sounds doubtful, even as he voices the thought.

“Perhaps,” Wei Ying agrees, but his eyes are on Lan Wangji. It is not difficult to follow his suspicions. Liang Feihong was desperate enough to risk two souls for vengeance. Something as simple and commonplace as a planned nighthunt is unlikely to prompt such an act.

“What do we do with them now?” Liu Weixin asks.

Wei Ying’s face twists as he examines the ghouls again. “A few might be pacified by offerings, but the rest are too bound to revenge.”

“So, banishment?” Jin Rulan asks, a talisman already held between two fingers.

Wei Ying considers for a moment. His eyes slide back to Lan Wangji.

“How many spirit bags do we have?” he asks his disciples.

Zhou Xiuying, Liu Weixing and Wen Sizhui between them produce four such bags.

“Build a shrine,” Wei Ying directs his nephew, “We can’t offer burial, but we can do that much. Perhaps some only want to know they’re remembered. We’ll see how many are left afterward.”

Jin Rulan’s shoulders slump, but he does as he’s been told and soon there is a small offering of their combined supply of travel food, a selection of loquats and a few handfuls of paper money to burn.

Wei Ying steps close and stands warm at Lan Wangji’s shoulder as Wen Sizhui starts the fire.

“Does burning paper money work?” he asks, soft enough that their companions won’t hear. “Did you get any?”

“It is not a Lan custom,” Lan Wangji tells him, because it isn’t. He doesn’t elaborate. He does not know how to put into words the vagueness of his thoughts on his own death, the lack of distinct memory combined with the iron-hard certainty that he did die.

“I burned some for you.” Wei Ying is watching the flames dance in the steel bowl Liu Weixin had produced for the purpose. “I—” his mouth snaps shut with a click and he steps away, careful space reinserted between them. Lan Wangji watches as he crosses his arms over his chest, clearly discomfited.

“Thank you.” It is … gratifying, in a way, to know that Wei Ying mourned him.

Wei Ying shrugs the thanks away. “Doesn’t matter much if you didn’t get it.” He coughs. “Looks like we’ll have to take care of a few of these the hard way after all,” he says, nodding at the spirits. Only one, the weakest, has responded to the offering. Lan Wangji lets the change of subject pass without remark.

“The ones who died here might be most useful,” he says instead. “They carry some of the strongest resentment, and likely saw their murderers. Xiongzhang could ask after the focus of their vengeance.”

“And Zewu-jun is too honest to hide their answers,” Wei Ying agrees, nodding. “Will you go to Gusu then?” he asks. “Or can I tempt you to Yiling first? I’ll give you the talismans I have made, of course, but in Yiling we could try other methods, and Wen Qing might know—” he talks faster with every word, like he thinks he has to be convincing.

“Yiling is fine,” Lan Wangji assures him. The curse’s implications eat at his thoughts, and he would like to have more evidence than a selection of angry souls to present to his brother. And of course, Yiling has the benefit of Wei Ying’s presence.

“Oh.” Wei Ying smiles, something tentative in the expression. “Good then.”

“Wei-zongzhu?” Liu Weixin approaches them. “Which spirits should we keep?” he asks, twirling his pair of bags around his fingers.

Collecting four ghouls does not take long—one for each bag, Wei Ying tells his disciples, as these spirits are more likely to tear into each other than not. Then he pairs them off and frees the remaining two ghouls from Chenqing’s control, for suppression and elimination. Jin Rulan in particular takes evident satisfaction in the act; Wen Sizhui, in contrast, is the most efficient in his movements, and Zhou Xiuying’s sword work betrays her He Sect training.

“It’s a shame we couldn’t get anything else,” Wei Ying says as Liu Weixin dispatches the last spirit, a grasping ghost with needle teeth and a hollow in its belly. “Though I suppose we should count ourselves lucky there was anything left at all. If these souls were gathered for a purpose, they should have been dealt with before the fire.” He holds out the collection of spirit bags with a curious quirk of his eyebrow, and Lan Wangji carefully adds them to his qiankun pouch.

“Lianfang-zun has such a clear memory,” Wei Ying sighs, “He hardly writes anything down if it’s not official business. If this really is his doing, it’ll be difficult to prove.”

Lan Wangji nods. Even in his own memories, on occasions when he knew for fact that Jin Guangyao exaggerated a recollection, or misspoke, it had been difficult to sway others’ belief in his words. The position of Chief Cultivator would seem to convey more respect on his shoulders, not less.

“Tomorrow, tomorrow,” Wei Ying says as he turns back to the forest, and the dim but still-glowing transportation array. “Today, we have other worries.”

*

They arrive not in the Mass Graves, as Lan Wangji expected, but in an open, airy courtyard framed on three sides by sturdy buildings and clean-swept boardwalks. The main gate, behind, is closely carved with talismans, and he can sense at least three layers of wards extending outward from his location for several li. To the west lies a lotus pond, and beyond it what looks to be an archery field. It is not Lotus Pier, in any sense, but it is clear that Wei Ying drew from his childhood home in the design of the compound, just as the dark woods and red embellishments recall the halls of Qishan Wen. The crows in flight, carved into latticed windows and screens and embroidered onto hanging curtains, seem unique to Yiling-Wei, and match the small embroidered details at Wei Ying’s collar.

Wen Qionglin is waiting for them, unchanged from the last time Lan Wangji met him but for his clothes, which are of finer fabric and much cleaner. He smiles at Wen Sizhui, and looks curiously between Wei Ying and Lan Wangji.

“Liang Feihong, patient for Wen Qing,” Wei Ying says, twirling Chenqing as he steps out of the array that, here, is etched into the stone and anchored to both the lotus pod and an encompassing iron rim. Zhou Xiuying has hardly stepped onto the boardwalk when a young woman in Wei sect colors comes running to meet her—her wife, Lan Wangji gathers, from the tone of their reunion.

“I’ll show you around in a moment,” Wei Ying tells him, “I just need to see Jin Ling off first.”

“I’m fine,” Jin Ling protests. Lan Wangji tries to focus on other things as what is evidently a long-familiar family argument erupts: Jin Rulan is adamant that he can travel alone, by sword, and that he has enough talismans, and that yes, obviously, he has his Jiang spirit bell and his Jin-embroidered protections and yes, even that charm you gave me, Dajiu, can I go now? Lan Wangji finds the looming menace of the Mass Graves as he examines the roofline, its position indicating that the Sect grounds likely sit just outside the town of Yiling itself, a guarding presence between the common people and a problem the entire cultivation world has been unable to solve for generations.

Wei Ying extracts a promise of a message by Jin butterfly as soon as his nephew reaches Lotus Pier, and then he rejoins Lan Wangji, walking with his hands clasped behind his back and looking pleased with himself.

“I think it’s the eldest sibling thing,” he says, as he draws close. “That, or he’s absorbed all the worst parts of Jiang Cheng and his father at once and there’s no room left for Shijie’s influence. A-Yuan has never been so intractable.”

Wen Yuan is inspecting a quiver of arrows and speaking quietly with Wen Qionglin on the other side of the courtyard. Lan Wangji does not comment on habits Jin Rulan might have learned from a cultivator whose general approach to rules at his age was to rather gleefully break them.

“What do you think?” Wei Ying asks, gesturing at the courtyard, the buildings, and the lotus pond. He grins, mischievous, and waves in the general direction of the Mass Graves. “You were expecting to be back there, weren’t you. In the Demon-Summoning Cave?”

Lying is forbidden, and the thought had, indeed, crossed his mind, even though the young Wei cultivators looked far too hardy to have spent so much of their daily lives among the restless dead.

“It’s still up there,” Wei Ying assures him, as if he might be disappointed if it weren’t. “I can show you later—some of my best experiments are there, still.”

Lan Wangji has no particular interest in revisiting what Wei Ying had termed his ‘blood pool,’ or any experiments of a similar nature.

“You mentioned Wen Qing,” he says.

“How’s that talisman feeling?” Wei Ying asks. “I could show you the library first—we’ve got a library, not as good as Gusu’s of course, but I think you’d like some of the collection—and, oh! We could get you a new horse-tail whisk, if you want one? Or a training sword? Or maybe you’d like to see the sword hall … ” his grin grows wider and wider as he speaks, until his eyes are nearly squeezed shut by his own mirth. “I’ll stop, I’ll stop,” he says. “You know, it’s really amazing. Your face is so different, but the expression is exactly the same.”

Something unfurls in Lan Wangji’s center like a sun-seeking flower. That Wei Ying can recognize him without the soul bond—that Wei Ying remembers him well enough, after so long a time, to make such an observation—soothes a prickle of unease in his thoughts. Small worries he hasn’t put a name to quiet as Wei Ying escorts him through the enclave’s sun-drenched pathways, pointing out lush gardens and chattering about his disciples as if he never sat in a dark, damp cave that smelled of mold and blood and called it his home.

Never wreathed himself in resentment.

Never gave up the sword.

on to part 8

[belmontsfate]

MoF - Awakening: Ch 1

Back against the wall, Simon let his body slide to the floor, breathing heavily as he caught his breath. He was in a living nightmare. No matter where he went it seemed there were monsters everywhere, relentlessly getting in his way. It seemed like days had passed since he crossed the threshold into Dracula's Castle, and yet the ever present moon told him otherwise. The sun had yet to rise… It was still the same night as he had come.

"I need a break. A lot of good it'll do if I drop dead from battle fatigue before I even reach Dracula," he muttered to himself.

Once his breath had evened out, he got back to his feet, his hand reaching for the whip hanging at his side. In his haste to get away from all the monsters, he had rushed into the first room he found, not bothering to check and see if the room was even safe.

The room was circular in shape with stained glass windows, offset by statues of angels adorning the walls. Much like the rest of the castle, the room was covered with cracks and dried blood stains; a sign of previous battles or a previous meal. There was no way to tell the difference in a castle filled with vampires. Either way, there were no monsters to be seen.

Then he noticed the room's sole furnishing. Standing in the middle of the room was a massive stone sarcophagus.

The sarcophagus stood on a low pedestal shaped like a star. At the base of it were four dragon statues with glowing red eyes; the symbol of Dracula himself, and along the sides were the figures of four weeping women, each looking identical with long dark hair and brown eyes filled with tears.

"Can it be?" he wondered aloud. "Is this the tomb of Dracula?"

It was clear to see that a lot of work and care had gone into crafting it. Surely such a burial had to have been made for someone important. It made sense for the lord of the castle to have such an elaborate resting place. Yet, for some reason, he got the feeling that wasn't the case.

Reluctantly he approached the sarcophagus, climbing up onto the pedestal to get a better look at the lid. What he found left him confused. Written on the lid of the sarcophagus was a name, but it wasn't Dracula.

"Alucard?"

It didn't make sense. Who was this Alucard and why did he have a sarcophagus with the symbol of Dracula carved into it? Was he a high ranking vampire in Dracula's ranks?

He was still racking his brain, trying to understand the significance of the tomb, when he felt the lid begin to move beneath his hands.

Letting out a startled yelp, Simon leapt back. He cursed himself for becoming so taken in by the sarcophagus. This was Dracula's Castle, he reminded himself. He was going to get himself killed if he stopped to ponder every grave he stumbled upon.

With his whip out, ready to defend himself, Simon watched as the lid was pushed aside. After a moment, a figure arose from inside. His eyes widened in awe as he took in the sight. Standing before him was a man, tall and broad-shouldered with long white hair and glowing yellow eyes. There was no doubt about it … He was a vampire.

Climbing out of his sarcophagus, the white-haired vampire started towards him, staggering as if he was drunk.

"Get back!" Simon exclaimed, retreating a step back.

Much to Simon's surprise, this seemed to startle the vampire. He stopped abruptly in his tracks, raising his hands up in surrender.

"Forgive me if I startled you, but you seem familiar to me. Do I know you?" the vampire spoke, his fangs briefly peeking out from behind his pale lips.

Simon gave him a good look-over. He had to admit that there was something vaguely familiar about the white-haired vampire, but he couldn't put his finger on why or how.

"I doubt that. You wouldn't be walking this earth if we had met before."

"Have I done something to make you hate me?" the vampire asked. "If I have, I am deeply sorry."

"Your existence alone is enough to make me hate you, vampire!"

The vampire cokes his head to the side, giving Simon a questioning look, "Vampire? Is that who I am?"

Now it was Simon's turn to be confused. Was this vampire trying to mess with him? Was he trying to convince him that he was completely clueless? If he was, it was starting to work.

"You can't be serious… You mean to tell me that you don't even know what you are?"

The vampire shook his head. "All I know is that I just woke up inside a coffin," he explained. "I can't remember anything before… I had hoped that you knew who I was, seeing as you were there when I awoke."

Simon could see honesty in the creature's eyes. His golden orbs were filled with nothing but sorrow and confusion. He hadn't thought it possible, but he actually felt sorry for a vampire.

This man had clearly just been turned. Simon didn't know much about vampirism, but he knew enough to spot a newborn one. The man seemed weak, stumbling about, gripping the side of the sarcophagus for support as if he would collapse at any moment.

It made him wonder… Was this how all vampires awoke; Sad and unable to remember who they were before?

He shook his head. That couldn't be the case. He had heard tales of vampires coming back for those who had wronged them in their previous lives to have their revenge.

No, he got the feeling that this was a special case. This man looked like a vampire but he didn't really act like one. He could have lunged at him and ripped his throat apart by now, but he hadn't. He either wasn't thirsty or possessed a great deal of self restraint, especially for one who just awoke.

"I'm afraid I do not. I stumbled upon this room by accident, but judging from the name inscribed on the sarcophagus, I'd have to guess that your name is Alucard."

The white-haired vampire turned back to face the sarcophagus. Slowly he approached the lid, crouching down and running his clawed fingers over the name.

"Alucard… The name doesn't sound familiar, but I suppose it could have been my name."

After a few moments, the vampire, Alucard, stood again and began to gaze around the room.

