#these prompts get wilder and wilder as i use the wheel | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-hilda-librarians-wife · 10 months

Text

Sketchbook Week Day 2 - Curses

Summary: "The trees are the same.

When Johanna moved back to Trolberg, it felt like everything was different. The buildings were higher, and new ones had been brought up. The streets were smoother with new asphalt, and many of the shops she’d known had been closed, usually making room for other ones. The places where there were benches to sit in her favourite parks had been switched, and even the librarian she used to chat with in her youth had been replaced by a mysterious, yet very intriguing woman.

But when she drove back to the wilderness, the trees were the same."

A Johanna character study written for the Sketchbook Week day 2 prompt - Wilderness

Notes: Written for @sketchbookweek day 2 - Wilderness

Okay, some serious notes about this fic: Do keep in mind that this is character exploration for a character that canon has yet to explore. Which is to say, so much of this is headcanons stacked together & will come tumbling down once s3 comes around. Just pretend it makes sense & understand it’s not all supposed to be perfectly explained. What matters most is Johanna’s emotions and not so much what caused them. Honestly a lot of this fic’s writing is experimental, let’s see if it lands. Also, content warning: there’s a brief mention of past abuse, but it’s in a flashback and completely skippable. I’ll put a * mark before and after, so anyone who wants can skip that part.

Anyway, more importantly: this fic is dedicated to my wonderful co-host in this event, @waddles-ex-machina. I just wanted to thank you for being not only an amazing sport in this situation we’ve brought entirely upon ourselves (seriously if group projects were all like this I wouldn’t even complain about them), but also for having been such a lovely lovely presence in the sketchbook community since the very beginning (I mean, not like you could run from being *here*, sketchbook ask and all, but you could run from being nice and you didn’t shksgdjdvd). It’s always been a joy to get to interact with you, your ideas and creations, and to me at least you’re a huge part of why this community feels so friendly and captivating. So, yeah. This got rambly but it’s my way of saying thank you for five years of goofing around with our favourite girls <3

(In case it wasn’t obvious enough from the dedication, Mattie is @waddles-ex-machina ‘s OC!! You can find more content on her at @airborneice & I STRONGLY recommend you do, you won’t regret it :))

Read it on ao3

This house says my name like an elegy

Echoing where my ghosts all used to be

The trees are the same.

But when she drove back to the wilderness, the trees were the same.

That’s the thing about nature. It’s never still, so the constant change feels like steadiness.

It’s not the first time Johanna goes back to her former home since she was forced to move out. Twig, sitting obediently on Hilda’s lap in the backseat, was proof of that.

But it was the first time she was doing it since everything changed.

Johanna gripped the wheel as she drove, the sky perfectly blue with only a couple of innocent clouds above them, the stereotype of a perfect day. She felt in an almost dissociative state as she retraced those familiar roads, until the point where there were no roads anymore. Luckily, she had just enough of a grip on herself to interact properly when her children called, but they were more than capable enough of entertaining each other in the backseat. Johanna thought she heard Hilda pointing out different types of trees to Mattie as they passed by; she wasn’t sure. Things were quite blurry inside her mind.

Her wife’s attention was harder to shake. She noticed something was wrong as soon as they left city limits, sneaking not at all subtle glances at her every two seconds. At one point when the kids - could she even call Hilda that, anymore? - were particularly distracted, Kaisa leaned towards her and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Everything alright, dear heart?” She asked softly, her breath brushing warmly against Johanna’s ear.

Johanna nodded stiffly, and gripped the steering wheel tighter.

…......

The contrast was jarring enough that it made Johanna stop feeling like her mind was clouded with haze. As soon as they arrived at their destination, Johanna felt like she was simultaneously in the past and in the future. The future, because there was no way that that’s what their cabin looked like now, because no matter how many times she’d seen the rubble it still didn’t truly sink in on her that all that had truly happened. How could it, after all, when she’d ran away before giving herself time to process the loss, without giving herself time to think clearly -

Because if she did, she wouldn’t have gone back to that city-

- after what was probably the biggest tragedy she’d experienced, putting everything that had been salvaged in her old car, handling the mundane items with care because they were survivors, survivors just like her -

And if she’d never gone back, she’d never have any of this-

And now that same cabin was overgrown with lichen and covered in dust, as if time passed more quickly when no one was there to experience it. As if two people and a deerfox had been all that had been anchoring that old cottage to their moment in time. And now they weren’t there anymore, except they were now, except it wasn’t who they’d been because it wasn’t a girl, a mother and a deerfox, it was two mothers, a young woman, a little girl, an elf, a catowl and a deerfox. And they weren’t headed for the rubble.

That was the ‘feeling like she was in the past’ part of it. Sitting by the rubble was a cabin almost identical to the one Johanna’s grandfather had built. This one, however, put a more respectful distance between itself and the elf village, and was very distinctively painted in a dull lilac colour.

They’d decided together to rebuild it. Mattie had been growing and they wanted her to have that experience of close contact with nature. Johanna knew it would do her well like it had done her sister, to have a place to spread her wings and let her curiosity run, to live knowing what pure air felt like in your lungs. Kaisa knew that it was necessary for a young witch to be close to untamed nature, to study the stars without being dimmed by city lights, to look for that sort of knowledge where it was wild and free.

Besides, Hilda was getting to an age where she appreciated being alone at times, and they couldn’t deny that having somewhere to run to when it all became too much would do her good, and at least at the cabin they knew she’d be safe.

So the choice had been made by the two of them, with their daughters in mind. But Kaisa had insisted she handle the construction, both because her magic would make it easier and because she wanted to gift it to Johanna. Johanna, for her part, had allowed her to go forward with the plan, and never thought about how alien it would feel until she actually arrived and had to see how the hubris of her family’s former house looked in contrast with the brand new cabin.

“Anna?”

Johanna turned her head, which had been staring straight ahead, to look to the right. Her wife was standing outside of the car already, the door open as she frowned at her with concern. The children had already climbed down, and Johanna could hear Alfur’s voice as he formally introduced Mattie to the elves of the Northern Counties. The girl, for her part, looked like she wanted a much closer look at their homes, the architecture a lot more sophisticated than that of the elves she was used to back in Trolberg, but was held back by her older sister whispering in her ear that it was a bad idea.

Johanna was still wearing her seatbelt and gripping the wheel.

“Sorry.” She muttered, turning the car off and avoiding Kaisa’s gaze in favour of opening the car trunk to get their heaviest suitcases out before anyone else could give it a try.

If the girls noticed something was off, they didn’t say it. Yet the witch’s worried gaze burned at the back of her neck.

…......

The first thing you learn about witches once you got close enough to one of them, is that they take tea seriously. Even Kaisa, to whom a cup of coffee was much preferred to anything herbal or calming, treated tea as a type of ritual. Like it could heal. Like it could ground you. So, naturally, in a family composed of essentially witches and familiars, they inaugurated the new cabin by brewing tea for them all.

The layout of the cabin was exactly the same as it had been. Kaisa’s magic had guaranteed that much. But instead of making her feel like she was in a familiar and well loved place, each corridor just felt like walking a gravel path in a cemetery of memories. Some she mourned for. Some she was glad were buried under the rubble, the lichen, the dirt.

This cabin had been built to look like the former one, but it wasn’t, and she could tell all too easily. The paint wasn’t red. The floorboard in front of the stairs didn’t creak. The paintings on the walls had been either made or chosen by her, instead of her grandmother. Everything had changed.

Change was a part of life.

That didn’t mean she had to like it.

Which didn’t mean she couldn’t crave it.

”You’re really running away?” Her brother had said when she was nineteen and putting everything she owned into her yellow beetle. “That’s how you’re going to deal with the situation? You’ll just run from them?”

“How is that any different-” She’d answered, not daring to look up at his face. “- from what you’ve been doing?”

Years before, Hilda had resisted it when Johanna talked about them moving to Trolberg. She’d sighed and groaned and used every argument in the book for why living out there was so much better, as if Johanna didn’t know them all. What she hadn’t realised - and who could blame her, she’d only been a child at the time - was how much Johanna herself had been resisting it. Enough to not flee the first time their house had been attacked by an invisible enemy. Enough to build her career from a place where she had no way to easily meet new clients. Enough to raise a child with no support and to live otherwise by herself.

It had been enough. For years.

For years.

Years.

An animal that’s used to starvation doesn't realise when there’s no food.

“Hey, are you ok?” Kaisa asks in a low voice, avoiding being overheard by their daughters, as she hands Johanna a mug with the freshly brewed tea. It smells of ginger and cinnamon, and is hot enough to burn Johanna’s fingers through the ceramic.

The mug had been one Mattie had given her, one father’s day - Johanna had those for herself and left mother’s day for Kaisa, since she already got gifts from Hilda on that occasion. It was plain white, but the young girl had painted on it. Their entire family was drawn in stick figures, holding hands.

“Yeah,” Johanna sighed. At least the heat of the tea made her feel something. Something she could recognize and name, at any rate. It was more than could be said about everything else in her mind. “I’m just… thinking. this place brings up too many memories.”

Her wife matched her sigh, looking like she’d more than expected some reaction of that sort from Johanna, looking like she had hoped it wouldn’t be the case either way. The more self hating part of Johanna’s mind suggested that it was so rude of her to act so forlorn in the face of Kaisa’s gift. The realistic side of it knew her wife would never hold it against her and was just worried about her wellbeing.

“I imagine it does. Let me know if you want to talk about anything.”

She didn’t. Not really. She didn’t even know what was there to talk about. Her memories were just that, memories. They’d stayed in the past just as surely as the sunlit cabin where she’d sang her first daughter lullabies. Just as surely as the far too clean corridors of a house she’d never been able to call her home.

It doesn't matter. It doesn’t matter. None of those feelings would ever see the light of day. It’s what she’s always done.

Her silence is eloquent enough. She’d been silent enough in her life to be good at it. Kaisa bites her lip and steps away.

…......

They were telling ghost stories. Not the kind meant to scare one away. Literal ghost stories. Precisely, Hilda had begun talking about the time a ghost had stolen David’s shoes, and the trio had only been able to get them back with Twig’s aid. That led to Kaisa, head on Johanna’s lap on the couch, making a dramatic retelling of hunting a ghost around the Witches’ Tower after it had stolen her homework when she’d been a teenager. All that, only to then find out Tildy had asked the ghost to do that so she could learn lessons that were more moral than they were magical.

Predictably, Mattie heard them with wonder in her eyes, and asked if she could see a ghost as soon as they were done. Hilda and Kaisa looked at each other and cringed. Better not.

And Johanna-

Johanna only heard static.

She felt outside of her own body as she looked at her family, laughing. All she had the presence of mind to do was card her fingers through Kaisa’s hair, but not even that grounded her. It felt like it was slipping from her all the time.

“You think you can take care of a child? You can’t take care of yourself!”

She flinched, despite knowing that the raised hand wouldn't come down on her, that it had only ever been all talk.

“I can do better than you.”

Her wife looks up with a questioning look when Johanna didn’t join them in making up excuses for why their five year old shouldn’t go see a ghost. Generally she’d be the one to take Hilda and Kaisa’s anxious mumbles and shape them into actual sensible reasons.

But Johanna can’t speak. Her body feels frozen, in that spot and in every moment that wasn’t the one she was currently living.

Ashes, ashes, dust to dust.

What if she ruined this family too?

She’d always fared better when she was alone. Well, alone with Hilda. A strong girl, curious and bright enough on her own that for so long it hadn’t been an issue that Johanna was who she was. Sturdy and wild like the forest she’d grown up in.

But they were just a few metres away from proof of what happened when anything at all relied on Johanna.

Rubble, and lichen, and dirt.

The devil’s after both of us.

Something painful flashed across Kaisa’s eyes. She looked away quickly, and rejoined the girls’ conversation, not giving them the chance to see there was already a ghost in the room, with wavy brown hair and eyes that couldn’t possibly hold life.

…......

Johanna woke up in the middle of the night.

She’d gotten used to the city again. To the certainty of activity. To be back somewhere so silent was eerie; every single noise was heightened.

She immediately heard her wife’s breathing. The rhythmic sound soothed her, but only just. She wished she could hear her heartbeat, as well. Maybe that would be enough.

Then she heard the cicadas. And the wind rattling the windows every now and then. She couldn’t sleep again.

She knew how to not let her feelings see the light of day. The moon’s, however, they were much more familiar with.

The sleeping woman in her bed didn’t wake up when she changed out of her sleeping clothes, putting on much older ones she had been surprised to find still fit her. A button down flannel with a moss green sweater on top. Pants. Old shoes that had been worn down by the forest floor.

She steps out into the cold night. Her skin stings with it, and her mind doesn’t notice.

…......

The woman felt more like herself after a couple of minutes of walking. Which is just as well, since it was the middle of the night in the wilderness, anything could come out of those bushes to lunge at her at any moment, and she hadn’t even brought a compass. All the attention she could pay wasn’t enough.

Technically, if she got lost she wouldn’t be so for long. Twig and Freya both knew how to track, and Kaisa certainly had spells for that as well. She just didn’t want to worry her any more than she already had.

Besides, she had a reason for being out there. She still hadn’t figured out what it was, but she had one. She was sure of it.

Maybe.

“What could bring someone to wander around in the woods all on her own? And in the middle of the night, too?” Said a voice behind her, and the question was so good that it took her an embarrassing long while to realise that the voice had not been her own.

Johanna turned around with a gasp, her brain torn appart between ‘we’ve been approached in the woods, we should run’ and ’we know this voice, why run?’, which resulted in her simply staring like a scared animal at a face that she was sure would be lifting an eyebrow at her.

If he had any, that was.

“How rude.” Said the Woodman. “Come inside, it’s cold. For you.”

With that he turned and walked away. And she followed, because he sounded like he could have an answer to the question when she hadn’t even gotten around to asking it yet.

…......

Johanna had no idea what the sleeping habits of a creature made of bark could possibly be, and she wasn’t about to be impolite to her impromptu host by asking. But when he led her inside the very house she’d been once before, it didn’t look as if she’d interrupted anything.

She didn’t know why she’d expected it to. It wasn’t like she’d come knocking for him.

The place was cool and damp, which was probably justified by it being on the inside of a large tree. She’d been too worried to muse about it the first time she’d seen the house, but now she wondered what it felt like for him. To live inside a place that was like a dead version of himself.

She wondered if he felt anything like she did at that moment.

If so, she’d been too harsh the times when he’d shown up at her doorstep. She’d wanted to run away too, hadn’t she?

And now she was in his house.

It was a bit dizzying.

The Woodman didn’t engage her in conversation. She thought she’d be glad; what use did she have for an old neighbour poking his nose (or whatever equivalent he had for one) in her personal business, after all. Instead, Johanna found herself almost disappointed when he left her at his couch and went to the kitchen, seemingly planning on ignoring her now that he’d gotten her out of the cold. She waited for a bit, expecting him to come over with another muddy concoction he called a warm drink; he didn’t. He just kept tinkering around in his kitchen while humming a tune under his breath.

“Thank you.” She said, at last, when the silence began to feel like ants crawling under her skin. “For bringing me in.”

He didn't even lift his eyes (eye sockets?) from whatever he was doing, his back to her.

“It’s bad manners to let old acquaintances get eaten by wolves.”

Johanna forced a chuckle, but he didn’t reciprocate. Not a joke, then. She squirmed uncomfortably on the couch.

“We are that, aren’t we?” She sighed, and suddenly the Woodman forcefully put down whatever he’d been holding.

“You’re chattery. It’s distracting.” He stated, not sounding any angrier despite the comment. “If you want to talk, just say what you want to already.”

Her breath caught in her throat, a denial and a promise to stay silent at the tip of her tongue. But she realised - she did want to talk. It was a startling realisation, considering she hadn’t wanted to confide in her own wife. But that had been because she knew what Kaisa would say. She knew the affirmations and the comfort that would come if she managed to get close to verbalising what she was feeling. But Kaisa’s view was biassed, biassed by her love and the fact that she’d married her, but mostly biassed by them having met each other so relatively recently.

The Woodman, however, she’d known since she’d been a child and came to the cabin to visit her grandparents.

And the Woodman pulled back no punches.

“Go on, then.” He encouraged. “Out with it.”

The creature standing metres away from her had gifted her with logs when they’d moved out. She found herself understanding why. A piece of herself seemed like something she could offer. So she did.

“Remember when you told me that sometimes it’s better to retrace old steps than forge new paths?” She asked, and got a hum in response.

“Why wouldn’t I? I said that.”

Johanna ignored the question, figuring it wasn’t meant to be answered. “Well, I forged a new path, one I’m very happy with.” She thought of Hilda, trusting her enough to confide in her about her first crush. About Kaisa, the sheer blinding love in her eyes as she recited her wedding vows. Of Mattie’s first ever smile, aimed at her, toothless and awkward and utterly perfect. “But I’m afraid it’s too good. I’m afraid it’ll all come tumbling down because-”

Johanna sighed, suddenly feeling like there was something stuck in her throat. Words tended to do that, when you held them down for long enough. They tangled into one big mess of feelings that couldn’t be revealed separately. You let one of them out, and then everything you’ve been holding back has to go too.

“Because I’m the same person I’ve always been. Because I run. It’s what I do.”

She didn’t know where that had come from. The realisation was coming to her at the same time as the words were leaving her mouth; if she’d worked that out earlier she would have done something about it. Gone to therapy, probably. But only now that her chest felt hollow did she notice that those conclusions had been kept locked in there for as long as they’d existed.

With a disturbing raspy sound that Johanna was sure was completely unnecessary, the Woodman turned his head a full 180 degrees to look directly at her.

Or through her, it felt like.

“Digging back skeletons is always easier when you never got around to burying them, isn’t it?” He asked in the same nonchalant voice as ever. She half hoped he’d have snapped at her to stop being ridiculous, or growl that she was being a nuisance. It would have been easier to react to that than to this apathetic analysis. “You look like you have a packed closet full of them.”

It doesn’t have the intended effect on her. Mostly, because she has no idea what the intended effect should be and what on earth that even means.

Blast him for not being satisfied being a literal cryptic and having to be so metaphorically as well.

The Woodman has no such thing as pupils, yet Johanna feels with certainty that her face is being assessed. She does her best to school her features into neutrality, while knowing that he’d still read her like an open book if he so wanted.

“You said you haven’t changed. Do you truly believe that?”

He didn’t sound judgemental. Just curious.

Okay, maybe a tad judgemental, in a ‘how could you miss this simple memo?’ type of way.

“Do you make a habit of not watching where you’re going?”

Johanna gasped, immediately shaking off the grip that the strange creature had on her backpack.

“What are you?” She asked it.

“You’re not a very polite little girl.”

“I do.” She said with her head hung low. The Woodman had now moved to sit on the armchair in front of her, and she hadn’t even noticed.

“Oh, is that so? That is stupid.”

His fireplace - how morbid for him to have one - cracked. Along with the wind rustling the leaves outside, it was the only sound they heard for a couple of seconds. Johanna lacked the energy to argue, mentally, physically and emotionally. Kaisa was always going on about some ‘spiritual energy’, which she had no idea what that was but she’d bet she was running low on that one as well.

“There has not been a single time I’ve met you that you were the same person as you’d been before.” The Woodman stated, apparently undisturbed by her lack of reaction. “You say running is what you do.” He turned his gaze, almost imperceptibly, to a portrait on the wall, of a boy Johanna had known like the palm of her own hand, yet a man she didn’t at all. His voice softened. “Well, nature changes. It’s what nature does. And you’re part of it.”

Johanna chuckled darkly. “I’m too old to change who I am, Woodman. And who I am hasn’t ever been enough.”

Rubble, and lichen, and dirt.

The look he gave her wasn’t one of pity, though she couldn’t be sure that wasn’t just because his face only allowed for a very limited amount of emoting. “One’s never too old to grow up. And you’ve grown. A lot.”

She bit the inside of her lip, something irksome unfurling on her low belly. “Change is scary.”

