#throwing Scar in a dune and shouting 'it's good for you!'

[redwinterroses]

there should be more content of 3L!Grian indulging in dust baths.

[winchester-girl67]

Wild Hearts (Part 2)

Summary: Dean steals his father's car to give Y/N a ride home. The next day Y/N tags along to the dunes for sand surfing. 

Masterlist

Pairing: AU!Dean x reader 

Word Count: 3,771 

Warnings: underage, age gap (reader is 16, Dean is 20 but closer to 21), mentions of physical abuse by a parent, past injury (bruising/scars), mentions of death and alcoholism, John is an asshole in this one, underage drinking, angst, language, slow burn, mutual pining, a hint of jealousy, a bit of fluff 

A/N: Sand surfing looks really fun. Didn’t think I’d get this finished before the new year. Happy holidays! 

_____ 

Dean grabbed your hand every time the headlights of a car came into view and pulled you off more to the side of the road. Placing himself between you so the car would have to go through him to hit you. The last time he did it you held onto his hand and he didn't let go. Until you came up to a driveway that led to a small ranch style house sitting amongst the evergreens. 

You spotted a cherry-condition, black muscle car sitting in the driveway, "No way! Is this your car?" 

"Uh- yeah," he smiled, "-I mean, no. It's my dad's but yeah that's what we're taking." He stumbled out his words as if he was nervous. 

You trailed your finger up the hood of the car, "Sixty-seven?" 

"You know your cars." He smirked. 

"My dad used to drag me to every car show he could when I was younger. On those days he did get off work." You said, admiring the freshly waxed black paint. "And as a result, I developed a thing for pre-seventies muscle." 

"Baby's the only thing my father has ever loved." Dean said and you frowned, "Aside from my mother. She passed away when Sammy was born."

"Baby?"

"It's what he calls the car." 

You nodded. "Who's Sammy?" 

"My little brother," he explained with an edge of protectiveness, "He's sixteen, too." He bit the split in his lip until it bled and kicked the front tire with a glare. "He's probably passed out by now," and somehow you knew he was talking about his father again, "But you better wait out here." He said, pushing you off to the side of the house so you blended with the shadows of the trees lining it. "Y/N, if you hear anything... Do not come inside." 

Then he turned around and headed for the door, leaving you with a sinking feeling in your gut. The way he spoke about his father, loving four wheels and engine more than his sons. Dean looked pained at the thought and his eyes greener when they glided over his father's Impala. 

Then it hit you, his warning. His father wasn't a good man. 

You left the shadowed tree line and peered through one of Baby’s windows. Fast food bags littered the front bench seat and a half a bottle of liquor lay on the floor. Your skin started to crawl at the thought of Dean's father coming home half-pissed and taking his day out on his sons. No doubt Dean only stuck around for his little brother. You wondered if Sam had endured the same type of injuries or if Dean always stood between them. Somehow you already knew the answer. 

The screen door shut with an audible creak and Dean reappeared on the porch, "Y/N?" He whisper shouted as he scanned the area you were supposed to wait. "Y/N." 

"Over here," you matched his tone. 

"Got 'em." He jingled the keys for you to see. "Let's push her out onto the street before we start her though." He opened the driver's door, "Here, you steer, I'll push." 

"You're not gonna get in trouble, are you?" You hesitated, you didn't think you could bear to see more bruises on him, or worse. 

He gave you a cocky smile, "I'm not gonna get caught." 

You slid in behind the wheel and shifted into neutral, taking a moment to appreciate Baby's beauty despite the mess of trash in the front seat. Meanwhile Dean ran around to the bumper and started pushing the car down the driveway. You braked when you got to the edge of the street, throwing open the door and letting Dean take over as you slid over to the passenger side. 

The car grinded to a stop as he pulled up in front of your house. It was a beautiful car but the whole ride felt like a tin can rolling over bumps in the road and the muffler rattled against the undercarriage the entire time. His father didn’t seem like the type to put his time or money into anything that couldn’t give back to him. Which apparently included keeping up maintenance on Baby. 

"For someone who's supposed to love this car," you flicked a used ketchup packet onto the floor and wiped your sticky fingers on your jeans, "He's shit at taking care of it." 

"Imagine if he didn't love her." Dean's eyes were lost on the dashboard, deep in some solitary thought. "He didn't deserve her and he doesn't deserve this car." For a moment you thought he must've been talking about his mother. You wondered if the abuse started before or after her passing. You didn't ask. "Are you busy tomorrow?" 

"Um."

