#sorry for litany against fear posting again

[wormsdyke]

i must not create parasocial relationships. parasocial relationships are the mind-killer. parasocial relationships are the little-death that brings total obliteration. i will face my hyperfixation. i will permit it to pass over and through me. and when it has gone past, i will turn the inner eye to see its path. where the hyperfixation has gone there will be nothing. only normal relationships with people i don’t personally know will remain.

[thetorturerwrites]

Lamb Ch 11 - Tell Me

***This amazing artwork was gifted to me by @elmidol​​. Please do not re-use or re-post it without permission from them and/or myself. Don’t be a dickbag.

Previous Chapter

Summary: “Please don’t pretend.” It was little more than a hoarse croak that cracked at the end. “I can’t bear it. Let me be.”

“What do you know of pretending?”

He pinched your chin and bade you look. It wasn’t a rhetorical question; he expected an explanation, but there was no simple answer.

“I know you don’t like me. You’ve made it clear.” You sniffed and looked down, hiding behind your lashes. “I just don’t know why.”

Author’s Note: This chapter has my heart. I hope you enjoy.CN: Mentions of pregnancy, mass death, self-harm inclinations

***

Even in Hosnia, with its perpetual twinkling twilight, there was night.

Gradually, a stillness swept over the land. The stars dimmed to a faint flicker. The wandering wind settled down to rest. And the expanse of The Ren’s keep went stone silent. Not a ripple in the bath. Not a creak from the ages-old walls. Not a crackle of candlelight. 

It was a crypt. Your crypt.

And yet, you could not die in it. You remained suspended in this agonizing in between. Perhaps if you lay quietly enough, you could slip beyond his enchantment, will your heart to beat slower and slower. Perhaps if you wallowed low enough in your grief, you could trick yourself into believing you weren’t apart from your family when the bombs dropped. You’d died with them.

Perhaps if you concentrated on it enough, you could simply cease to be.

These morose notions kept you curled into yourself. After leaving him in the throne room, you’d escaped to his bed, hoping for a few hours of reprieve. You kept on your cloak, hiding your head and face in the folds of the hood. You tucked your knees to your chest and hugged them tightly, imagining it was Nona. It was the only comfort you would get here, but it was hollow. Hollow, like everything else.

Numb, you ignored him when he entered. You didn’t need to see him anymore to know he was here. He changed the atmosphere by entering, altering the barometric pressure enough that you had to pop your ears whenever he came near. When the work was put down for the night and the souls collected, he came for you.

You thought briefly that maybe he would leave you alone. You’d fulfilled your part of the agreement. As far as you could tell, you were, in fact, pregnant. You’d done your part. But you let the wish die, as everything did here. He was too arrogant to stop turning your body against you. For all of your hostility and heartbreak, your body responded to him in a way you couldn’t quash. Regardless of how hard you tried.

You didn’t bother unwinding from your ball. He would move and position you how he saw fit. Your eyes, dry and red from staring into nothing for so long, closed in preparation. You found you could endure his emptiness if you did not look at him. It made the times he bent you over to have you less bitter. You’d been grateful for the ability to bury your head and not be tempted to look.

Tonight, however, he did not pull you from your self-pity. Neither did he jerk you from your cocoon. He watched you; you could feel it, but you would not, could not, give him the satisfaction of looking over your shoulder. You were simply too wrung out to care. Whether it was pity or anger or outright meanness, he slid into the bed behind you without a word.

An inkling nagged at the back of your mind, an anger you were too deadened to acknowledge. His presence comforted you, irrespective of your ire. Knowing where he was and that he was so close made you feel safe. He was the only indomitable soul in the whole of existence, and you had quite a good reason to be protected. More so now.

Despite yourself, you fell asleep.

You awoke to a tangle of limbs and the decadent scent of belladonna. You’d nearly forgotten how good he smelled close up. Having rolled out of your nook in your slumber, you'd stretched out and were cradled in his embrace with his fingers lazily stroking the back of your head in a way that made your scalp tingle.

Alarm bells rang in your mind. This was dangerous ground, and you needed to escape. He could fast make you forget your commitment to staying away. You shifted in his hold enough for him to ease it open slightly; but when he understood you meant to flee, those wrought irons trapped you again.

“Let me go,” you said timidly.

He not only ignored you, he tipped your face up to press an almost chaste kiss to your wrinkled brow. It was too much, the very thing you feared. Your fight erupted, and you twisted to get free. You heard yourself telling him you’d done what he asked; he could leave you alone; you can’t do this.

He doused your outburst by rolling onto you, punctuating your feebleness. With one arm and one leg trapped beneath him, you gulped down fear and exasperation. He slid his leg up between yours, situating you so your cunt rubbed his broad thigh. Your cheeks burned, a complex mix of mortification and yearning. You’d finally found an empty place, a desolate oubliette in your heart where you could hide, and he was already dismantling it.

“Please.” You turned your face to one side, lips quivering. “Don’t do this.”

You knew you begged more tonight than you did when you arrived, more than you did when he fucked you the first time, but it was unstoppable. You wouldn’t come back from this. If he broke you, if he cracked you open to make room for himself, you would never again be able to contain the sadness. You would ache and cry and pine without solace.

"This," he said flatly. It was an admonition and a challenge combined into a single syllable.

“Please don’t pretend.” It was little more than a hoarse croak that cracked at the end. “I can’t bear it. Let me be.”

His thumb swept across your pulse, feather soft and lingering. His jaw ticked the way it always did when you frustrated him, but you’d weather it. It was worth the risk if you could get free.

“What do you know of pretending?”

His patronizing question stoked the resentment lurking in the dark matter of your brain, but you fought it, blowing out as steady of a breath as you could manage. He pinched your chin and bade you look. It wasn’t a rhetorical question; he expected an explanation, but there was no simple answer. You knew you made far too many assumptions about his character, but he wouldn’t tell you anything to color your vision of him otherwise.

“I know you don’t like me. You’ve made it clear.” You sniffed and looked down, hiding behind your lashes. “I just don’t know why.”

“Hm. Why.” 

He dipped his head to place another soft kiss to your neck, right above the hollow. He enjoyed finding the particular places that made you shiver. You pushed at his shoulder weakly, a last ditch effort, but he caught and drew your offending limb up over your head. His granite fingers latched around your wrist, keeping you bound to the bed, to him.

This was bad. Both hands at his mercy. One leg stuck between his. His thigh perfectly situated to welcome your body’s yielding. You felt more bare, more vulnerable, more weak.

Carefully, he pulled the string holding the hood of your cloak in place. Until he untied that bow, you’d forgotten you wore it. Dutifully, he unpeeled you, layer by layer and in a fashion far too intimate. You’d jumped through that door with only your cloak because he kept you clad in as little as possible for easy access. And plunder as you might through room after room, there were simply no other clothes that would fit you available.

That idiot decision led you directly to this moment and this torturous undoing.

You suspected the lack of attire was deliberate, but you forgot about all of that when he tugged the hood apart and pushed it further back. He caressed the length of your jaw with his knuckles, deliberately drawing out your suffering. This was calculated; he had millennia to learn manipulation, physical, mental, and otherwise.

You didn’t stand a chance.

“You ask too many questions.” 

Egregiously slow, he popped the first button on your cloak, the one below the same hollow he’d kissed. With his index finger, he drew a small circle there. Your toes and fingers curled involuntarily. You wanted to argue that you only asked questions because he wouldn’t tell you anything, but you realized he answered your accusation. It was why he didn’t like you. A boulder dropped into your belly because you didn’t want to hear it. It was enough that he didn’t; you wouldn’t recover if he told you why.

“You are stupidly reckless.”

The second button met a similar fate, a leisurely unfastening. It wasn’t only the fabric he plucked apart. It was also you, and you squirmed beneath the utter slowness of it all. You wanted him to edge you forever and to hurry the fuck up.

The last button sat over your heart, and you cursed it for being so bloody prophetic. You felt like howling. You wanted to hurt and sob, but the trail of his fingers made you forget your own name. With the third button gone, he traced the line of your sternum before dipping down to lick up a bead of sweat between your breasts.

“You distract me,” he murmured, lips crawling back up towards your pulse.

That last one cracked lightning in your head. The room tipped sideways into spinning. Your lungs turned to steel, struggling to expand. You ground your jaws together painfully, and your throat burned with acrimony. With those three words, he shredded your tender soul to ribbons. Ruined, you squirmed, all pins and needles and lust. It felt like you wept, but your cheeks were too hot to be damp.

I don’t. I don’t. I’m sorry. I don’t. I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t.

It became your litany. You chanted it, lamenting and weary, but his hands did not waver from their task. He flipped the cloak open, bearing your flesh to the cool midnight air. His slightly calloused palm smoothed up from your calf, along the curve of your hip, and over the ripe swell of your breast. He squeezed, fingers digging in until your hiccups changed to whimpers. The noise he made right before he covered your straining nipple with his mouth coaxed your entire body into a jerk.

“Kylo,” you choked, barely able to get it out. “Please. Don’t make me.”

It was the first time you said his name, and his head shot up. His eyes bored holes into you, swirling incandescent. Fast as a feline, he shifted, settling more of his body on you and looking down. He went from halfway lying between to spreading your thighs obscenely wide with the sheer size of his frame.

You didn’t want him to see the things you couldn’t hide, but he clearly had no plans to let you loose.

“Make you.”

His truncated parroting was infuriating, but you fought valiantly to not be goaded into an argument you'd never win.

His thumb breached your lips to swipe at your tongue, and your body surged up painfully as though he electrocuted you. You’d worked hard to forget the sugary taste of him, the way his skin drugged you to an erotic high at the briefest taste. He was deadly in every way and sexier than anyone had warned you, or maybe even knew.

It was pointless to argue any further. He would win. He would always win. Hardening yourself against what you knew to be a hungry gaze, you looked up at him. For a flash of a second, he wavered at the sight of you, but he disguised it with the press of his lips into a steadfast line.

“Don’t make me feel like I’m not alone.” 

You said it with much more calm and confidence than you actually felt. Your time in his captivity, beneath him and wrapped around him, developed this new ability to distill your rambling down to its foundation. He didn’t like questions or mortal nonsense. He wanted it plain, always, and you’d learned how to do it. He didn’t like a lot of extra words; but no matter your newfound skill, you overflowed with them. The essence of your human-ness was to make connections, to find understanding and empathy.

“I have nothing. Not a home, not a family, not you.” 

You studied the way he studied you, watching him swallow what looked startlingly like a feeling. 

“I’m not like you. I’ve had to mourn my family alone, and…” You stalled, but you knew he wouldn’t let you not finish. “I have to mourn you every time you say something nice to me or do something that looks like kindness but isn’t.”

His brow cocked, a clear response to what he felt was your false presumption, but you didn’t care. You were beyond it all. You may as well say to him whatever you wanted because it couldn’t get worse than his stony countenance day after day, and the alternative to that was the peaceful forever of death. 

“I’m not asking you to like me.” Foolishly, you carried on, but your voice dropped, quieter and more afraid. The bravado you felt faded fast. “I’m asking you to not make me like you.”

The way he looked at you, slightly off stoic but decidedly demanding, boiled your blood. He reached down and hooked his fingers under your knee, drawing your leg up and around his hip. It parted your legs more for him, opening you up in a way that made you swoon. You thought you could stay out of reach of his dick; but with it so close, you practically salivated for it.

“It's far too late for that.” Following the first, he tugged your other leg into place around him. “Your body gives you away.”

You wanted to disagree, but his teeth nipped your cheek. You shuddered at the tease of his hard length sliding through your mess, seeking its target in the warm and wet that never quite abated. Your everything swelled for him. Breasts, nipples, pussy lips puffy and engorged with your rushing blood. He wasn’t wrong, but you despised him for pointing it out.

Your breath ruptured into wild panting, sharp through clenched teeth. You stared up at him, hopelessly lost to the spiraling of color in his irises. He took advantage of your deliriousness and pushed your previously pinned arm above your head with the first and held both down with one massive hand. It elongated your body and arched your torso up into him, a thing he enjoyed if the thrum in his chest was to be believed.

You imagined yourself an insect, wings stretched out and nailed to the bed; and all the while, the mad scientist above you inundated your senses. His mouth descended upon your breast once more, eliciting a strangled keening when your vocal chords caught up to the rest of you. He batted the hard nub with his tongue until you writhed pitifully, and he only switched to the other when you tried to buck him off from the over-stimulation.

Playing more and more into his hand, you hugged his sides with wobbly legs and tried to draw him in closer. Your body did truly lead the way, each movement beyond your mind’s purview. It no longer hearkened to your whims but to his. Your insides leaked out of your sex, painting both you and he with heat and want. It scented the air and mingled with his tempting poison. 

You were seconds from begging him to fuck you when the blunt head of his cock found its place. He gripped your hip and mouthed at the side of your neck as he rocked himself further into your weeping slit bit by bit. Your eyes rolled back in your head, and your fingers dug into his because it always amazed you. He was long and thick and perfect; and though he stretched you open to the point of burning, it was intoxicatingly good. Thankfully, he bottomed out right when you thought you surely couldn’t take any more.

You whined his name, which spurred him to bite at your shoulder. You convinced yourself it was to cap off the grunt you heard in the back of his throat. He masked another noise by burying his face into your nape and sucking a mark into your salty skin.

You clamped your eyes shut because these were the sounds you so desperately wanted to hear for weeks. Anything to show you did well, to show that he enjoyed you, or at least your pussy, in a way he would never say. You’d forgotten, however, that shutting your eyes so hard contracted your cunt at the same time until he withdrew without warning and rammed back in to enjoy that tightness. You yelped in surprise but angled your hips to give him a deeper channel. The moans you tamped down for so long clamored to the surface. Ablaze, you couldn’t be quiet to save your soul. You mewled and yowled with each powerful snap of his hips and the way he pillaged you for every last centimetre your cunt had to offer. 

This was unlike any time he’d had you before. He kept your limbs immobilized and your body taut. He kept his pace persistent but unhurried, which had you pleading pitifully. And he kept his mouth on you, lips grazing, tongue tasting, teeth scraping. Enticing, sinful noises were pushed into your skin as though he didn’t want you to hear them but couldn’t contain them.

And then, it happened. The thing you wanted so passionately. The thing you dreamed about.

He snuffed out your cries with a fiery kiss, blasting through the last of your willpower. 

His mouth was heaven, delicious and plump and divine. He knew exactly how he wanted to kiss you, and he led you to it expertly. He tipped your face precisely the right way and wrecked you with the spice in his spit. And when your lips trembled, agitated by sadness and relief and passion, he bit them, as though to chase those things away and replace them with himself.

Abruptly, it all came to a halt. He pushed up to his knees, lifting the lower half of your body in the doing. He didn’t pull out, not willing to surrender his occupation of your body. Nor did he relinquish his rigid grasp of your wrists, opting instead to splay his free hand across the soft swell of your belly, pushing down to trap you there. Your head swam, and you groaned because you felt more full as he pressed on your abdomen. You knew he waited for you to look at him, but you blundered, destroyed and witless.

“Do you want to die?” 

His normally razor sharp tone lilted into something you could not name. Your eyes struggled to settle on one particular feature because he was hypnotically beautiful. His eyes shone brilliantly bright; a soft pink blush blossomed across his nose and cheeks from his arousal.

Punctuating the question, his hands found the magic he laid upon you at your forearm and thigh. He rubbed through the ever-looping blood, which, somehow, made your insides shiver. It was a wicked sensation, a stroke to your very veins that pulled a carp from the depths of your being.

“Tell me.”

Your eyes stung. It was cruel of him to ask you this while buried to the hilt inside you, while he was in the middle of obliterating the walls you tried so hard to build between you. But it wasn’t a threat. As you peered up at him, charting a course from one irresistible mole to the next, you saw he asked in earnest. He offered you the escape you hopelessly sought.

Strange how you weren’t so sure you wanted it.

Your loved ones still lay unavenged. Your call for the annihilation of The Resistance still had not been answered. You fought so hard to make it here, sacrificed so much of yourself to that end. What would it say about you if you abandoned it? Weak. Childish. Unworthy.

Beyond that, you had to admit he was right. It was too late to pretend your feelings for him didn’t complicate the issue. You weren’t so stupid as to think he loved you, but you burned for his kind word. You craved his touches even when they weren’t kind. He lit a fire in you and made you feel, a feat you’d not accomplished on your own since the death of your people.

Not yet trusting yourself, you worried the inside of your lip and sought his eyes, but you weren’t prepared for the way he looked at you. He was primal desire manifested, ragged and raw need encased in the skin of a man. The first man. The only man.

But what if he died? What if he found Vader and walked off his own cliff? You’d be here, alone and lonely, with only whatever semblance of a child he produced to stop you from going mad.

How you answered would change the arc of your life irrevocably. If you said yes, this teetering on the edge of begrudging coexistence ended. You could slip into nothing and be done with all of this. If you said no, he would have his hooks in your spirit for eternity. No matter if he never loved you, you wouldn’t be able to refuse him. Ever.

“N-no.”

It was a jittery, hesitant sound, but it was true. He accepted your supplication by pulling you close so he could lift you up. He guided your fingers to his shoulders and settled back on his haunches, holding you closer than ever before. Your weight sunk you down onto his cock and you whinged from the way it nudged your sensitive cervix. You crossed your ankles and tried to inch upwards for a bit of relief.

One chiseled arm held you aloft, while the other traveled your length, winding from the nape of your neck to wrap around your generous hip. He found the spot between where your thigh ended and where your ass began and made a handle, using it to move you up and down, forward and back.

In mere moments, he had you wound up and ready to combust all over again.

“S’ansur yien,” he crooned into your neck, a murmur more profound than thunder. “Tyor ilohira.”

“Kylo? I…”

The way he growled into your neck and slammed his hips up into yours when you said his name settled your curiosity. There was no doubt he enjoyed hearing you say it, and you wondered if he’d ever heard it on another’s lips before. You clung to him as his pace quickened. Over and over he said those eloquent, alluring things into your neck, your hairline, your shoulder. Things you'd never heard before; things it seemed like he couldn't not say.

Tyor ilohira. Yie ilohira. S’ansur yien.

His presence expanded, saturating the room with a consuming euphoria that addled your mind. All while he worked you on his cock in much the same way he did that first day, using your body for his pleasure. Unlike before, he was as deep in your cunt as he could physically be without ripping you apart, and he strained at the seams to keep from doing so.

You quaked. There was nothing for it but to brace. Your pussy stung, and each subsequent shove of his dick tore at your cunt more. You bled for him, as you had so many times before, and you knew he could certainly smell it tinting the air with the slightest hint of iron. It roused him to a roughshod railing every time.