“Is it worth it?”

“Yes.” She doesn't hesitate for a moment

“Well, then.” He shrugs as if he’s saying the most obvious thing ever. “Do it scared.”

…......

The Woodman walks back to the cabin with her. Her cabin, that is. He doesn’t ask if she wants him to. He doesn’t say why he does it. Just silently helps her find her way back home. It’s not as cold outside anymore, nor as scary. The sun is rising, and it’s not exactly bright yet and the shadows are still soft and unthreatening. When they’re close enough that the lights of the elf village are within sight, he begins humming a tune she is certain she knows, but can’t remember. Something that itched at her memories, but in a good way for once.

“Want to come in for breakfast?” She asks once they are out into the open field that surrounds the elf village and the cabin. There’s no way to know if they have anything he’d even eat at their house, but it felt like the least she could do was ask. They could see the sky more clearly, now. It was orange and pink, like the roses that Kaisa liked to give her.

“No need. But do tell Hilda, Mattie and the witch that I’ve sent my regards.”

“I will -” She nods, thankful for his help and completely at loss for how to express it. And then it dawns on her, slowly yet strongly all the same, just like the dawn she was currently witnessing, that she’d never told the Woodman who she’d married or that she’d had a second child, nor said child’s name. “- wait how do you -” Johanna turned to look past her right shoulder, where the Woodman had been, but the creature was already gone “know…?”

There was no time to dwell on that, nor to wonder if she’d perhaps hallucinated the entire night, because she immediately heard her wife’s distressed voice calling out to her.

“Anna!” Said the witch, who was sprinting from their cabin door directly into her arms, carrying her wand. Johanna’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of tear tracks on her face, but it was soon squeezed out of her by the collision of their chests when Kaisa locked her into a desperate hug.

“I was looking for you for hours.” Being bitten by one of the wolves that roamed those woods would have probably hurt less than hearing the despair in Kaisa’s voice did. “Are you hurt? Where were you?”

Johanna didn’t let her lift her gaze or step away to check for injuries, keeping her wife as close as possible, the shorter woman’s face in the crook of her neck.

“I’m okay.” She admitted with guilt cutting at her heart. “I’m sorry, love. I’ve been a mess, and I didn’t even know how to talk about it. Went for a walk to clear my head, but I didn’t realise I’d been away for so long. Didn’t want to worry you.”

“Yeah, you did.” Kaisa whined with a lot of relief and barely any anger. “Don’t do that again, please. Leave a note. Take a flashlight. Anything.”

Her chin resting on top of her head, Johanna squeezed her tighter, eyes falling shut. “I will. I promise. Are the girls - ?”

“Hilda woke up when I was searching the house for you. She wanted to help, but then Mattie woke up as well, so she agreed to stay in their room playing with her so she wouldn’t notice you were missing.”

Johanna let out a long exhale. She’d been irresponsible. Her family deserved better.

But they wanted her nonetheless.

“I really am sorry. And I want to talk to you about it. I want to try, at least. My mind has just felt like it’s been on fire lately. I’m not as unbothered by things as I thought I were.”

Kaisa lifts up her gaze. Her tears have mostly dried, but her eyes are still red. Johanna reaches down to press the gentlest of kisses to their lids, as if that could make it better.

“Having second thoughts?” The witch asked in a small voice, as if Johanna could ever be anything less than sure when it came to her.

“Never.”

“Then what -”

“I don’t know, dear.” Johanna sighed. “I just know there’s too much of me in this forest. That means the parts I don’t like, too. So being back is…”

She leaves the sentence there, knowing Kaisa would read her sufficiently well to complete it in her mind. The librarian took a hand that had been at the small of her back and brought it to cup Johanna’s chin.

“We’ll talk about it.” She whispered. “When you want. When you’re ready. I’ll help however I can, you know that.”

Johanna wasn’t able to nod in her hold, but she tried it anyway. Kaisa’s eyes sparkled with the rising light.

“But there is not a single part of you I do not like, Johanna. You’ll do well to remember that next time before running off dramatically into the woods again.”

Her laughter was cut short by a kiss pressed to her lips, which was also eventually interrupted by a young woman running to them with a giggling child in her arms.

Tell me I am good enough.

They played cardboard games the entire morning. In the afternoon, Alfur gave them a proper tour of the village.

Oh, lay my curses out to rest

She brought a tray with breakfast for Kaisa come morning, before she’d even woken up, and this time left a note that she’d be at the forest for a bit with Hilda and Twig, for old times’ sake.

After the weekend was over, they went back to Trolberg. And they all remained the same: ever changing.

Make a mercy out of me.

#do you ever realize you've been talking to a mutual for 5 years and get emotional? well i do #Sorry waddles this was going to be a lot less angsty. idk what happened :')#(if you read these tags before the fic dw. nothing bad happens to The Girl. Only to your wife ig)#I should. probably mention that I took inspiration from ‘Curses’ by The Crane Wives #I forget that not everyone is obsessed with this song #sketchbookweek #sketchbook ship #sketchbook ship hilda #sketchbook ship fanfic #johanna hilda #my fic #fic: curses

11 notes · View notes

yostresswritinggirl · 4 years

Note

I noticed a lack of my baby boi Bennett. Could you please write about him? (could be whatever you want, headcannon or oneshot, i need my baby boi)

This could have gone WAAAAAAY differently, really! But somehow this prompt resonated me when I'm thinking of angst AGAIN so here's what I came up with, I swear next time I'll be giving him a fluffy fic instead of nothing but angst *sweats while looking at Bennett masterlist*

Things We Lost

Dialogue prompt: "What am I without you?" "Yourself?" (event masterlist) (divider by 0Jae)

Adventure teams usually consisted of four people for many reasons; safety, flexibility, team compositions, efficiency. But the head of Benny's Adventure Team doesn't have the luxury of members in the first place, and it was pure, miraculous luck that he even had a second teammate now.

Soon enough Benny's Adventure Team became a known duo of you and him. The embodiment of unluckiness and the unlucky person it pulled in.

But somehow your dynamic worked very well than anyone would thought it would, if they even thought it would work at all. His Pyro Vision works so good not only in combat but also in support, and you work well around his fighting style despite the clumsiness of it. Soon enough you even worked around his character of unluckiness, noticing patterns and responding to them as if on reflex.

The whole of Mond sees you two as the budding duo of the guild, great team dynamic of exceptional team work.

For the first time he wasn't the kid that's neglected by the people, shooed away because of his supposed curse. He has you.

So when today came, the both of you aren't really sure what lead you here specifically. Maybe it was the Bennett's already brimming optimism paired with yours, or his curse taking effect, although you never really liked putting that as reason to anything that happens.

Dragonspine is harsh to any adventurer, a mount of great peril and defeat. Cyrus underestimated just how unforgiving the mountain is and it was honestly such a stupid thought to bring newcomers to this kind of wilderness. Not only does the sheer cold reduce the mightiest men into a shivering dog, but the mutated enemies are new creatures that brings tougher battles.

The last clause is more apparent on this trip than the rest.

Bennett shies his gaze away only to fall on the trail of red that starts beyond the entrance of the cavern. His Vision can only help this much and it wasn't enough, its glow and energy faint and draining. When he wills himself to look up again, his stomach twists more painfully than the last.

The gaping wound at your side inflicted by some cryo mutation of a Hilichurl continues to bleed through the thick bands of cloth, your whole frame quivering from the cold and pain as you try to grasp at the last of your consciousness. Bennett grasps hold of your unoccupied hand upon noticing the darkness of your nails. He should have listened to everyone's advice on bringing thicker clothing, maybe then he could have used it to keep you warm.

"Can you stand?" Your knees were trembling too much to let you walk straight, so he offered his back to carry you. You couldn't say no.

"How far are we..." You winced at the feeling of your moist bandages dampening the back of his shirt and ultimately, his own skin.

"Not too far," you already knew this was a lie, "J-Just hang on, we'll get you patched up soon."

The cold was harsher when you leave the comforts of the cave, the winds mocking your desperate attempts to flee. Beneath you sense the deepening and dragging snow even if you're being carried, the slow pace amplified by your own weight.

Soon enough he too crumbles under the harsh reality, his leg tensing before it buckles to send you two against the biting layer of snow. You two lay a gasping mess. "Bennett," you can't feel your fingers, "leave me here and save yourself."

Your partner chokes a strangled cry next to you that carries a heartbreak you've never felt before from his cherry disposition. Despite the numbness of it all, you felt him clutch at your shoulders. "Don't say that! Please, don't, not like this..." harsh tears painfully fall against your drooping eyelids yet your own couldn't produce it no matter how much you want it to.

"Benny," you sucked in a deep breath. It was getting harder to speak. "If you don't... we'll both die-"

"I can't just leave you here! What would I- What am I without you..." The wind eats his sobs gratefully with the ringing in yours ears. Yet you smiled, even as your legs felt nonexistent anymore.

And with how he clings to you, you know he's already accepting this fate.

"Yourself?" You quipped with a dry, tired, breathless laugh. The fatigue of your body comes crashing at you as if life is being sucked out of your system. "Go on without me... you have so much- so much to live for."

The frustration and anger cradles him in an internal heat in the middle of the snowstorm, as Bennett cries for the last warmth you held, cradling you in his arms until he was

once

again

alone.

@moaa @dandelion-dreams @witchsungie @lehra @zelos-simp @legionqueensav @snackgod @rxsalinee @cala-ran @wind-wheel @lilydewi22 @yellowflowre @traveler-lumine @nonniechan @creation-magician @hanniejji @gojos-baby @just-some-stars

#genshin impact x reader #genshin impact #Bennett x reader #gender neutral #oneshot #exile.goblet #exile.flower #angst AGAIN #compensation for abta again qwq #It's coming the day after tomorrow reee #I have something special planned tomorrow kandksbdlan

318 notes · View notes

prvtbugsbuggins · 3 years

Text

30 - You're Not Alone

For @whumptober2021

Chapter link -> Here

Trigger warning for: Sad gay stuff, thinking that you are hallucinating, needle mention.

Prompt: Ghosts

Summary: Caboose thinks that he's having a side effect from his treatments, but Wash realizes that there's more to these 'hallucinations' than what was originally thought.

—

Caboose started seeing things not too long after they all got settled on Iris.

Perhaps it was because Dr. Grey was doing something to fill in all the missing holes in his brain. He goes every week back to Chorus to get an injection (and a cupcake for his troubles) and then he feels strange for a few days. Strange like his brain is stretching and moving around, but surprisingly it doesn’t hurt. He hasn’t had an unscheduled nap since he had his surgery, and he was getting less headaches as time went on. Overall, he was feeling pretty great!

So he was quite concerned when he saw a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye one day. At first he thought it may be a person, but the only people on Iris was himself and his friends. He was told by Dr. Grey and Wash to tell them if he saw anything strange as it could be a side effect from what medicine he was taking. They were messing with his noggin after all, it would make sense that they were being careful. So he kept an eye out in case it happened again, now a little afraid and paranoid for what it all could mean.

Then one day when heading up to the roof of the base (to say good-morning to the sun of course), he saw a person sitting there, watching the sun rise. Caboose could see that they weren’t all...there, as thought they were an after image pasted on the scenery. They were faint, parts of them transparent enough to see the scenery through them.

The brown armor turned, the helmet looking into his. It spoke with a voice, both soft and far away. “Can you see me?”

Caboose did what he was told to do and ran downstairs to get Washingtub.

“WASHINGTUB!” He shouted, running around the base until he found his friend, getting ready to go out for PT it seemed. Before Wash could even greet him, he was met with a gigantic hug and a rather upset Caboose.

“Caboose? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Wash was confused, but returned the hug, concern in his voice.

“I saw a person on the roof!” Caboose hurriedly explained. “They were there and see-through and asked if I could see them! Agent Washingtub, am I hallucinating? I don’t want more shots!”

“Listen, lets go and take a look, okay? And then we can decide what to do next.” Wash, like always, was quick to calm the panicked Spartan down. Predictably, when they arrived on the roof, said person was nowhere to be found. Wash scanned the area, even using binoculars, but saw nothing.

“So you saw a person here, and they talked to you?” He asked once he determined that there was nobody around.

Caboose nodded. “Yeah. They were brown and they had silver and they were sitting right there! They asked if I could see them but I ran and got you because that’s what I’m supposed to do when I see strange things.”

“Hrm…” Wash looked thoughtful, looking out at the now sun bathed wilderness. “You did good ‘Boose, thank you for letting me know. Let’s see if you see anything again before we go and get Grey involved, alright?”

Caboose nodded, glad that he wasn’t going to get anymore shots anytime soon.

The second person he saw was when he was washing dishes. Simmons had introduced the concept of a ‘chore wheel’, so it was his turn to do dishes! At first nobody trusted him around breakable objects, supervising him for a while, but he proved he can wash dishes very well! He just needed help with cups, his hands were too big to fit inside, so he left them for Tucker.

He was just about to put the last plate away, when a purple and green person melted into view, standing right beside him. Caboose shouted in surprise, dropping the plate and shattering it into hundred of pieces. The person was like the first on the roof, oddly transparent. They looked at him and spoke with a sense of urgency.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

Luckily Tucker and Wash ran in to see what the commotion was, and by the time they got there the person was gone. They found a shaking Caboose huddled in a corner, broken pieces of plate everywhere.

That was when he had to go back to Chorus to talk to Dr. Grey.

Dr. Grey had huffed and speculated, talking to Wash mostly as Caboose had a hard time understanding the big words she used. “Hallucinations are a rare, but known side effect from the gene treatment,” she had said. “It’s caused by missing parts of the brain connecting again...and sometimes you see after images. I’m glad you told your friends so fast, that means we can counteract them so you won’t get so spooked again!”

He had gotten two cupcakes that day because hallucinating was scary. It wasn’t like his flashbacks, because those were things he knew. But he didn’t know these people, he had never seen them before. He was given some pills to take that will help him stay calm and a different kind of shot, something he wasn’t so happy about.

He was glad to be home again at the end of the day. It was familiar and warm and he felt safe there. He was sure that he’d be alright, Dr. Grey is smart and Washingtub is smart and he trusts them. Sometimes Tucker could be smart too, but only sometimes.

So imagine his surprise when he saw a third person hanging out in his room, as though they were waiting for him to show up. Caboose did the only rational thing he could think of doing. He took one of the pills Dr. Grey gave him and laid down on his bed to wait for it to work.

“Stop that,” He told the apparition harshly. “You are scaring me and that’s not nice. Now I have to get more shots.”

The hallucination tilted their head. “I’m sorry,” they said in a feminine voice. “We didn’t mean to make you so scared.”

“Well you are! So stop!” he huffed and rolled over to his side, more annoyed now and afraid.

“North and York were right, you can see and hear us. Interesting.” she continued. He could hear her but she stayed where she was, not coming closer.

“Can you go away? Please?” Caboose tried the polite route.

“We can’t, not until we get our message out.” she replied. Before she could say anything else, she was interrupted by Wash opening the door to his room.

“Caboose?” He asked, “Who are you talking to? Are you seeing things again?”

“Oh David…” The voice continued. “You’ve gotten so much happier. I’m so glad.”

“There’s a lady in here and she won’t be quiet and his name is NOT David, thank you very much. It’s Washingtub!” Caboose sat up in bed and shouted that last part at the corner of the room. Wash looked, but saw nothing. But what his friend said gave him pause.

“Caboose,” he started, carefully. “How did you know my name was David?”

“The lady called you David.” Caboose frowned. “The one over there that isn’t supposed to be here so I don’t get more shots.”

To Caboose’s annoyance, the other two hallucinations joined her, standing together in his room.

“Caboose,” Wash swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “What does the lady look like?”

“Uhhhhhhhhh, she has bright brown armor and she says her name is C.T. The one over there is brown and silver and he says his name is York. That one is purple and green and he says his name is North.” Caboose pointed at each person, that only he could see.

The Spartan watched Wash crumble up against the wall, clutching the part of his armor over his heart. “How do...I never talked about them-I….how?”

“I don’t know!” Caboose threw up his hands with an angry shout. “They won’t go away now until they tell you a thing!”

“And...what do they want you to tell me?” Wash looked at the area of Caboose’s ire, but saw nothing. If he imagined hard enough, he could almost see them standing there in his mind's eye. But they were dead, this couldn't be possible, could it?

Caboose tilted his head to the side, listening to something only he could hear. “They said….they said that it isn’t your fault and that they love you, and North and York say you can move on if you want...whatever that means. They want you to be happy and live cause ummmmm you look dumb when you are depressed.” Caboose sighed and flopped back against the bed. “Agent Washingtub, am I going to have to get more shots now?” He wearily asked. He sounded afraid, scared. This whole situation was probably scaring the living shit out of him. But Wash could only wheeze for a little bit before he could catch his breath.

“I...no. No Caboose, you won’t have to get more shots.” He finally managed, blinking back tears that nobody could see. “Are they...are they still there?”

Caboose let out a long, suffering sigh. “Yeah. They are looking at you.”

Wash couldn’t help but shiver at that, the idea of his dead friend and partners staring at him was unnerving. They were dead, but apparently Caboose could see them. See actual fucking ghosts. Wash knew that rationally, he shouldn’t believe him, he could just be hallucinating in just the right way…

But nobody knew about York and North and himself.

“I…” He didn’t quite know what to say, so he just decided to wing it. “I miss you guys. You say it isn’t my fault, but I still feel guilty. I don’t think I can ever stop loving you all, but I’ll try my best to follow your wishes.”

“They called you a...oh. I’m not allowed to say-, well, if you say so…” Caboose cleared his throat. “They say, ‘You are a fucking dork, be happy you dumb shit.’” He frowned and shivered at having to curse, even if it was a direct quote.

“I promise, I’ll give it my best shot.” Wash closed his eyes, and could almost imagine being hugged by them again. The touch now a faded memory, but he could still remember what they smelled like. He doesn’t think he could ever forget that, not in a million years. He opened them to see Caboose look relieved.

“They’re gone,” he sighed. “I will take a nap so I do not have to think about this anymore. That was scary.”

“You do that Caboose, I’ll leave you alone.” Wash watched Caboose flop over to his side, walking out and closing the door behind him. Poor Caboose, he hoped he'd be okay after all of this. He really should bake some cupcakes, just in case. To be honest, most likely Caboose would forget that this even happened, perhaps letting the poor man relax without worrying about ghosts anymore.

He didn’t think the pain of losing the people he cared about would ever go away, but hearing that he was allowed to be happy, even if it was second hand from his friend, gave him a little more hope for the future.

If he was now allowed to be happy, perhaps he’ll go and see what Tucker is up to.

—

HAHA I can include a tiny headcanon of mine that Wash was in a poly relationship with North and York and losing them both, plus his best bud C.T. really fucked him up for a good long while. It hard to move past all that pain, and sometimes you feel like you have to stay loyal to a memory of someone. But these three hung around until someone could see them, and tell Wash to knock it the fuck off.

You are allowed to be happy.

It's just a shame they freaked Caboose right the fuck out, cause he legit believes he was hallucinating this all. He used to believe in ghosts until the EMP killed Alpha. Caboose was rightly concerned about his health and actually did a good going right to his friends and doctor when things seem weird. The gene therapy he is getting is making parts of his brain grow just to plug any holes. He won't get those functions back but it's designed to lessen his chronic headaches and seizures.

Yes Wash is gonna see what Tucker is up to cause that's another ship I like XD If it happens or not is up to Tucker, but I think he's a disaster Bi. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

22 notes · View notes

adenei · 3 years

Text

Summer of Jily Week 4

It's week 4 for @efkgirldetective's Summer of Jily challenge! You sure did send me for a loop with this one, but I've managed to keep the one-shots turned multi chap story going!

This week's prompts: Picking Berries and "I know I kissed you before, but I didn't do it right."