"I feel like I've been here before… I-I think this was the room in which I died…"

Simon had figured as much. Though he was still puzzling over the significance of the sarcophagus and its significance. If this man had been killed and turned by Dracula, it seemed unlikely that Dracula would place him in such an elaborate tomb without reasoning. Could it be that this man was somehow special to the Vampire Lord?

"Does the name Dracula ring any bells?"

At the sound of the name, Alucard's stopped dead in his tracks. His shoulders tensed and his fists clenched as he slowly turned back to face Simon. The dark look on his face said it all.

"I don't know why… But when you said that name, I felt a rush of overwhelming anger flow inside of me," he said. "I do not know how I know him, only that I want to kill him."

"Well then, sounds like we have a shared goal. I too have come to Dracula's Castle in hopes of killing him. Perhaps if we team up, we might have a better chance of doing so."

Simon wasn't sure if the idea was wise. Joining forces with a vampire wasn't exactly something he would ordinarily do. He couldn't explain it, but he felt this connection to Alucard; as if they were meant to find each other. It was as if they knew each other somehow… As if they had always known each other.

Alucard nodded his head in agreement, extending a hand to him. "Might I know the name of the man I am to be fighting alongside of?"

Reluctantly Simon took the hand offered and shook it, being careful to not be scratched by the claws. "My name is Simon Belmont."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Simon Belmont," Alucard smiled. "I hope I can be of some help to you."

Through the windows, Simon could see that the night was starting to lift. For the moment, that was good. It would give them a bit of time to prepare. He could get some much needed rest, and Alucard … He doubted that the vampire needed rest … No, he assumed that what the vampire needed to recover its strength was to feed. The thought made him tense. He hadn't thought of how or who his accomplice would be getting his food from.

"Don't worry, I won't drink from you." Alucard assured him as if he had just read his thoughts. "You can rest here and I'll stand guard outside the door to make sure nothing disturbs you."

Simon let out a sigh of relief. Ordinarily he would have been more on guard, especially around a vampire, but for some reason he believed Alucard when he said he would keep him safe. He trusted him to guard him. It was truly bizarre, but he was much too tired to try and fight it.

"I'd appreciate that."

With a final nod of the head, Alucard staggered out of the room, closing the door behind him.

A part of Simon worried that his new friend would be too weak to take on any monsters that came his way, but he quickly shook such concerns away. Alucard was a vampire. He'd be fine. He needed to focus on himself for now.

Casting another glance around the room, he searched for a place to lay down. He briefly debated over trying the sarcophagus, but ruled that out soon after. There was no way he was going to sleep in the bed of the undead. Instead, he settled for a relatively clean spot on the floor in front of one of the many windows.

Laying down, he did his best to get comfortable, using part of his fur pelt to cushion his head. Secure in the knowledge that Alucard was standing guard outside and the sunlight that would surely wash over him while he slept would offer him more than enough protection, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to relax. He was gone within minutes.

...

Alucard collapsed almost as soon as the door was closed. He needed to feed. He knew nothing else. There was blood everywhere, slowly closing in on him and threatening to overwhelm him. He had done his best to hide it from the red-haired man, but the truth was that he had been sorely tempted to drain him dry.

He didn't know who he was, but still he hated himself, or rather the vampire that he had become. Somehow he knew deep down that he hadn't always been this way. He had to have been human before, meaning that someone had made him this way… Someone had turned him, selfishly stealing him from the life he knew before, and judging by the hatred that bubbled inside of him at the mention of this Dracula, he suspected that he was the culprit.

If only he could remember who he was. Did he have a family somewhere outside of this castle? Were they missing him? Did they think him dead? That, he couldn't answer.

Then there was the issue of his name. Alucard… Was that really his name? It didn't fit as he felt it should. There were several names that sounded familiar, but Alucard was not one of them.

Simon Belmont, on the other hand, was a name that sounded so familiar to him. In fact, everything about him was familiar, yet he couldn't place why that was. He had this unexplainable desire to protect Simon from all those who would wish harm on him. Which is exactly why he fled from the room when he did…

Alucard knew that he was going to have to get his strength back if he was to be of any use, and the only way to do that was to sate his thirst. He was determined not to hurt his new friend, or any other human beings for that matter, but that didn't leave him with a lot of food sources.

That was when the beasts started to come. Dozens of dwarven hunchbacks came out of nowhere, running at him with wooden shields and pitchforks. They came to an abrupt halt in front of him, scratching their heads and mumbling something amongst themselves before continuing on with their attacks.

He struggled at first, unarmed and weak with thirst, but then he came across a strange cross-shaped weapon lying around in the hall. Without hesitation, he snatched it up and used it to fight off the hunchbacks.

Something deep inside him seemed to come into place. He felt somehow more whole than he had before. Like the weapon was an integral part of him that he had been missing for so long. From that moment on, he fought with ease. His body moved instinctively, as if it knew what it was doing on it's own. Before long, there was a pile of fallen hunchbacks at his feet.

"Who was I in my previous life?" he asked himself, staring down at the weapon in his hands. "Was I like Simon; a warrior who came to try and defeat Dracula?"

If he was, he had clearly failed. The nagging ache in his throat reminded him of such, but it also brought an idea to mind.

Crouching down before the pile of hunchbacks, he observed them for a moment, noticing blood dripping from the open wounds across their body. Their blood didn't exactly smell the most appealing to him, but it was there and so he scooped up one of the dead hunchbacks and sunk his teeth into its wrinkled flesh, draining the tiny body dry.

He did the same with four more hunchbacks, throwing them off to the side as he finished them off. Once he had his fill, he pulled back, wiping the excess blood dripping from his mouth with the back of his arm.

"Well, at least it did the trick."

Just like its smell, its taste left some to be desired, but the constant ache in his throat had lessened to a point where it was barely noticeable. Not only that, but he felt a bit stronger from it as well. He smiled. At least he knew that he had an effective substitute. He wouldn't have to worry about attacking Simon.

True to his word, he remained outside the door, listening to the slow but steady heartbeat of the man on the other side. Hours passed and though a few more hunchbacks did wander his way, his watch was uneventful for the most part.

Eventually, he heard Simon begin to stir, signalling that he was finished sleeping. He waited patiently outside the door, unable to re-enter the room on account of the open ceiling, until the door finally opened and the red-headed warrior emerged, yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked.

"As well as you can expect when you're lying on a hard floor," Simon said with a shrug.

It was then that Simon noticed the pile of hunchback corpses scattered about, eyeing them curiously.

"I take it you managed to find some food for yourself," he stated, glancing back over at Alucard. "I'd say it helped. You seem to be in a much better state than when you first woke."

Alucard nodded. "I also managed to find a weapon for myself," he held it up for Simon to see.

"It's a battle cross!" Simon's eyes went wide. "May I have a look at it?"

Alucard handed it over a bit reluctantly, feeling a bit bare without his new-found weapon.

Simon examined the battle cross quite thoroughly as if searching for something. Whatever it was, he obviously didn't find it judging from the frown that surfaced on his face.

"Is something wrong with it?"

"No, nothing like that," Simon insisted, handing it back to Alucard. "I thought it might have been my father's old battle cross, but I was mistaken."

Alucard raised a brow. "Your father had a weapon like this? What did you call it? A battle cross?"

"Yeah, apparently it's still here in the castle. I hope to find it before I face the Dark Lord."

"Well, I'll do my best to help you in that regard," Alucard promised. "I seem to remember the basic layout of the castle from before. I might have seen it somewhere and just passed by."

"That would be much appreciated, seeing as my previous guide just up and vanished on me," Simon muttered bitterly. Clearly there was some bad blood between him and his so-called previous guide. "Anyway, we should get going. I've already slept for a good part of the day and the other night creatures will no doubt be out again when night falls."

Both in agreement with the idea, they started off into the castle's winding halls.

[ton-e]

The coolness in the room is no rival to Zemo's voice. "Poor little piggies, " he hums, a silent breach into the waves of the skull-splitting roaring of a hundred different mouths, sound that slashes like a dagger from across his seat, knowing it touches only the Asset, eyes watching the chain of men marching towards the ring like a butcher does a lamb.

"They never stood a chance." 

Barnes registers a spiky sensation showering his back for not even a minute, starting strong from the top of his slashed shoulders, painted crimson, purple, and yellow, resembling a terrible portrait, no worse than what his face may look like, he's sure, gradually dissolving in small aftershocks bleeding through his skin, all the way to the tip of his toes. 

He ponders if he should blame it on the blood, icy sweat leaving frostbite kisses to his wounds, or, worse of all, the thing tied to the squeeze of his chest at the 10 men sprinting past the red ropes, directly into his line of sight. Something stray that his handlers would be displeased at discovering they couldn't rid of. 

He wishes they had, wishes they could, yet, guilt is a prison, not an emotion, and he guesses those are harder to kill.

His ears capture the crack of his bones knuckles as he adds pressure on them. He lost feeling in his joints before what he estimates to be hours prior to the finale, because no one tells him, and he doesn't dare ask. Talking is never why his presence is required, after all. 

He looks at his opponents, breathing labored and control behind his muzzle, and thinks, 'I'm sorry'.

This isn't a match. 

This isn't a fight. 

It's slaughter. 

His head starts pounding, his fists shake, and his legs charge. 

----

"Come on, get your skinny ass home, " He tries to make his anger soft, his orders more suggestion than command, but no one ever said walking out of the army meant leaving, too. Barnes walks on the concrete and feels sand beneath his toes, his friend's wiry arms feel like cords, and the acid insults coming from the group of boys in their wake feel like bombed terrain. 

The more the asshole he's trying to drag Rogers away from keeps on egging, the more tempted he is to make a battlefield out of this alley. "You're bigger than this. You're above garbage like him." 

He could drag the blonde away with ease, pick him up with one arm by the underside of his knees and haul him on his shoulders, but for once, he just wants Rogers to walk away from a fight by himself.

Then, he's burned by blue shining with a raging fire, undying light, furious and unforgiving, and remembers who Steve Rogers is. 

"He talked about my Mama," he spits, words grave and heavy slipping through his gritted teeth, trashing wildly into his arms. "You listen to what the fuck he's saying, then ask me to walk away!" 

"You gonna put your fists where your mouth is, Rogers, or you gonna let the kike take this fight for you too!?" Said asshole shouts, trading snickers with his friends. Rogers makes a sound between a growl and a roar. Barnes holds tighter. "Come on, Barnes. Put your bitch boy aside for a minute. Come and get a taste. " 

His smile is ugly, and vicious and his teeth feel too sharp in his mouth." I'd love to fix what I can on the surface damages, but in my family, we don't hit little girls. Put a quick step on it." 

He just knows he won't like what he'll hear when the man, - tall, burly, impossibly weak,- sneers with a wide smirk and tosses his cigarette aside. "Or what? You'll go tettle to Sarah Rogers about me? Last time I checked, the dead don't hear you. Thought I doubt she could've done something anyway, " Barnes never saw a smile look so hideous on someone.

"Can't be TOO tough, bitch got killed by an aspirin." 

Both him and Rogers stay as still as  time for just one moment, share twin stares reflecting a storm of dark, mirror one another's stone set smiles, and march towards the band. 

Rogers headbutts them swiftly, quick and agile within his form, and Barnes' fist sends the fucker to the dumpsters. 

----

Alexander Pierce takes a generous sip of his bubbly champagne as he savors the sound of two bodies syncing in their fall, slammed against the hard map, of air being ripped out from beat down lungs. As lovely as a summer song are their cries of pain, singing praise to his training.

They weren't their opponents; They weren't even competition; 

They were his example.

Asset is forged in pain and war, sculpted by hands who are as capable as they are sinful. Saints may find peace in boundaries, but devils get results. As he watches the super-soldier sends his enemy twisting in the air, a ragdoll suspended in the atmosphere, by only the kick of his ankle, the director preens at said results. 

He had always chased the high of being the most untouchable man in the room. Of climbing so far up the totem pole he'd be able to step on anyone daring to come after him, of building an empire on the ashes of weaklings scrambling like ants at his feet. 

When his eye spies the looks of pinched fear, displayed on crystal faces who crack the frames of controlled disciplined you'd normally be faced with among the shelter of the balconies where only important pieces stay, hard wood and steel cracking under the pressuring dread, he says to himself: I made that tonight.

No honor among Kings. 

"Someone is not feeling very charitable tonight," Petrikov's voice is thick smoke and sobriety, breezing through the veil of drugging haughtiness blossoming in his chest, thicker than the dream screen in his mind. His bored drawl makes the glass under Pierce's fingers crack. "I'd hate to know your ruthlessness on moody days." 

"Ivan. As vague as ever. And as always, I don't know what you mean, '' Ivan's nod and unsurprised expression say he adjusted himself to that occurrence already. Pierce wants to watch him burn. " Care to elaborate?" 

"I regrettably misplace the colored pencils home, so pardon me if the explanation is too overwhelming, director, but a fair fight is far from what's happening down there, performance number wise." 

"For once, I believe I agree with you, " Pierce can taste silky satisfaction settling like sugar on his tongue. "Ten men against an army? I find it unfair too. But I wouldn't place my bets on anyone here laying their priorities on sportsmanship."

 A squint and theatrical hiss of mock sympathy leave his lips as he watches the Asset's fist close against his opponent's throat, dragging the other man in his trail as his agile legs jump along the ropes and lift him in the air, choke slamming the other into the floor,in a world of pain that only elevates along with the people's cry, reaching the ceiling. 

Asset looks up at him when he comes down. He looks for guidance as he watches another boxer crawling as fast as his broken legs would push him. Pierce takes a moment to ponder, arm outstretching upwards so his signal could be seen. His thumb dangles from upwards to forward. 

"You're either the meat, or the butcher." 

His thumb comes down.