His mouth lined up with yours in a kiss that could only be called a brand. It was fierce and full of urgency, lusty and skirting frantic. His grip turned brutal, possessive; and then, it was your turn to swallow the indecent sounds he made as he flooded your battered cunt. He rode the orgasm out, pumping his hips slow and insistent until his satisfied hum abated.

You swayed, coiling your fingers in the hair at the base of his neck to not topple backwards. You were wary but content to stay here however long he might like. You traced the line of his scar down to his shoulder blade with a skimming fingertip. He was ethereal, holy, and you wanted to pray to him, to exalt all that he was and would ever be, though you didn’t know why. He hadn’t exactly earned that level of worship.

He didn’t meet your stare. Instead, his luscious lips rolled together as he pieced his indifferent veneer back together. A gasp lodged in the back of your throat because he had been affected. You saw it; here was your proof. He’d ridden that whirlwind with you, the result of which was plain as day on his face.

“Kylo?” You dared a whisper, not wanting to break the moment, but your ludicrous need to know things simply would not allow the niggling question to go unasked. “What was that you said?”

His lips lifted at the corners, an entertained huff that won you a nudge of his nose to yours. His eyes softened slightly. And you thought you might fly out of your body.

“No more talk of cliffs,” he said, blatantly dodging your question.

An almost affectionate kiss to your forehead closed the book on the topic, but you’d remember what he said forever, the secret he accidentally shared. You’d already begun plotting the rooms you’d ransack for the language texts you found while he was battling Solo.

The mesmerizing crest to which he carried you ebbed further and further away. A fatigue seeped into your muscles and bones. At his withdrawal, an altogether bleak vacancy infused you with doubt, right down to your marrow. You tried to curtail the childish grumble, but it escaped through the harsh way you chewed the inside of your cheek. 

Had you been conquered or consecrated?

What you wanted at the moment was sleep. Whereas he needed none, you still required it daily, a marker of your human fragility. The bath, and its healing ripples, could wait until tomorrow. He did not see fit to allow you this luxury, however. Instead, he scooped you and the blanket you tried to wrap about yourself up. He stepped into the hallway and turned in the opposite direction you expected. You peered over his shoulder forlornly, having decided that a bath would be preferable to whatever this would be.

He walked towards the doorway that started this insanity, dousing the embers inside that had you believing you might make it through today. You shrank more and more into yourself the nearer it drew. A blind terror took over, but you couldn’t move a single cell to save yourself.

The choice he asked you to make meant less than nothing. His decisions were the only ones that mattered here; and having debased you, having obliterated all that you were, he intended to throw you out anyway.

You dared yourself to be furious, to find indignation and hate in the cavity where your heart should be, but there was none. There wasn’t fear either, only resigned acceptance. A heavy sigh sunk your shoulders down, and you closed bleary eyes. You might not fight your fate, but you wouldn’t welcome it.

But the blast and crackle of the portal opening did not come.

To your dismay, he set you on your feet in front of the free-standing obsidian wall in his throne room. The disturbing looking glass you tried so hard to avoid these days. The temptation to lose yourself to memories of Nona was too great. Scowling, you refused to face it. When he attempted to tip your face up, you stubbornly shook your head and crossed your arms over your chest.

It was his laugh that drew you out of what you were quite aware was a fit.

You amused him, and it might have annoyed you had it not been for your outright astonishment. It wasn’t a smile so much as a smirk, and it wasn’t a full laugh so much as a chuckle, but it was a thing you had absolutely no idea how to process. You’d only seen him angry, lewd, or uncaring. You didn’t know how to process…. affable.

Disregarding the flabbergasted look on your face, he turned you about, but you were so afraid of what you would see that you stepped backwards, trying to dodge what came next. His trunk-like arm cinched about your middle, anchoring you in place as he leaned over your shoulder on the right. He shushed your uneasy chirping and placed his hand upon the cool rock.

“Kylo,” the warble in your voice betrayed your apprehension, “I don’t…”

The picture burst onto the surface, cutting off the woeful entreaty you planned. It took a full minute before you understood what you looked at — the destruction of a world. Your hands flew to a throat filled with fiberglass. Revolt roiled in your stomach and turned to chalk in your mouth.

“No!” You yelled and thrashed. “I don’t want to see this!”

The aggravated rumble in his chest didn’t dull your attempt to look anywhere but where he wanted. His fingers at your side dug in painfully, cementing you to this spot. It wasn’t that you feared for your safety. With him engulfing you like this, there was no safer place to be. The concern was that you didn’t want to see what annihilation truly meant. You wanted that to remain as nothing you could imagine, the scope of it too far beyond your insipid, idiotic mind.

He wouldn’t let you go until you obeyed, though, and you knew it. The tears that had been threatening to spill for hours broke loose, rushing over your horrified flush. The devil at your ear spoke, but it was lost to the dreadful cinema playing out before you. There was only the ringing in your ears as you watched blackness detonate and spread outwards across a lovely land that was so alive before.

If he hoped to stun you into a stupor, he succeeded.

Your thunderstruck neglect allowed him to slide the blanket from around you and toss it aside. The next time his mouth found your pulse, it was with the press of his bare body to yours. He plied the back of your neck with slow kisses until you exhaled. You didn’t remember stopping, but a burn in your ribs forced the issue.

“D’Qar,” he said quietly as the dead planet faded.

Another took its place, and your mouth went slack. You couldn’t help but place your hands there to gag yourself or to foolishly forestall what already happened. It assuaged your own guilt by little more than a fraction. The next planet met the same gruesome end.

“Yavin Hoth.”

Your brow knit, and you tilted your head to hear him better. Taking advantage, he licked a stripe from his thorny collar to behind your ear.

“Dantooine.” 

The picture shifted once more; the devastation coming quicker and with less and less mercy. Your eyes shot open, bulging out with understanding. He begat a war inside of you with this burdensome lesson because you knew those planets. You recognized them from the miserable, despondent plight that led you here.

“Takodana. Ilum.”

Resistance planets.

Your knees buckled, the weight too great to bear. It was only his sturdiness that kept you from hitting the floor. With his ghastly slideshow finished, his hands were suddenly everywhere. Around your throat, squeezing your ribs, hauling you onto your toes with fingers in your sticky pussy.

“Is this not what you asked me for?” 

His dramatic declaration did not match the reality of what he was and what he did. He took your request, your dying wish, and hideously warped it. You asked for The Resistance to be exterminated, but what he’d done was use your heartbreak as an excuse to further his own cause. He wiped out entire worlds with you as his unwitting muse.

Worst of all — You couldn’t tell him to stop.

What did that mean for you?

You dropped into him, a sack of flour against marble. Torn between two truths, you choked on an appeal, unable to get it to leave your lips. The first was that you did this. You were responsible. There was no separating from the fact it was likely you who sparked the idea for his crusade. You’d unknowingly unleashed him upon the Galaxy when you asked him to avenge you.

The second was that you didn’t regret it. With all that happened, with the icy isolation, the bruises you bore for him, and the devastating fact that you’d snuffed out billions of lives, you regretted no part of it.

Disgust clogged your mouth and fattened your tongue. Many of those people did not deserve to die. The overwhelming majority of them did not deserve that fate. But The Resistance did. In the darkest pit of your heart, you were glad. Glad those planets were gone. Glad The Resistance lost so much. Glad he’d done what was in his nature and wiped so many of them from existence.

You were so mired in the swampy feelings and cloudy thoughts you didn’t feel the slide of his lips over your shoulder. It wasn’t until he pushed you face first into the thing that you broke from your reverie. Just in time for his mouth to connect with the bottom of your spine. You shot up to your toes when he bit your ass and hauled your hips back towards him.

Before you could protest, or think of why you ought to protest, he planted his face between your thighs and directly into the center of your cunt. You barked a curse, arching and squirming under the sinful slither of his tongue. At your front, his insistent thumb found your throbbing clit and pressed in, eliciting the most abject whine you’d ever produced.

It wasn’t the first time he’d tasted your blood, nor the first time he’d enjoyed toying with the rips he made in your fragile flesh. It was simply the first time he seemed to care if you enjoyed it.

You’d been in his bed for weeks, maybe years given Hosnia’s disparate slog through space and time; and though the first few encounters were decidedly more patient and mild, he’d long since tired of waiting for you. Lately, he fucked you hard and fast, and he didn’t care for anything other than filling you as many times as necessary for his seed to take root.

But now…

Now, Kylo Ren, Death, the embodiment of all endings, was on his knees. For you. 

He laved your cunt with his saliva and sucked your plasma-tinted slick down like candy. You vibrated each time his tongue delved into you and scratched at the infernally smooth surface to keep from tangling your fingers in his hair. His nose rubbed indecent parts of you that had never received such attention. His teeth tugged the engorged meat of your labia until it popped loose with a squelch. Your cunt pulsed around his probing, and he moaned in what sounded like delight.

Like a bitch in heat, you twitched in exquisite agony.

You pressed your forehead to the wall, barely upright, blinking heavily, and hardly seeing the floor. Overwhelmed was not an apt description for the moment, but it was the only one you could latch onto.

What you could see, however, what you could make out between your legs and just past his punishing hand, was the bob of his cock, recovered and standing tall, proud, and ready. The thought of him rendering you further asunder dropped you off the edge, and you shuddered. You couldn’t muster a moan through the orgasm; it was too entrenched in your guts, too laden with emotion.

But he knew. He knew, and he claimed it all with sloppy kiss after sloppy kiss to your exhausted lower half. Cunt. Thighs. Hips. Ass. Vertebrae. You hissed when he slid two impatient fingers into your well worn core to scoop out the very last remnants of your downfall.

He did it. He won. Conquered, not consecrated.

The tangy aroma of you wafted close by when he collected you in a new embrace. He folded you into his dizzying gravity, covetous of his prize.

“Kylo?”

Your brow crinkled because a strange flutter disrupted your equilibrium. You struggled to identify it because it had been so long since you felt it. You pressed a hand to your hot forehead, to your belly, to your ear, trying to uncover the source. Was it fever? Exhaustion? Had you pushed the limits of his spellbinding too far? 

Untroubled, he hummed his response into the side of your head, no doubt expecting another of the endless questions you produced.

And then it was there. This bodily function you’d forgotten because you didn’t need it here. 

“I’m really… hungry.”

Whatsoever The Ren offers me, I shall accept. He will carry me across dark waters, guide me to the distant shore, and bear me hence to my ancestors.

And I will praise his name for all my time there.

[florenceandthemachine]

TUMBLR FUCKED UP SOME OF MY ASK POSTS I AM SO SORRY ANYWAY 

@buckleydiazs​ asked:

talk to me about eddie and chris asking buck to move in, pls and thank u 🥰

Their first unplanned night together starts off with a text message.

Ironically enough, it’s not even a message between Eddie and Buck—it’s between Buck and Maddie. Eddie is all smiles as he pulls his truck onto the highway, Buck in the passenger seat, laughing easily at some story Eddie was telling. It was nice. It was easy, easier than most of the relationships Eddie had ever had before, but that wasn’t surprising—at least, not anymore, not with Buck.

Once Buck had gotten the stick out of his ass, Eddie realized how easily the two of them would get along almost immediately. Buck was... well, he was a far better person than Eddie was, and Eddie would be the first to admit that, but Buck seemed to be oblivious to the fact that he could basically out shine the sun with one of his big toothy smiles.

Their relationship was unique, certainly; they had survived things that went beyond the real of “regular people”; tsunamis, earthquakes, bombs, and most stressful of all (weirdly enough), a lawsuit. somehow, the lawsuit was the straw that broke the back on their friendship—Eddie had finally pulled his head out of his ass, realized how miserable his life had been without Bucky, and asked him out on a proper date a week after Buck's first call back on the team.

Though they spent a lot of time together as friends, and that had only grown after their first official ‘date’, they had been carpooling out of necessity for the week—Bobby had been good enough to match their schedules up while Buck’s Jeep was in the shop—and Eddie insisted that it wasn’t too much of a detour to shuttle Buck back and forth to work.

The mood in the truck was easy and light, and Buck was still laughing when he pulled his phone from his pocket, tapping at the screen a few times—and like someone had switched on a vacuum, the good mood was sucked through the window in less than a second.

“It’s Maddie. She says Taylor Kelly is at my apartment complex. Apparently there was a pretty big drug bust in the building across the way, she has her van camped out in our lot.”

And, well, Eddie wasn’t about to tolerate that, wasn’t about to tolerate anything that made Buck unhappy, anything that could suck the joy out of him in an instant, for reasons that he chose not to dive too deep into. He focused instead on the problem (and yeah, Taylor Kelly was a problem with a capital B), and what he figured was the easiest solution.

“Oh. Well, then you’re staying at our place tonight.”

As expected, Buck started up a whole litany of protests. It was a little sad, Eddie thought, how eager Buck was to talk himself out of a good time, and if he didn’t have the backup of a year of knowing Buck as well as he did, Eddie might have actually taken his ramblings at face value.

As it was, though, he had an ace in the hole. A surefire way to get Buck to shut up and accept some good in his life. He didn’t like to play it, but he knew that he had to as soon as Buck mentioned “I’ll just stay at the firehouse tonight, it’s really no issue, I’ll order take out, and—”

“Buck, it’s fine. Chris has been begging me to invite 'his Buck’ over for dinner for a week now anyway.”

“...oh. Okay.”

Was it wrong for Eddie to use his son so easily, knowing that Buck was as wrapped around Chris’ finger to the degree that nearly rivaled himself? Probably. Could Eddie bring himself to care? Nope.

Especially not when Chris basically launched himself into Bucks arms, completely overjoyed that Buck was here for a “surprise sleepover”. 

Dinner had gone off without a hitch, with Chris easily dominating most of the conversation, rattling off facts, figures, stories from school, information about his friends, and Buck had eaten it up. 

Eddie had found himself staring at Buck—more than once—with a little bit of a dopey look on his face, he was sure, as Buck got more and more animated, making Christopher laugh, telling stories of his own, and he hadn’t even bothered to look away when Buck caught him staring.

Buck was a blusher. Eddie loved it.

Now, though, Chris had disappeared to brush his teeth and put on his pajamas, and Eddie and Buck were working in companionable quiet as they started to clean the table.

"You know, if Taylor being at my apartment means I get to spend the evening with my two favorite guys...” Buck said with a smile, closing the fridge as he leaned against it, keeping an ear out for Chris as he turned the faucet in the bathroom on. “...I’ll have to invite her over next time.”

Eddie shrugged, gesturing vaguely with a spoon, though he couldn’t keep the smile off of his face as he rose a brow. “Buck, you know you don’t need excuses, right? You’re allowed to like this. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am as wrapped around your finger as you are Chris’s.”

Buck was blushing again, and that was all the encouragement Eddie needed to step forward, his arms wrapping around Buck as Buck started to speak again. “You... you know the feeling is mutual, right?” he asked, and Eddie felt himself light up. “And I... don’t really want to wait for a next time to spend some time with you either.”

Buck wasn’t sure which God was on his side, but either way, he was immensely thankful that Chris didn’t barge in until long after Eddie and Buck had separated, even if they were still breathing a little heavily.

--

The next unexpected visit, it turns out, was only four weeks and three planned dates later. 

Buck had had many a sleepless night after the tsunami, but after the lawsuit, his nightmares had become even worse, more intense, more real. There were nights where he had to tell himself, ten times, that Chris was okay, that he was alive, and then there were nights like tonight, where he let the fear outweigh the guilt and he called Eddie.

(It was probably telling that he was never afraid of his own death—only Chris’. If he had a therapist, he would probably bring that up, but... well, therapy had never been a great idea for Buck before.)

To his credit, Eddie hadn’t let it ring even twice before picking up. 

“Buck, Chris is okay. He’s okay. You saved him, Buck, and I can never thank you enough for that.”

“Ed—he was right there, and I lost him, and I—”

“He is okay. Buck, seriously, he’s okay. Here, you should come over. See for yourself?”

“What? No.” Buck may have been coming out of a nightmare, but even then, he knew not to risk disturbing Eddie more than he absolutely had to.

“Buck, whatever thoughts are swirling around in that head, you better, get your admittedly very attractive ass over here right now.”

...well, he couldn’t argue with that. 

Eddie could feel his heart break when he opened the door, though, and got an armful of puffy eyed, apologetic Buck in response. They quietly made their way over to Chris’ room and then to Eddies own, where he made no short work of Buck’s apologies, kissing him soundless every time he tried.

At the end of the night, Buck wasn’t sure what had helped him sleep better—seeing Chris alive and well, or spending his night in Eddie’s arms, wrapped up tight enough that he couldn’t break free even if he tried.

Not that he would.

--

“Hi Buck!”

“Hi Christopher!” 

Buck was all smiles as he swooped in to scoop Christopher into a big bear hug, leaning over to kiss Eddie’s cheek as he let Chris back down to the ground and they started walking back to the car. “How was school, buddy?” He asked, easily going into idle listening mode as Eddie’s hand slipped into his. It was an early release day for Christopher, and he had all but demanded that they spent the afternoon hanging out together—and it was moments like these that reminded Buck about how lucky he was, swinging his hand in Eddie’s like a teenager as they walked back to the car, Chris eagerly leading the way.

Honestly, if anything, the fact that a date night for Buck was now spending a night at the museum with his boyfriend and his kid (instead of in a club, or at a bar, or doing something he probably wouldn’t remember the next day) really was a testament to his own personal growth. No drinking, no drugs, no questionable sex with questionable people in questionable locations—just a nerdy firefighter and his kid.

Dinner consisted of hot dogs and pretzels and soda, and somehow Chris was outpacing them on energy as they wandered through the exhibits. Buck never quit being amazed at just how much Chris knew—hell, Buck was an adult and he still didn’t know the difference between a Monet painting and a Manet painting—but Chris was like the little brainiac Energizer bunny, his energy only weaning after they got home and demanded Buck read him two whole stories for bedtime, and Buck was feeling selfish enough to allow himself a few moments with Chris, sleeping on his shoulder, before he tucked the boy in for the night. 

“I’m gonna get going.”

“You don’t have to, you know?”

Eddie kept his voice low as Buck slid Chris’ door shut, his arms finding their way around Buck’s waist on autopilot, easily masking the twinge of annoyance he felt when Buck had the audacity to look surprised.

“What do you mean?”

If he ever met that Abby chick, he was going to give her a piece of his mind. 

“I mean you don’t have to leave. You can stay, sweetheart. I… well, I want you to stay, but I always want you to stay, so I’m a little biased. But you can stay as long as you want, whenever you want.” 

It was better, he hoped, to be direct, because Buck obviously didn’t get the hint after so many subtle cues. Hell, Eddie had given him a key after their third official date, and all Buck had commented was how glad he was to have it, in case of emergencies. Unfortunately, the fact that Buck seemed dumber then a box of rocks didn’t seem to count as an emergency. 