Read on AO3

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

James didn’t sleep at all that night. He couldn’t stop thinking about the carnival. His thoughts shifted between being mad at Sirius for winning that damn prize and presenting it to Lily—that was his stupid, cheesy plan that his best mate had hijacked—and the Ferris wheel ride.

About saving your letters or waiting for you to ask me out?

How could he have been so thick? And how is it that he keeps royally mucking things up? He’d had the perfect opportunity to kiss Lily right there on the ride, but then it had to move again, and he’d gotten sidetracked at the feeling of flying on a muggle contraption.

Hadn’t he come along with the boys to crash the girls trip so he could spend more time with Lily? He’d devised the perfect opportunity to sweep her off her feet, and he swore to himself he would only ask her out if she made it blatantly obvious that she wanted him to. As much as it killed him, he’d rather not lose her friendship over pressing her one too many times.

But now, she had made it clear that she was waiting for him to make a move, and what does he do instead? Lets her walk away after the sunrise, hits her with a ball by the lake, and then avoids her throughout the entire carnival until their friends force them to share a compartment on that bloody ride.

He’d had the perfect opportunity to kiss her right there, to ask her to be his girlfriend, and what does he do instead? Freezes. James Potter, master of smooth pick-up lines, carefree, easy-going Gryffindor heartthrob (says the Hogwarts gossip circle, not that he pays attention to any of that—why would he when he’s got his heart set on one girl?) freezes.

Well, he didn’t totally freeze. After they’d apparated back to the cabin, he and Lily were the last two in the sitting area before they went to bed. He walked her to the door of the girl’s room and kissed her on the cheek before bidding her goodnight.

It had taken all of his willpower to not pull her into his arms and snog her senseless after her confession earlier that evening. Yet, after seeing her disappointed face before she shut the door to the bedroom, he wished he had. She’d thrown his entire game off, and he needed to fix it before he lost his chance with Lily for good.

Resigning himself to the fact that he was awake to see another sunrise, James dragged himself out of bed and picked up his glasses on the nightstand before stepping around the mattress on the floor where Peter currently snored away. He grabbed the nearest shirt he could find and threw it on before slipping out of the bedroom.

It was lighter out than he was expecting, meaning he’d probably missed the sunrise. The boys preferred to sleep in pitch black, but the spell they cast on the window the night before was fading, allowing the daybreak to sift through and consequently throwing off his sense of time. He started the coffee pot and leaned against the counter while he waited for the pot to brew.

Caffeine would be necessary to stay awake today, or maybe he could sneak a nap in at some point. Hell, maybe he’d be able to convince Lily to join him for said nap. He could think of plenty of things they could get up to whilst they were in bed together. James let his mind wander to thoughts of getting to know her in a more intimate setting. The kind that he’d often wank to when he needed a release.

The rich smell of dark roast wafted through the living area. James forced his thoughts away from images of Lily writhing beneath him as he reached for a mug. He only barely heard the click of a door as he pulled the pot off to pour himself a cup.

“Another early morning?”

James looked up to see Lily standing there, her hair messy from sleep. She ran her fingers through it in an attempt to comb it out. The green of her eyes were barely visible under still somewhat droopy eyelids. Something stirred within him, and despite the fact that he was only seventeen, it was a view he knew he could get used to.

“That would imply I slept. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, but I couldn’t resist the smell of coffee. Why couldn’t you sleep?”

“Peter’s snoring reached new levels last night.”

The lie slipped off his lips with ease, although it wasn’t altogether convincing. A simple Muffliato charm would have allowed him the peace and quiet he needed to fall asleep. Her skeptical look wasn’t lost on him as he absent-mindedly began fixing the cup he’d poured with the amount of milk and sugar Lily preferred. He wasn’t aware he was doing it until he handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said. “Since when do you know how I take my coffee?”

“Come on, Evans, you don’t think I’ve noticed? Some things stick after eating breakfast with someone over the last year.” James smirked.

He grabbed another mug from the cabinet and poured his own cup without adding anything to it. James blew over the dark brown liquid to help cool it off as he watched Lily take a minuscule sip of her own.

“That’s fair. I still don’t know how you can drink yours black.”

“Some say I’m sweet enough on my own.” The quip was automatic as Lily laughed at his humor.

Merlin, her laugh is infectious. James swore the reason he said half of the stuff he did was so he could hear her laugh.

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

The question came from nowhere, but the early morning was so peaceful that he wanted to experience it with her, preferably hand in hand.

“Sure.”

They left their coffee mugs abandoned on the Formica as they headed to the door and slid on their shoes. Lily grabbed a jacket off the coat rack and zipped it up halfway. James closed the door quietly behind him then led her over to the trail he and the boys explored yesterday. The path wasn’t terribly long, but it ended up in a quiet and secluded area where the lake met pebbled terrain.

“So, was the dolphin a good sleeping partner?” James’s voice cut through the light layer of morning fog.

Lily chuckled. “I don’t know, I let Marly sleep with him instead.”

“Ah, Sirius will be heartbroken if he learns of your betrayal.” His words were meant to be a joke, yet they didn’t come across as lighthearted as he’d hoped.

“Well, good thing you won’t tell him. Right?” Lily’s questioning eyes made James’s heart skip a beat.

“I suppose I can keep your secret, Evans, but it’ll cost you.”

“Oh? And what might that price be, Potter?”

The green of the trees and shrubbery only enhanced the sparkle that glinted in her eyes. James wondered if she was testing him. Shouldn’t she know by now that he never backed down from a challenge?

“Ditch your friends and spend the day with me instead.”

“Like a date?”

“Yes, Evans, like a date.”

“Well, good thing we’re getting an early start. Now we can make the most of the day.”

James grinned at Lily’s acceptance as they continued down the trail.

They were nearly at the clearing by the water when Lily stopped, causing James to turn around. “Is this the path you and the boys were on yesterday afternoon?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, when Mary asked if you found anything interesting, you said no.”

“Because there isn’t…”

“That’s not true! Look at the blackberry bushes over there!”

James’s head turned to the direction Lily was pointing at, and sure enough, there were several bushes, low to the ground and full of clumps of blackberries. Lily bent down to pick a few off the branches.

“How do you know they’re blackberries and not nightshade or something?”

“Honestly, Potter, did you not pay attention when Sprout taught that unit on edible plants and where to find them in the wilderness?”

“No? Guess I was a bit distracted.”

“Nightshade grows off the stem in one circle. They look more like blueberries, except they’re shinier and darker. Blackberries have all the little bumps on them like this. Almost like a raspberry, but a different color.”

Lily picked a handful of berries during her explanation and stood when she was finished. James saw her holding them delicately in an effort to stop them staining her hands. Using her forefinger and thumb, she picked one up and held it to James’s mouth.

“Try it.”

James opened his mouth and let her place the berry on his tongue. He locked eyes with her as his lips closed around her fingers. An explosion of flavor bursts on his tongue as he bit down on the fruit. The tartness caused him to squint and pucker his lips slightly. Lily smiled at his reaction as she popped a couple berries in her mouth.

She was right—they tasted way better when picked fresh. He held out his hand for more, and she gave him a couple to munch on as they continued walking through the woods. James’s brain was fixated on the way she fed him as his feet moved him forward. Their hands grazed against each other, and James held on after the third bump. He felt her fingers intertwine with his as their steps aligned on the dirt path. As they inched their way toward the rocky clearing of the lake, a plan formed in his mind, and he knew exactly what he needed to do to match Lily’s brazenness of the night before and kick off their day-long date properly.

“Oh, wow,” she whispered as the trail gave way to the stunning view of the calm water ahead of them. The fog had settled across the still water, preventing them from seeing the other side of the lake.

“Lily—”

“Okay, the berries were one thing, but hiding this view from us? How—” Lily froze mid-sentence as comprehension dawned on her. “Did you just call me Lily?”

“Yeah, I did, but please go on about how we didn’t tell you about this.”

“No, I think I’d rather hear what you have to say instead.”

“You sure? I know how much you love being able to prove us wrong.”

James paused, waiting for Lily’s reaction. He loved riling her up like this. The way he alluded to something but then held it just out of her grasp to ensure that she truly wanted to know what he had to say. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he waited.

“What do you mean, am I sure? Would I have asked you to tell me if I wasn’t?”

He thought about keeping up with the banter, but he was tired of waiting.

“That’s fair. Look, I know I kissed you before—y’know, last night—but I didn’t do it right, and I’d like to make up for that right now if you’ll let me.”

There was a sharp intake of air, and if James could pat himself on the back for catching Lily off-guard, he would. But she regained her composure before shooting a challenging look in his direction.

“Since when does James Potter ask permission before kissing a girl? I thought he—how did Sirius put it? Sets his eyes on what he wants and goes for it?”

James chuckled and cringed at the same time, remembering how Sirius explained James’s intentions during fifth year.

“Well, as true as that may be, I still try to be a gentleman about it. I’d never make an unwanted advance if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Interesting, considering I thought I made it clear what I wanted last night.”

Were his eyes playing tricks on him, or did Lily just take a tiny step forward?

“Is that so?”

“It is. And it sounds like you’re stalling.”

“Please, Evans, you’d know when I’d be stalling.”

“What are you waiting for, then?”

The words barely escaped her mouth, James didn’t waste any more time as his hands lifted to cup Lily’s face. He leaned in and captured her lips with his, the tangy taste of the berries still lingering on her mouth. Everything about Lily’s lips were soft and inviting as her hands found a home on his lower back. He felt her mouth open slightly as her teeth grazed his bottom lip, eliciting a small moan from his mouth.

James deepened the kiss as his tongue swiped across her lips. Her hands pushed him closer as her mouth widened, inviting him to explore. A quack in the distance was the only thing that reminded them where they were, as James slowly broke away. She was more beautiful than he remembered, with her lips swollen from his kiss and the dazed look of bliss on her face.

“Well, I’m used to ending the date with a kiss, not starting it,” her words were breathless.

James chuckled at Lily’s words. “Am I to take that as a good or bad thing?”

“Good. Very good.”

“And just imagine, we’ve got the whole day ahead of us now.”

“This is true. Should we head back and get ready for the rest of the day?”

“Sounds brilliant.”

James had no idea what they were going to do for the day, but he planned on making the most of their time spent together. Nothing could go wrong.

#summerofjily #jily #jily fic #james potter #lily evans #james x lily

32 notes · View notes

vendettamemes-a · 3 years

Text

Random Prompts for Your Needs

As always, adjust nouns/pronouns as needed!

“I’m here for you if you need it.”

“Let them go!”

“Leave them alone!”

“I know it’s you.”

“I know you’re there.”

“Any particular reason you’re following me?”

“When did you realize you were in love?”

“Actually, that makes even less sense now that you’ve explained it.”

“I can see the resemblance.”

“No matter how many years pass I’ll always remember your voice.”

“There’s a time for us. But it’s not now.”

“I will always be with you.”

“I want to walk beside you forever.”

“Take my hand and don’t let go.”

“If I could I’d sweep you off your feet physically too.”

“I love you.”

“I can’t believe it took us nearly dying just for me to realize _____.”

“One of these days, you’re going to get yourself into a situation where you’re fucked, and you’re not gonna be able to un-fuck yourself.”

“____ing to try and fill the void never works. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“This one’s for all the people who made this possible. Including the one’s that aren’t here to see it anymore.”

“I wish you were here.”

“You’d love this place.”

“This reminded me of you.”

“I think about you sometimes. I’ll look at something or visit some place and just think of you and how you’d like it.”

“I never want to be apart from you.”

“It feels strange knowing how two people’s souls could be tied together and they never even know it.”

“Alright, the truth is I’ve known for a long time.”

“You and I? We’re partners in crime. Thick as thieves we are. A real pair of aces.”

“All my life I’ve felt like a monster. But with you, I actually feel human.”

“You make me feel like a person.”

“When I’m with you, the feeling is indescribable!”

“We should make a secret handshake or something.”

“You smell so good.”

“That looks new.”

“Something’s different about you... I like it.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before.”

“Whatever you’re doing right now, drop it. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

“You look nice. Going somewhere?”

“Now where do you think you’re going all dolled up like that?”

“I’m not the best at this. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Your hair is so soft.”

“Is that my shirt/jacket/sweater?”

“There you go again trying to steal my look.”

“Talking to you feels like a game of Wheel of Fortune sometimes.”

“Am I speaking another language?!”

“You have the attention span of a fucking wet soap bar.”

“So you have been paying attention.”

“Impressive. No, I had total faith in you, really. I just didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

“Good plan, what do you want written on your tombstone?”

“____. Famous last words.”

“I can’t die now! I don’t even have a will written up!”

“You came back for me?”

“I’d never leave you behind.”

“Just because I’m pissed at you doesn’t mean I suddenly stop caring about you.”

“Just because I’m pissed at you doesn’t mean I suddenly stop loving you.”

“Quite beating around the bush, just tell me why you’re acting like this.”

“You know why people say communication is key? You. You are the reason why people say that.”

“You’re gonna have a date with your hand if you keep that up.”

“____ squad!”

“You’re the Yee to my Haw.”

“You’re so warm...”

“Something about you just makes me want to hold you close and never let you go.”

“You have all the ferocious instincts of a hamster hunting a shred of lettuce.”

“If you were going for scary I’m sorry to tell you that it’s not coming off that way.”

“Where did you hide my ____?”

“How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t just go around putting things in your mouth?”

“You’ve got a little something on your face.”

“I’d ask where you got this ____ but I’m too afraid to find out so I’m just not going to question it.”

“On this episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive...”

“I just feel like you could benefit from a good trip to a therapist about this.”

“When this is all over, we’re gonna nap for at least three days and no one better bother us.”

“I’ve been in the wilderness for so long that granola bars have been liquified in my pockets. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Woah, hey! Easy! Put that down before you hurt yourself!”

“This actually turned pretty nice! I’m proud of us!”

“You made this for me?”

“You did this for me?”

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

“I used to think this sort of thing was pointless but you’re really changing my mind here.”

“I’ve never known you to be anything but stubbornly perseverant.”

“If you put your mind to it, I know it’ll get done.”

“I trust that I’m leaving this in good hands.”

“Just give me a bunch of seed and a yo-yo. I’ll get you a ____.”

“You just feel your soul leave your body too?”

“Oh quit complaining, at least yours was floating up.”

“Pretty sure this is how at least one war in history started.”

“You don’t need to be here if you don’t want to.”

“You feel like staying the night?”

“I’m not letting you go home like this.”

“Stay with me.”

“Maybe just five more minutes...”

“Ah ah, put that down.”

“Oh we’re not going anywhere.”

“Look at this mess.”

“No, our situation is bad enough as is. We are not adding a dog to this mess.”

“Can we keep it? Please?”

“The stork’s on its way. What? No, you idiot- I meant an actual stork.”

“Don’t move. I think we’re being watched.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“I know I say this a lot but this is a bad idea.”

“This is the biggest Uh-Oh I think I’ve ever been in. I mean, it’s beyond Spaghetti-O’s levels of Uh-oh.”

“It’s gonna be a long trip.”

“Well at least your playlist has some good tracks.”

“Alright, that’s enough. Turn it off.”

“Would you get out from under there already?”

#misc starters #prompts

32 notes · View notes

wren-ravenheart · 3 years

Text

Sharing is Caring

@witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo

Prompt: Sharing Food Relationships: Lambert/Jaskier , background mentioned Aiden/Jaskier and Aiden/Lambert Rating: T Content Warnings: Kisses, implied polyamory Summary: (No lie, this one takes the setting of my previous prompt and runs away with it into Poly territory...ish) Aiden has left Lambert with the upstart bard he had adopted from the woods, leaving him at odds with how to navigate the singing fool and wondering whether to trust him or not.

Cross-posted to Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32269096

~ It had been two months, one week, and four days since the loud and sometimes abrasive bard had stumbled into his life, and so far had shown no signs of actually going anywhere. Ever since Aiden had rescued the fool from Wargs in the middle of bloody nowhere, he had been stuck to their side like glue. Aiden had doted on him, taught him how to set proper snares, and shared his dinner with him nearly every night. The bard had taken to the lessons quickly, and even asked to share in the training Aiden did most evenings with his short swords.

Lambert didn’t trust it. Yes, the bard was pretty, and yes, he was learning quickly. But he still couldn’t put his finger on why a bard of all things was a) in the wilderness and b) so damn happy to learn survival skills from a pair of fucked up Witchers. So he watched, and wondered, and would have felt slightly jealous of the stolen kisses he shared with Aiden if the Cat didn’t then show Lambert much later how much he still adored him.

And then Aiden had split off to catch his own quarry about three weeks ago, whispered some loving words into both their ears and left Lambert with the Bard. He didn’t like that at all. The bard, however, was thrilled to follow after Lambert like a lost puppy.

“Why aren’t you going with him? Why are you even still following either of us at all?” Lambert had asked, a frown firmly on his face.

The bard had merely shrugged and smiled at him. “Because you need my company more. And I enjoy it. Safety in numbers and all that tosh.”

Lambert had growled at him and stomped off down the road. The bard followed, whistling. The frown on his face settled into a permanent scowl after that. He didn’t need the company of some noisy peacock, and he still wasn’t convinced the bard wasn’t after something. If he could just figure out whatever it was the bard was after, he could sleep a little easier.

As it was, they slept on opposite sides of the campfire, Lambert never turned his back to him and never shared his own dinner. Aiden had taught him to hunt small game and cook, he couldn’t fend for his damned self. But he had also taught him to fight, and that set Lambert slightly off-kilter. Why was this bard still following him if he had already gotten all the lessons on surviving that he was going to get? No human just… enjoyed the company of witchers.

The bard whistled, hummed, and sang all the damned time. He tried to share the meager things he caught and roasted over their fire, and offered on more than one occasion to help him “loosen up”, as he put it. Lambert had been with Aiden long enough to know a come on when he heard it. He had brushed him off with a wave and gone back to his own private brooding.

And still… here he was. Sitting by his fire and sharing his space. Confounding him.

“Would you mind if I sat a bit closer? Seasons feel like they’re turning and I’m a little cold on this side.”

Lambert watched him for a moment. Jaskier just smiled softly back and tried to suppress a small shiver. With a sigh, the witcher waved him over with a jerk of his hand and made space for him. Jaskier bounced over with an even brighter grin and settled down as close as he dared.

“Thank you, Lambert. The snares were empty this evening and if I can’t have a full belly, I can at least sleep warm.”

Something twisted a little inside of him at the admission of his hunting failure. He’d go hungry tonight for sure…

For soft reasons he would never admit to later, Lambert carved off a part of his own dinner and handed it wordlessly to the bard. Jaskier looked at the offering in mild shock for a moment before quickly taking it. He leaned over and pressed a quick peck to Lamber’s cheek in thanks and settled back to eat.

The tips of Lambert’s ears went pink as he quickly wolfed down his own food. A companionable silence settled over them as Jaskier licked his fingers clean and leaned up against Lambert’s side brazenly. He tried not to track the way his fingers came out of his mouth with little pops. It wasn’t working so well. He shifted slightly in his place.

“Thank you, Lamb. You’ve never shared your food before. I’m grateful.”

Lambert grunted.

“You know… this is why I stayed.”

“To inevitably steal parts of my meal?”

“Rude! No! To loosen you up. Keep you civil, as Aiden would put it.”

“Oh he put you up to this did he?” Lambert sniped back hotly. He was starting to get angry. It seemed like his partner had conspired against him somehow, he just wasn’t sure why.

Jaskier shifted to look at him better, showing the slight sad look on his face. “No… no not at all. Just that… Well, we both agreed you’re an expert level brooder and that it would be nice if you had company to keep you on your toes, maybe make you smile once in a while. Plus, I… well, I like you. I wanted to see if you’d ever thaw to my presence.”

Lambert stared at him. Jaskier… liked him? He just wanted to hang around because he liked him? The wheels clicked around in his head as he put all the pieces together. He smirked at the bard, and Jaskier had the sense to turn bright pink at the look he was being given. Well, that was promising.