[masosade]

A Second Chance

“I would’ve dropped  you off at Neil’s, but he’s been trying my patience lately. So why bother? I am sure someone will come pick you up eventually.” Alice smiled coldly as she watched formerly half-of Maso take his first shaky steps out of the grimdark Office. The body she had salvaged from another unfortunate Stellan - one whose soul had been reincarnated after his young demise – had been patched up and handed down.

"And remember! If you ever come back to cuase trouble in the grimdark Office again, your death will be an exceptionally long and painful one!" Alice chirped, her fingernails digging into Stellan's shoulder painfully. He jerked back, wincing, and averted his eyes.  

“Perfect! I am glad we understand each other. Now, off you go, shoo!”

Stellan turned down the hallway. It was unfamiliar, looked like every other Office they’ve been to. With a sinking heart, he remembered he wouldn’t have Bradley here to guide him. He wished he would’ve paid more attention to their previous travels.

However, the things out there were most likely much better than what he was leaving behind. He felt Alice’s gaze linger a few seconds longer as he limped away, before she vanished back in her Office.

And then Stellan was alone.

His new body ached and stung from the stitches Jagger had put in after it had been rescued from a grave. Its eyes felt weak and its feet clumsily stumbled over each other. Either they had given him a second rate body to sit in, or he had to get used to having a body on his own for the first time in years.

It was ironic, actually. Stellan had dreamed of owning a very own body for himself on many occaisons, one where he could do what he want and go wherever, with no one else there to tell him what to do. Now he just felt cold and empty. He wished Bradley were here to fill the silence. When he reached out for that presence at the forefront of his mind, he felt nothing but hollow numbness, like tonguing a missing tooth.

Finally free and Stellan was fucking miserable.

He made his way down the hallways, taking random turns in whatever direction felt like it could lead him somewhere better. The Lounge sat empty, its seats covered in thick dust and the vending machine leaking with unidentifiable fluids. Not an abnormal sight to see, if rare, but some Offices shut down after their Stanleys and Narrators leave, or are killed, or kidnapped, or fall in love and move to another one, abandoning their original Offices.

It felt like the Universe took great joy in mocking Stellan, reminding him of how utterly alone he was. For the first time in years, he wanted to find a bottle that smelled as strongly as the juices drenching the Lounge’s carpets and drink it until he forgot everything but the burning in his throat. He had curbed his alcoholism nearly a decade prior, dreaming without it he could hold a good job, pull himself out of the mess his life had become and afford starting again in a better community.

Ever since he took the first step for change, accepting an office job promising to uphold a decent lifestyle, things haven’t stopped spiraling downwards.

‘Maybe I should’ve stayed a drunkard,’ Stellan thought bitterly as he focused on placing a foot in front of the other. Both the pain and the fogginess in his mind made it difficult to walk straight.

‘Ending up with liver poison and a friendly face per night would’ve been a much better fate. Hell, I could’ve met someone nice and spent an average life with them. But noo, I had to become a better person and start dreaming. And look where that got me.’

So wrapped up in his self loathing, Stellan didn’t notice another Stanley standing in the middle of the hallway until he nearly ran straight into him. In a flash, his thoughts had vanished and he couldn’t help stare.

The other Stanley...looked normal enough. He had the typical brown hair parted in the middle and messy with a morning look, warm brown eyes, and freckles scattered playfully on his nose. His employee outfit clean and nicely ironed; the nametag which read 'Hi! My name is Stanley!' looked new.

He looked normal but he didnt feel normal. This Office was abandoned, no doubt, so where had he come from? If he were a new Stanley, surely he would be frightened with the change of scenery and lack of directions.

Yet he simply stood there and smiled at Stellan, like they had agreed to meet up and Stanley was happy he came.

"Uhh?" Stellan tried and his vocal cords cringed at the unaccustomed strain. He coughed awkwardly and tried again, this time managing a hoarse mutter.

“H-hey, can you help me? I think I’m lost.”

"Of course I can help!" The Stanley said, his voice surprisingly gentle. He offered his hand for Stellan to take. "Come with me, I can take you somewhere safe!"

His eyes gleamed brightly in the dim hallway and for a moment Stellan wondered if he had stumbled upon another illusion of a Jonathan. Maybe it had been abandoned after the Narrator left and was never taken care of. But when Stellan hesitantly took his hand, it was warm and human to the touch. Not even Jonathan could imagine an illusion that felt so real.

The other Stanley beamed with joy and Stellan glanced away.

The Office looked even worse than Stellan had expected. Beyond the Lounge, as they headed back towards room 427, he noticed some rooms had their ceilings caved in, others with windows shattered. The left door was blocked completely with some filing cabinets but his mysterious guide didn't bat an eye at the havoc.

They turned into another hallway past room 420, and headed deeper. Stellan gave up trying to make sense of where they are going so he focused on the warm hand clutching his. It felt so foreign to be holding it and comforting at the same time.

“You’ve got a long journey behind you, don’t you?” The other Stanley said, sometime after they passed through another portal finally, into another Office. It smelled warm like a heated kitchen and no matter how hard Stellan looked, he couldnt find even one piece of stray paper on the ground.

“You dont know the half of it,” Stellan muttered. He tried to focus on walking, grateful for the hand clutching his. Without it he would’ve surely tripped over his own feet.

“I think I might,” Stanley said, smiling. Stellan shot him a questioning look, but he didn’t offer to elaborate.

“...did someone send you to get me?”

“This way.”

It’s been barely an hour, they couldn’t have known the exact moment I was released, could they?

Whoever they were. Countless of people around the Offices stuck their nosy noses in other people’s business. Stellan could name ten on the top of his head who may have had even the abandoned Offices bugged, grimdarks and the laboratories of one certain evil Narrator included.

Maybe it was desperation talking, or his inability to care about what pain could be further induced on him at this point, emotional or physical. But the other Stanley didnt feel evil. Even if he was mysterious, came out of nowhere and now held a tight grip to his hand as they wandered further into the hallway’s mazes.

If he wanted to hurt Stellan, he could have done it by now.

Unless he is taking you back to the laboratories, a tiny voice quipped.

I’m useless now. Bradley has the body, not me.

You’re not useless. Their whole experiments were centered around pain, werent they? Maybe they’re trying to see how far they can break you.

… then let them. I don’t give a shit anymore, and if they want to fuse me with more Bradleys. I’m tired. I don’t care.

Stanley stopped suddenly in front of a door. He turned back to Stellan and, while he never stopped smiling, it brightened when he looked at him.

“In here.” Stanley said.

“What…?” Stellan glanced at the door. “What’s in there?”

“Oh, didnt I already say? It’s a second chance for both of you.”

Both? Stellan stared in bewilderment and got a knowing smile as an answer.

Wait...

“...Bradley….Bradley is in there too?” How did he get past Alice and her security and her monsters to get him out? She was very clear in what she wanted to do with his other half and how she would maim anyone who tried to free Bradley of his ‘punishment’. Even if the ‘good guys’ wanted to save Bradley, it wouldnt make any sense. Stellan’s own alternate, one of those self proclaimed Office Heroes, even he took part in their capture.

“Life is more than hurting and getting hurt.” The other Stanley continued, infuriatingly vague. “We all have done things we regret, but it doesnt mean we need to suffer for the rest of our lives for it.”

He reached out and cupped his hands around Stellan’s face, and Stel startled at how warm they were. Ever snce Maso – no. Ever since the Office, the hands touching him had been cruel, painful. Cold fingers of scientists prodding, Jagger and his scalpels, agony created by Alice and his very own hands. And yet Stanley’s were so gentle, soft and merciful. Stellan leaned into the touch unconsciously.

His chest stung with an unwanted tightness.

“You’re going to be okay.” The Stanley said. “You and him. I promise.”

Stel was tempted to bite back with sarcasm, but it felt ungrateful to spoil his optimism with bitterness. Instead he hung his head, ashamed.

“We dont deserve a second chance,” he muttered. The hands withdrew from his face and even in the surprisingly warm Office air, Stel felt colder. He waited, but no reply came and when he looked  up again, the hallway was empty.

The other Stanley had vanished.

Stellan sighed and turned back to the door. It looked so simple a few minutes ago and now it seemed more daunting, at the thought of seeing him again. Bradley might blame him for leaving him alone, but Stellan was more afraid he wouldn’t hesitate a second if Bradley offered him a chance to come back.

Anything was better than suffering alone. At least Bradley understood him.

Stellan gathered up his nerves and reached out for the door handle. It stuck, forcing him to rattle it a few times before he managed to get it open. His heart beat hard in his throat.

Now or never, he thought. The door swung open and Stellan stepped inside.

A single desk lamp struggled to light the room, though its glow couldn't reach past the cramped corner in which the cot sat. On the cot, wrapped in a few dozens blankets crouched a figure. Stellan couldn't make out its features so he hesitantly tried a,

"Bradley?"

The figure shuddered. As Stellan took another careful step inside, letting the door swing shut behind him, it shifted and a tired, tear stricken face peered out from underneath the sheets.

Stellan froze and he could feel his heart sink to his stomach.

That wasn’t his Bradley.

[kaibuntsu]

The Dragon of No Words - #3

A/N: I’m gonna leave out links to avoid my post disappearing from search... But it’s on Wattpad too, if anyone prefers to read there.

     Avi watched his boss walk out of the Italian restaurant with another big fitness bag from inside the van. His tail wagged; it seemed like another successful deal had been struck.

     In his two months working for him, he slowly begun to learn of Emrys’ business model. The man clearly was not the biggest or the richest arms dealer in the world, or even in his country. How could he when he had never had someone work for him before Avi. Instead, the larger, richer arms dealers were his suppliers, and Avi learned throughout the months that most of them were Eamon’s connections. Emrys acted as some sort of a reseller for their weapons, with local gangs and smaller mafia families from neighboring countries as his target customers. And he did all that on his own, much Avi’s amazement.

     Emrys slid into the driver’s seat and threw the bag to Avi. “There, grab your share and leave the rest in the bag,” he said, turning on the engine. A small smile cracked on his face hearing the loud whooshing from Avi’s tail wagging intensely in excitement. He drove off to his next destination, one that Avi noticed he kept going to after he made profit. A graveyard.

     Avi had always chosen to stay inside the van whenever Emrys visited the graveyard, in case someone will spot him and his eight feet stature among the gravestones, but this time, he was curious. When Emrys opened the back side of the door to grab his share of the payment, Avi hopped out, to the red-head’s surprise.

     “What are you doing?” he asked.

     Avi simply pointed at the hill Emrys normally climbed up to and the small gesture alone was enough to inform him.

     “O-oh. Well…I guess you got bored of waiting in the van all the time, huh? Alright. But keep quiet.”

     Avi nodded and soon, followed his boss walking up the hill, upon which was a large tombstone with an elaborate shape of a monument. Unlike the other tombstones on the same hill, this one had two names on it, sharing the same last name: Gorman. Avi tilted his head to the side. It was a different last name to Emrys. He would ask questions, but he promised Emrys he would be quiet.

     Emrys was even more silent, refusing to say anything except a very hushed prayer as he knelt before the tombstone. The dragon could only watch and ponder in silence, but he sort of understood why Emrys frequented this place, even if he was still clueless to the relationship between his boss and the two people under the grave.

     After praying, Emrys finally turned to Avi, who expected some elaboration about the names on the tombstone. Instead, what came out of Emrys’ mouth was, “Can I have a moment alone, please?” Avi whimpered in protest, but Emrys was having none of it. “I…tend to get really sappy when visiting and I’m not yet comfortable to let you see my ugly side.”

     Avi sighed, which came out as a low droning sound, and moved a fist in a circular motion on his chest. He sort of figured out that his boss had a hard time trusting people, let alone a monster like him.

     “No need to be sorry. Maybe one day I’ll let you stick around until I’m done. If you keep up the good work, that is.” He dismissed the dragon, returning to the large monument tombstone once again while Avi flew down the hill back to the van.

     The dragon landed gently on top of the van and sat on its roof. He wasn’t thinking anything until he realized something from earlier. Did…did Emrys just understand what he just signed? He did say sorry, but how did he know? Avi rarely signed at home, opting to struggle with his handwriting which Emrys had a hard time to decipher. He was tempted to fly back to Emrys just to confirm, but again, he requested not to be disturbed. So now Avi had to sit on the van with curiosity brewing in his head.

     When Emrys walked back, Avi immediately signed asking to confirm his suspicion. The flurry of hand gestures nearly made Emrys sweat. “Uh, can we wait until we’re home? I don’t get any of that…” Emrys said, a tinge of awkwardness in his tone.

     Avi’s body slumped with disappointment. He supposed that was too big a wishful thinking expecting him to be able to sign fluently. He nodded and stepped inside the van, while Emrys entered the driver’s seat before tossing the empty bag of money to the seat beside him.

     The two came home to two voice messages on the phone. Emrys chose to ignore them, more focused on making food, but the curious Avi was more concerned about the ignored messages. He whimpered while pointing at the phone, fingers itched to press the play button. 

     Emrys sighed exasperatedly. “Whatever. Play it,” he said, tearing apart the bag containing huge pork ribs.

     And with more enthusiasm than necessary, Avi’s index finger made contact with the play button and a robotic voice started announcing the first voice message.

     “Salut, Emrys! It’s Vivi! You know, Vivian? You sister? I know it’s been a while since we talked, but I never forget to say: Happy birthday!”

     Avi’s spikes perked up at the last phrase, head whisking from the phone to the red-haired man, who looked back at the dragon with slightly blushing cheeks. Emrys quickly turned his face away, hiding away his embarrassment, but the voice message made it hard to do so.

     “It’s too bad you’re not at home. I was hoping we could chat for a bit, I want to know how you’re doing. I know you’re very busy, what with you working alone and all. You know, there’s no harm in taking a little vacation to Marseilles and visit your new niece. Well, take care, love. Call me back maybe? Bye.”