His argument seemed to be well received tonight, at least, because Buck smiled shyly as he looked up to Eddie, his own arms sliding around the other males shoulders. 

“You’re sure I won’t bother you and Chris, right? You really want me to stay tonight?”

“Of course I do.” Eddie said. For the rest of your life, he managed to keep inside. 

--

“Buck, you know you’re always welcome here, right?”

“Yes, Eddie.”

“And you know we love having you here, and we generally hate it when you leave.”

“I get it, Eddie.”

“So you know—“

“Eddie, will you please let me in?”

If Buck wasn’t soaked head to toe, standing on Eddie’s doorstep, he’d probably start to think that the universe was playing a cruel joke on the both of them. It was certainly playing a cruel joke on Eddie, to be honest—they had finished a particularly grueling overnight shift just three hours ago, and he had all but begged Buck to come and get some rest at the house while Christopher was out with Carla that day, and Buck had politely but firmly refused, not wanting to trample on any of the time that he got to take for himself. It was driving Eddie crazy, to be honest—he had really thought that they had made progress on that front, that they had finally gotten to the point where Buck didn’t think he was intruding, or interrupting, or distracting, or whatever. He really had thought he had made his stance clear—that he always loved spending time with Buck, period. 

Well, he was certainly never one to back down from a challenge. 

“What even happened, Buck?”

“The pipe burst in the apartment above me. I got soaked through in the middle of a nap.” 

“Oh, Buck.”

“It’s not funny, Eddie! I was trying to be considerate!”

“Baby, I’m not laughing. I’m just very distracted by how good you look soaking wet.”

“Eddie, I swear to god—“

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“….oh. Oh!”

--

“I meant what I said, you know?”

“Hmm?”

They had gotten down to the lazy, delighted moments of the evening, standing together in the shower, Buck slotted easily into Eddies arms. They were taking advantage of the last twenty minutes they had together before Chris came home, and needless to say, neither of them were exactly jumping at the idea of wearing pants again.

“We love having you here, Chris and I. And we really do hate it when you leave because you think that you have to, or you think that you’re intruding, or you think… well, whatever else that you’re thinking.”

“Eddie…”

Buck turned in his arms, pushing his wet hair back, but Eddie smothered any chance of a self depreciating comment by pressing their lips together. He didn’t pull back until he knew Buck would be breathless, panting, and dazed, and it probably wasn’t fair to fight that way, but Eddie couldn’t handle another comment about how much of a bother Buck perceived himself.

“You’re home to me, Buck. Chris too. He loves you and he looks up to you, and you drive me crazy thinking that you could be anything but welcome in our lives. Buck, I want you to move in with us. Stay. Forever.”

There was a time and a place where Buck’s self doubt would have run rampant faced with a confession like that—hell, Buck 1.0 wouldn’t even have allowed a relationship to get that far—but somehow, looking up at Eddie, nothing could be more perfect. 

“You’re home to me too, Eddie.” He started, softly, a smile on his face. “And if you and Chris really wouldn’t mind—“

“It’s not just that we wouldn’t mind, though. It’s what we want. We want you to live with us, sweetheart.”

“… well, I’ve never been good at denying anything my Diaz boys want, have I?”

--

(Over dinner, Buck had nervously approached the topic with Chris, because no matter how sure Eddie was, Buck had to hear it for himself. 

Chris got so excited he almost threw up. 

Eddie considered everything about that night as a win—but the best part of all was the price, Buck, beautiful Buck, waiting for him in his—no, in their bed.)

[agerefandom]

Bowed yet Unbroken

Fandom: Original Work (written for my friend @sparrowinged​‘s dnd OCs)

Characters: Darcy (a half-orc cleric), Quest Riddlemaster (an elven adventurer)

Words: 4,000.

Summary: Darcy knows Quest as a reliable source of odd merchandise from the chaotic world outside of his seaside hometown. When the elf collapses on the floor of his store with life-threatening injuries, a new kind of bond is formed between them.

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of injuries. Fear caused by a thunderstorm. Involuntary regression, caused by anxiety.

Note: I usually do three drafts before posting, but I only wrote two of this one because it’s quite long! As such, there may be a few typos: please let me know if you see one so that I can correct it!

Darcy sighed as he began to neaten the shelves for closing time. He had only sold a couple of antique daggers today, and it was the fifth day this week that he had made under forty gold. Business needed to improve, or his beloved shop wouldn’t last much longer.

People liked to come in and browse without buying anything, and Darcy would be lying if he said that he didn’t enjoy the company. Sometimes, folks would be open to chatting, and other times they tried to pocket a few little amulets or scales. Darcy was alright with both: he liked a good conversation, and he didn’t mind using his half-orc size to throw most would-be thieves out onto the street. A person got bored sometimes, dusting off skulls and making deals with travellers. A bit of adventure was good every so often.

The door to the shop burst open, and Darcy snapped to attention with a smile. The rain was coming down in sheets, as it often did in the coastal town, and the figure who stumbled into the shop was hidden by a dark cloak. It might have once been a deep green, but it was now black with rainwater.

The person pushed back their hood and revealed the shining hair and bright eyes of a sun-elf: a familiar face, once Darcy got a proper look. Quest Riddlemaster, an elven adventurer who often found his way back to Darcy’s shop to sell the spoils from his escapades. He was a good business partner, and Darcy had found their relationship to be mutually lucrative. Today, Quest’s skin seemed paler than normal, his shoulders rising and falling with panting breaths.

“I’ve got some new wares for you,” Quest said as soon as he was close enough for his voice to be heard over the storm. He hadn’t closed the door behind him, and rainwater was beginning to run in from the street. Quest stood there for a moment longer and then collapsed, his waterlogged cloak spread around him. A golden circlet rolled out of his backpack and across the floor.

Darcy darted forwards, rolling Quest onto his back as quickly as he could. The elf’s eyes were closed, lips parted. He was still breathing, but Darcy could see what the rain had hidden: the cloak Quest was wearing was dark with both blood and water. He must have walked to the shop with serious injuries.

Darcy pushed Quest’s cloak back, tearing it slightly in the process. Once it was parted, he could see the slash-marks in Quest’s armor. They were deep and the blood was still flowing from the wounds underneath, harsh lines across his shoulder and chest.

Darcy swore under his breath and fumbled for the amulet he kept around his neck, hardly noticing that his hands were covered in Quest’s blood. “I need your help,” Darcy whispered. “I know it’s been a long day, but he’s dying. Please, help me heal him.” He barely dared to breathe until he felt the familiar glow of his god’s attention warming the amulet.

“Thank you,” Darcy breathed, and rested both hands against Quest’s chest as they began to glow. He watched the elf’s blood begin to drip upwards, resisting gravity to flow back into the wounds. The gaps in his armor let Darcy watch Quest’s skin begin to knit together, surrounded by the glow of divine magic.

Quest drew in a shuddering breath as he came back to consciousness, his hands coming up to grab one of Darcy’s wrists.

“I’m a cleric,” Darcy told him quickly. “I’m healing you.” Spells could be misinterpreted, especially in the disorientation of coming back from the brink of death, and adventurers could be jumpy.

“I’m sorry,” Quest whispered, and then his eyes closed again, his hands falling away.

Darcy sat back on his heels and looked at the figure sprawled on the floor of his shop. He hadn’t been able to heal him entirely: it was the end of the day, after all, and Darcy had gotten into the habit of using his spells to sort and organize the shop, to find the million things he misplaced throughout the day. But Quest would live, and that was the important thing. He wasn’t unconscious now, just asleep. His body was rightfully demanding rest as it caught up to the stress of the day.

Darcy let out a long breath and stood up. He had more first aid supplies at his home, and Quest would need to be watched over for the night. It certainly crossed a line of their business relationship, but Quest had proven reliable over the months and Darcy was sure that a stronger debt between them could only be beneficial.

Thinking over the best way to proceed, Darcy closed the door to stop the rain from coming into his shop. He collected the golden circlet from the floor and tucked it back into the adventurer’s rucksack, noting the number of other precious objects inside with a raised eyebrow. Quest had certainly returned with a great hoard of treasures, though if he hadn’t made it to Darcy’s shop, he would have given his life for it. If he had collapsed on the street, there was a very good chance he would have been robbed and left within minutes.

Darcy repacked the backpack and leaned it against the front of the counter, still hesitating. He could wake Quest up now, but the sun-elf was a proud one, and might refuse Darcy’s help. On the other hand, Darcy could carry him easily. But the wind and rain outside was sure to wake him, and it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. It would be better if he woke Quest up here, and offered him a place to spend the night. He might be too tired to protest.

Just as Darcy made his decision and stepped forwards, a burst of thunder rolled over the shop, rattling the windows and the items on the shelves. It was a common enough occurrence in the sea-side town, but Quest woke to the sound and came to his feet almost too quickly to see.

“I’m awake!” he shouted at the windows, fists clenched. Darcy noted with alarm that the abrupt movement had re-opened the wounds on Quest’s chest, and blood was dripping down his armour. “I’m awake, I’m awake!” Even as he shouted, the thunder rolled again, and Quest dropped to his knees with a soft gasp.

Darcy was frozen in place where he stood, one hand outstretched in preparation to shake Quest awake. The elf was clearly rattled by the experiences of the night, acting erratically. In Darcy’s experience, Quest was a rash character who could hit first and ask questions later. Darcy wore no armour, and although he was surrounded by a shop full of weapons that he could wield fairly well, he didn’t like his chances against a seasoned adventurer like Quest if he was disoriented enough to turn on Darcy.

As Darcy debated whether to speak, he watched Quest fold over on himself, sinking forwards onto his elbows as if in worship. His shoulders were shaking, and he was muttering something in a language that Darcy didn’t speak, the same phrase over and over. Whenever his voice broke on one of the words, he started over from the beginning.

“Riddlemaster?” Darcy tried. Quest’s shoulders tensed even further, his spine curling defensively. The litany of foreign words didn’t stop, and Darcy knelt down beside the elf. He was clearly in distress, and Darcy had just saved his life. Surely, he could help with this as well. “Quest? Are you alright?”

“I am stone. I am steady. I am unafraid,” Quest said in Common. “I am stone. I am steady. I am unafraid.” The mantra continued, unbroken by the switching languages.

Darcy was stumped once more. He had no idea how to proceed, no idea how to stop the helpless flood of words coming from this near-stranger’s mouth. He hadn’t comforted someone in years, and he barely remembered what to do.

“It’s okay,” Darcy managed, placing a hand on Quest’s shoulder. Quest flinched, but didn’t move away from the touch. He was rocking slightly in time to the mantra, a subtle movement that Darcy hadn’t noticed until his palm was against Quest’s shoulder. “You’re going to be okay, I can help you.” As Darcy spoke, Quest’s words became quieter, as if he was trying to listen to what Darcy was saying. He pressed on. “I have some stuff at my house, to wrap your wounds. I can help you get there. You’re going to be okay. In the morning, I can heal you all the way. It’s just one night.”

“I can’t-” Quest started, and broke off the sentence with a sharp gasp. “I am stone. I am steady. I am-” The thunder came again, rumbling through the store, and Quest cried out against the sound, grabbing Darcy’s wrist and pulling him down onto the ground with Quest. Quest was shaking now, small scared sounds coming from his chest.

Darcy pulled Quest to his chest by instinct, wrapping his arms around the elf’s smaller frame. Quest clutched at his vest, at his wrists, gasping for breath. Darcy rocked him back and forth, slow calming movements.

“Shhh,” Darcy whispered. “You’re safe, I promise. It’s only the thunder. I’m staying with you.”

“No, no, no!” Quest struggled against Darcy’s grip. “I’m going to- she’s going to- I don’t want the pain anymore!” Darcy’s heart broke at the confusion in Quest’s voice, the childish fear and disorientation that filled his shouts.

“No pain,” Darcy promised, gently restraining Quest to protect his chest. “I can help the pain. No one will hurt you here. I swear by my god and my divine abilities.”

Quest subsided into tears, relaxing into Darcy’s arms.

“There you go,” Darcy murmured, relieved. “You’re safe.” Quest continued to sob in his arms, quiet but steady. “You’re not going to be hurt anymore,” Darcy told him, cautiously loosening his grip to see if Quest would try to wriggle free again. Quest caught at his arms as he lifted them, pulling them back around his body. “I’m not going anywhere,” Darcy told him, amused by the clingy gesture.

“Hurts,” Quest whispered in an unfamiliar voice. “Loud.”

“I know.” Darcy could hear the sympathetic pain in his own voice. “I’m sorry I can’t heal you all the way. I’m sorry I can’t stop the thunder. I wish I could.”

“Not ‘sposed to be scared.” Quest’s quiet voice was more fragile than Darcy could process.

“It’s okay to be scared once you’re safe,” Darcy told him. “Everyone gets scared.”

“Not everyone,” Quest said, but his tears were starting to let up.

“Well, everyone that I know gets scared.” Darcy pushed Quest’s hair back, an automatic gesture that he paused awkwardly in the middle of doing. Quest didn’t seem angry, just exhausted and overwhelmed. He leaned his head into the touch, and Darcy carried on petting his hair absent-mindedly. “I know that I get scared a lot.”

“Really?” Quest pulled free of Darcy’s arms to look at him, eyes still glassy with tears.

“Absolutely.” It wasn’t really true. Darcy didn’t see much dangerous combat these days, but he had spent his fair share of time scared before he settled down into his shop. Scared of the storms on the open water, scared of the monsters that came out of nowhere, scared of death. And Quest looked so amazed by his revelation that Darcy repeated it, more confidently. “It’s normal to get scared.”

Quest thought about this for a moment, and then his face screwed up. “Everything hurts,” he mumbled.

“Stop sitting up,” Darcy said, guiding Quest back to rest against his chest. He resumed the petting of Quest’s hair, careful to avoid his ears. Most elves that he’d known didn’t like their ears touched, too sensitive to register direct touch as anything other than painful overstimulation. “You took some pretty hard hits. I’m glad that I could heal you, but I couldn’t do everything. I can patch you up better at my house, if you’d like.”

“I can come to your house?” There was that same amazed wonder in Quest’s voice as when Darcy told him it was normal to be scared.

“Sure.” Darcy risked a little hair-mussing, and Quest pulled away with a whine. Fair enough, nobody liked having their hair messed up. “I have enough space to host a friend for a night.”

Quest smiled at that, a bright smile that Darcy had never seen before. “I want to see your house.”

“Alright.” Darcy started to untangle himself from the elf to stand, but Quest clung to him when he tried to move. Darcy laughed awkwardly, subsiding back to the floor. “You’re going to need to let me up if you want to see my house.”

“Don’t leave me.” Quest’s voice had changed again, harsher and urgent. “Don’t leave me here.”

Darcy wrapped his arms back around Quest, careful of the wounds that covered his chest. “Quest, I need to get your pack and then lead you to my house. I’m not trying to leave you.”

“Stay,” Quest demanded, tightening his grip on Darcy’s shirt.

“We need to get you to my house so that I can wrap your injuries,” Darcy protested. “The sooner we sleep, the sooner the pain will ease.”

“Don’t leave me!” The urgency in Quest’s voice hadn’t eased with Darcy’s explanations, and Darcy stifled a sigh. It was becoming clearer that he wasn’t dealing with a creature of logic right now, and that the adventurer had been severely discombobulated by the events of the evening. Resuming the gentle caresses to Quest’s head, he quieted his tone to something more calming than reasoning, the same way he would talk to a child.

“Quest, it’s alright. Hush, I’m not going anywhere.” Sure enough, the elf relaxed into Darcy’s arms and eased his desperate grip on Darcy’s shirt. “I’m going to take care of you, and make sure it doesn’t hurt as much, but I want to get your pack before we leave. I’ll only be gone for ten seconds, you can count them if you like.”

“Okay,” Quest said into Darcy’s shoulder reluctantly.

“Thank you,” Darcy said, in the softest voice he could manage. “Ten seconds.” He disentangled himself from Quest’s limbs and the elf allowed it listlessly, dropping his arms to his lap and his gaze to the floor. Darcy scrambled to his feet and put the elf’s backpack over his shoulders, tugging at the straps until it fit his larger frame. He threw his cloak on top of it, raising the hood in preparation to go out in the storm.

Once he was dressed, Darcy returned to Quest and knelt in front of him, waiting the long moment it took for Quest to look up and focus on Darcy’s face. “Can you walk?”

“Uh-huh,” Quest nodded, and accepted Darcy’s hand to pull himself to his feet. As soon as he was up, he wavered and seemed about to faint again.

Darcy reacted on instinct, scooping Quest up into his arms with ease. He was even lighter than he appeared, gangly but easy to hold. Quest melted in his grasp, leaning his head against Darcy’s chest and even closing his eyes.

“Okay,” Darcy muttered, mostly to himself. “This works.” He folded Quest’s torn cloak around him, protecting his body from the storm outside.

The thunder rolled again as Darcy started for the door, and Quest drew in a sharp breath, pressing himself close enough to Darcy’s chest that the half-orc’s cloak fell around both of them.

“It’s okay,” Darcy murmured to him. “It’s okay to be scared, but it won’t hurt you. I’ve got you. We’re going out in the rain now, but it won’t be for too long. I’ve got you.”

Quest didn’t reply, but he kept his eyes closed and his cheek pressed to Darcy’s shirt. Darcy nodded, steeled himself for the wind, and opened the door with his elbow, careful of Quest’s limbs. Locking the store was more of a production with the elf in his arms, but Darcy managed it, and soon he was making his way home. The storm and the path were both familiar, the cobblestones slippery with rain. It wasn’t long down the street until they reached his little house, and he pushed the door open with a grateful sigh, closing it behind them with a well-aimed kick.

The room was cluttered with a lifetime as a collector of oddities, relics from his seafaring days mounted on the walls and magical items scattered across the bookshelves. Darcy carried Quest to the pile of furs in front of his unlit fireplace, kneeling down to release the elf. “I’m going to stay beside you, but I’m going to let go to take off my cloak,” he told Quest as he let go, and Quest didn’t cling to him as he sunk into the soft furs beneath him.

True to his word, Darcy shrugged out of his rain-soaked cloak and tossed it over a nearby chair. Gently, he unclasped Quest’s cloak as well and extracted it from his form, adding it to the pile with his own.

“Are you alright with a fire?” Darcy asked, gesturing to the fireplace. Quest nodded, so Darcy began to assemble the tinder and logs in his usual pattern before grabbling the tinderbox from the mantle and casting sparks into the centre. The flames were slow to rise, but soon they were curling the tinder into ash and licking at the sticks around them.

Darcy sat back on his heels and Quest reached a hand towards him, tugging at his sleeve. “One more second,” Darcy said, catching the hand and holding it. “Would you like some better clothes for sleeping in?”