Screw it, he thought.

With mildly exaggerated movements the bard could easily track, Lambert shifted and reached out to curl a hand around his neck and pull him closer. Jaskier went with no resistance, putty in his hands as he was hauled into the other’s lap and rough lips settled against his own. He moved just enough to properly straddle Lambert’s thighs and settle his arms around his neck, then angled his head just so and changed the pace of the kiss from soft and timid, to deep and wanting in a matter of moments.

When they finally broke for air and to shift into a more comfortable position, Jaskier chuckled. “I should fail miserably to catch my own food more often…”

“Mm, don’t push your luck Bard… I’ll let you starve. Just see if I don’t.”

Jaskier chuckled softly and set his teeth against Lambert’s ear, startling a hiss out of him and then a soft groan. “Mm… no, I don’t think you will. After all… sharing is caring. And what’s a little lunch between friends?”

Lambert slid his hands down to squeeze at Jaskier’s waist and made little retaliatory nips at his neck, making him shiver. “Friends… just you wait until Aiden gets back… I’ll show you how good I can be at sharing with my ‘friends’.”

#Lambert/Jaskier #my writing #Witcher rarepair summer bingo event #prompt fill #geraskier

17 notes · View notes

jkl-fff · 3 years

Note

Dipper and Norman, #50

Thanks for the prompt!

Comedy Golem

It was a rest stop like any other in the Northeast. Just a gas station with some picnic tables, surrounded by deciduous woodlands. But the car pulled into it all the same. Two young men—partners in work, partners in life, and partners not infrequently in actions of questionable legality (although “crime” was such a strong word)—then set themselves up at one of the picnic tables, producing sodas and sandwiches from a cooler.

Laying out a map of the Northeast, Dipper gestured towards a sizeable splotch of green in upper Pennsylvania. It was labeled “Alleghany National Forest”, its shape vaguely reminded Norman of an elephant’s head (with an upraised trunk), and it was clearly the epicenter of a wide swath of red post-its marked with names and some rather recent dates. “As you can see, we’ve got its—his? her? their? whatever—probable location pretty well pinned down.��

“Oh, absolutely,” Norman replied around a bite of sandwich. His tone was deadpan, as it usually was (perhaps an occupational hazard of being a Medium … or of spending most of his time around the Pines family and their own special brand of insanity). “Practically pinpoint accuracy, in fact. Only … 1000 square miles of untamed woodlands for us to search.”

“Pff! Untamed,” Dipper scoffed with the kind of elitist scorn only heard from people who hail from west of the Rockies whenever the subject of Appalachia’s wilderness is broached. “Right. Which means we might get as low as three bars during our investigation. How perilous. Besides, it’s barely even 800 square miles—I checked.”

“Of course you did.”

“But, nah, I think I’ve actually narrowed down the location even further. To riiiiiight … here.”

Norman craned his neck to read the spot his friend tapped (after lifting aside the veritable blanket of red post-its covering it, as it was the center of the epicenter). “… Squirrely Stars Campground. Huh. That why they call this thing ‘the Squirrel Hill Golem’?”

“Nah, that’s because the first sighting was in a neighborhood of Pittsburgh called Squirrel Hill.”

“… You’re yanking my chain. You’ve gotta be.”

“Nope.” Dipper gestured to that segment of the map. “Read it and gape in bewilderment. But, considering Pittsburgh has a massive Jewish population and that’s one of its major sectors, sorta makes sense a Golem would first come outta there. My research suggests it was a Rabbi named Mahara Chelmman who made it back in 1997 (although she wasn’t a Rabbi at the time she made the Golem), but that’s not 100% verified; could’ve been two other people.”

Norman considered that, and it all sounded reasonable enough. For a given value of reasonable, at any rate, since he was dealing with a Pines here. A very negotiable given value of reasonable. “… So did the Golem run off from Pittsburgh a la f-Frankenstein’s Monster upon being rejected by its … Um. How ‘bout we just use a Third-Person, Singular ‘they’ for now?”

“Works for me.”

“Okay. Yada-yada, Frankenstein’s Monster rejected by their creator?”

That got a shrug in response. “Hard to say. Most accounts suggest everyone was cool with them. They might’ve just, like, decided they wanted to live their own life? It was the 90s …”

“So they ran off into the woods of Northern Pennsylvania for the next … twenty-ish years. Sure. Why not? Lots of mud out here—Golems do need m-mud, right?”

“It helps. Makes it easier for them to, like, heal or regenerate and such. Anyway, I’m thinking you will infiltrate the camp and blend in there—”

“Squirrely Stars,” Norman couldn’t help but smirk at the dumb name.

“—to find out what the people there know, maybe interview some Ghosts, too, if there are any. It’s where the highest concentration of sightings are clustered, so someone’s gotta be able to give us something workable.”

Norman nodded his assent. “Makes sense. I’m g-generally better at talking to people—”

“Right? Those were my thoughts exactly!” Dipper hastened to agree.

“—and not like you can communicate with Ghosts 97% of the time, anyway. What about you, though? If I’m doing the people-work at camp, what’re you gonna be doing?”

“Trek around the area out a ways from the camp. See what traces of the Golem I can forestry up. Footprints, magical energies, that sorta thing. Leg-work while you do the people-work. Also makes sense, right, since I’m better at that kinda stuff anyway?” Dipper asked. In a tone of voice that was … almost leading.

Which instantly made Norman a bit suspicious. But there wasn’t anything in that assessment either of them could disagree with, so he had to concede, “… I suppose you’re better at all the, um, stuff out in the woods—”

“Great!” Dipper was already halfway back to the car. “Let’s get moving! I’ll drop you off there.”

***TWO HOURS LATER*** PARKED OUTSIDE THE ENTRANCE TO A DIRT ROAD BENEATH A SIGN READING “SQUIRRELY STARS CAMPGROUND WARNING: NATURIST PROPERTY”

“Okay, but WHY do I have to be NAKED?!” Norman shrilled at the young man he had, until roughly five seconds ago, thought would always be his partner in life. Whereas now he was thinking that young man was about to be his former partner in life. Because he might kill him. Just straight-up murder him with a hefty tree branch or a sharp rock or maybe his bare hands.

Being a Medium meant their relationship wouldn’t have to end at death, true, but you couldn’t exactly call someone your “life partner” if they were dead. Especially if because you killed them by repeatedly smacking their face into the steering wheel or hurling them right into the sun or strangling them with their own seatbelt. That tended to sour most relationships.

“Look, I realize—”

“WHY does ANYONE have to be NAKED?!”

“Because it’s a nudist colony. Or … Well, maybe ‘nudist resort’ is more accurate?” Dipper mused aloud to himself. “Meh. Either way, ‘cause that’s the no-dress code here.”

“But WHY do I have to be NAKED?!”

“How else are you gonna infiltrate and then blend in at a nudist colony and/or resort? C’mon, man, you gotta think logically about this.”

“Yeah, but … WHY does ANYONE who is ME have to be NAKED?!”

“They prob’ly won’t talk to you if you’re not,” Dipper explained, his manner reasonable enough. For a given value of reasonable, at any rate. A very negotiable given value of reasonable. “Like, you’d make them uncomfortable .”

“Oh, well, I c-certainly wouldn’t want them to be uncomfortable!” Norman retorted witheringly.

“It won’t be for long. Just long enough to, y’know, fit in a little and scrounge some info.”

“Never worried about fitting in before,” Norman grumbled. “Don’t see why I should start now. Anyway, if this’s so easy, why aren’t y-you doing it?”

“You said it yourself: You’re better at talking to people, I’m better at ‘all the stuff in the woods’.” And Dipper couldn’t keep a grin from spreading across his face as he quoted him.

“… I hate you soo much right now.”

Dipper shrugged. “That’s fair. But, seriously though, it’s safer this way, too, ‘cause I’m Jewish.”

Norman blinked. Then he blinked again. “… What?”

“I’m Jewish, so the Golem won’t try to hurt me if they’re acting, like, confrontational.”

Norman shook his head. “Okay, no, I’m calling bullshit on that.”

“Dude, you know I’m Jew—”

“No, yes, I know you’re Jewish,” Norman snapped impatiently. “I mean I’m calling b-bullshit on that being some sorta, like, pseudo-mystical-religious-ethnic protection from Golems.”

“Golems exist to protect Jewish people,” Dipper countered, a little condescendingly. “They, like, physically can’t hurt us. Everybody knows that—it’s the first thing you learn about Golems.”

“Even assuming that’s true—and I don’t assume it, in fact, I contest it—how in the 79 Hells’re you supposed, like, to prove your Jewishness (especially to a vaguely humanoid shape made outta mud)? You gotta yarmulke on under that stupid cap of yours I don’t know about?”

“First of all: screw you, my cap is iconic.” Dipper even took a moment to admire his reflection in the rearview mirror, straightened his cap ever so slightly, and made fingerguns at himself. “Second of all: I’ll just say a birkhot or something. Ooo! Maybe even one of the secret ones from the Kabballah! Though a regular one’d prob’ly work fine.”

“Oh, please, I c-could do that. Doesn’t prove anyth—”

“No, you could not. You don’t even know what a birkhot is.”

“It’s like … a prayer and magic incantation rolled into one,” Norman replied (albeit hesitantly).

“Pff! No, that’s not what a bir—”

“In fact, I’m 100% certain I’ve heard you describe birkhots exactly that way,” Norman asserted, not hesitant any longer. “Same way you d-describe the other (and I quote) ‘sorta pseudo-mystical-religious-ethnic spells and incantations and stuff’ you’ve got memorized in pre-Catholic Latin and Ancient Greek and Old Nordic for whenever we gotta deal with a … y’know, with a demon-adjacent, supernatural entity.”

Dipper considered that a moment. Then he admitted, “Okay, maybe yeah, that does sound like something I’d say. But the point—”

“HA! Vindication!” And Norman pounded the dashboard in triumph.

“But the point is, I can recite ‘בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הַעוֹלָם, דָיַן הַאֱמֶת׃’ at the drop of a hat—wait! the drop of a freakin’ kippah—with all the additional, apotropaic hand signs … Whereas you can’t even do a basic exorcism or protective spell in any language.”

Norman crossed his arms and sulkily looked out the passenger window. “Well, s-some of us just t-talk to the spirits and such. Like a n-normal, polite person … w-works just fine … ” Eventually, he huffed, “Why in the 79 Hells is a Golem even hanging around a n-nudist colony?!”

“A resort, I think.”

“I will murder you,” Norman stated, as if making a solemn vow. “With … an ice cream scoop.”

“Heh! Love you, too. Soo … does that mean you’ll do it?”

“You haven’t even answered my question.”

“Honestly? No clue. I just kinda assumed the Golem turned out to be, like, a pervert? But maybe they feel more at home among other people who aren’t wearing clothes? But, anyway, will you? … C’mon, Normy-warmy,” Dipper wheedled, his voice taking on a cutesy, coaxing, pleadingly singsong tone. “Pleeeease, Normy-warmy?”

“… That is ch-cheating, and you know it.”

“Pleeeease help me with this Monster Hunt? You just gotta talk to some people (and/or Ghosts). It won’t even take that long. Heck, if the people in there are anything like me, once they see you naked, their brains’ll stop working due to awestruck amazement—”

Norman grumbled, “S-soo much cheating.”

“—and they’ll be soo mesmerized by your sexy body (and beautiful smile)—”

“Why am I dating such an honorless cheater?” But, despite his protests, Norman was blushing.

“—that they’ll be compelled to do whatever you want for, like, the rest of their lives. It’ll be quick and easy. I promise.”

Feebly, Norman made one final attempt. “…But I sunburn so easy—”

Dipper reached over to open the glove compartment. Inside was a bottle of SPF100 sunscreen.

“… Fffffine. But you owe me big.”

“Deal!”

“I’m talking, like, a solid w-week of pampering.”

“Deal!”

“Romantic dates. Fancy cooking. Back rubs on demand—”

“Deal!” And Dipper punctuated that with a kiss to Norman’s cheek. “Now strip! Oh, but you can leave your shoes and socks on (the nudists aren’t idiots, even if they are sorta nuts). And, also, they usually use backpacks for holding onto all their stuff. What with not having pockets.”

Pulling off his shirt, Norman sighed. “Why do I keep letting you talk me into stuff like this?”

#parapines #gravity falls #paranorman #dipper pines #norman babcock #dipper #norman #jewish #writing prompt #writing #magic #golem #comedy #humor #linguistics #language #folklore #arneyblay2

14 notes · View notes

anamatics · 4 years

Note

Send a ship and I’ll tell you who: Fleurmione 🥺

Here have some stuff form the Teenagers Universe, some spoilers as this is mostly set in the aftermath as that’s what I’m writing now. Slight CW for dealing with the aftermath of trauma.

Gives nose/forehead kisses

Probably Fleur, she's the more affectionate of the two of them, but when Fleur dozes off in the middle of a translation, half-read books of runic poetry scattered across the desk and crumpled bits of parchment scatted on the floor. Hermione drapes a blanket over Fleur's shoulders and gently shakes her awake. "Come to bed," she says. She bends and presses her lips to Fleur's forehead. "The runes will still be there in the morning."

Gets jealous the most

Jealousy was reserved for that one time that Hermione had a maybe-almost-something with Pansy that blossomed into what even Fleur agrees is one of the healthiest friendships either of them has. And besides, Hermione had that mortifying moment with Professor McGonagall that was, well, enlightening for everyone. When Pansy finds out about that during a party she laughs for a good ten minutes before giving Hermione a slow once-over and announcing, “I stand by my point about degenerates and nerds from fifth year.”

Hermione doesn’t hex her, but it’s a close thing.

Picks the other up from the bar when they’re too drunk to drive

So maybe Ron splitches himself once too many, and Hermione’s started to just take the night tube back to White City. It’s easier, honestly. Living in a space that straddles both muggle and wizarding London has left her so accustomed to occupying both spaces that it seems the natural option. When she and Fleur get caught in the turnstiles, and neither of them can quite get their oyster cards to read, they realize that they’re in their late thirties and probably should not be out so late when they have children waiting for them at home. But Pansy throws the best parties and the sitter’s agreed to stay late while they explain to the TFL attendant that they’re not too drunk to get on the train, and no one will get sick.

Takes care of on sick days

Here’s the thing. Wizards don’t get sick the way muggles do, no, they have ailments of the wizarding kind that Hermione’s got no idea how to deal with them when she first encounters a case of dragon pox on her third day of residency at the Queen Vic’s A&E. She still gets headcolds and a flu shot every year because in the eyes of magic she’s more muggle than witch. Fleur attempts to make soup, and, despite Hermione having (relatively) mastered cooking, she’s still not the best at it. When she ends up disappearing for twenty minutes and coming back with a packet of instant noodles from the corner shop, Hermione just sniffles and smiles woozily at Fleur. “Hate that you can’t catch this.”

“I’d rather you didn’t catch it either,” Fleur replies. “Perhaps this is a lesson about refusing to take the floo or apparating to work?”

“I will die before I floo willingly and you like taking the train as much as I do.” Hermione takes the chopsticks offers her and sits up, frowning at the instant noodles. Even through her clogged nose, Hermione recognizes the scent of peppers. “The Korean one?”

“To clear your sinuses,” Fleur answers.

Drags the other person out into the water on beach day

Here’s the thing, the water’s cold and Hermione isn’t going to just get in it without prompting. She’s brought a book to read, a fiction book. She’s taking a break from all the academic reading and reading a novel that Pansy’s recommended in the shy, hesitant way that Pansy does anything that matters. She’s been working her way through the wizarding classics, but this novel is new - just published. Pansy’d been insistent, and when it’d arrived in the post Hermione understood why. She’s not a fool, and she recognizes a pseudonym and a barely disguised dedication.

Fleur’s standing by the water, ankle-deep in the chalk-colored water, waving at her. Hermione sets the book aside moves to join Fleur, their fingers tangling together as they wade out into the water, staring across the channel at the French coast.

“I can’t believe she kept her hobby a secret,” Hermione comments. “Dunno how she has the time between doing all those proofs for work and taking care of the kids while Hannah works nights.”

“I think she wanted to impress up on the world that no one truly knows her,” Fleur answers.

“Very Slytherin.”

“Quite.”

Gives unprompted massages

It used to be that touch was something they both craved, having spent so much of their early relationship apart. Now, when Hermione gets home at half ten from a shift at St. Mungo’s that turned into a shift and a half dealing with a magical catastrophe so bad that they’d had to call Andromeda back from Reading to even begin to make sense of what had happened. Near-fatal organ damage from accidental magic was something Hermione was used to dealing with, but this, threaded with something think and dark and particularly nasty that sat like oil amidst the child’s blood was not her area of expertise. She’s dead on her feet, and her patient is barely stabilized by the time she’s comfortable leaving. She collapses on the sofa when she arrives back at Catterlily Place, half asleep as she melts into the soft cushions.

“How bad?” Fleur asks. She’s got her glasses perched on her nose and is already bending to pull Hermione’s trainers from her feet. Her fingers dig into Hermione’s sore, aching feet, and Hermione cannot say anything at all, knowing full-well that there’s a chance the patient won’t survive the night.

“We had to call Andy back from Reading.”

“Oh, chérie.” Fleur’s hands still and she pushes herself to her feet, settling next to Hermione and wrapping her arms around Hermione’s shaking shoulders. “You are so, so good at what you do, Hermione. So is Madame Tonks. It’ll be okay.”

Drives/rides shotgun

“I think this is a threat to public safety,” Fleur says as Hermione adjusts the seat and fiddles with the height of the steering wheel. She walks around to the passenger side of their rented hatchback, and climbs awkwardly into the seat. “We could be killed in this deathtrap. We are witches. We do not have to drive anywhere.”

“Fleur,” Hermione says with grave seriousness. “Sometimes things that are easier... are worse.”

As they drive away from Reykjavik and into the Icelandic wilderness, Fleur’s breath catches and Hermione’s smile grows smug. This was going to be a fun holiday.

Brings the other lunch at work

It takes over a year for the goblins to allow Hermione back into Gringotts. She runs into Damien Betz when she’s ducking into Fleur’s office on the second floor with with a bag from Pret and two coffees during her lunch break at the Queen Vic. “Mademoiselle Granger,” Damien says. “Bonjour.”

“Salut Damien,” Hermione says. She tilts her head toward Fleur’s office door. “Is she in?”

He nods, but bends close. He’s clearly just had his line done, as it looks as though a razor has carefully sculpted the shape of his bangs against his forehead. “This morning,” he bites his lip, frowning, “didn’t go well.”

The Blakeley Vault has been a nightmare for the entire curse breaking team for weeks now. “I’ll bear that in mind,” Hermione says. “It was nice to see you, Damien.”

He waves his hand, and Hermione moves toward Fleur’s office with purpose.

Has the better parental relationship

When Paulie drops them back at the hostel, she again offers them a chance to stay at her place with her husband. “It’s no trouble, really,” she says. She drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “I know this hasn’t been an easy day - being surrounded by muggles,” she wrinkles her nose looking the hostel’s shabby exterior over, “does not sound like my kind evening.”

In her distaste, Hermione is able to look through the haze of sadness that’s come over her to see Pansy in Paulie - the Parkinson upbringing creeping through despite the fact that this woman has a muggleborn witch as a mother, despite the fact that she’s helped Hermione undo all the damage she’s done to her parents, despite the fact that she’s being so kind to two complete strangers, she’s still a Parkinson at heart.

“It’s alright, Paulie, thank you though.” Hermione says. “I expect there will be a lot of days like this before things get better.”

Later, Fleur holds her and promises her that it will get better. “At least your mum can stand to look at you,” Hermione says through the tears.