     Emrys coyly glanced towards where the phone was, only to see Avi wagging his tail so wildly he created a mini wind vortex from the motion alone. His face was directed straight towards him. Emrys didn’t need to see Avi’s eyes—if he had them—to know he was thrilled at the knowledge that today was his birthday. “M-my sister got the date wrong, I swear…”

     But the phone betrayed him by playing another voice message that came two hours after the previous one. “Happy birthday, Emrys!” another woman’s voice squealed from other side of the line, prompting the receiver to slap a hand over his face. “Oh, it’s Anna, by the way. I hope you don’t forget that you have other sisters other than Vivi. She just bragged about calling you first. It wasn’t my fault I was working! If she wasn’t on maternity leave, she would be late calling you too. Okay, I promised my boss I’ll be quick. Gotta go. Happy birthday, again! Love you!”

     Finally. No more voice messages. 

     Avi rushed to the kitchen counter, body language brimming with excitement with how his tail kept wagging and the spikes on his back rattling. He moved back a bit just so he could make gestures, starting with gently clapping his hands twice and followed by two subsequent gestures. He repeated a couple of times more slowly.

     “Is that…how you sign ‘happy birthday’?” Emrys asked, hesitantly. The colors on his cheeks spread further to his face. Avi nodded vigorously, mouth opening slightly in a toothy smile. “Well, I…” Emrys moved his hand to touch his chin and then move it outward. “Thanks…. Did I do that right?”

     Avi made a rumbly, bassy “Ooh!” sound, his tail wagging intensified. He nodded to confirm, purring contently.

     “I’m not that good at it yet, but at least I know the basic greetings. Still trying to memorize how to sign the alphabet.” Emrys’ index finger scratched a nonexistent itch on his cheek, face warming up watching how pleased and proud Avi seemed after his very small demonstration. The dragon landed a hand on his lean shoulder, while the other hand gave him a thumb’s up. He couldn’t stop a small chuckle from escaping his mouth. “I appreciate your support. I promise I’ll be better next time. Hey now, you’ll hit my furniture if you keep wagging your log of a tail that hard.”

     Avi collected his tail into his arms and hugged it, but he couldn’t stop the last five inches of it from wagging wagging. Learning that his boss had spent some time to learn some sign language filled him with unbridled joy. His chest kept vibrating with bass purrs, even as he entered the kitchen area to offer assistance with cooking. Emrys planned to make some simple grilled pork ribs, but looking at Avi, he found a new idea. He instructed his draconic employee to gently blow fire over the ribs, making sure not to burn it, while he flipped and turned the meat to its other sides in between breaths. It was meant as an experiment. An experiment that, to his own surprise, yielded better results than he thought. The surface was slightly charred, but the inside was well-cooked, even leaving some pink in the middle, just the way he likes it.

     Before he and Avi could celebrate their experimental cooking method, they were interrupted by his doorbell. The maroon-haired man sighed. “Wait. Let me check who it is,” he said, holding a hand up before allowing Avi to hide in his room. He peered through the peephole and found the same shade of jade staring back, startling him a bit. But then his guest moved back, the familiarity of the face washed him with relief. “It’s okay, Avi. You don’t have to hide.”

     Avi’s body relaxed, though he was still curious of the guest’s identity. He watched Emrys opened the door and a woman about the same height as he—maybe an inch or two shorter—entered and hugged him. The dragon’s head tilted slightly to the side; whoever she was, she was close to him.

     “Happy birthday, love,” she said, kissing his cheek. When she moved back, her hands lingered on Emrys’ face. Her eyes drifted to the large black creature hanging out in the kitchen, a hot iron skillet in his hand, and her eyes widened. “Emrys, is that…”

     “Oh, yeah. Yeah!” Emrys invited the woman in and quickly locked the door shut. “He’s the guy I told you about. Morgaine, this is Avi. Avi, Morgaine. She’s my sister.” He guided her to the dining table, in the middle of which was a steel cooling rack. Avi put the iron skillet of charred pork ribs on it, but a confused chirrup came from his throat. “My oldest sister,” Emrys answered, sensing the confusion in Avi’s tone. “Vivi is the second, Anna is the third, and me…I’m the baby of the family.”

     At the explanation, Avi hummed. He wiped his hand with a napkin nearby before offering a handshake to Morgaine, who looked at him with puzzled wonderment. She was slow to return his offer, but eventually their hands grasped each other. Morgaine’s opinion changes were visible from her expression.

     “Wow, I—” she stammered, “He’s polite,” she remarked, turning to her brother, who smiled sheepishly. She looked at the dragon’s humongous hand, how it easily dwarfed hers. Sharp triangular claws tucked tightly into the back of his fingers by design. They resembled trimmed human nails. The dragon retreated and took his place on the dining table, his tail slipped through the opening on the back of the chair. Morgaine turned again to her brother. “Your first employee ever and you treat him like a roommate.”

     “Well, what can I do? He’s probably from outer space. You should know better how people are in a place that’s foreign to them. You hire hapless fish-out-of-water all the time.” Emrys took a seat adjacent to Avi, serving himself a rib. He gestured the hot skillet of ribs to his sister. “Care to join, sis?”

     Morgaine eyed the table full of feast, her face twisting to a restrained disgust. “Do you have anything that’s not…meaty?”

     “Oh, oops. Fuck, I forgot about the potato gratin. Is that okay?” He jumped from his seat and rushed back to the kitchen to grab the forgotten food. Luckily, it was already done baking by the time he and Avi were collaborating on the ribs.

     “That’ll do. I’m just taking a little munch. Already ate before I came here.” She served herself a glass of whisky that was already on the table while waiting for Emrys to fetch the lighter meal. The flavor of it was stronger than she preferred, but she still found it quite delectable.

     The two siblings talked most of the time, though Morgaine was the more chatty one. Avi was mostly forgotten during their conversation, but he was listening the entire time, tail slowly swishing across the wooden floor. From clues left behind from the conversation, Avi was able to deduce that Morgaine was at least seven years or more older than Emrys. They would tease each other about the attractiveness of some man they were talking about, so Morgaine seemed to be single and not interested in serious relationships. Emrys, on the other hand, had subtle looks of longing that he would shove away forcefully with sass. Watching them converse caused Avi to purr in a very low tone, low enough that the two humans failed to notice it, despite the slight rumble on his throat.

     The laughter were somewhat interrupted as the doorbell rang again. Not just once, but twice, thrice, four times, too excessively. That effectively killed off any sounds of enjoyment. It didn’t help that the excessive bell ringer was none other than Eamon. His face was somewhat pinkish, a half-empty bottle of vodka in his right hand and a thick tablet with a crack on one of its corners in his left.

     “Surprise! Happy birthday!” he cheered, his words were a bit slurred.

     Emrys moved aside, gingerly letting his father in. “Normally, I don’t like surprise parties, but I’m genuinely curious about this one. How did you know?”

     “Of course I know. I’m your dad!” He shoved the half-empty bottle of vodka to his son’s chest. “Here’s your present, lad.”

     Emrys grimaced and placed the bottle on a shelf near the door before following his father. “Yeah, except this is the first time you’ve ever come to celebrate.” Emrys crossed his arms, watching the tipsy old pirate helped himself with a rib. A rib that was supposed to be Avi’s last. Already he noticed Avi was restraining a protest from coming out of his maw. The only reason he knew the dragon was upset was because his spikes perked up.

     “Oh, hi, Morgaine—hey, there’s a first time for everything.” He chomped at the ribs, oil coursed over his lips and his unruly beard, dripping down to the table, much to Morgaine’s disgust. “Jesus, this is some good shit. You make the best shit, boy!”

     “Can you at least sit down and eat on a plate?” Morgaine half-groaned.

     “Nah, I’ll just eat from the pan. Ooh, still warm.” He carefully wrapped his fingers around the handle, testing its safety. Once he determined that it was just about cool enough to touch without searing his skin, he dragged it across the table. He smeared the rib in his hand all over the leftover grease on the pan, absorbing the lost flavor back into the meat. He then glanced to the dragon adjacent to him. He swore he was looking at him. “Don’t be so mad. Here, I got you a present too.”

      Eamon handed a thick tablet to the reluctant dragon. His greasy fingers left very oily fingerprints on the back and on the screen. Avi quickly cleaned the grease off with a tissue before studying its partially cracked glory. It was a really old data tablet. It was as big as a hardback book, both in size and thickness. Avi made a puzzled grunt as he spun and turned the tablet in his hands.

     “What, never seen a data tablet before?” Eamon flouted.

     “Dad, that thing’s from the stone age. I have one that’s newer and smaller.”

     “Fuck, then why didn’t you buy one for him?”

     While the father and son bickered, Avi managed to turn on the tablet, having to wait for an agonizingly slow boot time. When it turned on, the screen was all black, until neon green pixelated text appeared on the corner of the screen, showing its time. It was eight hours late and the date was still stuck in 1970. Stone age was right.

     “What for?” Emrys asked, his voice gradually rising the longer he talked with his father.

     “So you can talk to him properly. You can stop playing charades in front of your clients and embarrassing yourself when you keep getting it wrong.”

     “Well, I happen to enjoy doing ‘charades’. I’m kinda good at it,” Emrys retorted. He pursed his lips, choosing not to mention that he had started learning how to sign on his own. Telling him more will only invite the old man to prolong the conversation, while all he wanted was for him to leave.

     “You shouldn’t spoil your employee just because he’s special. Look at this! I know you like to cook, but it just seems like you’re his butler, making his food for him.” Eamon took the bottle of vodka—the bottle he gifted his son for his birthday—and downed half of what was remaining.

     Emrys’ jaws clenched. “I buy his food using his money. This is something we agree on.”

     “Ah, see. You even do his groceries for him.”

     “Then what the hell do you expect me to do? Tell him to wear a trenchcoat and a hat and send him to the market?”

     “Well, I dunno! Something! He should be the one working for you, not the other way ’round! Tell him to go hunt or something. Plenty of deers around this part. You just like being someone’s bitch housekeeper!” Eamon finished the bottle, oblivious to the throbbing veins on his children’s foreheads and a faint sound of glass cracking. “Really should’ve took you with me when you were a wee lad. This what happens when you leave raising boys to a bunch of women.”

     The table suddenly split in half, divided unevenly, but in the epicenter of the destruction was Avi’s gigantic hand curling in a tight fist. Eamon scuttled backwards, narrowly missing Avi’s claws trying to snatch his face, but the dragon was quick to pounce on him. He roared in front of the drunk pirate’s face, splatters of saliva covering his cheeks. Eamon screeched in terror. This must be it for him.

     “Back off, Avi,” Emrys’ voice sliced into the tension. “Just leave him.”

     Avi stopped roaring, but he was unsatisfied. He grabbed the older man by the face, claws already tucked back, and dragged him out of Emrys’ front door. Morgaine sighed, placing her hand on her brother’s shoulder.

     “I’ll call you tomorrow morning. Someone’s gotta drive the old man home.” She leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on her brother’s cheek, before leaving the vicinity with her father.

     The apartment was suddenly silent. Avi locked the front door and faced the carnage he had caused in his brief burst of rage. He began picking up the damaged table as well as the broken glasses and plates. Emrys joined him shortly after, bringing the trash bin and helping him picking up the shards. Avi whimpered and was about to sign, but Emrys spoke ahead of him. “Thanks…for kicking him out…” he muttered, energy had left his soul.

     Avi braved himself to look at his boss’ face. His jade eyes were glassy, the bottom edges of his eyelids were starting to redden. The dragon’s chest tightened at the view. One of his hands left the shards, he brushed the tips of his fingers to the side of the human’s face, which startled him.

     “Jesus, I’m okay. I’m not gonna cry,” he denied, his voice cracking at the end. He tried to distract himself by doing more cleaning and noticed, strewn under Avi’s chair, was the old tablet his father gave to Avi. The crack on one of its corner had been covered by more cracks that shattered the entire tablet. Avi’s fist must have hit it first before extending to the table. He picked the broken tablet and studied its damage. “I guess I can’t communicate with you anymore.”

     Avi signed a ’sorry’ after dumping all the glass shards into the bin. Emrys shook his head and let out a low energy chuckle. “I’m just being sarcastic. I’m still determined on learning sign language from you. But if you still want a tablet, I can give you mine. I can just get a new one.”

     Avi nodded at the offer; while he appreciated Emrys’ effort to learn his language, he still needed a tablet in case he needs to say a lot. Still, he could not stop the guilty feeling for having broken the dining table. After cleaning up his mess, he disappeared to his room for a few minutes and then returned with a handful of money. He handed the stack to Emrys, who eyed it with puzzlement. Avi clarified by pointing at the carcass of the table.

     “Oh, is this—Avi, you don’t have to.” Emrys pushed back Avi’s money-holding hand, but the dragon pushed again with more insistence. Too tired from the near emotional breakdown earlier, Emrys relented. “Well, at least I know you’re a responsible guy,” he remarked, a small smile crept to his face. 

     Avi started wagging the tip of his tail, pleased to see a smile back on Emrys’ face. It was the least he could do after the damage he had done.

     Emrys left briefly to his room and returned with a tablet in hand. He gave it over to Avi, who studied it. This one was definitely newer compared to the one Eamon gave. It sported more colors in its screen, with a system more intuitive than the mobile Apple DOS the old brick had. “I haven’t factory reset this thing yet. I just want you to test it out. Go on, write something.”

     Avi took a few moments to do what Emrys told him, his fingers tapping on the digital keyboard carefully, not wanting to extend his superhuman strength over to the newer tablet. He didn’t want to destroy another of Emrys’ property. Once he finished, he flipped the tablet over to him.

     It works just great, written on a notepad application.

     “Awesome! Still, if you prefer signing, that’s okay too. You just…have to bear with me, I still need a lot of practice.”

     Avi quickly typed another sentence, the rush of joy of being able to communicate more effectively washed over his head. I can help you practice.