Quest hesitated, his free hand going to the slashed armor across his chest.

“This house is safe,” Darcy reminded him. “As safe as anywhere can be.”

“Soft clothes,” Quest managed. “Would be nice.”

“My thoughts exactly. I’ll be gone for a second, but the fire will be nice and warm.” Darcy let go of Quest’s hand with a last squeeze. “Keep an eye on it, but don’t get too close.”

“Safe,” Quest said with a nod.

“Yes, stay safe.” Darcy got to his feet with a huff and went to leave the room, hesitating at the doorway. Quest was shivering by the fireplace, his arms lying listlessly at his sides. He would be fine for a moment, surely? They both needed clothes, and Darcy could get his medical supplies. Darcy tore his eyes away and hurried into the next room, intent on getting back as quickly as he could.

Darcy changed with record speed, stripping off the cravat, the jacket, the elegantly laced leather boots, leaving them scattered on the bed in a way he would normally never consider. He replaced them with looser clothing that were more suited for comfort, collecting some for Quest as well. They would be a bit big on the elf, but not large enough to be impractical. Darcy snagged a soft blanket from the bed and the chest of medical supplies that he kept on his carved wooden dresser, and then returned.

Quest was exactly where Darcy had left him, staring into the flickering flames that were starting to creep over the larger pieces of wood in the fireplace.

“I’m back,” Darcy said as he approached, not wanting to startle the elf.

Quest looked up and offered a miserable smile. His long hair was dripping with rainwater, his expression tight with pain. The tears in his armor were stained with dried blood, and there was still fresh scarlet staining the furs that he laid on. He looked like a mess, and Darcy’s heart clenched.

“I’m sorry I was gone,” Darcy added, coming forward to settle beside his guest. “Should we get you cleaned up?”

Quest nodded, seemingly out of words, but his smile became a little more genuine.

Darcy used the blanket to dry Quest’s hair and clean his dirty face, then turned his attention to the ruined armor. “Do you want to get this off, or can I help?” Instead of answering, Quest lifted his arms to give Darcy better access to the buckles on the sides of the breastplate. Darcy nodded and started on the fastenings, nimble fingers making quick work of them and lifting the layers of armor away from Quest’s chest. His white undershirt was soaked through with blood, and the harsh claw-marks were worse up close, lit with the wavering firelight.

Quest kept his arms up, blinking at Darcy with distant eyes.

“Alright.” Darcy started on the shirt, trying to be gentle. The wounds had started to heal around the fabric, and it was slow work to pull it free. Quest made small pained sounds but stayed still as the shirt came off, finally free to slip over his head.

“I’m sorry,” Darcy said, laying aside the shirt and resting a hand on Quest’s uninjured shoulder.

“S’okay,” Quest managed, but his eyes were full of tears.

“Just a little more and we can sleep,” Darcy soothed, opening his chest of medical supplies. There was a balm for pain and swelling that he applied first, keeping his touches gentle. Quest didn’t flinch, didn’t complain, but sat perfectly still with tears dripping down his cheeks as Darcy’s fingers traced the lines of his injury. “Doing so well,” Darcy praised again and again. “Almost done.”

Lastly, he wrapped a bandage around Quest’s torso, grateful to hide the ragged marks from sight. Blood spotted the bandages but didn’t soak through all the way, and Darcy breathed a sigh of relief. The bleeding was stopping, finally.

“It’s better?” Quest said doubtfully, bringing his hands towards his chest.

“Don’t touch,” Darcy told him, catching his hands and holding them in his own. “Best to let it heal overnight without poking it.”

“Thank you.” The words were quiet and overwhelmed.

“Of course.” Darcy squeezed Quest’s hands in his own, always gentle. Quest’s hands were so small in his grasp, the golden skin even brighter against the blue-green of his own fingers. “It should be mostly healed in the morning, and I can finish whatever remains. You’ll be free to go wherever you need to.”

“Don’t want to go,” Quest whispered, staring down at their hands.

Darcy hesitated, unsure what he should say. The two of them didn’t know each other that well, and there wasn’t space in Darcy’s house for another person. Quest probably didn’t mean it, overwhelmed by pain and gratitude. But any response seemed cruel, to such a quiet and heartfelt confession.

“I’m here,” Darcy said finally, releasing Quest’s hands and opening his arms in an offer. Quest immediately crawled into the embrace, settling against Darcy’s chest with a low purr of contentment. Darcy smiled at the sound, something that elves only did when they were very young or very comfortable. “You can stay as long as you need to.”

Darcy helped Quest change into the comfortable clothes, hiding his laughter at the way they hung on Quest’s slimmer frame. Once they were both dry and clothed, Darcy leaned against the furs and Quest curled up against him, purring in the firelight. Darcy smiled down at the elf, as the thunder rumbled outside and he hardly even flinched, his purr continuing unbroken. The warmth of the fire and the stress of the evening caught up to Darcy all at once, drawing his eyelids down.

With the pressure of Quest curled against his chest, and the steady sound of rain on the street outside, Darcy drifted off to sleep.

--

When he woke up in the morning, the fire had burned down to ashes and Quest was gone.

There was a golden circlet on his mantelpiece, and nothing missing from the house. Darcy smiled as he walked to the shop that morning, sure that he would see Quest again soon.

[deppisallyouneed]

Why I defend Johnny Depp

A while ago I did a thread on twitter about why I believed in Johnny's innocence and I think it's time to bring it here. I warn you in advance, it’s going to be a long post. 

1. First of all because just because a woman accuses a man of dv doesn't mean I'm gonna believe her without any proof. Women can be as abusive as men. Get that through your head. 

2.  Amber first asked for divorce citing "irreconcilable differences", not a single mention of the abuse. 

3. Before asking for the RO, she sent an extortion letter to his team demanding cars, money, apartments, spousal support and for him to pay all her legal fees or she would go to the media with the thing of the abuse

4. After he denied these requests she, of course, went public with the dv saying Johnny abused her mentally and physically throughout their entire relationship

5. Lets talk about the incident with his finger that happened in Australia, she wasn't even there at the time. 

6. We have then, the incident that happened on May 21 which by the way it was the same day that Doug Stanhope and his girlfriend were at Johnny's house comforting him because of his mother's death. As Doug said in his article, Johnny told them that his mood wasn't just for his mother but that now Amber was going to leave him and I quote: "threatening to lie about him publicly in any and every possible duplicitous way if he didn't agree to her terms" 

And that's exactly what happened. She sent that letter demanding all those things. He refused. She went to the media. So simple.

Going back to the incident that happened that night, THE POLICE went to their apartment and saw NO EVIDENCE of abuse. No bruises, no damaged property. NOTHING. Amber refuse to file a report.  

8. Then in May 22, the day after, she appears at a friends party and looks fine. A picture was posted on ig but was deleted. Wonder why...

9. On May 27 she goes to the court to ask for a RO with a visible bruise on her face but the day after the bruise was gone????? 

10. She said that she wanted to keep this matter out of the public eye, yet she sold pictures to People Magazine.

11. I'm gonna address here that she was arrested for domestic violence against her then partner. She went to court and was given a two year probation And of course she tried to erase her record when she met johnny. What a coincidence uh?

And don't come up to me saying that Tasya came on her defense because it was 7 years later. She didn't do shit back then to try and stop the trial. And by the way, the cop that arrested her is lesbian so your argument of "she was homophobic" doesn't fit here

12. Neighbours and people who worked on the building where they lived saw Amber with NO BRUISES on her face. Their bodyguards said she was the one who needed to be pulled off him.

13. Amber avoided her deposition 3 times. THREE TIMES. Until the judge said it was time for her to sit down and give one. First she said she couldn't because she needed to be in London for a fitting but that turned out to be false.

Then she was at her best friend engagement party (priorities) and so on. So confusing that she said she wanted to be divorced from him asap but wouldn't sit to give her deposition.

14. Johnny submitted his evidence and witnesses to the court and three days after that and a day before she could have obtained a PRO she dropped everything WITH PREJUDICE. He had police officers in his witnesses list btw

15. These are Johnny's evidence that were presented to the court. She didn't include in hers those text messages that apparently Johnny's assistant sent to her and also she didn't cite him as a witness. He was willing to testify under oath on Johnnys side. They were never verified

16. After she said she was going to donate the money to charity  (because people were calling her a gold digger), Johnny was going to send the money directly to those charities but she refused and was going to take him to court. Again, mysterious shit going on with this girl

17. During their marriage, Johnny was seen with scrathes and bruises. She hit him in that car episode, even if it was a joke, I wouldn't dare to hit the man who behind close doors makes me fear for my life. But whatever, it doesn't seem important for anybody.

18. And lets talk about the video. If you think that somebody who has been abusing his wife throughout their entire relationship is going to chose to break glasses and smash cabinets instead of hitting the person, then I don't know what to say. In the video Johnny's pissed off about something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH HER. He says it very clearly. She asks him multiple times what happened and he replies with: "Were you here this morning?". She says no and he answers: "Then nothing happened TO YOU this morning". 

He tries so hard to ignore her but she keeps asking him and trying to make the problem about her to get a violent action from him but that never happens. He doesn't even scream at her. Then she said she was sorry, what does that have to do with all of this?  And lets get this clear, he NEVER throws anything at her. He NEVER touches her.

As Johnny said in his GQ interview this fall, his mood in that moment was because he found out about his financial situation. She knew he was in a bad mood and tried to set him up. 

It's so clear that she feared for her life when she dared to ask if he had been drinking and to record him without his consent. Then he finally finds out that she was recording him and takes the phone away from her, yet he doesn't delete the video. Sounds odd to me.

19. Amber's lawyers had to apologise to Johnny because of the statement they made saying Amber was vindicated in the court of public opinion because it wasn't true. 

20. We can also talk about her controlling behavior towards him. Like in the airport where he had to say something to her so he could go and see his fans and she lets him letting his hand go with disdain. 

Or at the Black Mass premiere at TIFF where she tried to stop him from chatting with another woman and tried to pull him aside. A lot of people have said that she treated him bad, like a child. They said he loved her so much that he would do anything for her and she knew it

Johnny HAS ALWAYS DENIED THESE ALLEGATIONS. Do you really think that if he was trully guilty he would risk his reputation, the love and trust of his family friends and fans by denying the requests in that extortion letter? Makes no sense. 

Johnny’s lawyer has said Amber admitted beign violent to him and that they have evidence of her false allegations. And they seem pretty confident so, I really hope he gets the justice he deserves. 

Johnny Depp is innocent and the truth will come out.

UPDATES: 

Johnny Depp has fought off a High Court bid to temporarily halt his libel action against The Sun over allegations that he beat his former wife Amber Heard. The judge announced: “I am not satisfied on the current evidence that Ms Heard’s concerns about the restrictions that the divorce agreement imposes on her are well-founded.” Mr Justice Nicklin said Depp had stated clearly in his evidence to the court that he expects Heard “may well” give evidence in the proceedings, and “he will not attempt to prevent that”. He added: “The fact that Ms Heard presently thinks that there is some impediment to her giving evidence for the defendants is nothing to do with Mr Depp.

Here we have, again, her trying to avoid a trial, her avoiding to give the evidence she claims she has.

Johnny has also filed a defamation lawsuit against Amber in which he asks for $50 million.

In the suit, Depp calls the “false allegations” against him “an elaborate hoax to generate positive publicity” for her and “advance her career.” The lawsuit strongly states that she is the one attacked him, claiming, “Ms. Heard is not a victim of domestic abuse; she is a perpetrator.” He claims that Heard’s abuse claims were “conclusively refuted by two separate responding police officers, a litany of neutral third-party witnesses, and 87 newly obtained surveillance camera videos.” The lawsuit claims that an employee of the building reviewed building surveillance video three days after the alleged incident. Depp claims the employee “testified under oath that she saw Whitney Heard pretend to punch her sister in the face. Then Ms. Heard, Ms. Pennington [Heard’s best friend], and Whitney Heard all laughed.” Depp also details an incident one month into their marriage where he claims she threw a glass vodka bottle at him, which shattered when he made contact with his hand. He claims his finger had to be surgically reattached and claims Heard “disseminated false accounts of this incident, casting Mr. Depp as the perpetrator of his own injury.”

Amber Heard is just a fucking psychopath, if things aren’t the way she wants she will go crazy and Johnny loved her so much that he did everything that was in his hand to keep her happy and yet, she did this to him.  

We can also talk about the multiple witnesses he has:

Esparza said under oath that she did not see any visible injuries to Heard’s face or body in the days following the incident and up to the police investigating. She explained how close in proximity she was to Amber and claimed there were no injuries. However, Esparza did note that on May 27, six days after the reported incident, Heard did have a visible injury, including a “red cut underneath her right eye and red marks by her eye.” After seeing the images, Esparza testified that she went back and reviewed security footage from the building because the “time didn’t add up” and she suspected the allegations against Depp were “false.” The concierge services owner was adamant she had seen the actress “several times” without a mark on her face.

Then we have this:

A second employee of the building, a security guard named Alex Romero also claimed to have seen Heard multiple times throughout the week and said he did not see anything to indicate that Heard had been “punched by anyone,” or had anything thrown at her, like a cell phone. The security guard said he seriously doubted the actress’ story once he saw her photos, describing on record, “I saw the pictures and the next day I saw her. I was like come on, really. I couldn’t believe,” adding, “When I saw her in person, I didn’t see anything.” Two other employees — including the general manager of the building, Brandon Patterson — also testified that Heard was observed multiple times in the building following the alleged assault and was seen “without bruises, cuts, redness, swelling or any other injuries to her face.” They also testified that building surveillance captured lots of video of Heard without any visible injuries like the ones seen in the photographs. Baruch, who admits he’s been friends with Depp for 37 years, said Heard “stretched her neck” to show him her alleged injuries, and said he could not see any injuries while standing less than a foot away from her face. Baruch was adamant that he did not even see any redness or swelling. Baruch also describes a bizarre encounter with Heard a few weeks later, on June 3, where she invited him over for dinner while Depp was out of town. The neighbor said he declined, and stated, “I think it’s best that we don’t talk anymore because I’m confused, angry and frustrated by what I’ve been seeing.”

So, Johnny has all of these evidence, yet people still believe her, because a woman can’t lie about domestic violence and we have to believe her just because she is a woman.

Johnny Depp suffered domestic abuse from his ex wife and he has PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE INJURIES SHE CAUSED HIM, WITNESSES TESTIMONIES, AUDIO TAPES AND 87 SURVEILLANCE SECURITY CAMERA VIDEOS to let you all know and let the court know THAT SHE LIED AND THAT HE IS INNOCENT. 

WE ARE WITH YOU JOHNNY. 

[vegetacide]

Whump●tober - Muffled scream

Veg-notables:  This took longer to write than I thought it would.. but here it is. 

@gumnut-logic you are a saint for listening to me whinge and carry on.. Thank you for lending me an inbox to pollute with gibberish. ::hugs::

Obligatory whumptober stuff: @whumptober2019 @la-vie-en-whump

Blanket warning:  Angst all to hell..

Characters: Virgil and Kayo V/K

Whumptober - TaG’verse

Previous posts can be found HERE.

18. Muffled scream

Enjoy…

oOo

Virgil awoke by himself. For the first time that he could recall in how many days, he was alone with the silence and he found some relief in that.  

Relief that he didn't have to school his expressions against the pain that roved like a raging fire through his nervous system.  

Relief that he could express his frustration without an audience.  

Relief that he didn't have to hide the gnawing fear that was consuming him from the inside out. 

He couldn't see but for fuzzy outlines, and blurred figures.   

The Doctors had explained to those around him that there could be long term complications but only time would tell to what extent.   He'd heard it all while they had talked over him to his family as if he wasn't there so he feigned sleep.  

Memory loss, neurological damage of an as of yet undetermined amount, vision…. Oh god, his sight… 

When he'd regained consciousness everything had been confused and disoriented haze.  Pain one moment, drugged out numbness the mess. He hadn’t had the capacity to assess himself, the conscious effort required had been lost in a sea of opioid induced soup of non awareness. 

When he’d dragged himself back out again Kayo had been asleep in his arms, he'd dismissed the blurred vagueness too tied up in the fight to live to be bothered to pay it much mind.  

As time moved forward as it always did,  he'd figured that the mist that seemed to cloak everything would recede as he grew stronger, gained more ground in recovery but there hadn't been any change and the Doctors had started talking long term.

Words like permanent impairment, and visual deficits had been said over his supine form as he'd all but crawled back in on himself and screamed.  In his mind where no one could hear, no one would know how much it pained him, frightened him, bound him to an existence of needing help instead of offering it.  Trapped, useless...a burden and a hindrance to himself and those around him. 

What else could possibly go wrong?  If he didn't have his sight, what else had and would he lose? The answer to that was staggering in its entirety.  

Hours had passed and his mental list had grown. Simple things at first,  avoiding the more prevalent one that he didn’t want to acknowledge..didn’t have the heart to accept.  Art and its array of colours and brush structs, its materials and mediums of chromes and stone, fabrics and woods.  The sunrise with its variations and gradients, nuances that he could be blind to.  The ocean around their island home, crested with white caps where it abutted the circling rocks and coral outcroppings. The green flecked of chartreuse that caught in the fading light of the sun in a pair of loving, warm eyes.  

He was going to lose it all…  

Fighting his fear, expression pinched in pain and worry, he argued with himself to just open his eyes, that maybe today things would be different.  Prayed that his sight had improved, that what he dreaded wasn’t actually reality. 

Only one way to find out.  

Fist tight, body trembling he held back his frustration as the dim light pierced through his skull and singed his brain but still it was like viewing the world through a distortion, a frosted glass enclosure between him everything else.  

Angry now almost beyond reasoning, he cursed and punched with what little strength he had at the mattress. The satisfaction weak as his heavy hands pounded into a bio-gel insulated matting.  No lick of pain to focus his rage, to cut through the panic. 

Annoyance, bitterness and discouragement enveloped his world and he seethed against it.  Shattering a glass, tearing at his sheet, tumbling a monitor.  

Strength hot and angry surged and then flicked off like a switch as it snuffed to nothing.  Leaving him broker and spent,. Beyond repair… 

Tears of disappointed ebbed and flowed over his chiseled, stub shadowed jaw. Joining a litany of others.  Fingers rough,  dragged and pulled at his hair in frustration and he wanted to scream.  Oh, how he wanted to scream.  

Curse whatever god would listen. Shout and holler his anger,  his despondency and rancor but he held back.   Clenched teeth tight,  muscles straining with wanton release.  His family was just down the hallway, outside the door, in his head.  Holding him up, calling his name.  

A hot, venomous curse pierced the silence, though it was said on a whisper. It burned the air bitter and resentful with its emotional inflection.  