Tries to start role-playing in bed

“Grab the headboard,” Fleur says. Her hair is mussed, lipstick smeared across her cheek. They’d been out at a ministry function, but all it had taken was one lingering look from Hermione, her lips closing around the olive in her martini, to have Fleur pulling her into a darkened alcove and pushing her up against the wall. Hermione doesn’t mind when this part of Fleur comes out, the part that’s content to kiss her like she’s damnation and salvation at once. Hermione’s hands found their way under Fleur’s tailored jacket (she’d insisted on attempting a menswear look to compliment the dress Hermione’d found while out with Pansy and Ginny a few days back and the final product had Hermione’s mouth dry even before they’d left the house), and she’s whispering about finding somewhere more private.

Hermione grabs the headboard, and Fleur’s straddling her hips, eyes dark and wild. Fleur reaches for her wand, raises an eyebrow. “Will you let go?” she asks. “If I say you can’t?”

Swallowing, Hermione shakes her head. “I won’t.”

But then Fleur’s using a severing charm on her dress, leaning over her with a sinful smile. She bends to kiss Hermione and the whole world is closing in on that one moment and Hermione can’t breathe, she cant--- When the world relaxes and Hermione’s body starts to untense, she’s sobbing, back in the terrible memory of that night at Malfoy Manor and Fleur’s gathering her up in her arms and apologizing over and over again.

Embarrassingly drunk dancer

It takes nearly three years before Hermione is comfortable going to a club again. Being trapped in the dark, surrounded by people she can’t see, whose faces are obscured and then illuminated by flashing lights is enough to send Hermione into panics that last two or three days. So they go out to warmly lit pubs full of old men who look them over before shrugging and turning their attention back to their conversations instead. On a warm night, when they’ve shared a pitcher of Pims with Harry, Ron, and Ginny, Fleur gets to unsteady feet and asks Hermione if she’d like to dance to the song that’s playing lowly from the wireless in the corner. To her credit, she nearly manages to execute the proper steps to the dance before they tumble together, clinging to each other as they sway to the music.

“This is so disgustingly adorable I need to get a camera,” Pansy comments, sliding into the seat Hermione’s vacated. There’s a large diamond on her ring finger, which is, ostensibly, the reason they’re all out. Hannah didn’t wait long. She pours the remainder of the pitcher into the final clean glass, fishing out cucumber and crunching on it thoughtfully. “When are you two getting married?”

Hermione shrugs, and Fleur just laughs.

“I mean they sort of are married,” Ron says.

“Totally,” Ginny agrees.

Harry buries his head in his hands and groans. Pansy reaches over and pats him on the back before drawing Ginny into a conversation about the ring. Hermione rests her head on Fleur’s shoulder. “We should do that, you know.”

“Let Pansy have her fun,” Fleur says. She presses a kiss to Hermione’s forehead. “There’s a lifetime for us.”

Still cries watching Titanic

They go to the cinema not long after the war ends, and Hermione very bluntly asks for the attendant what the longest film that’s playing’s run time is. They’re avoiding her parents, who are desperate to reconnect since she’s retrieved them from Australia, and avoiding Fleur’s, who’ve come across the channel to meet Hermione’s parents. When Fleur’s mother had summarily dismissed them as they all traipsed up from the basement dining room of the charming French restaurant near the National Gallery Hermione’s parents knew, they didn’t need telling twice. The conversation thus far had been mortifying, and they’re both eager to get away form the nightmare that is the combined powers of their parents. They offer to meet back up for tea in a few hours, and disappear off to the cinema, where they sit in the very back row leaning on each other and sob through the ending together.

Firmly believes in couples costumes

Hermione hates fancy dress parties and balls, but after the war they become all the rage within her friends group. Something about going out as someone else appeals to so many of them, as they’ve all been forced to be celebrities despite their best efforts to avoid the spotlight. Harry and Ginny always go as famous quidditch players with period-appropriate gear and think they’re terribly original. Hermione lets herself be talked into floor length gowns and togas and, one memorable time, a full pirate costume by Fleur. She wears what she’s told and when Fleur finds a way to use the costumes to drive her wild throughout the night with slips of skin and lingering touches, Hermione doesn’t have any cause to complain.

Breaks the expensive gift rule during Christmas

The ring, when it does come, is presented on Christmas morning at Fleur’s parents’ house in full view of Fleur’s mother and grandmother. Gabrielle is distracted with a new book from her father and Phillipe has been drawn into explaining some of the diagrams at the back of it. Fleur holds out the small box to Hermione with some trepidation, looking from her mother to grandmother. “Oh just give it to her Fleur,” her grandmother finally snaps. “You’ve waited long enough.”

"Fleur?” Hermione asks.

“You once gave me the soul of the world,” Fleur says quietly.

“Because it never ends,” Hermione breathes. Her fingers tremble as she opens the box. The ring is beautiful, and when Fleur puts in on her finger it feels as though Hermione’s come home after a long, long time away.

Makes the other eat breakfast

“You need to eat, chérie,” Fleur says.

Hermione, where she’s been pacing up and down the length of the flat, looks to where Fleur’s standing in the kitchen holding out an energy bar. “I can’t,” she says. “If I eat I’ll get sick and I have to pass this exam today or I will never get the job at St. Mungo’s.”

Fleur’s lips press together into a thin line. She steps into the path of Hermione’s pacing and places her hands on Hermione’s shoulders. “You already have the job at St. Mungo’s. You know as well as I do that Blacks do not stick their necks out for just anyone. If Andromeda says you’re ready, you’re ready.”

Hermione opens her mouth to protest, but she knows Fleur’s right. Her teeth click as she closes her mouth.

Fleur’s expression softens. “Now, please, eat.”

Remembers anniversaries

It’s late February when Hermione suggests they go out somewhere nice. Fleur smiles fondly from her translation. “What’s the occasion?”

“You kissed me for the first time five years ago today.”

Brings up having kids

“There are potions for that, Healer Granger, if you’re at all interested in such things.”

Hermione splutters, nearly spitting her coffee out as she stares across the breakroom table at Andromeda. “Why Healer Tonks,” she says, picking her words carefully. She’s been lamenting to her colleague that Fleur’s mentioned children for the third time in as many weeks and it’s about to turn into a conversation. “Are you offering to brew for me?”

“Well, I was going to offer my sister’s services,” Andromeda says, sipping her tea. “She’s been complaining to me that she’s bored now that the divorce has gone through.”

Hermione does spit out her coffee this time. “I will not have your sister brewing--”

“Merlin, Hermione, you’re far too easy.”

#fleurmione #fanfic #this was a lot #casual homage to Freckle

14 notes · View notes

carloswilliamcarlos · 4 years

Text

Clyde Logan, Cryptid Hunter (Clyde Logan x Reader)

Warnings: Kissing, mothman mention, gratuitous roadtripping

Words: 1.4k

AN: Will this become a cryptid themed chapter fic? Who knows!!! But yes.

You went looking for Mothman on your first date. How could you not? This was West Virginia, after, all. It wasn’t no joke.

“I seen him,” Clyde tells you as you sip your drink at dinner. You wait a beat for him to laugh, to elaborate, to backpedal. But all you see are honest eyes and a downturned, sincere pout.

“What?” you ask.

“My siblings and I took a trip through Point Pleasant out of curiosity, a few years ago. And we saw him. Up in a tree.”

Clyde gestures upward as if to point him out, right there in the restaurant. You follow his hand up with your eyes. The gesture is pure muscle memory, nothing he could fake. You trace back down along his long, strong arm and catch his gaze.

“Clyde,” you say a mischievous smile creeping up your lips.

His eyebrows raise. He’s sure you’re about to tell him he’s a fool.

“We have to go. Now.”

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

It’s a two-hour drive, one you never would’ve taken on a first date if you hadn’t been friends with Clyde for years. The moon shines bright with an ancient glow as you pile into Clyde’s car, pull up Google maps and hit the road.

Clyde’s prattling off instructions for you at first.

“We need to be as quiet as we can, cause he likes to make these chirping sounds we gotta listen for.”

You nod, amused smile still pulling at your lips.

“And he’s got these red eyes that reflect. That’s what most people see of him.”

“What do we do if we find him?” you ask, turning to study the adventurous gleam in Clyde’s eye.

“Well... I don’t know,” he frowns. “I think most people just run away.”

“We could ask him to officiate our wedding,” you suggest. Clyde glances over at you for half a second, just to judge how serious you are, then turns back to the road with reddening cheeks and his mustache twitching up playfully.

“Alright.”

The rest of the drive, you run through urban legends and share whether or not you think they’re real. Clyde believes in just about all of them, you learn. Ghosts, yes. Jersey devil, yes. Aliens, yes. Bigfoot, no. (”That’s just a couple of yahoos with a video camera and a leftover gorilla costume from Halloween.”)

He definitely believes in luck. You’ve known about his Logan family curse theory for years, of course, but you never realized just how deep it ran for him until you’re barreling down the highway the radio twanging softly between you.

“My mama gave me the ring,” he says, wiggling his fingers so the horseshoe glimmers in the moonlight. “She said if I kept it angled up toward me, it would catch all the luck to keep me safe. She was the only one who took me seriously about it all.”

You’re quiet then, letting Clyde share something with you he’s only told few souls on this earth.

“And supposedly when I find someone I want to share my luck with, I’m supposed to turn it around so it points it toward them, to protect them instead.”

You stare down at the ring, at Clyde’s fingers nervously gripping and releasing the steering wheel.

“So you haven’t found the right person yet?” you ask, tentatively planting a seed.

“I need all the luck I can get,” Clyde laughs nervously, then clears his throat. “But I can see loving someone so much I feel brave enough to share.” He shifts in his seat. “Someday.”

“Someday,” you smile. Clyde twists the ring back and forth with this thumb, loosening it ever so slightly.

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

Your car door shuts with a slam behind you as the early fall wind brushes your skirt. The forest before you stretches out, dark, dense, dangerous. Clyde’s massive frame walks up beside you, the car lock beeping with a thrilling sense of finality.

“You ready?” you ask, looking up at Clyde’s serious pout. He nods, holding the crook of his arm up for you to hook yours into.

A twig snaps under you shoe only a couple steps in, and Clyde jumps to the high heavens.

“Clyde,” you laugh, “are you scared? We don’t have to do this.”

“No, I ain’t scared,” he replies, straightening up, trying to convince himself more than you. “Now we gotta listen for chirps.”

“Chirps,” you echo in a whisper, eyes scanning all around you. You hear buzzing, croaking, light flaps of wings, rustling leaves, but no chirps. The atmosphere is ominous, neither of you speaking a word. The reality you’re alone, at night, in the wilderness, starts to set in.

“OK now I’m scared,” you confess, curling into Clyde’s side.

“I got you,” he speaks confidently, voice deep and steady. He’d never admit he was scared out of his jeans just seconds before, but now that you’re trusting him, now that you’ve deemed him your protector, now that you’re counting on him to keep you safe from whatever’s lurking in the woods... Well. He’s sure feeling brave right about now.

“Now what were you gonna ask him? Maybe he’ll answer a question,” Clyde prompts you. You clear your throat.

“Mr. Mothman,” you call, voice shaking. “Well, Mr. Man. Man, comma, Moth,” you stumble. Clyde chuckles. “My fella and I were wondering if you maybe wanted to marry us, someday, if you’re not busy, and if you, speak English.”

Clyde’s grinning from ear to ear now, thoroughly amused by you. “We’d appreciate it kindly-” he goes to say, but he stops cold, looking off to his left. He says your name abruptly. You turn to look where he’s looking.

An enormous pair of red eyes peers at you through the trees.

You squeeze Clyde’s arm.

Time stands still.

You take a slow, deep breath.

“We’re thinking a June wedding,” you yell, and suddenly a flurry of flapping wings surrounds you, branches beating against the wind, high-pitched wailing filling your ears. You’re not sure if it’s the mothman, you, or Clyde that’s screaming. All you know is you’re sprinting back to the car, yelling Clyde’s name over and over.

You make it out of the trees before him, just in time to whirl around and catch his hair blowing in the wind as a huge, dark figure ascends above the forest and flies away into the darkened sky.

You and Clyde stare at each other, frozen.

“Was that...” you start. Clyde nods.

You’re not sure what to say, do, think.

“Get in the car,” Clyde finally commands.

It’s not until you’re both sitting in the car that you burst into roaring laughter.

“Holy shit!” you yell. “Holy shit Clyde we just saw mothman!”

“God damn,” Clyde mumbles as you laughter finally subsides. “We really did.”

You turn to look at him, leaning your head against the headrest, admiring the goofy smile on his face. He turns to look at you. You suddenly can’t breathe.

“I’ll never tell anyone if you don’t,” you whisper. The air is electric, moonlight outilning Clyde’s every feature in silver.

He reaches up to gently stroke your cheek, leaning in closer and closer until all you can do is close your eyes and feel him.

“Secret’s safe with me,” Clyde breathes. “Until he shows up at our wedding, of course.”

And then he kisses you.

He kisses you so softly it feels like a dream. But then it’s deeper, and deeper, his lips growing more confident and hungry. He slides his tongue against yours and you taste how much he wants you, likes you, can’t get enough of you.

He finally pulls back and looks deep into your eyes, turning every cell in your body into a puddle.

“It’s a long drive home...” you say hesitantly. “And it’s late. What if we just... got a room here tonight?”

Clyde gulps, nods, coughs out a quick “yes” and is starting up the car faster than you can even giggle at his reaction.

Hours ago, you’d been swiping on eyeshadow, picturing all the ways the night would end. You’d wondered if he would kiss you when he dropped you off at home. Wondered if you’d both have realized you had no chemistry at all. Wondered which face mask you’d indulge in before you tucked yourself into your bed alone.

Never did you imagine you’d end in Point Pleasant, doing what you were about to do, sharing a hotel room hours away from home, having an encounter of mythic proportions with a massive legend you had to see to believe. And then there was mothman.

But that was the thing with Clyde, you realized. You never knew what to expect. And you had a feeling that, no matter how many adventures you’d be lucky enough to share with him, he’d never stop surprising you.

#clyde logan #clyde logan x reader #clyde logan x you #clyde logan fluff #clyde logan x reader fluff #clyde #logan lucky #mothman #lol

108 notes · View notes

bitsandbobsandstuff · 5 years

Text

never let you go (1)

Summary: After losing the woman they love, Bucky and Steve make a desperate decision with unimaginable consequences.

Characters: Stucky x Reader Warnings: Heavy angst. Brief character death (with a return). Violence, blood, demons, and gore. SMUT (m/f/m, brief m/m, masturbation). An appearance by everyone’s favorite Hunters (SPN crossover).

Prompt: “Heartache is one thing, but this…this is worse.”

A/N: This is my submission for the fantastic @sherrybaby14 for Sherry’s Fall Into You challenge, thanks babe for hosting. This is a dark story fam, different than my usual writing. Bucky and Steve really do make some bad decisions, so please heed the warnings. This is a short series, only 2-3 parts.

Want to find all my stories? Search #bitsmasterlist or try the link in my bio!

*****

Looking back, it happened so fast.

Night was stealing over the horizon when the mission was officially called. Bad guys in handcuffs, team members safe, the world still turning. On the roof of a nearby office building, you stood between Bucky and Steve, smiling in relief.

Smiling, smiling, smiling.

You were smiling right before the bomb went off.

Later, Bucky remembers the shock on your face, the shape of Steve’s mouth screaming. He remembers that swoop in his belly, the weightless feel of wild loops on a rollercoaster. He remembers your piercing cry as the floor gave way beneath three pairs of boots, bodies knocking together in a choking sea of crumbling concrete and screeching steel.

And when the smoke cleared, when your broken fingers found his and Bucky saw your lips stained with sticky red, he knew instantly. He knew and he knew you knew. You’d seen enough injuries to recognize death when it beckons. Steve was shouting, clambering over a broken wall, fighting through piles of debris to where you lay pinned beneath the unforgiving stone. He collapsed beside you, trembling soot-smudged fingers cupping your face.

No more than a minute passed. Sixty short seconds of breaking and bleeding and screaming, now stretching into an unending lifetime of regret. One minute more, before your small sips of breath slow into nothing. They stay with you until the end, each with their hands on you, comforting and pleading to stay, please stay, we love you, please don’t leave.

But Death cares little for love.

When they emerged from the ruins, Steve carried your broken body, Bucky staggering numbly behind. The world shifts.

Three days later, comes the funeral. Black suits, black dresses, black casket. A rainbow of flowers for a life overflowing with love and laughter. The formalities of grief are observed, those unfailingly dependable motions polite society demands.

Steve, ever the stalwart public figure, does most of the work. Shaking hands and speaking quietly and nodding gravely at words of condolence. On the fringes of the crowd, away from the crush of sympathy Bucky stands pale and hidden. Despite concern and questions, not a single word has passed his lips since that day.

Finally it ends, the last well-wisher is whisked into the night, and they’re left alone. Two men shattered by tragedy, hearts burning with a soul consuming love for a woman they couldn’t save.

Before a crackling fire, Steve sits slumped in your favorite chair. Cocooned in silent misery, red-rimmed eyes wide and unseeing, he holds a heavy crystal tumbler loose in his hand.

When he sucks in a sharp, strangled breath, Bucky looks over.

The tumbler slips from Steve’s hand, bouncing soundlessly on the plush grey rug and he stands quickly, stumbling toward the fireplace. The flames are strangely welcoming, translucent beams of fractured light breaking through the room.

“Get it off,” he suddenly chokes out. Panic bleeds off him in waves, and he yanks at his tie. The knot tightens and Steve begins to sweat, voice rising higher. “Get it off, now, get it off, get it all off! Please! Please Bucky, please!”

Startled, Bucky leaps up. He pulls the jacket down Steve’s flailing arms and watches in confusion as Steve strips off the rest.

Tie, shirt, belt.

Trousers, boxers, socks.

Ripping the jacket dangling from Bucky’s fingers, Steve rolls everything into a ball and shoves it into the fireplace. Flames lick along his hands, instantly scalding his fingertips with angry red blisters, but he pays no attention. The fire is quick to take, wrapping everything in ringlets of blue and orange, greedily devouring the gift.

As he stands naked in the living room, Steve begins to shiver.

“I don’t know if I can - can do this. Heartache is one thing, but this…this is worse.” he gasps. He crouches on the floor, puts his head between his knees. “This is worse, this is - this is fu-fucking worse.”

Shadows dance through the room while the fire consumes the remnants of the funeral suit. Good riddance of course. There’s no way on earth he’d wear those clothes again.

The wet, broken rasp of Steve’s sobs are the only sound in the room. Bucky wants to help, but there’s nothing left inside him. No reassurances, no words of relief. The solace of love that filled their home has evaporated, leaving nothing more than a wisp of memory.

*****

Their world ends, but as always - the days go by.

*****

One morning Bucky wakes up, head still full of foggy dreams. Lost happiness. He comes awake slowly, bleary eyed and so painfully hard he’s ashamed of that fact.

He sets the shower to a burning rain and stands under the deluge. Closes his eyes and lets the heat sear his skin to a sheet of bright red, trying desperately to wash away those heartbreaking dreams of you, safe and perfect in his arms. He palms himself roughly at the thought, trying to ease the ache. There’s a feeling of disgust that accompanies the touch, humiliated frustration at such a base instinct.

He tells himself he can finish it quick, make it go away. Take the edge off.

With one wet hand on slippery tile, he wraps the other around himself and jerks. He hates himself for picturing you. Beautiful lips, beautiful skin, beautiful eyes. The sound of your voice hitching, sweet sighs of pleasure when he touches your body.

He tells himself the water sluicing down his face is the shower. He tells himself he’s fine. This is stress relief. Something to relax. But when he comes all over his hand, his knees buckle and Bucky collapses, crumpling to a ball on the floor of the cavernous shower. Staring up at the ceiling, the water pelts his face until the burning heat turns icy cold.

The dampness on his face, is the shower. They are not tears. He is fine.

That’s what he tells himself, anyway.

*****

One evening, Steve takes a drive.