     Emrys blushed but his smile bloomed a bit more. Whatever remnant of earlier’s emotional turmoil had been chipped away, thanks to the dragon. “I appreciate that, Avi.” He placed a hand on Avi’s upper hand, since the dragon’s shoulder was a bit too high to reach without standing on his tiptoes. “Also…thanks for defending me earlier…”

     This time, Avi set aside the tablet. He returned to signing, setting his arms on both of his sides and motioned his fingers.

     You’re welcome.

[richiethedicktozier]

feed on your fear.

i couldn’t stop thinking about richie’s bat outburst in the sewers-- and i thought about richie, a year later, not over it and not really able to get over it. here is the result, (about 2k of troubled internal thoughts):

Richie hasn’t picked up a baseball bat in months. At first, it was just too cold outside to even consider playing any sport, and it was a great excuse. He didn’t want to feel the tense ache in his shoulder from last summer, from swinging a bat way too fast at something way too hard-- and inhuman.

But then it got warmer, and inched toward the anniversary of when Georgie got hurt, and when they all thought their summers were going to end in coffins-- and Richie doesn’t want to tempt any fate in wrapping a single finger around a bat. No. Not again...

It’s a hot August day and Richie and Bill are sprawled over the couch, a single fan oscillating between them. Bill’s in a tank top and his goddamn jean shorts that Richie insists he needs to take off-- and not in any fun sort of way. Richie takes his shirt off the minute he walks in the door and saw no parental figure was home. It isn’t even that hot, Richie just can’t stand the sun’s constant glare. His glasses always catch it and hurt his eyes while his entire body grows exhausted from the steady exposure. Bill is afraid he’s going to bake himself to death and keeps him indoors as much as possible-- his legs resting over Richie’s and keeping him pinned to the couch.

“Hey, Richie?” Georgie asks, his feet padding down the stairs. There’s an uneven thump following his two steps. Richie cranes his neck to see Georgie trailing over to them with a large tennis ball-- and a bat.

“Hey, buddy. What’s up?” Richie tries to straighten his posture and collect himself. He moves his glasses, hoping to lose focus on the weapon in Georgie’s hand.

“Would you come play with me?” Georgie says. “I want to practice.”

“Baseball?” Richie asks. The word sticks in his throat, like he trying to breathe honey. It’s not sweet. It’s poison.

“Yeah.” He nods, ignoring the furrow changing Richie’s face.

“Georgie is getting really good at p-pitching.” Bill says, holding an arm out to wrap around his brother and pull him close.

“Dad says that they don’t have underhand pitchers.” Georgie argues. Richie rolls his eyes and waves the complaint away. “I can’t do it like real players yet.”

“You’re fine, Georgie. Don’t listen to him.” Richie says. 

“Will you help me?” Georgie asks again, watching him readjust in his seat. “It’s not that hot outside, Richie! Come on. Come play with me!”

Richie doesn’t know how to break the heart of a seven year old very well. “What do you want me to do, Hot Shot? Play some catch?” Richie’s voice sounds foreign. He doesn’t even think he’s speaking anymore.

“Teach me how to hit ‘em too.” Georgie says.

He hoists the too-long bat and it swings beside him. It’s like a pendulum, each motion forward dragging the seconds. Richie becomes hyper aware of every moment he never thought he’d lived to see if he hadn’t suddenly felt the pulse of numbness consume him one year ago in the sewers. When he felt every instinct to run dissolve in a blanket of consuming dread that if Richie didn’t do something then and now, he was going to lose Bill forever. He was going to watch him die, neck snapped and eyes forever locked onto his face.

Richie blinks and tries to regurgitate a response, a sure. He thinks he does. Georgie skips away, the bat dragging behind him on his way to the backdoor. Bill moves, legs lifting from him and folding under his own body. There’s a hand on Richie’s chest, as if trying to find his heart. He feels dead.

“Rich? Y-Y-You okay? You look like you’re g-gonna throw up.” Bill says with a half convinced laugh.

“I’m fine.” Richie says and pushes himself off the couch. He grabs his shirt and puts it back on, hoping to dull his thrumming skin. Bill calls after him, trying to get him to tell Georgie to wait five more minutes.

Bill doesn’t like when Richie leaves him when he’s upset. Richie had been making a habit disappearing when his mind fogged and the world drifted from his grasp. In May, he came to standing at the edge of the quarry, staring down at the still water with the moon reflecting back up at him. Richie knew then and now that he wasn’t going to do anything stupid-- anything that stupid. Standing there was just the most relaxing for Richie. He was able to look down on something and be just as distant and microscopic as he felt. He got to float.

Richie walks out back to see Georgie fumbling with the bat. He can’t hold it up with one arm very well. It’s too heavy for him. Richie walks over and places a hand on the top of his head, rustling his hair. Georgie tries, with endearing extra effort, to hoist the bat up to Richie. He holds it for only a second before it wobbles and dips with imbalance, falling into Richie’s side.

It doesn’t hurt, but Richie cries out and jumps away. The wood is hard on his skin, even in the brief brush against him. He can feel the varnish rubbing against his hands all over again, a blister forming in the mixture of friction and heat. He grasps at nothing. There’s nothing in his hand, nothing to protect himself.

Richie blinks and everything feels dark. His arms feel glued to his sides, but everything feels unable to stop. He knows Georgie is talking to him, he can hear his voice but none of his words. He can’t see Bill. There are no blue eyes to spot him in the darkness, no hand to guide him to the surface, no one to know that Richie’s gone from conscious reality. Richie floats away, body trembling both inside and out. He thinks he’ll fall apart on the grass-- body rattling down to its parts and Georgie pulling on his arm, trying to speak to him. His voice can’t ground him.

I will feast on your flesh as I feed on your fear. I will feast on your flesh. As I feed on your fear. Feed on your fear. On you.

Fear.

“R--Richie?” A hand grabs at his wrist. He screams, or at least he thinks he does. The sound just seems to swell in his throat silently. He’s too lost. He can’t come back down. “R-Richie, it’s me. It’s me. I’m here.”

Bill’s voice is light, it’s panicked but it’s light. It isn’t hoarse, not being choked out of him with a tight, white hand. Richie’s vision starts to trickle back, all the colors becoming saturated once more. He can see Bill right in front of him, hands on his face and eyes darting over every feature.

“W-What’s wrong?” Bill asks. Georgie has run into the house, scared and going to get the telephone. It’s just the two of them. Alone, but the backyard feels close to Richie, touching his skin. “Richie. Luh-look at me. I’m right here.”

Richie knows his eyes are focused on Bill. He just can’t see him yet. Not all the way. Not the way he likes too: with adoration and love, softness and intensity, with a look that tells Bill that he’s the only thing that makes sense anymore. But no. He’s just staring at Bill then. Dead eyes and a slack face.

“I can’t.” Richie breathes. “I can’t do it.” Richie isn’t even sure what it is, but at the moment it sure feels like everything is overwhelming. He tries to breath and it feels so full, like his chest is going to burst.

“D-Do what?”

“I can still feel it.” Richie’s arm twitches, his shoulder aching. A sports injury, he has to say to the doctor. He swung a bat too hard, he lies, really wanted a home run. He doesn’t tell anyone of the twitch he experiences at night, wide awake and the shadows of the cloudy night sky too dark. The twitch when he thinks he feels another hand on his shoulder, hand around his neck, harsh pull on his ankle.

“What?”

“I didn’t think I could do it.” Richie says, shaking his head. “I’ve never swung a baseball bat before.”

“Oh, R-Richie.” Bill’s thumbs brush over his cheeks. He pushes his glasses back on his nose and tries to smooth his hair. Richie lets him.

“I saw it sticking out of the pile. It was the only thing I could think to use.” He continues. “I saw you just... giving up. And I knew if you died, I would too. I felt everything inside me go blank. It went dark-- like all I had to do was let go and I could hurt him. I--I thought it was courage, but I was just scared. I was scared of having a living death.”

Richie would’ve had to grip that slick, bloody bat in his hand or hold a fistful of dirt before tossing it over Bill’s empty grave. It was easy then. Die saving Bill, because there was nothing else to live for.

“I’m alive.” Bill says evenly. “You’re alive. We’re all alive, Richie.”

It doesn’t feel like it, but Richie knows to trust Bill. He blinks twice and tries to find Bill’s face in his daze. He knows his eyes are tired looking and not right, but he can see Bill. Bill’s eyes are bright, but drained. He’s crying-- they both are. Richie barely notices. He opens and closes his hands, expecting something to materialize in his palm. Expecting him to be back in the sewer, the past year an elaborate nightmare as he floated upward, his neck limp and pupil-less eyes a faded amber color.

Instead, Bill grabs his hand and presses a finger into the scar slicing across his palm. It doesn’t hurt anymore. In fact, it doesn’t feel like anything.Nothing does. Bill’s fingers dig against it, trying to find the dip in numbness to find the delicate tendons of his hands.

Richie knows Bill has an identical one on his own hand. His is thicker, raised further off his palm. Richie feels every time Bill touches him. It traces along his back when they sit and watch TV together, it pushes against his palm when they grip each other tight during long walks, it runs along his arm when Bill gently tries to get his fleeting attention-- but it isn’t on Richie then. He can’t feel it.

Richie rolls his wrist and grabs Bill’s hand in his own. His thumb pushes along the scar, feeling the rounded, thick skin. Bill has a scar because he lived-- they all did. They spilled blood on their own terms. The slick feeling and Richie’s hand is recognized to be sweat-- not blood. Not blood.

Richie comes back to himself in a heavy exhale. He collapses into Bill, eyes closing and glasses being knocked off his face. Bill catches him and they slowly ease down onto the grass. The sun is warm on Richie’s face. It isn’t dark.

Richie learns that day that he isn’t ready to face a baseball bat yet. He isn’t ready to hold the same weapon he’d felt his childhood die with. He wasn’t sure when he was going to be ready, if he ever would be. Holding a bat would mean Richie had moved on from his trauma, that he wasn’t in the midst of mourning the loss of every trembling touch he had to reject and push away because his skin began to feel faded and washed off. Or that he wasn’t thinking about every day he and Bill spent sitting in his room, silent but sharing the same terrifying thoughts with tears. Playing baseball meant that Richie felt like he could use a bat for fun, that it no longer made him think of the first time he had to learn, right then and there, how to swing it with deadly accuracy.

Richie learned how to play baseball trying to save Bill’s life. He couldn’t teach Georgie anything. It was just fear: heavy and sweet, and worth every bite.

ao3

[lordrethandus]

As We Choke on the Smoke of the Bridges We Burn Finale

Ijiro, Eristel and Istrys all exchanged varying glances but Zolaar never saw them; all of his attention was focused on Kaarst Shattercraft handing Gonthar his freshly-sharpened axe. “Commander, I know you don't trust him…” Ijiro started, taking a small step to the Sunwalker’s side. “But this isn't a good look for your first day on the job, yeah?”

“I don't care what this looks like.” His retort was aggressively curt. “He is a traitor, he must be punished.”

Traitor?

There was that word again. An insult people he considered his allies so often used when addressing him. Yet when they’re convinced the end is upon them, they turn to him for help. The idea of being executed for practicing magic that saved their lives would be laughable if it weren’t so aggravating; normally he would succumb to his despair, but the very thought of never seeing his wife again, never holding his baby daughter again, made him so angry he began to grow nauseous. “I-It’s easy to pass judgement now, isn’t it…?” The Harvester hissed the words through his teeth, forcing them out with what little strength he had left. “Where was the axe when I saved you from Highmountain? Not once… not twice… but three times?! I-It was my curse that weakened the Feltotem and gave us a fighting ch-chance! Is this how the Oathguard treats their h-heroes?! This isn’t justice… this is murder!”

Gonthar said nothing. Instead he glanced over and nodded to one of his war braves, who approached the Harvester with a worn tree stump and a basket. They were going to execute him anyway… and although Zolaar knew he couldn’t hope to fight his way out of this, he still had words he needed to say.

“I could have joined Zerethel’s coup on Zaldrannar… but I didn’t! I could have left you all to burn in Highmountain… but I didn’t! I had every chance to betray the Oathguard… and I let every chance go by! Because I am also Oathguard! Y-you are my family, whether you care for me or not! I gave up everything… is that not enough?!”

"Enough.” Gonthar hissed while he began his approach. “Your prattling is not going to save you.”

“Wait… wait! WAIT!” Zolaar struggled against the war braves, but he was no more than a disabled child in their grasp. They held him by the shoulders and forced him over the tree stump, where he stared wide-eyed into the basket with both fear and contempt. Sores and blisters running along his spine burst beneath the firm weight of a colossal hoof, but despite the pain, they were successful in holding him still. “Wait…! Please! Please don't…!” Gonthar remained silent while he approached, with the Harvester flinching with each and every step of his hooves. The tip of the axe kissed the back of Zolaar’s neck, causing him to shudder with fear.

Seeing such a wretched creature squirm helplessly against his execution turned Gonthar’s stomach. It was unsightly to see even a being as tainted and warped as the Harvester fear a just and righteous death so much. Removing the mask to give him a clear line of sight to his neck was the least Gonthar could do, but he wisely decided against it; he caught a glimpse of the Harvester’s face only once before, and if he looked into his sunken eyes moments before his swift death, that accursed image would likely haunt him for the rest of his life. The Sunwalker raised the axe high over his head, and gripped it with both hands to prepare for the cleanest kill he may ever make.

Zolaar made one last attempt to spare himself from the axe by shouting out, “I know a way to destroy the Burning Legion before the week’s end!” Gonthar froze in place, but he kept the axe high over his head. His silence was enough to convince the Harvester to follow up with, “The L-legion uses a network to secure their portals! I’ve been extracting th-that sequence from our felguard prisoners…!”

The tauren pressing his hoof against Zolaar’s back added another twenty pounds before barking in his native tongue, “Mohale’ako pikialo?! Cona’rah awak!”

“Owa.” Was all Gonthar said after a short grunt; Zolaar didn't know a single word of Taurahe, but he understood context better than most.