Falling still,  tears smothered behind the heels of his palms that he pressed into useless eyes he shuddered amongst the torn disarray of his room.  An alarm was sounding and he knew that he wouldn’t be alone for much longer, a nurse or his family would burst through the door at any moment.  He need to contain himself once more.  Find his control in the chaos of the swirling mayhem of his mind.

A quick intake of air as sweet jasmine lit up the inside of his nose, warmed and encircled him. He tensed,  dared not breathe for fear that he had been discovered completely unhinged.  

Soft,  warm, comforting arms encircled him,  embraced his battered being.  Her voice washed like a gentle rain over his scorched landscape.  Solace like a balm to the damage wrought by an illness that he’d nearly succumb to.

“It’s okay, We’ll figure this out.  You’re not alone…”   

And he wasn’t. 

8-8-8

She'd wondered how long it would take him to fall apart as she sat in the dark and watched him sleep.   

Hours, days, weeks?  He could be a stubborn man when he put his mind to it. Immovable and unshakable. This? This was different.  

Something that he couldn't fix or put back together with a work shop full of tools. Finesse and cajole broken bits of machinery to function in some capacity or another.  

This was something that could only right itself if and when his body wanted to.  

She knew by the by the shift in his breathing, the slight hitch as a groggy mind resurfaced that he was awake but she didn’t announce herself waiting instead for him to seek her out.  

It surprised her when he didn’t and it shocked her to realize he had no idea she was there. So instead she bore down on her control, steeled herself,  remeasured the cadence of her breathing to a light pull in and out.  Quieted to invisibility and waited.   

Kayo could tell he was struggling and that there was a real need to release the tension that was building. Knew without a shadow of doubt that if her presence was known the restraint would return,  and the outlet would be lost. Virgil would hide his weakness away to preserve the image of stability and stoutness of mind. 

It wasn’t sustainable so she played witness as his wrestled mentally with his demons. There was no way she would let him suffer alone, even if he was unaware of her,  she would stay close and offer silent support. 

Rage like nothing she had seen before spewed out of him in a sudden explosion of emotion.  

The rolling utility table went one way, flying into medical equipment. A monitor crashed to the floor is a tangle of wires, one long droning shriek sounding out as it's power cord was ripped viciously from the wall.  

A jug of iced water went the opposite way, it contents spraying out and over everything in it path. Ice cubes skittering across the floor, pinging off the legs of chairs and bouncing off the rubberized baseboard that ran the circumference of the room.

It was over almost as soon as it had begun.  Energy spent in one epic burst of outrage and disappointment as he racked trembling hands through brown, sodden locks.  Rubbing angrily at his eyes,  a sound of mourning, low and keening ripped from his throat and stopped with a suddenness that had her on her feet in seconds.  

Her long, lean legs ate up the short distance between them.  Her arms coming up and around before she even knew what she was doing.  The only thoughts in her head were to comfort, to protect...

After a moment of stunned silence and eerie stillness he latched onto her like a drowning man. Arms tight and unforgiving, face pressed into her neck. Breathe panting, shoulders shaking. 

Kayo's gaze sept around the room, at the destruction brought on in a moment of distress and her heart ached. Such anguish in so brief a release.   

The rooms darkness abruptly split as the door swung open.  The entry filled with worried faces that Kayo forestalled easily with an upraised hand.  

A duty nurse, an on-call doctor, family and friends, concerns both professionally and personally marred their expressions but they heeded her command and didn’t cross the threshold.     

Her eyes made contact with Scott's and in those few short seconds a message passed between them as she arched an imploring brow. 

He turned to the others, his voice low but clear and ushered them away. The light faded as the door swung closed once more. 

They sat in the silence, time ticking slowly away. Resentment dissipating to be replaced with an inert quietness that was pervasive and a complete juxtaposition to just moments prior.   

The skin prickled with the charge that hung in the air even in the sudden quietude and Kayo forced her lungs to settle, even out hoping the action would pass over to Virgil.  

Little by little it did. 

Pulling back, she caught his chin and brought his face up to hers, brushed her lips across his brow.  “Okay?”  She whispered, attempting to catch his eyes as they tried to focus on her. The fact they couldn’t flickered across his face in an echo of his moment of anguish and she reached up to touch his cheek.

He leant into her as if her touch was keeping him alive and bobbed his head once .  “Ya,  I’m...sorry about....” His hand waved about to indicate the room at large

Her fingers skimmed over the line of his jaw, curved up the cup the back of his head.  “I get it, you don’t have to apologize to me for feeling the way you do. We all have our limits.” 

His chin dipped in embarrassment and she ducked down so she could see his face,  a flush darkening his cheeks. “Hey,”  She called gently,  “Hey,  none of that now. There is nothing to be ashamed off. Frankly I am surprised you lasted as long as you did, especially with Nurse Buxom around.” 

She grinned as she caught the edge of a smile grace his lips and a huff of what she thought was a chuckle.  “What?”  She asked, puzzled at the sudden change.  

“Scott calls her Nurse Ratchet.” That roguish smile of his light up his face,  not quite reaching his eyes but it was a vast improvement. “But I think I like Buxom better. Puts all sorts of pictures in my head.”

Kayo grumbled and Virgil chuckled softly.

“Watch it Buster or I’ll put you back in a coma.”  But she was smiling too as he leaned his forehead against her own.   

There was still a lot of unknowns and they had a fight ahead of them but they had each other and a hallway full of people there to help and with that sort of support, anything was possible. 

oOo

Next post can be found HERE

The Master List of prompts can be found HERE

[raventhekittycat]

Detective Conan Fanfic: Crying Again

Alright, after posting about working on this for over a month now, it is finally ready to publish. Posting on here for now, will later post on ao3. Have a fic in which Akemi lives. Words: 4k+

Crying Again

Though he had always thought the expression was cliched and somewhat disingenuous he now understood what it meant. He really truly couldn't believe his eyes. Up until this point the most unbelievable thing Akai could think of that he had witnessed was when he had first spotted Shiho again on the street, shrunk down to the body of a six year old. Though he did have to admit he didn't know what he had expected though when Shiho summoned him to the hospital she was doing her residency at.

There were many things he'd only barely done in his life. He'd barely managed to convince his mother to let him join the FBI, barely managed to infiltrate the organization, barely managed to stay one step ahead of them at times, barely managed to find Shiho after he left, barely managed to fake his death, barely managed to outsmart Bourbon, barely succeeded at bringing them down, and at times barely keeping himself sane, plenty of close encounters and just scraping bys. But now it felt like none of it mattered, as he could barely stand. 

He felt his knees going weak, his jaw slacken, and the tears well in his eyes as he leaned against the door frame for support. He could actually feel himself slowly sliding down to the floor as his legs gave out. There she was leaning against the raised back of the hospital bed, Shiho standing beside her. Alive. Breathing. Alert. Looking at him. It was Miyano Akemi and he could say nothing.

The relief of seeing her alive again was quickly outweighed by the fresh wave of guilt that came rushing back into him. If he hadn't used her to infiltrate, the organization wouldn't have felt the need to dispose of her. She wouldn't be here in this hospital. She wouldn't have needed to try and protect Shiho as fiercely. She wouldn't have had to cry. As these thoughts went zinging through his head, he felt paralyzed and couldn't move. He was so glad to see her alive but it couldn't ever outweigh his guilt. He couldn't even be sure she wanted to see him. If she'd been alive all this time— he quickly dashed the thought. He shouldn't be thinking selfishly here.

As his thoughts tore into him relentlessly, pinning him in place, Akemi spoke up. Gesturing slightly she called him over with a quiet come here that wasn't much louder than a whisper. 

With those words he knew he should move, bring his legs back under him instead of crumpled under him, seiza style, like they were. He watched as Shiho squeezed her shoulder and said "I'll leave you two to it'" before moving to leave. As she walked past him and out the door she put a hand on his back and gave it a slight shove. "Go," was all she said to him before she was gone. 

With Shiho's push and Akemi watching him somehow he found the strength to stand back up and move to her side. The first step was the hardest as he fought to regain control over his body. How could she want to face him? All his fears were screaming at him in his mind. But each step came a little easier as he knew he had to obey her request.

Finally at her side, he moved to the chair she indicated to, next to the head of her bed. Sitting down he still didn't know what to say or where to begin. An apology didn't even suffice for everything he'd done, everything she'd been through. As he sat there looking at her trying to formulate any useful thought instead of just his racing emotions her hand flew through the air. 

He was stunned. The slap hadn't been that strong and didn't do much damage but the shock still was huge. The moment hung as he was about to say something along the lines of I deserved that, Akemi spoke up for the second time. "Idiot." After that word came out as she reached out and clung to his jacket, bunching it up with both hands. Now she was crying as well. "Shiho told me what you were like after you thought I had died. And how it's only been worse since the organization is gone." She loosened one of the hands she had been using to hold his jacket in a death grip with and reached up to brush the tears from his face. He hadn't until that point noticed the tears that had started to spill down his cheeks.

At that point the floodgates broke. She was too good for him. He deserved that slap and whatever else she threw at him and then to be cut out of her life. Pressing his forehead down into his hands clasped together in a single fist he sobbed. How could she still care? He'd hurt her so much, betrayed her in the end and hadn't even managed to protect her or Shiho. And those weren't even the only people who ended up hurt by his hand. His family, the boy and the girl, the NPD, the list went on. They had succeeded in the end but at what cost? 

As a near silent litany of "I'm sorry"'s poured from his mouth unaware, Akemi put her arms around him and drew him into her. When the embrace finally registered in his brain he jerked back, breaking out of it. He couldn't accept it. Looking at her tear stained face again with his own tear stained face twisted in pain, he broke further. "H-how? I failed you. I used you. And you, and you," he stumbled feeling his voice break as he got his mouth around the last bit of his sentence, ''you don't even know my name to blame."

"I don't need to know your name." The words cut into him more than he anticipated. But it was to be expected and he accepted it. As he started to withdraw in his mind knowing that he had crossed the uncrossable line, knowing that of course she wanted to cut off all relations with him, she continued. "I don't need it because I don't blame you. And either way you are my precious Dai-kun. Even if your name is different you will still be my precious person. Your name doesn't change that."

All he could do was stare at her. Opening his mouth to utter more protests she brought her finger over it silencing him. "Uun. I cared for you for who you were, for who you are even now. Knowing you were FBI didn't change that. I still love you, so," she paused for a brief moment, hoping what she had said would sink in before she asked her question, "may I know your name?" She paused again, this time less for impact and more to catch a break. It was the most she had talked in a long time and it showed. "I don't want to blame you. But I also don't want to call someone so dear to me by the wrong name. So will you please tell me?"

Though the tears were still falling they no longer were the body wracking sobs that had taken hold moments before. He couldn't deny her. He was in no place to do so. He knew he never would be for as long as he lived. Following this line of thought he took in her earnest face, instantly regretting that again he was the source of her tears, before he let his name pass over his lips. "Shuuichi." Though the initial reply was undeniably quiet with a little more presence he spoke up. "It's Akai Shuuichi." 

Almost from the moment he had met her he'd wanted to tell her. To say it finally came as a relief to him. With it, it resolved one of his bigger regrets and enabled him to calm down a bit. He still was experiencing the most pain he'd felt since receiving news of her death but he found his breath wasn't getting choked up in sobs anymore. He could focus more on her now and a little less on the guilt and that tore at his insides.

Akemi let the name wash over her. "Akai Shuu...ichi. Shuuichi-san, Shuuichi-kun, Shuu-kun. Shuu-kun," she played around with it in her mouth a bit finding the rhythm of it, grateful to finally know it. As she tested out how to say it and find what felt natural to call him, quickly throwing away some possibilities—san just felt wrong, she’d known him too intimately for that—while lingering over others, she thought to herself that it somehow felt fitting, and not out of place. After thinking for a minute she asked, "What kanji?" 

"The shuu of to excel and ichi of one."

Humming to herself she thought it really was fully fitting. He was truly the most excellent person she knew. His determination, his brain, his dedication, they all were excellent. "It suits you."

At that he took pause as the guilt and self-loathing that came with it, cut back into him. It couldn't be further from the truth in his mind. Excellent at what? Using people? He couldn't even say that. He would have been undercover longer if that were the case. Sniping? That wasn't a skill to be proud of and he'd failed at the shot he'd wanted to take the most, that time he gave Gin his scar. Not even his brain was near the top. He couldn't count the many times he'd been outsmarted, sometimes by his enemies, sometimes by his allies. Hell, Shuukichi was better at strategy than he was. And certainly his personality wasn't excellent. With these thoughts circling his head he let out a bitter laugh. "Excellent at what? All I am is horrible, all I do is barely passable. There isn't anything excellent about me. Even what I'm best at is sub-par."

Akemi was taken aback. Though she had heard from Shiho that he really had seemed to have turned into an empty shell without a purpose and was almost without a doubt suffering from depression, she wasn't expecting him to be this self-deprecating. She wasn't quite sure she had ever seen him put himself down in any manner before. 

Without putting any thought into her words she started to protest. It hurt to see him like that and so she tried to speak to distract him, convince him otherwise before formulating a solid argument, but in the end it didn't matter. In an uncharacteristic move he cut her off. Again she had to be surprised; he'd always been considerate and listened to her even when he didn't agree.

"Akemi, I failed you. I failed Shiho too. I promised to protect you and I couldn't protect either of you, keep you out of Gin's reach. It's only by sheer luck that Shiho's alive, that I found her and was able to help and try to protect her. In the end a high school boy did a far better job at that than I ever did.

Akemi felt the tears begin pouring down her face again. It hurt to see the man she loved, the man that usually inspired her, had comforted her, start to tear himself down again. As he continued on with his miniature tirade she couldn't take it anymore, feeling each word as if it were a knife wielded against her instead of a knife he was using against himself. 

She needed to silence him, temporarily at least, even if it wouldn't change his way of thinking. This wasn't how she wanted to be reunited. Carrying along with that line of thinking, she extended one hand and clapped it over his mouth figuring it was quickest to start with that. She felt him startle underneath her hand and close his mouth as she started to move her other hand. To do what she wanted she needed a better grip on him, and so she snaked her hand up around the back of his head. It was harder to hold him than she had really anticipated with his hair cut short now and the cap covering most of it. But the time for being gentle had ended as she dragged his head towards hers. She wasn't going to let him escape as he had done earlier when she embraced him.

Staring into his anguished eyes around the tears in hers, knowing she wasn't a sight to behold either, with her face twisting up in her sobbing and how frail she was, she couldn't care. She needed him to see that she was crying for him while she did this. Dropping the hand that covered his mouth down to his jacket she closed the last few inches and kissed him. 

Akai froze. This kiss was effective and served its purpose in shutting him up even if he didn't know it. Even when they were together they hadn't kissed much. He always thought it was against his better judgement despite the fact he cared for her. Though the converse could be said to be true as well, in that he rarely did it because he cared, because he didn't want to use her further. 

As he stayed frozen Akemi drew her head back just far enough to speak. "Don't say those things," she choked out. Moving her head back to a more reasonable distance, she spoke what she thought. "You didn't fail either of us. We're both alive right? And I wouldn't have found the strength to leave if it weren't for you. You did that. You saved me. Even if I almost died because of it, if I hadn't I wouldn't be living a life I could be proud of. And Shiho would have never thought to leave. You saved both of us from them. And that is far better than being protected within them."

Neither of them moved while the words processed. Though Akemi hadn't had to think about what she had said before she said it, the words felt true to her in her heart. They weren't platitudes she had sprouted to make him feel better. With a little more confidence she raised her eyes to meet his again. Staring straight at him praying to any god that might listen that he would hear her, listen to her, believe her, she pushed ahead with conviction.

"You didn't fail. I'm alive."

The words hit him like a truck. The guilt that had grasped his heart since her death hadn't let him consider anything but the fact that he failed; however right now what his heart was hearing was the fact that she was alive. To be reminded so forcibly by her actions and words that she was living while he was still reeling from having found her to be so, kept him quiet. But the words did register. She really was here, holding onto him, somehow possibly still maybe even loving him. 

Finally, almost in spite of himself, he made a move towards her for the first time, extending one hand to the back of her head, the other reaching around her back, drawing her to him in an embrace. Clinging to her, his face buried in her shoulder while she held him, he let himself break. "You're alive. You really are alive. This isn't a nightmare." At last, the solace that she was living started to take over his clouded heart as he started to sob again, this time more in relief than guilt.

They sat there a while crying on each others shoulders, glad to be reunited, regretting what had transgressed, and each subconsciously starting to form a small kernel of hope for the future. After some time both of them started to calm down, Akai moving to draw back first, his sense of proprietary compelling him. As they drew apart he noted the mess he had made of her hospital gown. Slightly embarrassed by the sorry state of affairs he had created, he accepted the tissue Akemi offered him. After blowing his nose, he took a moment to compose himself while he brushed the tears from Akemi's cheek. "I'm sorry, I've made you cry again. I never wanted to be the reason for your tears again but it seems I failed that."

She shook her head under his hand. Placing her hand on his cheek over his tears she replied. "I'm not the only one crying here now, so it's alright. It just means we both care; there is nothing wrong with it."

He was surprised at first by her words. The logic seemed foolish but he couldn't disagree with the truth behind it. You wouldn't cry if you didn't care, and he knew it was dangerous to not care, even though it hadn’t stopped him from losing most of his. But that brought him to his next thought. “If there’s nothing wrong with them, then why hide them? I don't want to hurt you."

Akemi was mildly surprised at the rhetorical question he had unintentionally posited. She could tell he was thinking back to there parting when she finally had been unable to hide her tears. She could tell by now he knew for sure that she had concealed them more than a handful of times before. Even though she knew he didn’t expect an answer she decided to answer anyways. 

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Akai was taken aback. “Hurt me? If you knew I was using you then you had every right to hurt me as much as it pleased you. You should have used me right back; I wouldn’t have left you.”

She smiled a bit, but it hurt. He finally had been able to mention what had happened with her without immediately caving in on himself, which was good, but explaining why wasn’t pleasant. “I couldn’t though. If I cried and you had asked what was wrong I would have had to explain you see? Or make up an excuse. But if you found out that I knew then the magic spell would be over and you would leave. I didn’t want it to end. That’s why I hid them from you.”

Her words hurt. They resurrected the guilt that he had been feeling, albeit a slightly different, fresher, newer guilt. But it wasn’t as horrid or as wretched as the original. And so it didn't consume him fully, however much it took a hold of his face. As it shown in his eyes, he cast his face down, away from her in his shame.

Akai had some sense though as to placate it and so steeling himself somewhat, he raised his head again to face her. “If there is nothing wrong with them please don’t hide them from me in the future. I don’t want to hurt you, and I won’t leave your side, if you show them.” Meeting her eyes, he promised her, not knowing how she would take his response. 