Out of Manhattan, past the safe lights of suburbia, further north until he hits the solitude of wilderness. He drives until he finds the path he knows, bumping over gnarled roots, wheels grinding pathetically in the silent night. When it ends, he gets out and continues on foot. Pushing through a dense copse of trees, swiping away the sharp branches reaching for him. He walks and walks, until he reaches what he needs.

Moonlight bathes the small clearing in a white glow, and he walks forward until he’s in the middle of the tranquil space. Cold dew soaks into his jeans when he kneels in the stubby grass, but he doesn’t notice. Tipping his head back, he looks up at the stars.

He screams. On and on and on, the sounds echoing back at him, reverberating off the wall of trees, sending sleeping birds into screeching flight. He screams and he screams, rage and grief and the raw devastation of heartbreak so potent he nearly faints. He screams when he remembers the tears in your eyes silently begging for help, and he screams at the impotence of knowing he could do nothing but watch your life bleed away. He screams for himself, for Bucky, for you. Steve screams until his voice is gone, until the soft tissue inside his throat is swollen and shredded and he spits up blood.

And then he staggers to his feet, pushing back through the trees, until he reaches his car. He climbs inside and turns for home.

He comes back the next night. And the one after that.

Again, and again, and again. Step and repeat.

*****

…and the lonely days melt into weeks…

*****

Neither man is deemed fit for combat, both stripped of duties and relegated to wait. Recover, the therapists say. Rest and recover. Work will always be there. Wait it out, until you feel normal.

Bucky punches a hole through their front door at the condescending support. As if he could wait it out. As if that’s a real thing. As if this grief will ever do anything but grind his heart to mush.

Instead of avenging, they pass the time with mundane things. Searching for purpose, finding none.

In the middle of a stormy night, with the world asleep in their beds, they find themselves in an empty gym. Sweat slick fists and knees jabbing, punching, kicking, sparing with vicious intensity. The pace is blindingly fast, sharply efficient. Back and forth they move, a deadly dance that temporarily takes their minds away from the present, from that gaping loss that will never heal.

On and on they move, until Bucky sweeps his leg and Steve misses the jump. He tumbles to the ground, and Bucky pins him neatly against the mat. Breathing hard, Steve stares up, anguish turning him inside out. He opens his mouth and Bucky already knows what’s coming.

“Steve,” he warns.

“I miss her,” Steve whispers. Misery coats the words, sticky with despair.

“Stop,” Bucky snaps. He scrambles to his feet, turns toward the door. “Don’t you fucking do this, I told you we ain’t talking about it.”

Steve climbs sluggishly to his feet. He rubs his eyes, feels the burn of pooling tears. It’s so natural these days, that prickling heat. Looking up, he sees the tense muscles in Bucky’s hunched shoulders, and he can’t stop from asking.

“Do you - do you remember when it was just the two of us? When we were enough?” he asks hoarsely, and Bucky whips around. Rushing Steve, he catches him around the waist and slams him against the padded blue wall. There’s a faint whir of shifting plates and a metal fist pounds the mat, an inch from Steve’s tear-streaked cheek. He doesn’t even flinch, staring bleakly at the rage in Bucky’s face.

Without missing a beat, Bucky grabs a handful of sweaty shirt and hauls him forward, a furious snarl preceding a bruising kiss. Steve goes easily, their lips moving in a violent rhythm against each other.

When Bucky breaks away, he spins Steve around, shoves him face first against the wall. Without a word, he yanks down Steve’s shorts and kicks his feet apart. This is the first time they’ve touched each other since that day, and the intimacy that blooms is brutal.

Rough thrusts. Quiet grunts. Sex is a race to the finish, both betting on themselves and doing everything in their power to win. Bucky fucks into him, hips snapping recklessly, and Steve wraps a hand around himself, jerking quickly. No more than a minute later and it’s over, tempers cooling like the shimmering film of sweat on their skin.

Panting harshly against Steve’s neck, Bucky answers the question, his voice hollow.

“Yeah I remember. Doesn’t matter. We won’t be again.”

*****

…on and on it goes, until weeks blur into months.

*****

Time passes, but there is no movement for them. Every step forward comes with five steps back, regressing into a despair with no end in sight. How can you hope to move on, when the best part of yourself is lost, gone, rotting away in a white marble mausoleum in a Brooklyn cemetery?

How the fuck can you survive, when the light you’ve been living for goes out?

Lying in bed one cold October night, these are the thoughts traipsing through Steve’s head. Beside him, Bucky is wrapped in an old blanket, unwashed hair fanning in dark tangles across his pillow, and for a long time, Steve watches him. He knows when the nightmares arrive. Bucky begins to shake, soft sounds slipping through clenched teeth, whimpers of a cornered dog with no way out. Steve reaches for him.

At the pressure on his arm, Bucky wakes with a strangled moan. Kicking away the blanket, he sits up, twisting to look at Steve. Sweat pours down his face, until Steve looks closer and understands.

Tears.

Chest heaving, Bucky glares at him.

“No, god dammit, fucking - fuck you,” he spits out, choked by tears. “I told you not to wake me up, never wake me up. She was there, I almost had her, she was - she was there, I could’ve - “

Shaking furiously, he scrambles out of bed, dragging the blanket behind him. Moments later, Steve flinches when the bathroom door slams so hard, the walls of their apartment shake.

The thought comes again. When every shred of hope is abandoned, when the devils of despair are hungering for your sanity, what can you possibly do? How can you go on?

There in that room, rising from the depths of hell, an idea comes.

Shadowy images fill his head, blurry mission reports and hazy pictures. A thick binder with a peculiar collection of information, full of monsters and demons and evil that goes bump in the night. Scary stories he and Bucky read as kids, huddled together under his bedspread.

Steve thinks of SHIELD letterhead and a list of names with an unfamiliar title.

Hunters, he thinks. The word ‘Hunters’ was typed at the top of that list.

He gets an idea. Steve gets a terrible, horrible, beautiful idea.

*****

North of Chicago, in a greasy diner rank with the sour scent of body odor, four men are squeezed into a red booth. The cracked vinyl is peeling away in places, sharp edges revealing yellowed stuffing and frayed threads, and when Bucky lays his arm across the back, it pinches his skin. Beside him, Steve sits stiffly, hands folded next to a chipped ceramic mug of lukewarm coffee.

Hunched across from them, shoveling syrup-soaked pancakes in his mouth, Dean Winchester thumbs over his shoulder at the chalkboard sign above the counter.

“Pig ’N a Poke. Always good.”

No one responds. An awkward silence blankets the uncomfortably full booth, until Bucky clears his throat.

“So you two -“ he motions between the two men, “you’re, what? Together?”

Swearing under his breath, Dean rolls his eyes and keeps eating. “Why the hell does everyone ask that? No. We’re brothers. God damn.”

Crammed beside Dean, Sam Winchester observes the two super soldiers. Toying with the edge of his coffee cup, he fixes them with a thoughtful stare.

“Sorry we dodged your calls, we uh, we try to stay away from SHIELD,” he says wryly. “Not much good ever comes from it.”

“Yeah, last time we got involved, you dicks got my car impounded,” Dean pipes up, spraying bits of pancake across the table. Fixing him with a dark glare, Bucky slowly wipes it off his cheek. Dean grins.

Ignoring the exchange, Steve leans forward, gripping the coffee cup to steady his nervous hands. He takes a deep breath.

“We won’t say anything. SHIELD can’t know we’re here. I read a report about - about something that happened. About something you did. It said - “ He pauses, debating his next words. They tumble out in a rush of breath. “It said you know how to make deals. With certain kinds of - people. The kind of deals that need to stay off the radar.”

Everyone in the cramped booth freezes. The pancake laden fork briefly hovers in midair, before clattering to the table.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Steve gathers himself and tips his chin up.

“Not even a little.”

Dean leans back. Eyes flitting between the two men, perhaps gauging their sanity. It takes a full minute before he speaks.

“Man, you fucking superheroes are something else, you know that? I don’t know what you read in that report you found Captain, but you think there’s something you need that’s worth an eternity literally burning in hell? Is that what I’m hearing?”

Neither answers immediately. Bucky looks aside, out the dust smeared window, to the black Impala parked in front. He wonders briefly where the Winchesters found it. He always wanted one.

“We lost someone.”

At Steve’s quiet admission, Bucky turns back with a ferociously defiant expression and Sam’s eyes soften.

“Yeah. We heard about that. I’m sorry.”

Steve acknowledges the condolence with a stiff nod, while Bucky schools his face into a blank mask. Looking between the two men, Dean takes a deep breath.

“Listen, I’m sorry about what happened, I really am. But I’m not gonna sugar coat this for you. My suggestion? Get some god damn therapy and figure out how to move on. Me and Sammy, we’ve both been down there and this isn’t some bullshit scare tactic, or some ghost story you heard in Sunday school. This is fucking real. And it doesn’t end. Ever. This is forever. Hell is forever. Do you get that?”

“I know a thing or two about hell,” Bucky says drily, taking a sip of coffee. He feels a funny lurch in his belly when Dean levels him with a pitying stare.

“No. You don’t.”

Arms crossed on the flaking linoleum table, Bucky sits forward. “Listen kid, I’m under no illusions about my future. All the shit I’ve done, every crime, every murder, you think I don’t know where I’m ending up? No amount of heavenly forgiveness is gonna take that away. This ends bloody for me no matter what path I choose. So, enlighten me here. Why the hell shouldn’t I make it count?”

Silence hangs over the table. Beside him, Bucky feels Steve’s hand on his thigh, a comforting squeeze. He understands. For all Steve’s comments about the past not being Bucky’s fault, of course he considered this outcome.

Across the table, Sam quietly clears his throat, murmuring low.

“Dean -”

“No, this is horseshit and you know it. You can’t - “ he stops when he seems the firm resolve on both faces. And honestly? Dean Winchester has been a lost cause often enough to recognize a case when he sees one. “Fine. If you boys do this, that’s it. There’s no going back. You understand that? You are on your own. We can’t save you.”

“Yes,” Steve grits out. “We understand.”

“No, I don’t think you do. You make a deal like this and that’s it. There’s no get out of jail. Hell comes calling and that bitch’ll rip you limb from limb, before she drags you to rot down below.”

The words have no effect. Steve peers sideways at Bucky and finds him perfectly relaxed.

“We appreciate the concern. But we’re good.”

Mumbling all manner of obscenities under his breath, Dean digs inside his jacket until he finds a small yellow notepad and a dull pencil. Slapping it on the table, he writes. List, instructions, locations. He rips the paper out and flings it at Steve.

“This is on your heads.”

Nodding his thanks, Steve folds the paper and tucks it carefully in his pocket. The broken leather of the booth creaks and squeaks as he exits, Bucky sliding out behind him.

Side by side, they look down at the Winchester brothers. All four men have been perpetually hounded by some form of death their entire lives; it seems inevitable they would meet before the end.

Offering a faint smile, Bucky shrugs.

“Haven’t you ever loved someone so much, you’d move heaven and earth to bring them back?”

*****

Under the full moon, Steve cracks the small tin box for one final look.

A polaroid of him and Bucky. A clear glass vial of graveyard dirt from a small plot in Brooklyn. The leg bone from a black cat, a stray they saw skulking in an alley; Steve had caught it and did the dirty work there. Bucky always was a bleeding heart when it came to animals.

Crouched in the dead center of the crossroad, Bucky carves out a small hole with smooth metal fingers. When Steve hands him the box, he places it carefully, angling it just right.

Piling the dirt back over, Bucky pats it down and stands, legs suddenly shaky, heart hammering in fear. Dusting off his hands, he edges closer to Steve.

“Now what?”

Steve says nothing. He stares at the stalks of yellow flowers lining the road, waving gently in the night air, and the innocuous sight sends a shiver rippling down his spine.

“Well, well, well. Two super soldiers? This is one hell of a surprise.”

The voice is soft, gentle. Musical in a way, like windchimes on a sunny day or the faint hum of birds warbling in the morning.

It turns their blood to ice.

Both men whirl simultaneously, discovering a woman standing behind them. Dressed in a wispy white dress, dark hair falls in thick waves down her back, bottle green eyes framed by long lashes. When she smiles, a dimple appears.

Beautiful. Ethereal. The kind of woman who could lure a man into anything.

She blinks. Shining in the moonlight, the green disappears and another color slides in place. Sickeningly bright, hot as fire.

Red.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve hisses, stumbling back a step back and she laughs.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

Beside him, Bucky feels Steve trembling, and he reaches for his hand, tangling their fingers together. The gesture fills them both with a renewed courage, and Steve clears his throat.

“We want to - we need - we need to make a deal. There’s someone. We need to bring someone back. To life.”

She whistles, long and low. “Hmm. That’s a tall order boys. I’ll need something good to make this worth my while.”

“The deal is 10 years, right?” Steve motions between him and Bucky. “We each get 10 years, and then - then -“ he trips over the words, unable to finish the grisly statement. Amused, she lets him flounder. “Then we’re - then we’ll go.”

“Normally yes. Those are the standard terms, but for you two? I don’t know. Feels like I could get myself in trouble for taking from such - virile specimens.”

“But we want to deal,” Steve argues.

The white dress flows like water as she strolls forward. Stopping before them, she trails a finger down Bucky’s silver arm, and he shudders.

“Maybe we could come to a different arrangement. If you’re interested.”

“Like what?”

“Well boys, I think you might be worth far more above ground than below. So how about this.” Green eyes gleaming, Bucky has the gruesome sense of a spider moving silently along her web, stalking two struggling flies. “I know who you want, and I’ll bring her back, safe and sound. Deliver her right to your door, and both of you stay up here. Souls intact. For one tiny price.”

Too good to be true. Far too good. Bucky waits for the pin to drop.

“What tiny price?” he breathes.

She smiles.

And then she answers.

Still clasping hands, Bucky feels cold sweat slicking Steve’s palm. Is this right? Can they really do this? The offer is tantalizing, another level of evil they have yet to fully comprehend. But Bucky knows his mind, what he’s willing to give, and he knows Steve feels the same.

There is no question.

“Deal.”

“Takes a kiss to seal it,” she whispers. Moving close, she curls a hand behind Steve’s neck and pulls his face down. Eyes squeezed shut, mouth drawn in a tight line, he waits it out, a full body shiver rattling his tall frame. Her fingers run through his sweaty blond hair, and he feels sick to his stomach at the way her fingernails scratch so invitingly along his scalp. When she’s had enough, she breaks away in a huff of feigned disappointment.

“Less than inspiring Captain.” Turning to Bucky, she offers a sly smile. “How about you, Soldier? Got anything better?”

Bucky steels himself, as she rises on her toes and presses her mouth to his. He keeps his eyes open, staring forward, and lets her have the kiss, feels her run her tongue along the seam of his lips, a brazen request for more. Parting his lips, he tastes the cloyingly sweet scent of her breath, feels her rub against him, the cool damp of her tongue licking along his teeth.

Forcing himself to disconnect from the moment, he wonders how a kiss can feel so utterly wrong. He wants to turn heel and run, but he’s suddenly and overwhelmingly terrified she might rescind the deal. That she might snatch this burgeoning hope from their begging hands and return to her corner of hell.

So, he lets her have the kiss. Right now, the hideous truth is that he’d give her anything she asked, if it meant he gets you back.

Finally she pulls away, running her fingers down his chest.

“Much better. Now - kiss each other.” Confused, they look at each other and back to her. The seriousness of the request fades and she laughs. “Kidding. Two pretty boys like you, how can I help myself?”

Stepping back, her eerily musical laughter still dancing on the wind, she vanishes.

The night is silent.

Bucky staggers to the yellow flowers and vomits all over them.

*****

Driving along the lonely stretch of highway, they sit in silence. Each wrestling with newfound demons, now more than metaphorical.

“Do you think it worked?” Steve asks, voice hushed and rough.

Bucky stares straight ahead, watching the night zip by, illuminated asphalt between twin beams of light. He says nothing.

*****

Their front door still has a patch on the outside, where Bucky slammed his fist through the wood. It swings quietly when Steve pushes it open, clicking on the hall light. They drop their bags in the entry, walking through the dark apartment.

“But when would we know, that’s what I don’t -“

Steve stops so abruptly, Bucky trips into him from behind.

“Dammit Steve, what - “

In the armchair by the window, sits a familiar silhouette. Barefoot, wearing a long-sleeved blue t-shirt and jeans, someone turns to face them.

Shocked silence billows out, thick and bottomless. There’s a strangled gasp and Steve flings out an arm, blocking Bucky from running at you.

“Wait,” he hisses, “Buck, just - just wait.”

Bewildered, you watch their cautious movements, small shuffles inching closer. When they’re two feet away, Steve stops them again.

“Hold out your hand,” he whispers raggedly, and you stare in confusion. He shakes his head, still holding Bucky back with one arm and motions for your hand. Extending it slowly, you offer it palm up. Steve fishes out a small bottle from his pocket, trembling fingers flipping the lid, and with a deep breath, he splashes holy water all over your hand.

He cringes, waiting.

Nothing.

Staring curiously at the innocent water droplets, you look up.

“Steve, what is this? What’s happening?”

At the sound of your exhausted voice, a broken howl rips from Bucky’s throat and he barrels past Steve. Falling at your feet, he wraps his arms tight around your waist and buries his face against your belly, his shoulders shaking with the hurricane force of his wrenching sobs. Gentle fingers comb through his tangled hair, while you calm him with meaningless words, the soothing syllables priceless simply because they’re yours.

Over the sound of Bucky’s tears, Steve comes closer. He traces the curves of your face, over your forehead, down your nose, brushing your lips. It worked, he thinks, and fierce relief sweeps through him. Wrapping an arm around your shoulders, he presses his mouth to your temple, inhaling the clean scent of your skin.

“Welcome home, sweetheart.”

*****

For the next three days, you do nothing but sleep. Small breaks between sleep and awake to eat the chicken noodle soup Bucky brings, the pastrami sandwich Steve cuts into small squares, a chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven.

At first, they worry. Did they fuck up the deal? Was something else wrong? Were you sick? Eventually, they understand coming back to life is not as simple as waking up and picking up where you left off.

So, they let you sleep, drawing the bedroom curtains into darkness, fluffing up the pillows whenever you stumble to the bathroom, keeping the glass on the nightstand filled with cool water. They linger outside the bedroom door, propped against the wall and watching each other, impatiently patient.

In the middle of the night on the fourth day, Bucky jolts awake. Sleepy and befuddled, his heart sinks. Was it another dream? His mind playing tricks? Listening, he waits and waits and waits, and suddenly, he hears it again.

No, this is not a dream. This is real.

He hears you calling.

“Bucky? Steve?”

Scrambling to his feet, he kicks Steve awake and drags him up. Together, they crack open the bedroom door, a dim sliver of hall light illuminating the sight. There you are, curled in a ball along the edge of the bed.

“Hey,” you whisper hoarsely, pulling the blanket tighter. They creep closer, kneeling together beside the bed to look in your eyes.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Bucky says softly. “Did you need something?”

The question comes with such tenderness, your heart swells. What you needed, was to ask them what happened. What did they do? How did it happen? What did it cost? You know the grim reality of whatever magic they used to bring you back will have consequences. Selfish magic always does.

These are the things you should ask, the things you need to know. But in this moment, with these two extraordinary men watching you with such breathless reverence, the intensity of a different emotion strikes like lightning. It surges through your veins, a liquid fire craving to feel them, inside and out.

Nothing else matters. The truth can wait.

“Can you do something for me?” you whisper instead.

“Anything,” he breathes instantly, Steve nodding helpfully.

“Can you kiss me?” you whisper and Bucky blinks, surprised. Glancing at Steve, he hesitates briefly, before leaning forward and placing a chaste kiss on your lips. He tastes soft, a faint hint of minty toothpaste on his breath.

When he breaks away, you slip a hand behind his neck. He swallows hard at feel of your fingers digging into his skin and leans helplessly into the touch.

“Honey - “ he starts, but you cut him off.

“Kiss me again. Mean it this time.”