“I-I have proof!” He coughed out, trying to speak through the pain. Gonthar lowered the axe while he glared down at the Harvester, but he couldn’t tell if he was intrigued or irritated.

“You think we’re going to let you slither back into your lair, warlock?” The Sunwalker spat, gripping the axe tightly. Zolaar could no longer speak with the crushing weight of the tauren pressing down on his back, but he managed to reach into his robes and drop a scroll onto the ground. Gonthar was reluctant to touch it, obviously thinking it was some sort of trap; he lowered the weapon to his waist, plucked the scroll off the ground with two fingers and sniffed at it, but for a long time he refused to open it until his curiosity got the better of him. “This isn’t in orcish.” He huffed flatly. “Am I supposed to be persuaded by gibberish…?”

“Lord-Commander… if I may?” Eristel stepped forward out of the gathering crowd. “Zolaar is getting his information from our Burning Legion captives… their official language is Eredun… and I studied Eredun in Dalaran.” Gonthar didn’t look too convinced, but he couldn’t make any sense of the scroll himself; when he handed it over to the Pyromancer, he treated it like it was smeared with disease. Eristel wasted little time perusing the words burned into the parchment. “That’s what I thought. This is indeed Eredun, Commander. If what Zolaar claims is true, then we could bypass the army standing between us and Miraan.”

Gonthar quickly responded with, “Can you use that scroll to teleport us directly onto her ship?”

“Ahh… no I cannot.” The Pyromancer admitted. “I can only create portals to static locations… planets, towns, things of that nature. Since their ships move about all the time, they require a network to avoid teleporting troops into random places across the cosmos… mostly deep space.”

“We don’t have the means to use this shortcut, then.” The Sunwalker glowered before glancing down at the axe in his grasp again.

“We don’t,” Eristel rolled the scroll up while he stepped forward. “But the Army of the Light does. I know they have allied with the Alliance, but destroying the remnants of the Burning Legion take precedence over allegiances, shouldn’t they? If Zolaar can complete this sequence… surely they would help us.”

Gonthar let out an angry snort. He would never trust this warlock as far as he could throw him, but if there was a sliver of truth behind his desperate words, this nightmare could end far sooner than he expected. He wanted to return to Azeroth and never set foot on this mass grave of a planet for the rest of his days, he yearned for soft grass and clear skies again. The very thought of returning home for good was so tempting to indulge, but from Zolaar? The hollow shell of what used to be an elf, who bends the knee to evil beyond his comprehension? How could he know this wasn't an elaborate trap to break the Oathguard once and for all? How could he charge into battle with this twisted abomination whispering to his true masters behind him?

Yet he couldn't think of a better way to go about any of this. With the exception of a few stubborn captains, the Burning Legion has withdrawn from both Krokuun and Mac’Aree, concentrating the remnants of their forces in the Antoran Wastes. There was no way the Army of the Light would risk destruction of the Vindicaar going up against their anti-aircraft batteries, they were too concentrated and in high alert for infiltration or even a single scouting party, and both the Horde and Alliance had left Argus already to go kill each other. It could take years to slowly whittle them down enough to reach Miraan, and the Oathguard as well as the Amber Glade had neither the soldiers nor the gold to stay in this fight for this long. It needed to end, and it needed to end now.

Zolaar let out a weak gasp of relief when Gonthar tossed the axe back to Kaarst. His war braves snorted in anger as well before releasing the Harvester and returning to their posts. “This is your only chance, warlock. Betray my trust and your death will not be quick.” He then turned to glare and point at Eristel. “He is your responsibility. His burden is now yours to bare.”

Eristel pretended the Commander of the Oathguard didn't just threaten the greatest contributor to this operation, and nodded with a slight frown before saying, “Yes sir.” Gonthar gave Zolaar one last glare before turning to stomp off to his new office. The Pyromancer waited until everyone cleared out to help the Harvester back onto his feet.

“Why did you stick your neck out for me? If G-... if the Commander branded you an accomplice your head would be in the basket with mine.” Zolaar instinctively rubbed at his neck, but the fear of being executed had yet to leave his trembling voice. “You don't even know Eredun…”

“Never set foot in Dalaran either. Seems like a place best avoided.” Eristel shrugged, trying his best to cheer the Harvester up. “Listen… my knowledge on demons extends to how quickly they burn from my spellflame and how loudly they scream when I kill them. I don’t know much about the Burning Legion outside of common knowledge… but I know portal magic very well. If you can extract any information about how their portals work, I can use that to decipher how to access their network.”

Zolaar was nervously wringing his hands together while he glanced about to make sure no one else was watching them. “B-but the Burning Legion doesn’t give their Felguards that information…! They are bred to kill, not to think! We would need a smarter demon to interrogate… one with intimate knowledge on Miraan’s ship!”

“Then let’s put our heads together and come up with a plan.” Eristel crossed his arms while he paused to think. “Come on… let’s get inside before the Commander changes his mind.”

[gothic-fiction-in-space]

Recently, the AVP Galaxy website, released two new early scripts for Alien: Covenant. Now we can read online three early scripts:

1) Paradise (John Logan, August 8, 2015): the early script of the part of the story that lately would have become the prologue video The Crossing;

2) (Alien:) Paradise Lost (John Logan, August 19, 2015): the earliest script of the movie we have now,

3) Alien: Covenant (John Logan, November 20, 2015): a subsequent old script of the movie.

Thanks to those scripts, we can now elaborate an idea of the creative process that was behind David’s character. Why? Because between Alien: Paradise Lost and Alien: Covenant there is a huge difference in David’s characterization, in David’s personality, a difference that has an impact on the story, especially on the relevance of Elizabeth’s figure in the whole picture.

In Paradise and Alien: Paradise Lost David doesn’t love Elizabeth. He doesn’t have real emotions. Only a big ego and big ambitions. This aspect was changed in Alien: Covenant, where David really was in love with Elizabeth (in an unhealty, obsessive way). In Paradise David plays the part of the sad, lonely, broken robot who doesn’t want to die alone and uses Elizabeth’s kind hearth and loneliness to his advantage. Elizabeth puts him back together and the two grow very colse to each other, even physically.

“They grow more and more comfortable … Cooking meals … Exploring the ship … Washing in the Water Room… Then, one day, they are working side-by-side, chatting easily … Her hand reaches out. Takes his. Holds it for a moment. Tears in her eyes. He looks at her. Then, they are curled together in one of the Engineer’s huge sleeping pods. Asleep. Lovers perhaps. Intimate certainly” - Extract of Paradise

From David’s side, it‘s only an illusion to obtain her trust. This really makes me think to what Ridley Scott said about David in an interview in 2014, about the plot of “Prometheus 2″:

“Once that head goes back on, (David) is really dangerous, but he’s also very seductive. So maybe he’ll persuade (Shaw) to help him put the head back.”

Then, in Paradise, when the Juggernaut arrives on Planet 4, David lets Elizabeth watch the planet, the Engineers’ structures from above, and then abruplty breaks her neck when she least expect it. Right after we cleary understand, by the text, that David was lying all the time, that he was faking his emotions, entirely.

“And all the clever simulations of humanness fade from his features. He has no need of them now. He can just be himself. His eyes are glacial as he stares down at the world at his feet” - Extract of Paradise

This old characterization of David had an impact over the subsequent story. In that old version Elizabeth arrives on the planet awake and never manages to see the Engineers. She didn’t manage to learn about their gruesome fate. David builds a grave for her in the garden and says to Walter he loved her, but probably only to emotionally tempt Walter (David uses emotions to tempt Walter in the final version of the movie too, trying to convince him he loves Daniels), and nothing more. He talks less fondly of Elizabeth in Alien: Paradise Lost. He doesn’t make references to her kindness. He only pretends he loved her, and thanks to Paradise we know that in that script it was a lie, entirely. In fact there aren’t the David’s drawings of Elizabeth in Alien: Paradise Lost. Why?? Because in that version of the story David had no obsession over her. No emotions. He probably didn’t even used her to create the facehuggers. In the subsequent script: the Alien: Covenant old script, David’s obsession becomes extremely important. The drawings appear and for example, they are even considered a sort of pornography by Walter (it’s only his opinion, nothing confirmed). The drawings are a relevant clue to David’s emotions in the final version of the story too.

“Oh he (David) absolutely did (loved Elizabeth). In many ways, not all of them healthy. She encapsulated humanity for him in the end, even more than Weyland I think. Look at the religious adoration even as he eviscerated her. Hence the iconography!” - Matt Hatton (one of the two set decorator and art illustrator that made David’s drawings, and the owner of the hands we see in Advent)

In the old script of Alien: Covenant David says to Daniels he loved Elizabeth enough to want to make her immortal like him, and that he wants to turn her (Daniels) into the first one of a “new species”, hinting that he tried to do the same to Elizabeth. All of this arrived, partially, more subtly, in the final version of Alien: Covenant, where we know, thanks to Fassbender, Scott and other people, that David loved Elizabeth.

“A.I don’t love their mistress or master, they respect them but technically they don’t have emotions. But he had emotions, that was a problem, emotion is a problem, emotion can lead to bad behavior (…) Confusingly but understandably, the monster had fallen in love with the woman. All right? So, this is real. He said this is an ode to my dear Elizabeth, ‘cause he knows he’s about to leave. He thinks. ‘Farewell Elizabeth” - Ridley Scott (Alien: Covenant, blu-ray, the director’s commentary)

Thanks to the Advent video we learn that David wanted to create a “second Eden” with Elizabeth, but Elizabeth refused to be part of his projects and he had to kill her. In Advent we also learn that David tried to make Elizabeth “more than human”, “evolved”, hinting a bit to what David says to Daniels in the old script of Alien: Covenant, that he wanted to make Elizabeth immortal (probably always to use her to produce his creatures, but as a living being, not as a corpse; he says a “second Eden”, and Eden means Adam and Eve but means creation too, and we know by interviews and by the final movie that David has always wanted to create something). This may connects to what David says at the end of Advent, that he’ll make “his queen” with Daniels. As if he previously tried to make the “mother creature” with Elizabeth but couldn’t entirely finish the job as he initially had planned it and that he’ll perfectionate that concept with Daniels. This ties beautifully, to me, with the plot of Prometheus, where Elizabeth cries because she can’t “create life”, becaue she can’t have children, and where David experiments on Holloway managing to get Elizabeth pregnant, effectively creating a proto-facehugger (the trilobite) thanks to Elizabeth’s reproductive system.

I think that probably in the last version of the story, Elizabeth does manage to land on Planet 4. I have this “theory” because David puts her to sleep in The Crossing, and because Elizabeth was meant to ask help for the Engineers and then to pray for them in the hologram found by the crew of the Covenant, in the last version of the story (but then Scott changed his mind and decided to make Elizabeth to simply sing a song, just to make the scene looks better, not for more relevant reasons). In the final version of the story Elizabeth probably arrived alive on the planet, and probably she came to learn about David’s terrible plans. And so, she refused to cooperate, as David says in Advent, and probably tried to go away, or let David understand she would have gone away.

“He (Walter) doesn’t incorporate concepts like vanity or jealousy or gratitude. He doesn’t fall in love with characters like we saw the strange relationship between Shaw and David. There is a bond that develops there which is a very human one, and human flaws that come with it. You get the impression that Shaw is wary of David, and I think he just wears on her nerves. He’s like this love sick stalker in space… The idea is that these human traits have started to overcome the synthetic ones - and I’ve treated him like a serial killer really. He’s afraid of things leaving him, so he incubates them. Like a Jeffrey Dahmer-type character, David doesn’t want things he loves to leave him, so he kills them and keeps them in caskets or preserved one way or the other. He (David) killed her, essentially, to prevent her from leaving him” - Michael Fassbender

“What choice did I have?” Says David in Advent. There is a “bond” there, says Fassbender. And he was right. Because some elements of the story, from Paradise to The Crossing, changed, but not the entirety of the story. For example we know for sure that the Paradise scene where David’s broken body floats outside the juggernaut managed to come into the final version of the story, but was cut from the final version of The Crossing (as I explained on this blog in an older post: https://gothic-fiction-in-space.tumblr.com/post/171624040368/gothic-fiction-in-space-davids-head). But the part of Paradise where Elizabeth grows fond of David too managed to arrive in the last version of the story. It’s confirmed by another statement of Fassbender (and we are discovering, day after day, that Fassbender’s statements in interviews are believable):

“ - How has David’s relationship with Shaw changed (post Prometheus)?

- Like any good marriage it’s, you know, there’s a real affection there between the two of them. I think they get on each other’s nerves, well he gets on her nerves rather, but I suppose they went through quite a lot together in Prometheus, so there is a bond there for sure”

So yes. Maybe they weren’t so much close, aslo physically, in the last version of the story, but anyway, yes: Elizabeth grew fond of David too, more or less. Probably it went like we can read in Paradise: David played (but not entirely faking it) the part of the broken lonely robot, Elizabeth pitied him (it’s confirmed in interviews that he convinced her to bring him back inside and that she pitied him) and so David’s obsession for her developed into something more, and Elizabeth started to get affectionate to him too, probably out of loneliness, as we read in Paradise. And so we see Elizabeth trusting David, in The Crossing, and smiling to him.

So, in my opinion, at a certain point it was decided that David really loved Elizabeth and that this element had to become relevant in David’s characterization and in the creation of the Xenomorph too. This fits better with Prometheus too, where David wasn’t meant to feel real emotions (a change that can be explaind by how synthetics work in the Alien franchise according to Ridley Scott: I talked about that in some old posts) but was already very interested in Elizabeth, as several people who worked at Prometheus already thought back in 2012.

“He’s (David) always been interested in Elizabeth, remember that: he’s watching her dreams when she’s sleeping in much the same way that he watches ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. He’s a strange robot that has a curious crush on a human being” - Damon Lindelof (scriptwriter of Prometheus). (I wrote about the several connections between David, Elizabeth and T. E. Lawrence in some old posts here on my blog).