His promise had been left open ended, and not truly as a full offer to resuming dating, but his subconscious desires had snuck into his wording, and Akemi heard it. "In the future," he had said. She caught those three little words, and hung onto them. "'In the future.' Does that mean that this is your response to my message?"

It was the first time she really allowed herself to hope again, and her fierce eyes were burning with it. Though she had had her hopes before, and they had been renewed when Shiho talked of him, she tried not to listen to them, knowing that nothing may come of them. The two years she hadn't heard from him had hurt, even though she understood why there had been no communication. But it the back of her mind there had always been the niggling of doubt, that he really had only used her for his cover and hadn't cared in the slightest. Those doubts had hurt even though she was sure she knew he had cared.  

As the weight and implication of his own words hit Akai, he had to take pause. He hadn't even thought of her message or answering it at this point, his emotions being so all consuming. But he knew what the answer was. He'd known as soon as he had read the mail. The answer had always been yes. He couldn't deny that he had completely and utterly fallen in love with her after all. Akai knew what to say.

"If you will have me, yes. I'll be yours."

Akemi's eyes lit up as she broke into a semi sweet smile. All those small niggling unkind little doubts that had plagued her mind unbidden were banished. She was a little sad that he didn't have more confidence in his answer—she had been the one to ask, it was natural then that she wanted him—but she was still glad to hear his answer.

"You foolish man, of course I want you."

Foolish? Foolish? Though he had been slowly putting the picture together, the slight dig went at him first, confusing him before all the pieces clicked in place. Her hidden tears, her allowage of her usage, her response when he told her, her final message, her trying to make Shiho and him get along, it all made sense. She'd known for a long time and had only loved him for that, not who he pretended to be. Akemi just had wanted him to love her in return. That's all she'd truly wanted from him. She hadn't needed the truth. Even if she had liked to hear the truth from him, it wasn't on her priority list.

For Shiho who had come back to stand outside the door, the moment seemed to hang forever. Akemi was still a patient recovering from a coma and needed rest after all. But as she waited for a moment to interrupt she received a shock. Akai had started to laugh. She didn't believe the man could even laugh before. Between Akai's dry chuckles, she heard him respond. 

"Foolish? I guess I am the foolish man here, and you never were." After he calmed his laughter he looked Akemi in the eyes. "Akemi, I love you. I've loved you for a long time now. Will you go out with me?" Even though the question was settled more or less by his previous response, he felt the need to formalize it and at least try and show that she had what she had always wanted.

Despite their previous interchange, Akemi was overcome with emotion. Maybe this is what a marriage proposal felt like to other people. To hear he loved her, to hear he had loved her for a long while before now, it made her heart sing. The spell wasn't broken and she had found her prince, her superhero, her James Bond. And he loved her back. As she felt the tears well back up in her eyes, she placed her hand over his and nodded before getting out, at first an emotionally strangled whisper, but then with clarity, "Yes. Yes, I will."

Shiho silently left as the two of them reconnected. Ten more minutes wouldn't hurt. As she wandered to the lobby, she knew she had made the right decision even if she wasn't happy with end result. Akemi had needed this after all. And she had to admit Akai did too. They both needed healing. 

Once at the lobby, she confirmed that the other person she had called was there. She was a little surprised to see Masumi in tow, but then decided it was probably for the best. Akai seemed to have a sweet spot for his younger sister, and was less likely to make a scene or argue with Mary if she was there.

When she returned, they seemed to be talking about his hair. She'd briefly wondered at some point why'd he cut it when he seemed a little vain about his appearance, but never really cared to question it. As she walked in she caught the tail end of his response and was surprised to see him turned away from Akemi with a light blush dusting his cheeks, seemingly embarrassed.

"...together, you liked to play with it. I didn't want anyone else touching it after that." Akemi's eyes were aglow as the grin she was wearing spread even wider. Shiho had to admit they were a cute sight together like that even if she hadn't fully forgiven him. She cleared her throat to let them know she was there. It had been a somewhat intimate statement and she really didn't want to hear anything more like it. They both turned to look at her.

"Akemi you need to rest. And before either of you say anything you won't rest if Akai is around. Plus Akai, I've scheduled a psychiatrist appointment for you after this. Mary and I have been in agreement on this matter and she's waiting for you in the lobby with Masumi to make sure you don't escape." There was a hint of steel in Shiho's voice which brooked no argument. She had really come to respect the older woman after a rocky start, finding that they agreed on many things, and as such had stayed in touch with her.

As Akai turned to look at Akemi, hoping that she might protest his departure—and he could get out of dealing with his mom—he saw that she just looked slightly confused. Quickly he realized she never knew the names of his family, even though he had occasionally talked about them vaguely. "Mary is my mother, and Masumi is my little sister."

"I'd like to meet them, sometime."

"Of course. I can tell you about my family tomorrow, in the meantime." Akai said the tomorrow in a questioning tone, and received a nod of confirmation from Shiho as he did so. "I have a younger brother as well."

"I'd love that." Akemi beamed her classic smile, though both Shiho and Akai could tell she was growing weary.

Smiling back at her Akai replied. "Then I'll see you tomorrow." Though he didn't want to leave, he allowed Shiho to drag him down to the lobby to his family. As she did so, a small smile remained on his face.

A/N: This is hasn’t been fully edited (or beta’d) by anyone other than myself so if you catch any errors, feel free to point them out to me. I am planning on extending this and have started working on both a scene that takes place directly afterwards and one that takes place before. As such parts might change slightly once I decide whether to post it as a series of one shots or as a multi chapter on ao3. If you have read my response to the dcmkemogust2019 prompt nightmare, that does tie into this. I wrote this because I really wanted to explore how Akai would react to finding Akemi alive. But as I continued writing it I found that it was also really fun to look at how Akemi would react to him as well. She is one of my favorite characters and I suspect it shows a little here. And yes I am aware that comas don’t work like how I have written, but since the series ignored it with Kir, I felt that I had the right to also ignore it.

[boneywhump]

The guard is starting at their new post today, relieved to be transferred to indoor patrol in the castle instead of long days under the relentless sun on the perimeter.

Their relief fades when they’re assigned to the detention wing, where The Keeper is said to detain criminals of all sorts. They’re nervous at the prospect of interacting with prisoners -- the most commotion they see on the perimeter are lousy kids throwing rocks at cows or the occasional drunkard -- but as The Keeper guides them past empty cells their dread only thickens. 

At the end of the hall, The Keeper retrieves a heavy set of keys from their pocket to open the iron door. The guard fights to keep their face impassive when they appraise the prisoner inside; a young man, can’t be more than twenty or so, wrists shackled behind his back in strappado while a thick metal collar pulled his torso forward, bloodied knees digging into the cold stone beneath him. What little muscle he had left was pulled taut, working endlessly against the strain of his bindings, and shakily controlled breaths wracked his torso. A leather muzzle muffled his harsh breathing, but he couldn’t see the man’s eyes under a mess of dark hair. 

The guard didn’t know what the man did to deserve this, but they prayed it was something horrible.

The thought must have been plain on their face. The Keeper approached the man thoughtfully, talking to the guard over his shoulder.

“This is one of the last remaining Oracles from the Fallen North.” The Keeper drags long, pale fingers through the Oracle’s tangled bangs, moving them out of his eyes. The guard gulps nervously when the Oracle’s eyes snap onto theirs, full of hate and fear and fury. He sizes them up for only a moment before The Keeper fists his hair and yanks it, craning his face up farther than it seemed his restraints should allow. The guard winces alongside the Oracle.

“I thought all of the Oracles died when the North fell,” they say stupidly. 

“We know that a small handful survived. It is likely that our enemies have one in their possession,” The Keeper spares the guard a clinical glance, “which is why guarding this one is so important.” 

“Pardon me, Keeper,” the words tumble out of their mouth before they can stop it, “but why keep him like this? He doesn’t look dangerous.”

“Oracles are extremely dangerous, in the right hands,” The Keeper moves his hand to cup the Oracle’s muzzled cheek, the affection in the motion making the guard cringe. “He’s our greatest weapon, and our greatest weakness. Your job is as much to keep him in here as it is to keep others out.”

The first week drags on, then the second, then the third. Day after day of guarding a prisoner that can’t speak, can’t move, only lets out occasional whimpers and shivers, surrounded by stone and iron. Some days there are fresh bruises and cuts on his arms, torso, and face. The guard is grateful they don’t have the nightshift, where they assume the Oracle’s questioning and readings take place. One time, when they think The Keeper is still out for lunch, they hear the Oracle let out a muffled sob and they cautiously ask if he’s okay, but The Keeper is upon them immediately with a litany of terrifying curses and threats. They avoid looking at the Oracle after that. They desperately miss the sun on the perimeter.

They wake in the dead of the night to great commotion, guards mobilizing outside their barracks door. They throw on a jacket and head towards the bustle, doubling back once to grab their sword. They cut through the kitchen on their way to the courtyard, expecting it to be empty, but instead they come face to face with the Oracle. 

Their heart stops, and only starts again when they realize the Oracle looks just as frightened as they feel. Their hand instinctively wraps around the hilt of their sword but they don’t draw it, instead widening their stance to appear imposing. The Oracle does the opposite, backing into the locked door they were trying to rip off the hinges moments earlier. 

The guard frowns. Once the shock subsides, they take in the Oracle’s state: his wrists are bound in front of him and the muzzle is still firmly locked in place. He must have only just escaped. He’s clinging to the handle of the locked kitchen door that leads outside. The guard releases his sword and approaches the Oracle carefully. 

The Oracle grabs a pan hanging off the wall next to him and brandishes it like a weapon. It was a heavy pan, and might have been scary, if the Oracle’s weak grip was able to hold it up without trembling. The guard pauses, then fishes in their pocket for their own set of keys. They hold the ring of keys ahead of them harmlessly. 

“If you move, I can unlock the door.”

The Oracle looks from them to the keys a few frantic times and steps aside, holding the pan like a shield over his torso. The guard finds the kitchen key and stays true to their word. They shove the door open and take a few steps back. The Oracle eyes them suspiciously.

“I don’t have keys for those,” the guard says apologetically, pointing at the Oracle’s manacles. “Sorry.”

He strafes towards the open door, not turning his back to the guard, but still sparing a moment to put the pan back in place. The guard bites back an uncomfortable laugh. 

“Keep going right till you hit the outer wall. If you’re lucky, the guards are looking for you back at the detention wing, and you can sneak through the back gate.”

The Oracle nods, sparing a drawn out second to give the guard an unreadable look, then they vanish into the night. 

[wormsdyke]

i must not scratch my new tattoo. scratching is the mind-killer. scratching is the little-death that brings total obliteration. i will face my itchiness. i will permit it to pass over me and through me. and when it has gone past, i will turn the inner eye to see its path. where the itchiness has gone there will be nothing. only i will remain.

[bartsugsy]

anyway here’s my opinion on litetally everything. no one asked but i still answered bc i’m bored:

me and kate @snowbasttien rewatched wedding - present last weekend and had a great time, it was great, would encourage everyone to rewatch and bask in robron going on some insane emotional journeys and being in love - on rewatch we both agreed that the story felt pretty balanced to us, likely because we didn’t have to deal with the hiatuses in between, but i suppose that differs person to person

but it reminded me how much good potential the ellis/billy stuff has when it’s interweaved with robron and that’s exciting

i’m enjoying it sm rip

re yesterday’s ep:

robert has this big habit of trying to play god with the people around him in order to get his way. it’s not a good thing and there’s a reason why aaron would be pissed about it. they’re married, yes, but robert once again took the decision to act on something affecting aaron without talking to aaron first

although frankly he wasn’t even that mad and f r a n k l y it was 90% foreplay prove me wrong

aaron inviting ellis to move in on the cheap just to spite his husband (but in a sexy way)? iconic

foreplay at its finest

they boned about that later that night

aaron spent a solid 2 hours telling rob he might not ever get to touch his dick again

rob: :(

aaron, already pouncing on robert: fine ily

circling back to robert’s literal god complex

rmr when robert destroyed gordon’s letter and aaron was so upset, because rob made a decision for aaron that honestly was aaron’s to make. rob thought he was doing the right thing but mostly he was just taking aaron’s agency away.

which is exactly what he’s doing here. aaron is telling robert he’s fine and is going to work on finding a way to accept billy living in the village and even if that’s a fucking bold faced lie, it’s still not robert’s place to take aaron’s decision out of his hands

and again, i feel monumentally bad for robert, because aaron historically has had issues with not talking about his feelings - and this has almost always led to aaron doing something dangerously reckless, or making horrible choices. like, i too would be concerned and want to encourage him to open up more.

but maybe instead encouraging therapy would be a better way to go lmao

rather than just deciding to slap a “quick fix” on the problem (that relies on people acting the way you want them to) (oh robert) (a little puppet master boy) (he just loves aaron and wants to protect him :( my sons)

so anyways i feel bad for them both

and i don’t think aaron is quite as a ok as he keeps saying lmao

maybe he’ll be fine forever

maybe i’ll just write some fic about it

that i will never finish

maybe productivity will take over my body we don’t know

maybe aaron will flip and do something terrible who knows

also i mentioned this earlier but so rarely do i feel compelled to root for robert’s schemes to actually work bc it’s much funnier to watch him scramble around for increasingly insane solutions

but graham.... bleh

like i genuinely think if joe was here rather than replacement-joe i might at least enjoy the home farm scenes slightly more bc all i can think at the moment is

how much of a 180 graham’s character took as soon as joe left lmao

it’s so silly and inconsistent and i don’t care enough about graham to fix it with meta lol

robert is a moron but no one can say he’s not pretty fuckin tough to go up against when he wants to be

he used homophobia accusations to get off of a murder charge he’s a fuckin icon

graham doesn’t know him though so maybe he doesn’t really know this

idk i guess i support robert crushing graham to pieces, joe rolling over in his grave and graham being so embarrassed that he disappears forever

bye g-dog

it’s much more fun to watch robert go up against people i care about lmao

where’s lachlan

having said this, i would be down with watching things get worse for robert before ultimately getting better? depends on how long they wanna string this out for i guess?

i’ve just realised how long this post is but i have MORE THINGS TO SAY

i think people were talking yesterday about how aaron isn’t contributing to the surrogacy fund and bc i missed the discourse i didn’t get to put my opinion forward on that

which is that one might assume that if you’re discussing a big and costly life decision, the natural reaction a couple might have would be to sit down, make a little savings plan, talk finances etc

aaron got as far as “it’s expensive” and robert was immediately like FEAR NOT MY LOVE I AM GOING TO GET US MONEY VIA CRIME

to which aaron was like sigh this is the man i have married

yes it is aaron you knew this about him going in

rob was determined and aaron does trust robert, for whatever reason, so he’s letting rob do this shit (on the caveat that aaron gets veto power on the stunts robert wants to pull)

i don’t really think that aaron contributing via crime makes sense for the character - yes he’s a dodgy little shit but historically, aaron committing crime has always been tied to aaron having some sort of breakdown lmao. he’s done a lot of work to like... not do that lmao. he’s morally grey in a different (and lesser) way than robert and always has been since day one. i just... idk i suppose i don’t understand the need for him to be an entirely different character lmao. i like that he’s marginally objectively better as a person than robert - but still not quite good enough that he actively opposes robert doing crime things

it’s an interesting point of growth in their relationship since 2016 when aaron really was just

not ok with any of rob’s litany of insnae schemes lmao at any point lmao

which resulted in a lot of break ups lolol

now they’re so much more comfortable in their relationship and in each other and aksjskjdjdjd beautiful it’s beautiful

no one even tried 2 divorce the other 😭 2016 ROBRON ARE SHAKING

THEY COULD NEVER

but honestly i just don’t see where robert gave aaron space to contribute outside of doing crime which aaron isn’t running to do

thankfully

particularly given how boldly arrogant and poorly hidden robert and nicola’s plans were lmao

that shit isn’t aaron’s forte anyway is it

he’s more about

stealing things

except he gets caught doing that a lot lmao

maybe he shouldn’t crime

having said this i love that he’s getting involved this week now that things have gotten to a point of genuine crisis

that’s when i think it makes sense for him to join in

or like... minor things, reluctantly and out of love for robbo

not because he just enjoys fucking people over when he sees the opportunity to lmao

i’m into it

this post is so long and i’m not even sorry

i have more feelings but i’m gonna stop here

in conclusion the secret to a long relationship is inviting ur sister in law’s boyfriend to live next door and pay cheap rent just to make ur husband mad as sexy foreplay

tyfyt

[the-resident-imagines]

Three Years

Summary: (Based off a prompt given to me by @inlovewith3 ) 

Can you do an imagine with Conrad where he and the reader are ex lovers and the reader left town with no word now she's back in town after like 3 years as a surgeon. They run into each other and they talk

Pairing: (Conrad/(y/n)) , (Friendship - Nic/(y/n))

Warnings: Does a Broken Heart count? Angst, Generalized stress and anxiety, elevators? (I have a thing against them)

Word count: 1702

A/N: Ok, so I am terrible with romance and stuff but I would say this is a ... start? Haha, either way, I am under the impression that if the woman that I loved left me abruptly like the way you are about to read about, I would probably be pretty pissed. So I kinda channeled that mindset while writing this. That being said, I hope you guys enjoy and feel free to tell me you hate it. XD

(Y/N) knew that coming back was going to end up being a litany of emotions. Three years had gone by, almost to the day. Three years ago, she stood here as a third year surgical resident, with the perfect boyfriend, an amazing group of friends, and just an overall perfect life.

Until the day that she had left. Her fear of commitment ruining everything she had tried so hard to build.

Now here she was, a surgeon. A damn good one at that. She was hoping that she could ace the interview to be able to come back to where it all started for her. To fix everything that she had broken and be able to go back to what it used to be. To come back home.

(Y/N) didn’t know where, or even if any of her friends, her crew, were still here. Maybe some of them had drifted away after she made her sudden and abrupt leave. She couldn’t blame them if none of them wanted to see her again, even if they were still all here. She also knew that she couldn’t worry about that right now. She had spent too much time dwelling in those thoughts on the flight when she should have been focusing on how to impress the person who was about to hire her.

She did still kind of hope that she would run into someone.

She walked the familiar path to the elevators, her heels already irritating the bottoms of her soles. She’d stupidly worn them on the flight, so she should have known that they would hurt. Especially by now. The elevator slid open as she approached, as a family exited it. She slid into it and settled herself into the back corner, leaning against the railing to try and take some of the weight off her feet. She leaned forward and pressed the button for the fifth floor then leaned back again. She pulled her phone out and forced her attention to a couple of the notifications.

Somebody slid an arm into the doors right before they shut, forcing them back open, allowing the person in. She finished the post she was reading, before she looked up to the second individual resting against the side wall of the elevator, facing away from her.