At your demand, dark lust fills his face. Eyes flicking back and forth, he appears to gauge the request, making absolutely sure you’re sure, and then -

He devours you.

Shoving you back into the mess of pillows, he climbs onto the bed, mouth slanting hungrily over yours. Teeth bumping, tongue sliding along yours, he holds your face between his palms, damp skin and cool metal. He kisses so long and deep, so thorough and full of passion, it leaves you gasping for air.

“Better?” he murmurs, and for the first time since the day you died, since that moment your soul flew beyond his reach, the faint flicker of a smile tugs his lips.

The kiss does nothing to calm the tide. It makes your skin sizzle, lust sweeping through your body.

“I need you. Both of you. Please,” you breathe, tugging frantically at your shirt, a feverish desperation for the blazing heat of their skin against yours.

“Are you sure?” Steve asks hoarsely, blunt tipped fingers gripping your hip so tight you feel a bruise already forming. There is no pain though, only the comforting pressure of intimate familiarity. “We don’t have to do anything, not yet, not - not ever.”

“Please,” you plead again. “Please. It’s been so long, I missed you, don’t - don’t let me leave you, please Steve, please don’t let me go again.”

At your tearful words, Steve genuinely believes he feels his heart break. All he knows, all he will ever know again, is a burning need to fix this. To keep you and Bucky safe from everything, no matter the cost.

“Never. Never again,” he vows, and beside him, Bucky echoes the promise.

“Never, sweetheart. We’ll never let you go.”

The simplicity of a remembered intimacy comes naturally. Steve settles against the headboard and pulls you between his legs, tossing away your shirt and peppering kisses across your back, over your shoulders, up your neck. Wide hands stroke up along your ribcage, cupping your breasts. It makes you twitch when he gently pinches your nipples, teeth nipping at your ear.

Bucky slides your panties off and settles between your legs, easing them open. Warm breath brushes over your clit and then he licks a firm strip between your folds. At your low moan, he slowly pushes two fingers inside you, twisting and rubbing until sparks crackle along your skin.

“Keep going, oh god, keep going.”

Bracketed between Steve’s thighs, one hand tangled in Bucky’s dark hair, your hips push up to meet every stroke of his tongue, writhing as he holds you down. Steve’s hands are ceaseless, rubbing your breasts, circling your nipples, tugging lightly as he leaves small bites along your neck.

“There you go baby, that’s it,” he whispers. “Keep watching him, don’t look away.”

Eyes on the ceiling, you force yourself to look down, at the man nestled snug between your legs. His dark hair falls over his forehead, blue eyes burning you to ash.

“Bucky,” you rasp, powerless against the onslaught of pleasure, “Steve. Please.”

The sound of his name falling from your lips, something he never expected to hear again, sends Bucky into a frenzy. Tongue flicking faster, he pumps his fingers harder, the vibration from his moan pulsing against your clit and everything shatters.

Arching up, the orgasm crests and breaks, white noise blanking your mind. Incoherent cries fill your ears, over and over, until you recognize the sound of your own voice, a repetitious prayer crafted from the only three words that will ever matter.

Bucky.

Steve.

Please.

They answer, of course. In perfect fashion, with perfect rhythm.

Steve pulls your boneless, shuddering body higher, and Bucky opens your legs wider, letting Steve ease into your pussy from behind. He groans at the feel, the silky wet heat gripping him, and clutches your back tight to his chest. Rocking his hips up, he moves your body easily, thrusting deep. The delicious sound of his soft grunts fill your ear and it reignites the throbbing ache between your legs.

Bucky crawls up until he straddles you both, his tongue curling around your nipple, licking, sucking, tugging delicately with his teeth. He frees your hand, the one digging into Steve’s thigh, and wordlessly coaxes it between his legs. Wrapping sweaty fingers tight around his cock, you stroke him, following the rhythm Steve sets.

It feels so easy, the three of you moving in tandem, both men thrusting faster, harder, rougher, until you come once more, and just like always, they follow to a stuttering end right behind.

Bucky.

Steve.

Please.

Yes, these three words are the only ones you think you’ll ever need.

****

Sated, the three of you lay together. Bucky in his favorite place, forehead tucked against your breasts, his arm curved around your waist. Steve warm and solid, molded head to toe along your back, his arm slung around you both, fingers lazily twirling Bucky’s hair.

Beyond the curtains, darkness remains. Now, with your body exhausted and comforted by their presence, if becomes easier to whisper the question.

“How did you do it?”

“Hmm?” Steve murmurs, drifting toward the balm of sleep. Bucky says nothing, simply snuggles closer, his steady breaths puffing warm on your skin.

“I remember what happened.” Softly the confession falls. “Please don’t lie to me. Tell me how you did it. How you brought me back.”

Both men stiffen. Bucky stops breathing. Steve stops stroking his hair. Dread fills you, cold as ice. You know then, whatever price they’ve paid? It will tear the world apart.

Breath tickling the back of your neck, Steve murmurs so quietly, you strain to hear.

“We made a deal.”

*****

Part 2

*****

#stucky x reader #bucky x reader x steve #sherrysfallintoyouchallenge #bucky barnes #steve rogers #stucky #stucky fic #bucky x reader #steve x reader #spn #supernatural #crossover fic

2K notes · View notes

dat-town · 5 years

Text

what the hearts wish for

Characters: Seonghwa & You

Setting: pirate au, mostly based on Pirates of the Caribbean

Genre: adventure spiced up with a little romance

Summary: Oh, the two of you had quite a history, a sequence of chance meetings as if the thread of your fates were so deeply tangled, it couldn't have been separated. You have met up before, sparred before, talked before, saved each other’s life before but you never addressed what this unsaid thing was between you.

Warnings: mentions of blood, death, murder

Words: 3.4k

I blame numerous things for this, first and foremost @restlessmaknae (yes, I love suffering, thank you), then the wonderful Ateez concepts and cinematography, whoever’s idea it was to display a boat in the set of their Music Bank performance, listening to too much PotC music lately and the current book I’m reading. Also this prompt, kinda: “just once i wanna put the blade of my sword under a pretty boy’s chin and tilt their head up so i can see both fear and arousal in their eyes is that too much to ask?” (source)

"It's the Royal Navy!"

The watchboy from the crow’s nest hollered and his words made you snap your head towards the back of your beloved ship, Cassiopeia. Behind you, catching up with one of the fastest ships on the Eastern Sea, there were indeed three almighty watercrafts of the infamous Royal Navy. You let out a not too ladylike swear.

"Let the mast down and follow the wind. We need to reach Blackbeard before them," you yelled at your steersmate behind the wheel.

A hand gripping tightly on the handle of your nicely crafted sword and knowing no fear you stared ahead into the storm you were approaching and under it the Black Medusa, that damned pirate ship you had been chasing ever since your father's death. Finally, this was your chance and you weren’t willing to let politics or law mess this up for you.

Women were said to be misfortunes on sea, only angering the goddess of the waters but you earned your title after your father had deceased. Instead of his misogynist men, now you had your own and as he had once been one of the Pirate Kings of the Seven Seas, now you could have been considered a Queen. However, you had no care for titles like that. You didn’t have that luxury. You only wanted the head of the man who oh so cowardly pierced a bullet into your father's chest.

"The water is starting to get wilder, Captain! We are facing an enormous maelstrom," a cabin boy yelled, his panicked voice telling you clearly how crazy he thought your idea was. Chasing a ship down in a spiral trying to make sure you didn't fall into your own end, into that deep abyss? Yeah, it might have been a bit unusual but if one wasn’t ready to die for glory and gold, then he shouldn’t have become a pirate to begin with. You had no time to waste on such weak men.

Not to mention, now that even the Royal Navy joined this chase, there was no way back. Whether they came for you or Blackbeard, only one set of ship could have survived this storm. The Navy needed this blast of fun, you thought to yourself with a slightly amused grin as the wind got stronger. The raindrops started looking like tears on your face and the ship shifted towards the spiral, following the schooner not too much ahead. If you could get beside it, you knew you could have ducked it into the tempestuous sea.

"Prepare the cannons!” you yelled at your crew from the front, nails digging into the wooden material of the foremast pillar as the ship tilted further. Your wet hair got into your face and your hand kept slipping on the surface you grabbed on but you were almost there, ready to avenge your father's death.

However, you were so focused on the distance getting shorter and shorter between the Cassiopeia and the Black Medusa, that you didn’t even care about the compass attached to your belt spinning like crazy. Otherwise maybe you would have noticed the smaller ship from the Navy's Armada getting close. Truly a shame, your father would have been so disappointed to see you being blinded by your rage and vengeance so much that you didn't notice an enemy boarding your ship using the shrouds.

"Are you crazy? Do you wanna die?"

The man yelled into your face, his hands gripping on your shoulders, shaking you as if he could have shaken some sense into you but you just glared back at him. His perfectly styled black hair was now wet from rain and splashing sea water, the now messy strands even got into his dark eyes. The crimson scar on his cheek still hadn't healed completely since your last encounter and his almighty royal uniform was just as soaked as your loose and dirty clothes. You liked meeting him out on the Sea like this because there, almost all your differences seemed to disappear and you liked your chances fair. An odd thing for a pirate, isn’t it?

"It's none of your business!" you shouted back at him, shredding his hands off you but the ship took a sudden turn which made you both lose balance. You would have fallen, body pressed to the wall of the ship, so close to the mouth of the maelstrom if it weren't for him and his quick reflexes to catch on your wrist.

Heavy rain falling down on you, you stared back at him, letting him pull you back, back to his chest and you once again realised that his hands weren’t like a typical prince’s. His were rather calloused just as his skin was a map of scars because he wasn’t the kind of prince one would have expected. Unlike his older brother who mostly dealt with political and economic issues by the side of their father preparing to follow his lead, the second prince had become a general, a soldier, fighting for his country like any loyal subject of his, not expecting more of them than he would have given himself.

"You're running into your death," the man reminded you much softer this time and you knew he was right. You knew you could only get ahead of the other ship to cannon it properly if you went in a smaller circle in the spiral but if you went any closer to the center of it, the maelstrom would have pulled you down, bury you underwater along with your precious ship. It was a suicide mission but in that moment, it didn’t matter.

"If I can take that monster with me, I don't care!" you snickered, pulling away, hands searching for the grip of your weapon while you tried to find your balance on the unstable ship. Knowing you had your sword with you had never failed to put your heart at ease. It was a stable point.

"But I do," the man claimed oh so confidently, voice resonating through your bones, in the blood rushing through your veins and it got to your heart. Your movements halted, your mouth parted as you looked back at him from under your raindrop dotted eyelashes.

In that moment, under the pouring rain, features lit only by lightning, cheek scarred, General Seonghwa looked nothing like the prince you had met at your first encounter. Because oh, the two of you had quite a history, a sequence of chance meetings as if the thread of your fates were so deeply tangled, it couldn't have been separated. You have met before, sparred before, talked before, saved each other’s life before but you never addressed what this unsaid thing was between you.

Not when the pirates invaded the Royal Summer House in Busan and he caught you stealing crystal and gold. He had a sword pointed at your heart and even though he wore a night robe, his eyes, dark like the starless night, were awake. He spoke to you in an authoritative, strict tone, knowing no forgiveness, no tremble in his grip… until you looked up, revealing your youthful, feminine features to him. And oh he was too naive, too soft at heart, the darkness of his eyes melting like caramel over fire. He would have never dared to lay a finger over a woman like this, so just a few bats of eyelashes was enough and he lowered his sword along with his guard. Despite you being a trespasser, a thief, a criminal, he looked sorry and he made it ridiculously easy for you to escape with handful of expensive assets. After selling most of them at a good enough price, you still worn a few of the rings you had stolen from the royal family. A souvenir, you liked to call them, not that you needed any reminder.

Not when the Navy ambushed the den your crew - your father's crew then - had resided at. He seemed utterly confused to find you there but as chaos broke out, you soon found yourselves on two different sides again. He learned that day that even women could be good at swordplay as you sparred through the building, up the attic then the roof. He almost fell as his boots slipped on the slippery timber and you could have let him found his death there, at such an unprince-like place, in the mud down there, among the poor and drunk but you made your choice in a split second. You grabbed his hand before he could have fallen entirely and pulled him back to safety, telling him that he owed you one. Panting, he looked at you with those dark, star-filled eyes of his and you felt his burning gaze on you even when he let you run off.

Not when he paid back the favour. He hid you in his royal carriage when you were running away from guards in another kingdom's coastline city. At first you wanted to hit and kick whoever dared to yank you into the vehicle while you were hiding behind a brick wall watching out for the guards but when you saw him in his shiny, dark blue uniform, his general badges on instead of his crown, you decided against it. He acted stern but you could see the amused crack of smile in the corner of his mouth. You would have liked to call him out on it but indeed there was something funny in always meeting like this. As if it was more than coincidence. Almost life fate, that silly thing. Then, just before he let you go close to the port, he asked for your name and you saw no wrong in telling him. If he had wished to put you on the wanted list, he would have done it earlier and he wouldn’t even needed a way to address you for that. But what you didn’t consider was you not being prepared for him calling your name oh so sweetly.

Not when your father was murdered and his old crew left you on an uninhabited island in the middle of nowhere and he found you. He wasn't even looking for you, his ship just happened to pass by and seeing you on that wrecked boat trying to find your way with that compass of yours, he took you in. He made up some silly story of you being some lady kidnapped and abandoned by pirates. You were grieving too hard to protest or call him out on his lies, threatening him or acting like a proud pirate. Because at least for a night you let yourself be vulnerable and cared for. Before that, you had never worn such soft silk before and never tasted wine as nice as the ones in his chambers. You two sat by his bed with your backs to it and slightly tipsy you told him about your father, that he had been your only relative left and that you had nothing from him but a stupid compass showing you what you really wanted even when you didn’t know what it was. He also told you about his family, that he could never be a king because he wasn't the legitimate son of His Majesty, that he found his true self out there, on the sea. You two exchanged too many innocent secrets that night and by the morning you were too embarrassed to face him. So like a coward you never wanted to become, you stole one of the extra boats and left before he could have woken up.

Not ever since even though you had met quite a handful of times. Like last time when you gave him that pretty cut under his left eye as a warning.

That time, he was cornered by dozens of mercenaries who pondered over the amount of money his head could have worth and even though he fought well, they overnumbered him. Beaten and chained, he laid awake at night when the Cassiopeia passed by. That was his luck, otherwise you wouldn’t have noticed him and wouldn’t have ordered your men to rob the mercenary ship while most of those men were sound asleep.

“Long time no see, princeling,” you whispered as a greeting when you crouched down in front of the man who looked no less elegant even as a hostage. It wasn’t fair.

“Too long, if you ask me,” he dared to smile at you, hissing when pain shot into his split lip. He deserved it.

“It would better be the last time,” you gritted your teeth as you examined his confines. Damn, he wasn’t even paying you for this, so why did you feel like saving him once again? His men were probably already after him, there was no need for you to be so gallant. He was a prince after all, even if he wasn’t the son of the current king, he wouldn’t have let him get away like this, right?

“Then you should give me a proper parting gift as a goodbye, something to remember you by,” Seonghwa said and his daring words made you raise a brow.

Legs tangled as you kneeled in front of his sitting form and your mouth twitched at his sudden cheekiness. You lifted the dagger in your hand, using it to tap his chin from underneath with the metal blade. Tilting his head up you had a clear view of his blown pupils, his slightly agapé mouth and you couldn’t help but wonder what was in his thoughts. Was he afraid? Or the darkness of his orbs were from a different kind of feeling?

You leaned closer, so close that even a whisper would have been too loud between the two of you and smiled down at him wickedly.

“Beware of what you wish for,” you warned him before you swiftly cut through the ropes around his wrists and then grazed the blade along a part of his cheek on purpose lightly but just enough to draw blood. You freed him, lent him a lantern and a boat, then let him on his way. You were a pirate captain after all, not a charity service.

And now here he was trying to stop you? He had quite a death wish.

"Your father wouldn't want this," Seonghwa added at your silence and you hated that he was most probably right. Your father would have wanted you to take the glorious road instead of a martyr’s.

"Captain, what should we do?" your right-hand yelled at you from behind the wheel and looking around, you quickly realized the three ships moved in sync in concentric lanes by now but at least the Navy ship and the Cassiopeia caged the Black Medusa in. They were done for.

“Fire!” you ordered and all your men behind the cannons followed your word.

The noise and tremors of the shots shook the entire ship, even more so when your ship got hit as well. You stumbled backwards, until you grabbed one of the mast’s ropes to steady yourself. The ship tilted to one side dangerously, everything sliding down there and you knew well that once a watercraft this big buried somebody under, there was no chance of survival.

"You have to leave the ship!" Seonghwa reminded you as he pulled you towards a safer part of the ship. He was crazy staying there with you. He should have left already, not caring about dirty pirates dying among heavy waves. This was your fate after all.

"Not without my men!" You claimed and oh, they said there was no loyalty among pirates.

"Tell them to leave, too. The Medusa is sinking already," the general remarked and he was right.

However, it couldn’t have been all thanks to your crew: the Navy was firing the other pirate ship as well. You knew what Seonghwa meant by leaving though: to escape the doomed ships only to reach theirs but once a bunch of pirates were on a Navy ship who knew what was going to happen? You couldn't let yourself trust them just because of Seonghwa. But you had no time to ponder over such things. You needed all your physical strength already to not fall into Death's welcoming arms.

"Everyone, leave the ship! Take the boats or follow me!" you shouted at anyone who heard you and the pirates who were brave enough not to escape by then, now followed your orders. Your ship was close enough to the Black Medusa to crash into it time and time again which sent your balance off but it also meant that the deck-plank reached the other side, making it convenient to climb over.

"Go!" the man behind you encouraged you and the corners of your mouth twitched.

"The ever so gentleman," you rolled your eyes and willed yourself not to look down at the stormy sea beneath you while nothing but two sinking ship and a piece of wood held you. You naively thought it would get better once you set foot on the black ship's board but it was already so unstable that sparring with one of the pirates there looked as if both of you were drunken bastards. At least you saw most of your crew members jump or swing over to the ship, one step closer to safety.

With a kick in the chest you managed to throw an enemy to the water when you heard a playful voice behind you. You would have recognized his anywhere, you realized.

"Captain," Seonghwa called out for you and you turned towards him confused, a part of you afraid that something had happened, but instead you had to catch something thrown at you. Looking down into your palm, you recognized your compass that somehow had detached from your belt. Your father had gotten this tricky device after many struggles and it was the only thing you had from him, so you treasured it dearly and the general knew about it, too. As well as about the reason why the compass was so special. You stared at it, at the pointer that wasn’t spinning anymore. No, it showed you a clear direction.

“Watch out!” You screamed when you saw Blackbeard striking down at the general and you quickly drew your sword again to fight the old pirate.

It didn’t take long for the scene to become chaos: you and Seonghwa fighting back to back with four pirates. Sparring through rain and beside burning barrels, feet slipping on the sloped board, you felt adrenaline, vengefulness and something else you couldn’t name rushing through your veins.

“Y/N, I...” Seonghwa panted from behind you but you didn’t want to hear it. It already sounded too much like a goodbye.

“Shut up,” you snapped at him while your sword’s blade slid one of the men’s throat. You heard one fell to his knees on the prince’s side as well.

“But in case, we wouldn’t...”

“I told you to shut up,” you sneered between your teeth before turning around and tossing a rope around both of your bodies, you told the man to hold on and with one strike you cut through the rope that was anchored by some counterweight. Without that, the two of you shot up to the foremast’s level as the ballast pulled down on the other side. You needed to jump from there to the top of the Navy ship’s cabins and falling onto your knees on that steady watercraft’s surface had never felt so good.

“You’re unbelievable,” Seonghwa whispered beside you and soldiers rushing to you from all sides it was one kind of a moment, a now or never.