I like the final version of the story more than the old one. All the themes regarding creation/reproduction, philosophy, and more, tie perfectly together from Prometheus to Alien: Covenant, and David is even more complex than before. He’s more intriguing now.

“What’s interesting about David is that he’s very needy. He feels like he needs validation from those around him. He’s looking for love in all the wrong places” - Michael Fassbender

In the final version of the movie Elizabeth’s figure has more relevance: being David’s obsession and being an important part of the process of creation of the Xenomorph. A process full of twisted, meaningful, extremely fascinating elements that give depth to the alien and reinforce all of its old violent simbolisms, even the “sexual violence” related ones that it had in the first Alien movie (and also in the subequent ones, to an extent).

[ellana-ravenwood]

Shit, it’s father’s day ! - Bruce Wayne x Reader

So, I’m not close from my father. Like, not at all. We’re mostly strangers. So I completely forgot that it was Father’s day today...I actually realized it was that specific day thanks to Hugh Jackman and his instagram account where he posted a picture of his dad and him...ANYWAY, I wrote something for Batman, I feel like I HAVE TO write something for Batdaddy to yo. LITERALLY WROTE IT IN TWENTY MINUTES THOUGH, cause I got things to do today but felt inspired. So here it is, hope you’ll like it : 

You can find my masterlist here : @ella-ravenwood-archives

_________________________________________________

-Bruce. Bruce. Bruce ?!

Alarmed by the emptiness next to you in bed, you sit up. It’s not like your husband to leave your shared bed without telling you, without a kiss or hell, without making love to you. 

It’s not like him indeed, as he didn’t really leave the bed. He’s sitting on the edge of it, looking out the window of your bedroom. Worries fill your voice when you ask, a bit unsure : 

-Bruce...My heart, are you alright honey ? 

Bruce grumbles back an answer you don’t hear, and you crawl to him. Your tempted to hug him from behind, wrap your arms around his torso, your legs around his waist, your head resting on his back (he’s too tall for you to reach anything else but the middle of his back with your head)...But you feel like something is off. 

It’s pretty obvious really. The way he groaned at you. The fact he isn’t in bed anymore. The way his back is hunched and...just the fact he’s not in your arms right now. He doesn’t even look at you when you approach him, so you decide to drop the hug from behind, and sit next to him. 

He still doesn’t look at you, and you panic a little. It’s so unlike him...

-Bruce ? Please, say something...Did I do something wrong ? 

He quickly raises his head and his eyes lock with yours. Is it...is it sadness you can see in his deep blue orbs ? 

-No, no you didn’t do anything. It’s quite the opposite really. It’s just...It’s just that it’s...The day and...I’m being stupid and childish. Sorry. 

He’s about to stand up and go to the bathroom, but you suddenly understand and hold him back. This time, you hug him from behind, because you know he needs it. There isn’t a problem with you. Oh nope. 

It’s father’s day, almost 4 pm, and no trace of your boys. When it was mother’s day, they woke you up early with a magnificent breakfast, and took you out all day...

As you wrap your arms and legs around him, he sighs sadly (and makes you hurt drop, seeing him sad always break you a little, and you just have to do something about it) and the grip he has on your thigh is a bit stronger than his usual soft one. 

Yes. He needs you. 

You know he’s highly insecure about his ability as a father. Just the fact that they always come to you instead of him when they have a problem hurt his feelings way more than they think. When they ask him something, it’s “Hey dad, where’s mom ?”...They just don’t talk and interact with him like they do with you. 

He often feels guilty when he misses a birthday, or a school play because the League called him, and he wished he could know how to use words better. So that he could tell them that, even if he’s not there, his thoughts are always for them first. Everything he does is primarily for them. So they’d have a better future, and won’t have to fight as much as him, even though they already are...

It’s not like they don’t have bonding times. After all, they often played basketball or any other sports. They talk about girls sometimes (oh your Bruce LOVES to gross them out talking lovingly about you). But...it’s just not the same than with you. They’d never come to him for a hug for exemple (except maybe Dick, but that boy would hug anything and anyone). 

When they feel sad, it’s you they came to see, and only you was able to soothe them back to sleep after a nightmare with sweet words and your fingers caressing their hair lovingly. 

You know how your Bruce feels highly insecure about his ability as a father...And yet, you still think he’s the best you’ve ever seen. Well, maybe after Alfred though. 

Your own father was an asshole, in and out of jail, died of an overdose when you were sixteen and all you could think was that you finally got away from his abusive grasp. You didn’t feel sad at all. And you never celebrated any father’s day. So seeing how Bruce was actually invested in his boys’ life. 

He always made sure they were alright, he often gave them valuable life advices, so that they wouldn’t become what he became. He showed them he loved them, sure, in his own way, but...they knew it. They knew their father loved them. Even if they had to almost die sometimes, for him to hug them tight and tell them directly : “I love you my son”. It’s just...Bruce was always afraid to not be as good as his own father. To make mistakes he’d never be able to fix. Like when Jason died, and came back to life, the anger and hatred your son felt toward his father almost broke your husband. 

It was already difficult to go through his death. Awful. He felt like he was back when he was eight years old and lost his parents...But when Jay came back, and was mad at him for not killing the Joker, insinuating that Bruce didn’t love him enough to avenge him...it really nearly destroyed him. He pulled through thanks to you, and his other sons...And even though now Jason seemed to understand and forgave him, the wound was still there. 

So yes, Bruce was always very insecure about wether he was a good father or not, about wether he was doing the right thing for them, showing them enough what they meat to him etc etc...So the fact that his sons forgot father’s day, while they made such a big deal of mother’s day, well, it broke his heart. Truly. 

And you could feel it in the way he was snuggling closer to you, caressing your legs...He turned around, and wrapped his arms around you, falling on you on the bed (you always liked feeling his weight above you, even if he was quite heavy because so many damn muscles !). 

The only thing you could do right now was caress his hair, because this soothing gesture worked on him too. In a low voice, you say : 

-I’m sure they’re just...tired. Or forgot. They’re quite forgetful boys really. 

-They didn’t forget you. And before mother’s day, we had a rough night. 

-...Maybe they think you’re...

He cuts you off with a broken voice that makes your heart tighten. 

-Listen (Y/N), I appreciate you trying to cheer me up, I really do but...Just hold me. Please. That’s all I need. 

You don’t say anything, but your grip around him is now tighter. You pull him close to you. He breathes in your neck, and you can feel his sadness wash over you...Damn those boys. To be honest though, even you wouldn’t have thought that it would hit him that hard that they forgot. 

You stay like that for hours. Just whispering sweet nothing in his ears, making sure he feels loved, caressing his body etc etc...When you finally pull away from each other because hunger is hitting you both, it’s already the evening, and the sun is going down. Alfred lets you know dinner is ready. 

Your husband stands up and..Something at the window attracts his face. What...What was that on his parents’ tomb ?  He takes you by the hand and, before you can understand anything, and can dress properly, you’re running though Wayne’s Manor in your pjs, while your husband is walking really fast, only in his damn boxers. 

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

Hundreds of candles. Drawing from Damian. Words written by Dick, Jason and Tim too, because, well, they “can’t draw for shit, but they sure can write”. “Happy Father’s day” cards littering his father’s tomb...What was that ? 

-I bet you thought we forgot, right ? 

You and Bruce turn around, and are faced with all your boys. They’re all smirking, of that trademark batsmirk you love so much...Dick was the one who talk, and Jason keeps going : 

-We did wake up a little late though, sorry about that. Also, we thought, knowing you, that a day with mom would be the best. Besides, you needed sleep, I bet you’re awake only since a few hours, we didn’t wanna bother you in your sleep you know ? 

Tim continues : 

-It took us the entire day to put everything on Granddad’s grave. Coming up with things to tell him about you was easy though, but we had so much to tell him that...yeah, took us the entire day. 

Not understanding,your husband just look at them, confused. So Damian explains a bit more : 

-We thought it could be good to come see Grandfather and tell him about you. So we...did all this. We told him how you were. How  great you were.

-How you’re not always the best father, but your ours, so it doesn’t even matter. 

-How you’re passionate about everything you do in life. 

-How loving you are, when you want. How you’d never give up on any of us. 

-How happy you make us when you finally say a joke. 

-How annoying you can be, but how right and fair you are too. 

-How much we love you too, even though we rarely admit it. 

-We love you because you’re the goddamn Batman. Because you don’t let anyone walk on your feet. Because you’re also a great business man, and kind of a nerd really. 

-We love you because you always know how to make us feel better. Not like mom, differently. In your own way. You teach us everyday to become men. 

-We love you because you can be so damn silly. And because, simply, you’re our dad, no matter how flawed, we’ll always love you. You could turn into the worst criminal ever that we’d never give up on you.

-Ok guys, if we say everything, we’ll take up the rest of the day, and we have plans right ? 

Bruce is stunned, and you’re almost afraid he’s going to faint as the arm he has around your shoulder gets heavier and heavier by the minute. They all talked with deep love, admiration and awe in their voice, and the power of what they say is hitting your Bruce like a grade A hurricane. All he can say is : 

-Pl..Plans ? 

-Well yes, of course. It’s not as elaborate as the one we had with mom, like we told you, we wanted to give you time to rest and spent some hum...quality time with mom (ew by the way). So we didn’t really plan the entire day. We thought honoring your dad was a better idea. Besides, we can’t recycle our ideas for mom to you, it wouldn’t work. You two are different. So...We did that instead. 

Jason is showing his grandfather’s grave, and Bruce feels his heart beat wildly. They did that for him...He couldn’t dream of a better way to show him they loved him. Oh my Gods, those boys always surprised him so much. Damian continues on : 

-It’s not it though. We...We cooked dinner for you. Alfred helped of course. But we did it mostly ourselves. 

Tim adds : 

-And we thought maybe...maybe we could have a chill movie night ? At least until midnight and father’s day is really over. Then you can go patrol if you want. But we could watch all your favorite films. Even the Sound of Music if you wanna...I’ll play one of the Von Trapp girl if I have to. 

Dick finish his father off with those simple words : 

-Or anything really. We can also play board game or whatever. As long as we spent time with you. Of course, mom is welcome. But if you don’t want her...

-Of course I want her to be here to. 

-We figured out that much. So, anyway, let’s go dad, we have many things to do ! Oh, and here. 

They each pull out a card from their pockets, and give them to their father : 

-You don’t have to read them now. In fact, don’t. But next time you feel sad or something, open one up and read what we have to say about you, why we love you and all...We hope it’ll cheer you up. 

Damian says, a bit shyly :

-At first I thought it was a stupid idea but...in fact...yeah; read them when you’re sad. I love you dad. 

-I love you too, by the way. Even if you let the Joker killed me. 

-Oh my god Jason shush. Besides, if the Joker never killed you, there would be no red robin, he wouldn’t have taken me in while already having a Robin ya know ? Anyway. Love you too dad. 

And then, he collapses in their arms as they give him a group hug. 

Tears fall down your cheeks. Oh my god. Those boys. They indeed never cease to surprise you...

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

Bruce had the best father’s day ever. Of course, he thought about Alfred, he got him everything the Butler wanted and even more. Love, recognition, and tons of fancy gifts haha. Alfred of course joined in in the night of binge watching Bruce’s favorite films. 

There was no patrol that night, just a family enjoying each others, loving each others deeply...You all fell asleep in the couch, tangled in each others arms. 

A big bundle of love and affection. You woke up first, your head on your husband’s chest, in fact, your entire body on your husband, one of your hand on Tim’s back, the other in Damian’s hair, Jason’s head on your back, Dicks on his fathers shoulder....A big bundle of love and affection. You didn’t dare to move, wishing this moment could last forever...

It wasn’t always easy to have a family made of night vigilante who had tons of trouble to talk about their feelings, but you’d never have it any other way, and Hell, Bruce wouldn’t either. The love he held for each of you was stronger than anything. Anything. 

FIN.

OK SORRY IF THIS TOTALLY SUCKS ! I wrote it really fast cause I gotta go and won’t have time for a while to write and really wanted to write this and...ANYWAY. Sorry.

[carryonmyobscurialson-blog]

Pureblood/Mudblood

A/N: Just a teensy ficlet. :) Under the cut!

Pairing: Original Percival Graves/Credence Barebone

Summary:

Percival Graves stays home to see what Credence does all day.

He finds out Credence is a morning person, doesn't eat a heavy breakfast -- oh, and apparently he cuts himself on a daily basis.

How in Gods name is he supposed to handle this?

PUREBLOOD/MUDBLOOD

The first time Percival noticed the blood -- a microscopic puddle on the kitchen counter -- he figured it probably came from himself.

Considering how much action and violence he encountered on a regular basis, it wasn’t that unusual that he might let a drop slip here or there. Although it was rather odd; he didn’t remember getting injured to the point of bleeding anytime as of recently.

But then he started noticing blood popping up more frequently – spots on the floor, smears on the furniture.

Dark, crimson – fresh.

Either someone was pulling a very bad joke, or someone in this house was bleeding – and he was pretty sure it wasn’t him.

Which left only one other possibility:

Credence.

Credence had been living in his home temporarily, until he could get on his feet after the whole mess with Grindlewald. He wasn’t fond of sharing his living space with anyone else, let alone this kid he barely knew – but it was either that or a jail cell, the fate Serphina had preferred.

“I’ll make sure the kid stays out of trouble.” Percival had promised her.

“Why?” Seraphina has asked.

And Percival had only shrugged. He wasn’t really sure what motivated him to take in his ward, although he was smart enough to know that his misplaced guilt was not irrelevant.

So one day, Percival ventured to ask Credence over dinner:

“Credence…why have I been seeing blood stains everywhere? Would you know anything about that?”

Credence, who had been shoveling in a spoonful of soup, actually choked. His expression became extremely flustered, and his eyes went in about a hundred directions before he said, “N--- no.”

Percival didn’t press further – while Credence had verbally denied it, his body language told him everything he needed to know.

You didn’t get to be top Auror without being good at spotting a liar.