The man was a little taller than her, which really wasn’t saying much. His hair was a controlled chaos that comes from years of practice. He was tapping out a rhythm on his blue scrub pants, his other hand came up and rubbed a hand through the messy blonde locks. His jacket that rested on his shoulders was a dull grey, probably just to keep him warm in the cold climate of the hospital.

She knew though. The moment he had stepped foot into the elevator. The cologne that she had spent a full two years picking on him about because she could never find it in stores. The smell that never really lifted from the jacket she stole from him. It was him, the perfect boyfriend.

Conrad Hawkins.

She could only gawk as the elevator doors opened and he strolled out without a glance at her. Her heart pounded as the doors closed again.

*****

The interview was just like every other interview that she had experienced in her lifetime. She had been nervous (that sort of run in in the elevator, did not help those nerves,) but she was also confident. She was a good surgeon. Hell, a great one. All she wanted was that opportunity to come back home. Back to Chastain.

She was walking around the fourth floor, where Conrad had gotten off at before. Hoping to find a trace of him somewhere. She had been walking for a few moments before she stopped at a nurses station, a familiar face staring down at the charts in her hand. (Y/N) cleared her throat hoping to garner Nic’s attention. It did just that, startling the young blonde from her thoughts.

“I’m sor- oh my god, (Y/N)?” Nic asked incredulously, stepping closer to the counter, a welcoming smile on her face.

“In the flesh.” (Y/N) responded, shrugging her arms sarcastically, “or at least that's the name they call me.”

Nic rounded the corner, throwing herself at (Y/N), “You look so good,” Nic pulled away, “and where have you been? What are you doing here?”

“Nic, I promise that I’ll answer any questions, but how about over dinner? Tonight?” (Y/N) suggested, pulling away from Nic and gripping her arms in her hands affectionately.

Nic nodded her head at the offer. “Sounds good, where at?”

“How about that place we all used to go? Is your phone number still the same?” (Y/N) asked.

“Yes and yes. So since you obviously didn’t stop by to talk, is there anything I can help you with?” Nic asked, a joking smirk on her face. She grabbed the previously forgotten chart from the other side of the counter.

(Y/N)’s smile never wavered as she watched Nic round up everything that she needed, before turning her attention back to (Y/N). “Actually, so you think you can point me towards Conrad?” A sheltered look suddenly appeared on Nic’s face, and (Y/N) backtracked. “I have a lot of people that I have to apologize to.”

Nic smiled a sad smile, “A little bit, you leaving hurt a lot of people.”

(Y/N) felt a tug at her heart, “I know, but I left him to wake up alone. I owe every single person that I left an apology, but I really owe him one, please?”

Nic sighed, the chart dropping to her side. “He’s probably in the lounge, his shift just ended.” (Y/N) smiled, and began to walk off, knowing that she would see Nic later on. She stopped as Nic called out to her again.

“(Y/N), its been rough around her recently, especially for him.” Nic formed her next words carefully. “He’s not the same as when you left him.” (Y/N)’s heart sank as she continued to smile at Nic.

“Thanks Nic.”

Muscle memory-guided her towards the lounge. She still was unable to recognize most of the people that she walked past. She was lost in her own thoughts as she continued her trek, navigating the hallways like she was just running through them yesterday, causing trouble all while saving the day. Most of the time.

Turning one of the final corners, she ran right into someone. Reaching out, she grabbed onto the shoulders of the person in front of her. Partly for her own stability, partly to offer a genuine apology to the victim of her clumsiness. She looked up from the stubble covered chin and into the eyes of the person and was shocked to see the man she was looking for.

Based on the expression that fluttered across his face, she felt it was safe to assume that the feeling was mutual. It clearly was not the only thing he felt by seeing her, being in (Y/N)’s grips. It didn’t take long for him to slip into a more neutral expression, a slight shit-eating grin that almost hid everything that his eyes were clearly displaying for the world.

He didn’t offer any words, instead, he slipped from the grasp, he shook his head once then spun on his heel, away from her and back down the hallway he came from. She followed. “Conrad.”

He ignored her the first time, and then when she tried again. It was only after she stopped, and yelled at, him did he stopped. He didn’t turn to her, instead, he stood there staring at the wall in front of him. “Conrad, I’m sorry. Please, just talk to me.”

He shook his head, “There isn’t anything to be said, (Y/N).”

She took a step forward, like a predator hunting its prey. “Look, I know, I messed up. Badly.” Conrad made a noise, somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh.

“That doesn’t really cover it all.”

“Look at me Conrad, please let me apologize.”

The two stood in silence for a few moments before he turned to her, slowly. She was startled to see the pain that stood out most on his face. The type of pain that only came from losing someone that you loved. “Ok, apologize to me. Tell me that you're sorry for leaving, and then leave again-”

She felt the tears well up in your eyes as the anger began to drown the pain. “Conrad, please-” the plead fell quietly from her mouth as he took another step closer to her. His finger pointing at her, trembling with emotion.

“No, you have no right coming back here after you,” the words got stuck in his throat as he looked at the woman that he used to love. That a part of him still did. She looked about as close to crying as he felt, and suddenly his anger quelled, knowing that anything he said now would only be said out of the anger and shock that he felt. So instead he dropped his hand and took the step back. “I loved you, (Y/N). You left. I had to stay behind and try to pick up all the pieces.”

He took another step back as he came up to the next turn in the hall. “Right now is not a good time, and I don’t know if there will ever be a right time. So I’m sorry that you didn’t feel like you could trust me to help you through whatever you were going through, but I don’t think I can ever accept an apology for that.”

“Conrad, let me try, please-” Her hand reached for him, but stopped short as he took another step away from her.

“I was going to ask you to marry me, (Y/N). I still have the ring.”

He left the conversation with that as he backed off, allowing one more glance at her before he scurried away as quickly as he could.

Leaving (Y/N) to her thoughts and an empty hospital corridor, tears streaming down her face.

fin

[lesetoilesfous]

Collapsing or falling asleep and looking far younger for Nott??? Pretty please???

Anon of course I will do this. From the Whump Fic bingo post!

Collapsing or Falling Asleep and Looking Far Younger

Warnings: Canon typical violence

The worst thing about moments like this was the fact that when she was unconscious, Nott looked far more like a human child than she did a goblin teenager. (That wasn’t true: the worst thing about moments like this was that it reminded him of them. The worst thing about moments like this was how sharply and unforgivingly they reminded him that he could do nothing, that he had never been able to do anything, that what little power lay in his hands was useless when he needed it.)

Caleb really needs to not be thinking about things like that, though, because right now they’re fighting a wild owlbear and they’re losing and Nott is unconscious on the forest floor. Her hair is spread across her face (like a child’s in sleep, like a child he knew) and there’s a little blood at the corner of her mouth. (He’s seen that before, too.) Her fingers, usually curled and clutched tightly around something, whether it’s her weapon or her flask or her trinkets, are loose and unfurled against the dirt, like the hand of a little girl on her pillow. 

Caleb doesn’t think about his fear, or the beast looming up onto its hind legs in front of him, standing tall enough to block out his view of the moon. He ducks and he runs forward and his heart gets left somewhere behind him in his panic. He slips his hands under Nott’s too-slender back and her skinny legs and he lifts her and she’s almost weightless, and he holds her close and he keeps running, diving back into the tree line.

The shadows of the night rush back up around him like a tide, and Caleb doesn’t think, he breathes a host of dancing lights into existence around his head and chest as he drops to his knees, glancing back towards the owlbear to see Beau leaping through the air at it in a vicious looking kick. Satisfied that it is at least distracted, he turns back to Nott and tries to ignore the panic that’s trying to crush his lungs. Nott’s brow isn’t furrowed, not even a little bit, and her mouth is slightly ajar. She looks like nothing so much as a sleeping child. (She looks like nothing so much as one particular sleeping child he knew once, long ago.)

Caleb knows that Nott has two answers when people ask her her age. At least, she has two honest answers. She doesn’t know how old she is, and to a goblin she is of child-bearing age. He also knows enough and has read enough to understand that in human terms that puts her somewhere between 12 and 15. He does not think of her as an adult, though he also does not think of her as an infant. If anything, on any given day when their lives are not in danger, he’d say he saw Nott as somewhere in between - more like a wayward and formidable teenager. 

But he really doesn’t know how old she is, and she either truly doesn’t know herself or else has chosen to be deliberately vague. Part of Caleb: the part of him that had been alone for too long and still saw all of this as far too good to be true, wanted with a bitter kind of desperation to leave it at that and not push his luck. But the rest of him, the part of him that had once been a better man, and a braver man, and a kinder one - that part of him looks at Nott now as he gently lays her down on the forest floor and tries to ignore the owlbear’s roars - and he thinks she doesn’t look a day past 10. He thinks that she shouldn’t be here, she shouldn’t be putting her life on the line for a bunch of barely put together strangers. He thinks she shouldn’t be drinking, and he thinks she shouldn’t be alone.

He thinks that maybe, in some strange way, part of that is his responsibility now. 

Caleb knows nothing about healing magic, but he knows something about injuries, and Nott is still warm - as warm as she ever gets. He takes that as a sign of encouragement, and slips a healing potion from his coat pocket with shaking fingers. The lights around his head cast a soft, butter yellow glow into the dark, but they emit not heat, and it’s a cold night now that he’s weathered enough of his panic to notice it. 

Caleb slips one hand under the back of Nott’s head, and it’s striking, really, just how small she is. The back of her skull fits into the palm of his hand, and her hair is soft like a child’s. Her ears brush his wrist and fingertips, rough with scales and cooler than a humans would be. He supposes that if he were somebody else he might be disgusted by that, but Caleb finds it hard to imagine a universe in which anything about Nott would disgust him. Instead, he moves his knees in the dirt, and tries to ignore the commotion behind him, lifting Nott’s head as he tips the potion into her mouth.

She drinks it, apparently on instinct, and that’s reassuring - that she, or her body at least, is not yet far gone enough to need help doing this. The potion dribbles down her chin, and Caleb slips the empty vial back into his pocket, moving his hand from her head to slip an arm around her shoulders and help her limp body sit up. With his other hand, he tugs on his sleeve and gently scrubs away the trail of earthy-brown liquid from her chin and mouth. Then he waits.

Nothing happens.

Caleb can feel panic opening up beneath him like a window to the void. He can feel himself starting to fall into it. It’s as if the blood rushing in his ears is a great wind howling, and some vicious creature has wrapped its claws around his chest and started to squeeze. The more rational parts of his mind are nothing against this hurricane: the parts of him that say she’s still warm, and she’s breathing, and she drank the potion. All of it is lost in an ever darker, ever faster, ever stronger moving whirlwind tying up his ability to think clearly and tugging the breath from his chest with it. 

Caleb squeezes Nott’s shoulders, tightly, and he can see his own dirty, ruddy fingers going white with the force of it, and he thinks it might hurt her and he doesn’t want that but he also can’t find a way to be calm. He’s speaking, he thinks, rapidly, in his native tongue. It’s just nonsense, a long litany of repetitions, “Wake up. Wake up. Come on, little one, you’re going to be alright. I’m here, I’m here I’m here I’m here. I’m so sorry. I should have been quicker. I will be quicker next time. I promise, just wake up. Wake up. Please, please, wake up.”

Caleb is so busy holding Nott’s limp body tightly to his chest as he curls over her, rocking back and forth, that he doesn’t notice the fight stop. He barely hears the heavy, crashing thump of the owlbear’s body falling to the floor. Time ceases to have meaning, and the sobs that rip their way out of his throat are as senseless as they are inevitable. He’s gone somewhere else, and he can’t come back, because Nott has gone where he cannot follow her, and she won’t come back, and he’s let her down, just like he did with everybody else.

When Nott breathes, suddenly, wet and coughing like a toddler with the flu, it’s not very loud. It’s much quieter than a fallen owlbear. Somehow, though, it slices right through the bubble and the hurricane of silence and fear and anger and grief that Caleb had been drowning in. She frowns, and it’s a shallow frown, the frown of a little girl who doesn’t understand something about the world even after she’s been given her answer. She doesn’t try to pull away from Caleb, and he doesn’t relax his grip, though he knows by now he’s holding far too tightly to be comfortable. Instead, she wriggles one skinny, grazed elbow up between their bodies and touches his cheek. The edge of one of her claws grazes Caleb’s skin, light as a feather. Caleb doesn’t move. Nott’s frown deepens. 

“You’re crying.” She coughs again, still wet, still hoarse. But the limp, heavy weight to her limbs is gone, and her chest is moving as she breathes, and there’s light in her eyes. Caleb helps her sit up, and Nott’s frown deepens as she looks around them, at the tall dark trees and the fire a few feet away in the clearing where they’d been attacked. “What happened?” Confusion gives way to concern as Caleb lets go of her, and Nott moves forward, sharp cat like eyes examining him carefully in the dark. “Are you hurt?”

Caleb laughs, a little wetly, and wipes away the tears on his cheeks with the heel of his palm and the back of his hand. “No, no, I’m fine. Are you alright?”

Nott frowns, sitting back, her ears pricked for any potential danger whilst she gives herself a once over. Caleb waits patiently. He can hear the rest of their group talking to each other now: Beau’s voice is raised, but then it usually is, and he doesn’t really have the energy to care about anyone other than the goblin girl in front of him. After a long moment, Nott lifts one clawed hand to her mouth, and her frown returns. “I was unconscious.” It’s a statement that sounds a little like a question. 

Caleb takes a deep breath. “Yes. But I gave you a potion, and you are alright now, I think. Does anything hurt?”

Nott takes his question seriously, and in this way she is not at all like a child: she has been hurt too often and too cruelly to shake away an injury with the naivety of youth. So instead she stretches her arms out in front of her, squinting at them in the dark, and she gets unsteadily to her feet. As soon as she does, Caleb stands with her, stooping to offer her a hand to lean on. Nott takes it, her bony, cool fingers wrapping around his dirty human ones with an easy familiarity. It pulls at something in Caleb’s heart: because she trusts him, she trusts him without question, and he’s known that for some time. He has absolutely no idea how he could possibly live up to it.

After a few moments more, Nott nods to herself, ears twitching as one of the others starts stomping across the forest floor towards them. “I’m alright.” Caleb’s dancing lights are reflected in her eyes like fireflies, and she gives him a wide grin full of sharp, crooked teeth. Caleb echoes it, albeit a little faintly, still shaken and drained from before. “You saved my life Caleb! Thank you!”

“Oh, no, no, I do not think… You were only unconscious, this is bad, but you were not going to die. I just. Helped you out a little. But only a little.” He honestly doesn’t know whether it’s self-deprecation, or self-hatred, or fear of admitting exactly how close he’d come to losing her that makes him deny it. Caleb only knows that he needs her not to be any more indebted to him than she already thinks she is. 

Nott gives him a look, and it’s cannier than most ten year old’s would be. She looks more like herself this way: street smart and rough around the edges, but still not quite fully grown. Somewhere in the hint of softness left in her cheeks, and the messy tangle of her hair, there’s still the faintest echo of childhood, and with it the wisdom that innocence brings. “You still saved me. Thank you.” Then the wisdom melts into another big, toothy grin, and she jumps up and down, grabbing at Caleb’s wrist as she does so. “You’re the best friend anyone could ever have! I’m so lucky to have you!” 

Everything in Caleb wants to deny this, vehemently. But this is not about him, it’s about her, and most of him is still just more relieved than he can say than she isn’t unconscious in the dirt. So he sighs, and he reaches out with his free hand and musses her hair, absently tickling the backs of her ears when he does so. Nott snorts and ducks away from him, but her ears are pricked high and she doesn’t let go of his arm. The dancing lights follow her head like earth-bound stars.

“You two alright? I thought I saw Nott go down for a minute there.” Fjord speaks softly, as he usually does. Caleb turns to him. A few feet behind him, Molly and Beau are going to the bloody work of dissecting the owlbear for things they can sell in front of an enraptured Jester. Caleb opens his mouth to reply, but Nott jumps in between he and Fjord before he has the chance.

“I was unconscious but then I wasn’t because Caleb saved me and he is the best.” Fjord raises his eyebrows a little at Nott’s enthusiasm, and both he and Caleb glance up at the trees when her voice echoes. But he doesn’t question her. Instead he smiles a little: a tired, relieved smile that Caleb recognises. He’s worn it often enough himself.

“Well then, I guess you’re lucky to have such a loyal friend.” Fjord looks up, and his eyes are golden in the half light, with the fire behind him and Caleb’s magic between them, the shadows of the forest stretching to either side. “Seriously though, you both ok?” Fjord doesn’t say it looks like he’s been crying, because Fjord is the kind of man who values things like discretion and tact. Caleb continues to be inexpressibly grateful for it. 

So he nods, and he gives Fjord the greatest part of a smile he can muster. “We are fine. Thank you.” Fjord’s expression relaxes into what looks like honest relief, and he claps Caleb gently on the arm that isn’t currently occupied by Nott.

“I’m glad to hear it.” He sounds sincere, and for just a moment, the tiny, stupid part of Caleb that hasn’t entirely given up on hope at his own chance of happiness is stupidly flattered. Then Nott tugs on his arm hard enough to almost hurt, and Caleb looks down at her.

“I’m going to go help them with the monster now. It looks gross.” Caleb has barely had a chance to digest that before Nott lets go of him and sprints back across the clearing, waving at Jester, who immediately waves back.

Caleb watches her go: and he thinks of another little girl he knew once, long ago, running away from him across the fields under a wide blue sky. Then Fjord steps into his line of vision, blocking the fire from his view. His expression is still gentle. “Kids, right?”

Caleb shakes his head, and starts to walk with him back to the group. He lets out a long, shaking breath, and he puts the memory of the other girl back into the dusty, battered box at the back of his head. “You have no idea.”