“You have no idea,” you chuckled as you toppled the man over, your light weight over his wide shoulders and there was a mischievous glint in your eyes but a genuine smile on your lips before you pressed against his body, kissing him like there was no tomorrow. Beside you laid the gilded compass with engraved runes pointing at him, like it always did, knowing the deepest and most sacred wishes of your heart even when you didn’t.

And Seonghwa kissed you back, sliding a bloody hand behind your neck, into your soaked hair, pulling you closer, smiling against your lips, murmuring his silly confession into the seam of your mouth. No title, revenge, gold or sinking ship mattered then, just his warmth close to you, soft touches burning on your skin and silly promises you wanted to keep. Just like him.

#stories #ateez x reader #ateez imagines #ateez scenarios #seonghwa scenarios #seonghwa imagines #seonghwa x reader #pirate au #prince au #enemies to lovers

339 notes · View notes

xyliane · 4 years

Text

AU-gust 2: college au

PROMPT THE SECOND: COLLEGE AU (one of these days I’m actually going to draft a story out of my own tales of undergrad into chaos, mayhem, and jumping out of windows cuz the class was boring. instead today, you get the aftereffects of being a TA and also seeing this post on twitter and jumping a few dozen steps to the right. hxh again, zushi pov)

0o0o0o0o0o

It’s 3am, Zushi has a paper due in the morning, and he is bouncing impatiently from foot to foot outside of the RA’s door in shorts and an old shirt that should have fallen apart months ago. It’s not fair, really. He could have had this done days ago, all he needs is the translation for some final key conclusions, but his partner on the Artomatic forums fell off the map, Professor Palm absolutely refuses to help, and Zushi still doesn’t read Greek in any form, let alone whatever form of it is going on in this tome he’d scavenged out of the dusty corners of the old art wing library.

Zushi’s an engineering major. He has a whole internship lined up after this, working with Wing and Dr. Krueger on practical applications of Da Vinci’s wing sketches. This art class is the last humanities section he ever needs to take. Why does he need ancient Greek just to understand a fresco made thousands of years ago depicting a bunch of naked people breaking vases--

He pounds on the RA’s door again, just as the flimsy wood creaks open. Killua, to no surprise, is still awake, white hair casually tousled and blue eyes a little red from whatever he’s using to stay conscious. He looks like any other time Zushi’s seen him, save for the chocorobo-print pajamas. He blinks a little, like he’s not used to looking up at someone taller than him. “Oh, hey Zushi. What’s up?”

Zushi all but launches the tome at Killua (and it is a tome, leather-bound and heavy as a whole weightlifting rack and smelling of dead dust). The RA catches it in his chest with an oomph fuck. “I heard you...” Killua raises an eyebrow, and Zushi swallows heavily. “I heard you can read ancient Greek?” he asks the chocorobos covering Killua’s knees.

When he doesn’t get an immediate response, Zushi knows he’s screwed. He’ll take the F on the term paper, the absolute mess it will do to his overall GPA, Wing will just look disappointed--

And Killua lets out a little chuckle. “Haven’t got that in awhile. You bring your phone?�� At Zushi’s stare, he adds, a little sharper, “For the translation.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Killua sighs, and steps into his room as though expecting Zushi to follow. They’re friends, Zushi thinks, or at least friendly--Killua’s a good RA as far as making sure everyone’s forms are in on time and not enforcing the rules when he thinks they don’t make sense. But he’s never been in here before.

It looks like any other single, but with a private bath. Maybe a little neater than most, a teetering tower of textbooks threatening to consume most of the desk. Zushi doesn’t know what he expected.

Fortunately, Zushi has had the fresco’s page marked for ages now, so it’s easy to find and point out the troublesome scrawl. At the sight, Killua seems to brighten, some of the everpresent uni student exhaustion lifting as he traces a finger along the photocopied brushstrokes. He looks absolutely thrilled at whatever it is he’s found, words boxy and stark against the naturalistic forms.

Zushi coughs a little too loudly, and Killua’s head snaps up, white curls bouncing a little. He grins a little sheepishly. “Where did you find this?” he asks. “When I was--I know some people who would kill for a look at this.”

Killua’s previous major is a source of much debate amongst the freshmen--what gives someone fluency in at least three languages, a solid basis in at least calc 3, and way too many opinions about world leaders?--but Zushi doesn’t care right now. He just wants to get this done. “Can you read it?” he asks. “Please?”

Killua shrugs. “Sure, as long as I can borrow this when you’re done. Pronunciation first.”

And Killua begins to read. Zushi has no idea what he’s saying, but the words seem to flow musically, one into the other, until it’s hard to tell if Killua is reading or singing. When the phrases finish, they don’t so much end as echo, vibrating around the shabby college dorm as though aching to sink in and create a place worthy of their sound.

Zushi doesn’t realize he’s stopped breathing until Killua takes a deep breath himself. He’s pale, paler than usual, and his hands are white-knuckled around the edges of the pages. “Well. That was...” He glances up, seeming to remember Zushi is there, and rolls out his shoulders. “Now, to translate--”

And the ground erupts in light.

When Zushi’s eyes clear, it’s still nighttime, but he’s laying on well-used cobblestone, and an infinite array of stars stretches out in front of his eyes. He doesn’t remember laying down. He doesn’t remember the outside. And he certainly doesn’t remember such colorful statues towering overhead, not unless you count Captain Biggs’s much-defaced figure outside of the gym.

A brown-skinned young man with wind-swept black hair stares at him, brown eyes dancing as he yells something across the stone--a plaza maybe? a courtyard?

By the time the young man’s helped Zushi sit up and offered a small sip of what tastes like wine, Killua’s back, now dressed in something out of a toga party with a smile practically splitting his face, wider and wilder than Zushi has ever seen. “Cool, you made it. Did you know you found one of the last remaining active frescoes? Because I didn’t, and if I had I wouldn’t have read it out loud.”

Zushi shakes his head. “I don’t read Greek,” he says.

Killua says, “You’d better get good quick. We’re in Athens until our friend here--” The young man says something, voice a question even if his expression is still laughing, and Killua shakes his head. “--Gon, can help us find the original.”

“The original...”

Killua kicks him gently with a bare foot. “You’re an engineering major. You’re not that stupid.”

Zushi can all but feel the wheels creaking in his head, splitting away from logic and reforming into some new, illogical, impossible set of gears. “Th-that’s not--we’re in Greece???”

“Circa 4th or 5th century BCE, if I’m getting my dates right,” Killua agrees cheerfully. He holds out a hand and tugs Gon to his feet, their grip and Killua’s eyes lingering just a little too long before offering the same to Zushi.

Zushi takes a few deep breaths, then one more for good measure. He can deal with this. He’s shit at language, but this is a problem, and there will be a solution, and he will find it before he has to turn in that miserable paper.

“Okay,” he says, and lets Killua help him up. “Okay. And your new boyfriend will get me clothes, too?”

Killua’s grin turns smug in a way that Zushi really, really does not want to know. “When in Rome, right?”

“We’re in ancient Greece!” Zushi squawks.

(AUgust prompts)

#AUgust2020 #my writing #hxh #zushi #killua zoldyck #look I don't know #I'm sorry to my art history profs who made sure I knew about black figure and red figure #the ancient greeks didn't really do inscriptions like this but fuck it magic book #using my art history degree here for the only thing it's actually useful for

28 notes · View notes

fogsrollingin · 4 years

Text

Title: calculated losses, chapter 3 Author: fogsrollingin fandom: Supernatural Story details: Sam & Dean, rated PG-13, 2.3k words. Summary: my next entry for @whumptober2020! Prompt filled is no 21. “hypothermia.” and No. 22 “withdrawal.” This chapter completes the whole story! chapter 1 on tumblr || chapter 2 on tumblr || full story available on AO3 || FFnet too

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　calculated losses, ch3　｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Dean hunched over the wheel, hands gripping it tight at ten and two, knuckles whitening as he tried to suppress the shivers wracking his body. Sam was still so cold he hadn't started shaking yet. He was lethargic, slumped against the passenger door and mumbling incoherent strings of words. Dean couldn't forget Sam was withdrawing too. The heat blasted through the vents. Dean drove, eyes wide and desperate for lodgings.

The convenience store they'd been held up in had been on a frontage road parallel to the highway. He cursed the long local street, his side of it holding nothing but Pennsylvania wilderness now, interspersed with gravel driveways leading to decent two-story houses. It was empty of traffic. He'd probably need to get onto the highway before he could find a place to stay.

He glanced at Sam. His brother had closed his eyes, his mouth hanging open.

"Sam? Sammy!?" Dean shook him, grabbed his arm and Sam sleepily came back to life.

"Yeah here, jeez," Sam wheezed as Dean kept shaking him. "Dean, okay!"

"Stay awake," Dean ordered roughly. He was so worried about Sam, still holding Sam's arm that he almost missed the wide driveway of "Osa Motel and Campgrounds."

Dean slammed on the brakes and twisted the wheel, making Sam lean then fall into his lap. The Osa general store parking spaces were right there so Dean pulled up and took the opportunity to feel Sam's forehead. Still ice cold. Sam moaned and curled up.

"Gonna get a cabin, Sammy, be right back," Dean promised. He slipped out from under Sam, making sure his head landed carefully.

The general store was a godsend. Dean paid for the closest cabin and several heat packs. He explained to the manager, Achak, a middle-aged Native American man with intelligent, curious dark eyes that he and his brother were just getting back from a bad camping trip and needed to rest and recuperate from the elements. Achak gave Dean a knowing and sympathetic nod before coming around the counter. He handed Dean the key and went outside with him, confirming Dean's story with a glance at Sam sort of sleeping in the front seat of the Impala. He pointed at the traditional log building that was theirs.

They busted into the spacious one-room cabin, Sam draped over Dean and stumbling. Dean dropped him onto the closest bed, found the heater under a window sill and turned it all the way up, came back and started in on Sam's shirts, wet from the freezer's ice that melted on the way here. Once Sam was bare-chested, Dean used towels to pat him down, then the heat packs against his neck, under the arms. He used both sides of the blanket to wrap Sam's upper half like a burrito. Next Sam's shoes and socks, his wet jeans and boxers had to go. Same routine. Towel pat-downs, warm packs along his groin, under his knees, then he went and got all the blankets from the second bed and made a mountain so thick and warm on top of Sam Dean was honestly ready to get under there and pass out too.

He thought to get a hand towel and wrap it around Sam's damp-cold hair. Sam seemed to wake up for that, probably from Dean jostling his head.

"Dean, it's okay. I can die, I'll jus' come back," Sam stuttered and slurred.

"You're not gonna die again, Sam," Dean yelled, cupping Sam's face, tried to get his little brother to look at him. "We're gonna get you warm, Sammy. Me too, for that matter," he added as he started to undress. Sam watched him, eyes glazed, pupils blown out wide though.

Dean left his boxers on before burrowing in and unceremoniously draping himself over Sam.

"Oh fuck you're so cold," Dean exclaimed.

"Just let me die," Sam laughed blearily and Dean glanced down and let the relief wash over him at the sight of those dimples. He chuckled and arranged the covers more while Sam yelped and fumbled under him, weakly resisting Dean's closeness.

"Shh stop, stop Sammy," Dean whispered and Sam stilled. "You know the drill. You're coming out of it. You're gonna start shaking real bad and skin-to-skin is the best fastest way to get this over with," Dean explained softly as he maneuvered Sam around so they were on their sides and chest to chest.

"Y-y-you'll hol' m-m-"

"Shh, yeah," Dean agreed, aligning himself along Sam's block of ice body, clamping his legs and arms around him. "I'll hold you, I got you."

Sam started whimpering, the feeling coming back into his limbs, his shakes turning to spasms. "Dean," he cried against his brother's bare chest. "This is..."

"I know it's bad, Sammy. I know," Dean soothed. "Don't talk, just... c'mon." He rubbed Sam's back and got him to snug in closer against him.

"Dean..." Sam breathed into his brother's neck.

"Your hair smells like that shawarma we had yesterday," Dean whispered. "Could really go for that right now."

Sam gasped and whimpered, clutched onto Dean harder.

"It's okay, it's okay, Sammy. How's the withdrawal?"

"Feels like my heart's beating out of its chest," Sam replied, his breath punching out on every word. "My ribs are gonna crack. My head wants to explode."

Dean's heart ached. "Okay, stay with me though, okay?"

"Okay," Sam cried, burying his head into Dean's neck. "I'm sorry."

"What? For what?" Dean asked, confused.

"I don't know," Sam sobbed and Dean recognized Sam wasn't really thinking anymore. "I'm just... It hurts so much, I'm so sorry Dean."

"It's okay, Sammy."

"I love you. I love you so much. I hate dying."

Dean squeezed his eyes shut. "Shhhh. You're not dying, Sammy, nobody's dying."

"Feels like it," Sam wept. Dean shuddered for his brother because apparently Sam did know how it felt to die.

"Sammy, you're alive, you're just hypothermic and withdrawing from demon blood. We're getting through it," Dean coached, smelling Sam's shawarma hair again. "We'll get through it and then we'll find some middle eastern or Thai, or uh... sushi, I know you like sushi," Dean trailed off, not even knowing what he was saying anymore.

Sam spasmed and jack-knifed against him, nearly tagging Dean in the nads and Dean was just about to scold him for it when Sam fell out of bed.

"Sam!" Sam let out a blood-curdling scream. It stopped abruptly like someone had cut his vocal chords and Dean gasped as he watched his brother's body vault up against the bumpy logs of the wall. He was held up suspended by nothing, arms wide and fingers scrabbling for purchase, his face a rictus of pain. It was a replay of what Dean had seen in the panic room last year when he'd locked Sam up to detox.

"Sam!" Dean roared, launching up and getting his arms around him, trying to pull his little brother down from the supernatural throes the demon blood had pinning him.

For too long Sam was stuck to the wall, his back unnaturally glued to it as he jerked and writhed, tried to get free, trying to reach his big brother.

"Dean," he begged, tears streaming down his face. "Please."

Finally whatever was holding Sam let go and he collapsed into his brother, kitten-weak but clinging. Dean hefted him up. "Okay back into bed, come on. Come on, Sammy," he spoke, his voice cracking. It had scared him to see Sam like this in the panic room last year and it still scared him now. But this time he wasn't leaving.

He got Sam onto the bed. Sam curled up and rolled over, heaving in agony. Dean picked all their blankets back up and draped them over him before climbing in and wrapping himself around Sam's back. "I'm not leaving you, Sammy, stay with me. You in there?" He squeezed his brother with his arms and legs. Sam jerked.

"Y-yeah."

"You feel me?" Dean moved to press a palm against Sam's chest, over the anti-possession tattoos they booth wore, over his heart. "I've got you. We'll get through this, Sammy, listen to me, okay?"

Sam put his hand over Dean's and went silent. They were quiet for awhile but then Sam's body shuddered like he'd just woken up. His shoulders started to shake, and finally Dean heard a wet gasp. "I can't do this. I can't even fall asleep right now because I'm so.... Lucifer's waiting for me. I can't do this anymore. Dean," he said his brother's name like a plea.

"He's not gonna come this time," Dean lied.

"You don't know, you can't know that," Sam objected, tone pitchy with indignity.

Dean gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut for some kind of solution.

"Cas! We'll call Cas, Sammy. If anyone can figure out how to keep an archangel out of your dreams it's gonna be him."

Sam might've whispered 'okay' but Dean didn't press it. He was warming up but the withdrawal was giving him the same kind of tremors anyway. Hallucinations might come into play too, Dean knew. He leaned his forehead against the nape of Sam's neck and prayed aloud.

"Castiel, please hear me. We're in a bad way and we need your help. Please come to us, Cas, please. Osa Motel and Campgrounds in Pennsylvania."

They waited with Dean clamped strong around his naked, detoxing little brother. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew Sam was almost over the hypothermia. The heat packs now strewn around under the covers as well as the blankets could finish warming him up. Dean could get out and sit by Sam's side or something now as he came down. And yet.

Dean kept his arms around his brother. Maybe it was because this time Sam had been forced to drink blood against his will or maybe it was because Sam was so apathetic with his own suffering in the walk-in freezer. Dean's thoughts danced around the truth though, something that struck him every time he thought about how Sam had lost count of how many times he'd offed himself. What were the last things Dean had said to Sam those times?

Dean wasn't an idiot; he knew Sam really only had him. This was destabilizing for Dean too though. He thought Sam was safe for now, but instead Sam could've taken his own life after they'd had a good laugh at the bar last week, or after a successful hunt a few days ago, the two hours Sam had been at the library before they hit up the shawarma place yesterday...

When and how had he been hurting himself with Dean none the wiser the whole time? And what if he'd succeeded with any one of them? Cold dread seeped through him at the thought. Sam would've died and Dean would've been the one to find the body. He'd be the one trying to eke out the rest of his life knowing Sammy had saved the world just by successfully killing himself.

So no, Dean kept a hold of his brother, his body warm now, shaking, slicked with sweat, his skin unmarred except from scars that Dean knew every story to. The living, breathing reminder that he still had his brother, broken and tortured but still calling his name when he was hurt, still so desperately wanting Dean's approval and love and trust.

"It's true, he does," a gravelly voice intoned, surprising Dean. He rolled away from Sam onto his back to find Castiel hovering over them.

"Cas," he breathed. He couldn't be bothered the angel had been following his thoughts. In all fairness he hadn't thought to say 'end prayer' or anything since praying to him. "Lucifer can reach Sam in his dreams. Can you stop it?"

Sam shifted weakly, moving just enough to get on his stomach and look over, eyes puffy and wet and glazed but mildly focused on the two of them.

Cas's expression was empathetic sorrow. He nodded. "I can. I will ward the cabin."

Cas vanished. Sam scooted closer to Dean inch by inch until Dean noticed and helped to get Sam resting along his side, head cushioned on his shoulder, shallow wheezy breaths against his neck.

"You'll be able to sleep soon now. Just hold on, okay?" Dean murmured. Sam sniffed and nodded. "We're gonna talk about it again later but Sam, I want to make a new rule. No dying alone anymore, you understand me?"

"We all die alone," Sam rasped.

"Not you, not when you've got me. I understand why you decided to try it, why you're still trying. I actually don't think it's a half bad idea but... we figure out a way to die permanently, we stay together," Dean paused, deciding he wouldn't go into how he'd want to die too. "And we just... go from there. Okay? Sammy?"

Sam latched onto his shoulder and tucked into him more. "Yeah, okay. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. We'll get through this," Dean reassured, calm and controlled.

Sam didn't let go of his brother even after he cried himself into a dreamless sleep. Dean followed soon after, relieved Sam was out of conscious misery and in dire need of rest himself.

Castiel bid them farewell too but not before stocking the fridge in the cabin, something Dean discovered the next morning with such immense gratitude he actually prayed to the angel again just to thank him.

Sam woke up dizzy and disoriented around two in the afternoon while Dean was putting clothes on him. He was still so out of it he wasn't embarrassed but he wasn't in pain and Dean counted that a huge improvement. Sam couldn't remember anything past the walk-in freezer so they would have to revisit what Dean had said before but that was okay. Sam wasn't getting out of Dean's sight any time soon which was going to settle his nerves about Sam's secret opt-outs. And Sam had confessed so much that'd been eating away at him. Dean could tell their stay here, just the two of them at this warded cabin hashing things out, was going to heal them both.

---

A/N: And with that, we bring this fic to a close 😊

Thank you for reading. Please let me know if you enjoyed with a like, a comment, a reblog!

To see what the last 9 days of Whumptober are gonna look like for me, you can visit my tumblr post here with a few details. Fingers crossed I can get everything done in time. I'm really cutting things close 😵

Also if you've read my fic "in this house" (the story right before this one in my Sam Whumpchester series), I need to share MidnightSilver's incredible artwork that they posted yesterday inspired by it. It's just like, I'm speechless. Silver is a g i f t.

Thank you again for reading! Have a lovely evening (new SPN episode woo!!!) xoxo Alex

9 notes · View notes