So, he supposed, we’ll have to do things the hard way.

A couple days later, Percival took a sick day from work. But he kept to himself, hiding away in his own bedroom, letting Credence believe he had left like usual. He lay back in his bed, opened up a book to read, and simply waited.

It didn’t take long before he could hear the sounds of Credence waking, his shuffling gait scurrying throughout his own bedroom -- perhaps an hour, maybe less.

So he’s an early bird then, Percival mused.

More shuffling.

Percival wasn’t even really sure what he was listening for. He rarely ever stayed home, so he really had no idea what the kid did all day – and it’s not like Credence was much for chit chat. (And thank god he wasn’t – because neither was Percival.)

But he was somewhat curious to find out, anyway.

   It was rather uneventful for a while.

At one point, he heard Credence go downstairs. Percival opened his own door slightly and peered out to see that Credence appeared to merely be getting breakfast. He walked back up to his room with some toast, a knife, and a few cuts of butter.

Percival wondered to himself if he should start picking up some better breakfast foods for the pantry. Lord knows the kid could do with gaining some actual weight. But he could have sworn he had more than just the ingredients for buttered toast downstairs. It was possible, he supposed, that Credence merely opted for this scant meal and called it breakfast.

Percival made a mental note to recheck the supplies later.

Nothing for another hour or so.

And then – and then he heard…grunting?

Was that grunting?

There was an odd noise between half a grunt and half a yelp coming from Credence’s room – repeatedly.

Whatever he was waiting for, Percival thought, appeared to be happening now.

He put down his book, took off his reading glasses, and made his way towards Credence’s bedroom.

The grunting was still continuing by the time he reached the door. He would normally knock, but the whole point of this was to catch Credence in the act of --- whatever the hell he was doing. He tried to be stealthy as he turned Credence’s knob, opening the door gently.

The door was ajar just enough for him to see. Credence was sitting on his bed, and had right arm outstretched. With his left hand, he was digging the knife from his breakfast into his porcelain white skin, the incision marred red with what looked to be a waterfall of blood.

That waterfall of blood cascaded down into a yellow bowl on the floor, directly underneath where he held his arm. It was the ocean of blood that the waterfall resulted in, the bowl over halfway full.

Any concept of stealth forgotten, Percival burst into the room screaming, “What in God’s name are you doing, boy?!?”

Credence made an inhuman noise, jumping out in surprise, and tried to throw the knife behind him.

Percival grabbed the arm he had been cutting, trying to remember every healing spell he knew by heart that might not maim the boy.

“No!” Credence yelled louder than Percival could ever remember him speaking, “Don’t touch it!”

“Don’t touch what?” Percival asked.

“The blood.” Credence answered with more control in his voice, but his chest was heaving. His eyes were bloodshot. It was a rather frightening sight.

Percival just stared at him, confused, baffled, and at a loss for words.

“It’s dirty.” Credence elaborated further, stating this like it was the most obvious thing in the world. But to Percival, that answered absolutely nothing.

“What does that even mean?” Percival asked.

Credence frowned, like he was the one who was confused now. Percival still had his right arm in his grip, but Credence had started to pull it away.

Percival wasn’t allowing him too.

“My blood, its dirty blood.” Credence went on when he saw that Percival wasn’t going to give up and just leave, “My ma’ – she always would cut me, you know, bloodletting – to get the dirty out. Since she’s gone and all…well, this is just how I do it. Once a day.”

Credence’s face seemed devoid of emotion as he said it. Percival realized that he did not seem to grasp the implications of his own explanation. He was stating it as though explaining why he needed to brush his teeth.

Percival, on the other hand, had to close his eyes for a moment, to steady himself.

A flurry of emotions overtook him, but most of all: rage. He had to fight the urge to hit something, all while yelling at Credence that his mother was a cunt who knew nothing about anything.

The whole point of taking this kid in was to get him away from his former life.

And here he finds out that he’s just –

Percival took a deep breath. He knew it wasn’t Credence’s fault.

These were the things he honestly believed.

Good god, what Percival gotten himself into?

He was not the comforting type, and he knew it, so Percival started just by stating the obvious.

“Your blood is not dirty, Credence, that’s not even possible.”

He whipped out his wand, working on the first gash, which was still deep and oozing. It was on his forearm – there were two more just behind it. They were clumsily made and not at all straight.

Percival wondered how these could have slipped his noticed, but remembered Credence’s love for turtleneck sweaters. He wondered where else the boy might be cutting himself.

“Yes it is,” Credence had already begun arguing, “Ma said ---“

“Credence.”

“—what?”

“With all due respect, if you tell me one more thing your Ma said, I am going to find a time turner, go back in time, and slit her throat myself.”

He wasn’t even sure that Credence understood the details of that statement, but it seemed to shut him up anyway, his eyes growing wide.

On to the second gash.

“You – you really shouldn’t touch…” Credence spoke up again, and Percival sighed.

He then grabbed Credence’s bleeding arm at a new angle position his hand at the wrist, and just – licked a good portion of the blood off of the kid’s arm.

Credence screamed again, his face aghast.

Percival just stared at him for a second, his eyebrows high. Then he leaned in close, closer than he had ever been to Credence’s face.

He was so close he could feel the boy’s breath hit his face -- warm and moist. He licked his lips, tasting the iron flavor.

Suddenly, he felt tempted to lick off more.

But Credence already looked extremely startled and somewhat afraid.

Percival figured he had gotten the message for now.

“You are not dirty.” Percival growled, not backing away and still with a firm grip on Credence’s wrist, “Nothing about you is dirty. In fact, you are one of the most pure, gorgeous things out there. Do you understand me?”

Credence gaped comically for a moment before answering, “Ye – yes, Mr. Graves.”

Percival nodded curtly. “Good.”

He backed away, and was able to resume closing the wounds in silence. Credence wouldn’t look at him for the rest of the time, but he didn’t force him to.

When he was done, Percival picked up the blood filled bowl on the floor and looked at it distastefully.

“Don’t let me catch you doing this again.”

He didn’t wait for Credence to answer and he left, heading straight into the kitchen and tossing the bowl in the sink. As the crimson ocean drained away, Percival grabbed the sides of the sink and bowed his head, trying to regain composure once more.

He licked his lips a second time, the taste of Credence’s blood still strong on his tongue. The metallic stench from the discarded bowl flooded his nostrils. His senses were overpowered by nothing but blood.

He felt thirsty.

As he went back to his bedroom, hearing the soft sound of sobs as he passed by Credence’s door, Percival could not help but wonder if there was a chance he might seriously get hold of that time turner.

END.

[harmless-offering]

They bury the other Templars first. It's only fair.

Well -- Lukas buries them, and Karen putters around trying to make herself useful. She's very careful not to look at him in case it turns out he's staring down at their bodies, full of sorrow, because she doesn't know what she could possibly say to make that better. Everything that comes to mind is empty and meaningless, so what's the point ?

(If he'd done his job right they would still be alive)

He removes the bodies from the monastery first, but more for her benefit than his -- wrapping each in a shroud and hefting them outside, one after the other after the other, silent except for the occasional grunt of exertion. There's no discussion on whether this is the right thing to do -- she's not even sure the Templars really existed, and even if they did, how could you explain this kind of mass slaughter ? She understands that this really is the best course of action, but it still leaves a bitter taste in the back of her throat.

Do you need help ? she thinks, as they pass each other in the hall, but says nothing. He doesn't look at her.

(He could have prevented this. He should have prevented this.)

But when he walks back past, carrying a shovel over his shoulder, Karen reaches out to touch his arm. He could have kept on walking, not even acknowledging the contact, but he doesn't -- he stops and turns, silently questioning, and struggles with just what she was trying to say.

Don't get dirt in your wound she utters, which isn't at all what she meant to say, but it's all she can say, staring at his arm -- at the bandage, wrapped around the bicep, where a bullet was but isn't anymore. (Thanks to her.) He follows her gaze, but instead of brushing her concern off, he offers a small, mirthless smile. Before she can react he's leaned in and pressed his lips against her forehead, just for a second -- it's a chaste kiss, a brother to his little sister, but he doesn't speak.

(You're killing me.)

Karen watches, silently, as he leaves out the open door.

Hours later, she goes to make sure he hasn't dropped dead, outside and all alone. The entrance room is tidier; aimlessly, she has wandered about and found herself picking up empty shell casings, putting the halberd back where it belongs, and spending a few hours on her hands and knees scrubbing at the stains on the floor.

They won't come off.

(Stop, I'm begging you. I'm suffering.)

It's just busy work and Karen knows that, but she feels lost and bewildered and isn't sure what else she can do, not yet. It might not even be a bad thing, she acknowledges -- some time to figure out just what the hell happened, to deal with the fact there's a door to fucking Hell underneath her feet, might be a good idea. Those are the kind of things that require a bit of time to process.

But she goes out to see if Lukas is still alive anyway, and takes him a glass of water to disguise her true intentions. He glances up as she approaches, knee deep in yet another hole, and it's only mildly surprising that he's digging individual graves for the fallen. Well, obviously that was the right thing to do, but it was still going to take him forever and he was going to be exhausted by the end of it and he has to know that, and he's still doing it.

(Karen, stop.)

He accepts the water with a nod and another of those half-smiles, leaning on the shovel and he chugs it. Already she can see the bandage has slipped and there is dirt in it, but if he's not going to say anything, neither will she.

As he drinks, Karen plants her hands on her hips and lets her gaze rake around the area, surveying his work. It's clear he's been more productive than she has. When she looks back she finds him watching her silently and thinks -- This is the moment to say something. It's the perfect moment to reassure him.

She doesn't. She takes the empty glass back and leaves him to it, and even before she's taken two steps the shovel is hitting the dirt again. It sounds frustrated, but that's just her imagination, surely -- after all, she's the one that's frustrated here.

(You can't be tempted, no.)

Night comes and he's still out there, still working, but when she goes outside once more, another glass in hand, all the graves are dug and Lukas is just sitting there, back against the wall, staring at the holes. The moon sheds some light, but all it does is make the graves seem darker and deeper, and for a second Karen thinks he's actually fallen asleep, with his head bowed like that and so still, but then she realizes the truth.

He's praying.

She waits, standing awkwardly, not wanting to interrupt.

"Karen," he utters, when he's done, looking to her. She's not sure if it's a plea or an accusation or just a sigh, and his expression reveals nothing.

Do you need help ? she thinks again, and still doesn't say it aloud. This time she tells herself it's because this is his burden, his whale to slay, and if she tries to take that away he'll be insulted. It might not even be a real lie, that one. As she stands there, unresponsive, he pushes himself to his feet and moves back towards the bodies, leaving her to follow in his wake, still with the glass of water.

(You're killing me, Karen.)

Lukas is surprisingly gentle, laying each body in its grave, and pausing the mutter a short prayer. Maybe he asks for forgiveness or maybe he just prays for their souls -- who can even tell ? She doesn't want to ask and intrude, after all. The lines in his face look deeper in the moonlight, the same way each grave has become its own little abyss, and it's not a similarity that is lost on her as she stands there and observes. It isn't long before she has to turn away, and he doesn't seem upset by this, which is just great, because it wouldn't have mattered even if he had been.

(Never going to see Gramps in his grave never going to be there I can't --)

Lukas works silently, and the night passes, slowly. She sits and waits, unwilling to retire to bed and leave him to do this alone. The glass of water has been set to the side, all but forgotten.

"Karen ?" he asked, suddenly, and the sound of his voice is startling. She jerks her head up and finds him looming above, mud stained and exhausted, though his voice is strong. She blinks once, groggily, and thinks (he's not himself that's not what Lukas looks like) he looks very, very old.

"I'm not asleep," she protests, pushing herself up. She sways and he reaches a hand to steady her, withdrawing it before his touch lands. His gaze is drawn to his hand for a long second and she wonders what he sees there, in the moonlight -- it is mud ? Or is it blood ?

"You should be," he tells her, but there is no criticism in his tone.

"Are you done ?" she asks, glancing behind him.

"Yes," he agrees, then pauses. "One more," he corrects himself, and she understands then -- she understands who is left.

There is only Bernard, now -- the last vessel of the minion, and you can't touch the vessel or look into its eyes or comfort it at all. It is foul and untouchable, but it used to be his brother. She sees grief in his face, as he drags the body out, and for this, she accompanies him again. She is the only one that flinches as it thuds into the last grave.

Lukas stands above, motions at his chest and moves his lips silently, and then -- she understands what he's doing. Relief floods her and she makes an involuntary noise, so when he glances at her, it's with quizzical silence.

"Praying," she utters aloud. "You're praying for him."

Lukas seems puzzled by this.

"Yes," he agrees.

"He was a vessel," she elaborates.

"His actions were not his own," Lukas corrects her, and the relief becomes almost tangible -- she feels like she's drowning, standing there. She tries to speak and fails, and tries again, because the concern on his face is just too much.

"Gramps," she forces out, struggling to explain. He moves towards her, but she shakes her head, stopping him, trying again. "It -- he was Gramps."

(The doors twists and it turns and there's no devil with his vicious horns, there's only her grandfather who loved her and who she loves and he's in pain and he's begging her to stop he's suffering he --)

"A lie," Lukas tells her, seeming to understand the gist, if not the details. (Gramps isn't suffering he's not in Hell -- if Bernard is safe then so is Gramps, because he never did anything so bad. I didn't condemn him and we didn't condemn him and --) "I told you -- just a lie."

"Still," says Karen -- she tries to sound strong, but her voice breaks, and it's too hard to fight against it as Lukas wraps his arms around her. He's covered in mud and smells like blood and death, but underneath that -- underneath all that -- there's still him, and none of that is him. She feels his chest rise and fall, as he sighs, and it's not quite even.

"You should have asked," he informs her, and she laughs -- a quiet, breathless and bitter sort of sound, lost in his shirt.

No, she thinks, but she doesn't say that, either. No, I couldn't.