[awhilesince]

Friday, 13 April 1827

6 35/60

11 55/60

my bowels as yesterday – at my desk at 7 35/60 – wrote a little note to Mrs B– (Barlow) saying I had forgotten when I talked yesterday of being with her at 4 1/2 today, that I had told bishop L– (Luscombe) I would go to the Oration to hear him preach – asked if Mrs and Miss B– (Barlow) would go with me and I would call for them soon after 2 – 

at 7 50/60 began to write to M– (Mariana) from 7 50/60 to 10 1/2 wrote 3 pages and one End small and close to M– (Mariana) reading over my letter Took 1 /4 hour – then wafered (ill done, the paper a little giving way round the wafer) directed to ‘Mrs Lawton Lawton hall Lawton Cheshire Angleterre (post payé)’, and sent off my letter at 10 50/60 – then breakfast and read part 1/2 of the paper which took me Till 11 3/4 – finished dressing – went into the drawing room at 12 20/60 – from 12 25/60 to 1 25/60 read prayers (leaving out the litany) and read bishop Sandford’s sermon on the Lord’s supper – staid talking to my aunt – 

Mrs B– (Barlow) came at 1 40/60 to go with me to the oratoire took MacDonald and George and off at 2 20/60 – got there (all along the rue St. Honoré) at 2 50/60 the French service not quite over – our service began at 3 5/60 – a very young man read the prayers and bishop Luscombe preached very well 34 minutes from John XIX. 30. I think verse 30 – and ‘he bowed and said it is finished’ – 

Immediately after service Mrs B– (Barlow) and I went to Miss Gauntlet rue and hotel on Bouloy – looking very thin and ill – sat with her an hour and came away at 6 1/4 – took a turn in the Tuileries gardens – ordered a French pie (the 1st) at Michels for tomorrow and got home at 7 10/60 – Miss Gauntlet to dine with Mrs B– (Barlow) on Monday and with us on Wednesday – Mrs B Barlow told her a Mrs Brown she was much taken with here and whom she nursed for charitys ssake in her confinement was only a mistress and is now on the town in Paris we quizzed and I have not laughed so much for long – the reverend Mr Thistlewaite (Jane’s uncle in Law) died about a fortnight ago – speaking of determination of blood to the head, Miss G– (Gauntlet) said put the feet in warm water with a little vinegar in it, and rub the legs downwards from the knees 3 nights together, then stop 2 or 3 weeks, then do so again – to do it Too often would relax the habit too much – she had seen a woman in Italy, brought back to her senses by this means in 10 minutes – the climate of Southern too hot for Miss G– (Gauntlet) not good for English constitutions – she used to feel such a weakness at the pit of the pit of the stomach, that she could scarce support herself – It has done her harm rather than good – she feels she is not the person she was when she first went there 1 1/2 year ago – 

Dinner at 7 1/4 – Left the dining room at 9 10/60 – prepared my bedroom, settled with George and my accounts wrote the last 16 lines, and went into the drawing room at 9 50/60 – Read over the the remaining 1/2 the paper I had not read in the morning – staid talking to my aunt about her complaints – I told M– (Mariana) this morning much the same as in my last letter that I thought the complaints gradually gaining ground – that even Mrs B– (Barlow) now shortened the period of 12 years she had thought my aunt might live – that if she was not better than now, going to Switzerland was out of the question – In answer to how should I dispose of my time when I had done with my accounts, said I should 1st consider my health, and go into the country for a few days perhaps to Fontainebleau – should my aunt be well enough to be left, I had not yet made up my mind between going to Switzerland and to England – many reasons against the latter – the parting at Boulogne had shewn us both the strength of our regard – I was not so philosophical as the world might seem – I had presentiment about next spring hinting as if on account of my aunt – In the event of anything happening to her should return to England as immediately as possible – hoped to meet M– (Mariana) to part no more – her confidence was the greatest comfort to me ‘I certainly deserve it’ – Do not see Mrs B– (Barlow) quite everyday, but about every other day – all vain Expectations completely at an end – mention that she says that after I once leave here, she does not Expect to ever see me again – Not sorry Mr Willoughby Crewe does not come to Paris – glad πs (Mariana’s) eyes are at last opened have no fear for her but bid her take care for him as his foot might slip more easily than she thinks – agree, would rather have a house anywhere than in York – one in London on all accounts advisable – always easily disposable for a few months or longer if not wanted, and more likely to be wanted than a house in any other town in England – as for that pretty country place near Congleton, hope it is now too late, and that we can do better – meaning that we shall soon get together advise to consult C– (Charles) about calling on the William Buchanans when they settle 11 miles from L– (Lawton) if Mr Willoughby Crewe objects not to urge it, but should Miss Pattison name the thing regret not having it in her power to do etc etc what Mrs Alexander B– Buchanan said should go for nothing, – M– (Mariana) having no business to know it – I told her at Parkgate –

left margin: Fahrenheit 50 at 7 1/2 a.m. 62 at 1 50/60 55 1/2 at 9 10/60 fine morning very fine day. coolish. the trees in full leaf in the Tuileries gardens –

reference number: SH:7/ML/E/10/0080

[undertangledboughs]

Lupine: What does your name mean? Why is that your name? \ Larkspur: What do you think of yourself?

Yvet’s answers wouldn’t provide much to work with. I wrote a thing instead. Sorry if it gets a little dark! Despite my dumb anxieties screaming about putting a character’s story on a public medium, I’m going to make myself post this as backstory drabble. Help. Thank you for the ask @s-udarshana

Lupine: What does your name mean?

Children in Yvet’s homeland aren’t properly named until their 8th month, after the moon’s blessing has been given to them by the senior Mender. A pudgy baby with large petal pink eyes and tiny stubby ears fell forward flat on her face instead of choosing one of the objects placed before her. Wailing cries were tended to with soft cooing comforts and the baby was soon laughing again. Most of the ceremony was now finished, and they waited for the last of it with bated breath. The old spirit-hearer smacked her gums and squinted at the babe, waiting for a choice to be made. An arrow, feathered and painted in bright colors was ignored by the child. A crystal tipped branch sparkled in the sun and tempted, but remained unclaimed. A chipped old spear tip from a great ancestor, completely failed to grab her attention. The babe reached out for a flower growing out of the cracks of the treehouse and yanked it free in a fit of giggles, waving it around to the disappointment of the elders surrounding her. The old shaman laughed with the child and named her Fjola, after the Lupin flower crushed between fat fingers.

Larkspur: What do you think of yourself?How many share a similar fate, the trait of the door that must not be unlocked? Those heavy realizations about ourselves that we push to the farthest corner of the mind, oft forgotten with help from ill conceived vices of drink and the flesh, if our strength wanes so thinly. Memories we dare not even share with our dearest loved ones for fear of total rejection, as we reject the self so harshly - perhaps worse even than those who cherish us ever could. Yvet, despite all appearances of demure goodliness and bookish innocence, was no different. We all have our ghosts, adventurers more so.

—

She’d never relished the hunt, or stepped forward to make the final kill - even when it meant the honor of bringing the forest’s bounty home, and highly desired praise from those stoic and strong hunters that strode alongside a rambunctious set of youth, teaching them the ways of the land through grueling training regiments. Yvet, as she was not called in those days, found reasons to stay in the back of the hunting party, and become lost when she was not. She hated the braying cries of the dying beasts and the glassy wide stare they fixed her with, as if accusing her of some wrongdoing. Even if she /were/ fleet of foot and true of aim, she would have liked it no more. 

When the leaflets dropped, a scant number of her kin left the woods, taking the long harrowing path towards the unknown. After that, they weren’t content with drawing small numbers out through intriguing maps and honeyed words - the Rava had something they wanted. The first time it happened, she was held in a rictus of fear as a fully grown man in curious armor roared and charged through the underbrush, weapon lowered and closing in on her. Instincts born from turns of practice swept back in a rush, with hands moving to draw the symbols in the air to make the elements dance, she knocked him backwards off his feet with a blasted gust of wind. He’d fallen hard - winded, ironically. Vjkta’s familiar svelt figure swooped in from the side to slip her spear through a weak point in the man’s armor, but she paused before ending it, meeting gazes with him ere the blade pushed between armored shells. The warrior flexed and yanked her weapon back, tossing a playful grin of shared camaraderie back at Yvet. The young girl trembled with shock, but the older warrior didn’t seem to pay any heed to it.

Left there alone with Vjkta silently slipping away, she heard them move around her - scouting with bird calls and animal sounds thrown back and forth. The mimicry was near perfect, but only just. Her large ears could tell the difference where other’s could not. She knew not what to do. Her mind turned to activity and action where reason and understanding were beyond it’s current ken. Leaving the man untended to felt wrong, it only made the pit in her stomach yawn wider. Giving him Vieran rites was likewise not an option. So the girl created her own ritual to see his spirit safely into the lifesteam, hoping it might forgive her. Hauling rocks large and small to cover his body with took a good part of her day, but the child was determined. It wasn’t enough, and she sent a trickle of encouraging aether into the earth until it responded to her song and a carpet of moss grew over the cairn, making it look like an enchanted hill. Over time, tall blooms of Larkspur popped open and garnished the burial mound, growing in bright azure stalks. And though she was supposed to hate and revile the fallen figure, she couldn’t forget how he’d called out the same word over and over during the last moments of his life - a litany for his god, for someone else?

Years later, after she had matured into adulthood, it wasn’t any easier. Intruders for any reason were not permitted, at the pain of death. This was no idle threat, and remained a warning well known to the outside world. This was the Law, the way to honor her people and keep the old Ways. They were so different from each other, soldiers all; faces of many ages and races felled by her mastery of magics as she aided her sisters. Yvet always tried to be quick about the deed, to make it painless and avoid needless suffering. But her hand oft paused. The ones who’d pleaded and cried, and begged to let them return to a wife or a child especially haunted her. She did what she could to settle debts - taking personal effects and dropping them off at the edge of the wood. Smashed pocket chronometers, lockets with shorn hair, rings, medals, letters unsent; she robbed the dead in an effort to bring closure to anyone that might come searching for them. But Yvet herself was unable to share in any comforting sense of closure afforded to others.

—

A single orange light in the great dark, a single fire in the outer edges of HER forest. The gangly child moved silently through the dense green despite being all knees and elbows and looking anything but graceful. Amber light revealed an old hyur, illuminating all the crags and scars on his weather-worn face. A beast at his side, the likes of which she’d never seen. What were they doing? What did they want? The young viera followed their tracks day to day, seeking answers. Against the rules, she told no one of the outsider. What was he looking for? She had to know. On the third night when she crept close to listen to him sing his strange songs at the crackling fire, she was suddenly yanked bodily up into the air by her ankle.

“What do we have here, Elliot?! FINE RABBIT STEW!” he bellowed, laughter splitting the cold air. The child twisted and swung her body wildly, trying to kick him with her free leg. The huge bear of a man only chuckled as he took her back to the campsite, held aloft and upside down, flailing and screeching about his doom in Vieran. Etgar and Elliot taught her many things in the short time they remained as unknown and unwelcome guests on the edge of the Rava’s domain, but most importantly, they’d taught her not to hate outsiders.

[mllemaenad]

Vivienne says herself that not every Circle experience is the same and thus admits her """"privilege"""" as... a mage... and a black woman (shown in a banter with Cole, there is indeed colorism in at least Orlais) caught in the same system... as everyone else... why does everyone say that her being successful in a systematically oppressive environment make her a bad guy. I love your analysis stuff but don't be That Guy

... I ... well, look. I’m sorry if I have said something offensive. I am capable of it, I know.

But ... I don’t think she’s ‘a bad guy’, any more than I think that of the Iron Bull or Dorian. I am disappointed in a great many of Bioware’s writing choices in Inquisition, and I include some of Vivienne’s story in that disappointment.

I mean, let’s be clear here: Vivienne is amazing. She got out. She got herself right the fuck out of that Circle and all the way to the Orlesian court. She’s a candidate for the role of Divine, despite being a mage. A breaker of boundaries, a long-term survivor – indeed winner of the Game – and one of the few mages in southern Thedas to have actual combat training.

Vivienne can be kind to those she likes and respects, and give solid advice in a crisis, she can play high politics and dirty tricks with the same aplomb, she is fierce in battle and deadly at court.

She is an incredible and accomplished woman.

But do I think she admits and understands the full extent of her privilege? No. Further, I think much of what she learned in the Orlesian court was actively harmful and wrong. Orlais is a cruel and vicious place. It is bigoted, violent and awful, and has strong prejudices against mages, elves, non-Andrastians and foreigners of all descriptions – I doubt I can begin to imagine the slurs and insults they’d have for a woman of Rivaini heritage. I daresay Cole barely scratches the surface.

Mages rise quickly in the new Circle, having more freedom and responsibility than ever before - even if all true power lies with her.

Epilogue – Inquisition

That’s Vivienne’s ending slide if you make her Divine, and it makes me so sad. It makes sense, of course, that she would do these things. In Orlais self-interest is all. You’re a fool if you don’t accrue as much power as you can, because you can’t trust anyone but yourself. And of course she treats her fellow mages well: she is absolutely not a villain.

But – oh, Vivienne, Vivienne, what have you done? You brought the mages back to the Circles, and you placed the Divine over them with absolute power. I trust you not to go around butchering them or making them Tranquil; of course I do. But your successor? Or the one who comes after her? Them I do not trust. They’re not going to stop hating mages in Orlais because one sits on the Sunburst Throne. Orlais being ... Orlais, they may well hate them more. You’ve given your successor a weapon, Vivienne, and it’s pointed right at the mages’ throats.

And you did it because you only know Orlais and the Game. Because you don’t much like things outside of it. And – and this part isn’t your fault – because they gave you so little opportunity to learn.

They silenced Fiona, you see. They took the quest for the mage rebellion and flung it into the future, into a world that has so little to do with their struggles. All those voices that cried out in the earlier games and the novels – they shut them up nicely.

Solas speaks in favour of the rebellion, a bit, but he is fundamentally outside it. He favours the rebellion of slaves in general rather than this one specifically. He can’t talk about it like someone on the inside could.

Why is Fiona – elven woman, mage, former slave – standing meekly in the library instead of right up in your face, arguing. I would pay to see your duel of words: I may think Fiona is right and you are wrong, but you’re both so damn smart and brave and interesting, it would be worth it just to watch the fight.

Why doesn’t In Hushed Whispers put you in with the rebellion, withstanding a Templar siege, allowing the rebels to be courageous and desperate and afraid instead of just – giving you a couple of discontented voices in a pub? Why can’t Vivienne walk into the heart of that with you, and hear what they have to say?

I don’t think she fully appreciates how much suffering she escaped – or indeed, how much harm the Circle did to her, and how much harm it will continue to do, if she restores it.

Vivienne: You must see the value in restoring the circles, Cassandra.

Cassandra: Provided they fulfill their purpose. Too many have suffered since the mage rebellion began, but we cannot ignore the abuses that prompted it. Without change, we risk repeating the events at Kirkwall.

Vivienne: Or recreating its opposite. An overly lenient circle is a comparable threat. Kirkwall is lamentable, but it was the misuse of power, not restrictions, that led to the first Blight.

– Vivienne Dialogue

They could have sent you to Kirkwall, Vivienne. They could have done it to you when you were ten years old, too young to know how to stop them. Of course you acknowledge that what happened in Kirkwall was an abuse of power: you’re neither a fool nor a monster. But the person who sent you wouldn’t have been abusing power. You’d have been nothing more than part of a quota. It’s their job to shuffle mages around: alleviate overcrowding here, supplement some talent there. That’s the Circle: guardians of mages, treating them like children and packing them off to places for ‘their own good’.

They’d have made you Tranquil, Vivienne. Or they’d have snuffed out your life in some dark corner. Because you don’t know how to be mediocre. It would destroy you to pretend to be just average at magic, to sit in your cell and do nothing, and make sure never to draw attention to yourself.

The Circle has killed so many people, Vivienne, only through not caring what they wanted. Why can’t Hawke tell you that, Vivienne? Why can’t a pro-mage Hawke howl their outrage at this? You could be Karl Thekla, Vivienne, if your luck had been a little different, and Hawke would know that.

Cassandra: You would prefer to have the templars return to guarding the circles, Vivienne?

Vivienne: Of course, my dear. They need better oversight, clearly, but one does not throw away a tool because it was misused.

Cassandra: Few mages would ask for templars in the circle.

Vivienne: Speak to Ferelden's first enchanter. You might be surprised. When abominations ravaged your tower, suddenly the world holds far too few templars.

– Vivienne Dialogue 

Did you ask him, Vivienne? Or did you just believe what the Chantry said about that little incident? I can only think the latter, because First Enchanter Irving could have told you that the Templars just ran away from trouble. They locked all the mages in with the demons, Vivienne, even the children, and they plotted to murder them all. Think of that, Vivienne: I know demons frighten you. The Templars would have had no qualms about letting them rip out your heart.

It was mages who saved the day, Vivienne. It was Wynne who protected survivors, and then fought her way to the top of the tower to free her fellows. It was Niall who got the Litany of Adralla. Maybe the Hero of Ferelden was a mage too. And Irving and his people – so many of them resisted torture that they could still make up an army to fight the Archdemon. And they did that, too.

Why can’t Leliana tell you that, Vivienne? She was there. She favoured helping the mages. She could tell you who was better at fighting demons; who was brave enough to face them down and win.

Inquisitor: Cole, Vivienne doesn't want to talk right now.

Cole: She's afraid!

Cole: Everything bright, roar of anger as the demon rears. No, I will not fall. No one will control me ever again.

Cole: Flash of white as the world comes back. Shaking, hollow, Harrowed, but smiling at templars to show them I'm me.

Cole: I am not like that. I can protect you. If templars come for you, I will kill them.

Vivienne: Delightful.

– Vivienne Dialogue

The Circle did that to you, Vivienne. It forced you to fight a demon, it made you smile at the Templars who dragged you in there because they’d kill you if you didn’t. And it’s left you so scared. You’re scared of Cole; you’re scared of any spirit. You do care about him: you’re more than smart enough to see past the horrors of your training, to realise he’s a person and worry about him. But you’ll likely never kill that fear, Vivienne. And they’ll do it to more mages, Vivienne. Some of them will die, and some of them will be left as scared as you. They do it to spirits, too: every bit of misinformation, every bungled summoning, every spirit dragged into the world against its will and turned into a demon – because the Chantry thinks it knows about spirits when it bloody doesn’t.

You could listen to the Avvar, Vivienne, or we could go to Rivain. You could talk about it with Dorian, when the pair of you have finished snarking. You could listen to a Dalish Inquisitor. We could find ways to show you that it needn’t be this way, if only the opportunities were there.

I don’t want to destroy Vivienne, or make her less than she is. I want her to keep on being awesome, and being a candidate for Divine. I just want the game to engage with some of the points it brings up, instead of just letting it sit there.

What I wrote about her was one line in a post that was otherwise about the Iron Bull. I referenced Cassandra, Dorian and Cullen in the same paragraph, precisely because Vivienne is often singled out and I don’t think that’s fair because the problem is not with her, but rather with the game’s writing in general. It was meant to point out that most of the characters have this problem: they are dangerously wrong on some point, favouring oppressive systems or bigotry, and the game does nothing with it at all – at best it lets the Inquisitor deliver an objection that is not in any sense ‘remembered’ by the game in later quests or dialogue.

But – that said, I am flawed, and I am more than capable of being wrong. I wrote all of this to explain my issues with the game in relation to Vivienne, as I did in relation to the Iron Bull before. I could write much the same thing for any character in Inquisition.

If you still think I’m being unfair to her, or prejudiced, then say so and I’ll simply apologise. I can remove the line from the earlier post, too, if you like.