"It's fine if you didn't mean it. About being my friend. But I was gonna go sand surfing and I thought that might be something you'd like to do. Something friends do." He shrugged. "I-I'm not trying to be creepy. Just friends." 

"I don't think you're creepy," you shook your head and met his sad smile, "I'd love to go, sand surfing? What is that?" 

He laughed, "It's like snowboarding but down a sand dune. It's easy, I'll teach you. Fall's the best time for it because the sand won't burn you." 

"That sounds fun." 

"Good, I'll pick you up," he said and then added, "My friend's driving. There'll be others there too, but they're not like your brother's friends." 

"I don't like my brother's friends." 

"These are good people," he smiled, the bruised part of his face hidden in the shadows of the car and you almost forgot about it. He had a nice smile, he didn't show too many teeth or too much gums. "I'll give you my number, in case you decide to cancel." 

You laughed silently but let him enter his phone number into your cell. Then you texted him so he'd have yours, too. 

"Thanks for the ride, Dean." You reached over and gave him a quick side hug. He didn't even have a chance to react but stared at the dash again and nodded when you pulled away. "Text me when you get home or I'll worry." 

"You don't have to worry about me, Y/N, I'm not a child." He said cordially. 

He'd obviously picked up on you putting the pieces of his home life together, his injuries, his father, how much he was risking by stealing Baby tonight. Dean was tall and built enough to protect himself, but nobody should stand alone and clearly his father was still bigger and stronger. 

"People worry about you in every stage of life, Dean. At least they should. I will." He looked over at you and matched your frown. 

"But you only just met me." 

His words echoed in your ears well after you showered and crawled into bed. Dean brought about so many feelings in you that you didn't know which to follow. You felt butterflies, and mutual affection like you'd known each other longer than you did, and an untethered desire to protect him, which was absurd because although he was skinny, he could toss you over his shoulder and spin you around if he wanted to. His bruises and scars made you feel helpless, but his smile made you happy because you could tell he felt lighter, too. 

You checked your phone and found a message from him. 

Dean: Mission impossible accomplished. See you tomorrow. 

Y/N: Thanks for texting. Goodnight, Dean. 

Dean: Night, Y/N. 

You'd be lying if you said you weren't developing a crush. You sighed and rolled over in bed. What could you do, nothing. He'd get into a lot more trouble than you. 

Sleep did not come easy after that and you woke up before you thought you'd even fallen asleep. You groaned and rolled over in bed when you heard your phone buzz. 

Dean: Good morning, Y/N. 

Y/N: Geez, you wake up early. What time is it? 

Dean: You're literally looking at your phone. 

Y/N: Omg! It's 6am, what is wrong with you?! 

Dean: You know the saying, early bird... 

Y/N: The sun isn't even awake yet, Dean. 

Dean: You're grumpy in the morning. 

Dean: Just wanted to let you know we'll pick you up around noon. 

Dean: Y/N? You still wanna come, right? 

Y/N: Yeah! Sorry, I'm tired. 

Dean: Awesome. Just one question before you pass out on me. Benny's bringing a grill, so we're making hotdogs for lunch. You're not a vegetarian are you? 

Y/N: Yeah...

Y/N: I'm joking. No, I'm not. 

Dean: Good, our friendship might've ended right there. 

Dean: Just kidding. Go back to sleep. 

You smiled at your phone a little too long before you locked it and went back to sleep for a few hours. 

"Hey, sweetie. You're awake early." Your mother said when you walked into the kitchen around ten. It was early compared to your typical Sunday morning. "Have fun last night?" 

You nodded, not wanting to get into the events of your brother or his friends from the bonfire. Your mom seemed to accept the answer and you assumed your brother made it home at some point without her noticing the hour. 

You got along with your parents well enough. You never really got into any trouble and you weren’t sure they even knew how to ground you if you did. Besides, your dad wasn’t around much lately, it seemed his new promotion kept him at the office longer than necessary. Which was where he was now. On a Sunday, at ten A.M. 

You didn't know what you wanted to do when you grew up, but you knew you wanted to have balance in your life. Something you thought your dad didn't understand. You couldn't remember the last time he brought you to a car show, you couldn't remember the last time you'd asked him to bring you either. 

"Your dad said he'd be home for dinner and your brother probably won't be up until mid-afternoon. What time did you two get in last night?" She asked, sipping on her coffee. 

You didn't have a curfew because you never had the need for one and your parents oddly trusted you. You didn't do crazy shit to make them worry about you but sometimes you wanted to, if only just for the attention. So you knew she was just curious when she asked. 

"I dunno," you shrugged, not wanting to get into why you didn't know and that you didn't come home with your brother. "I'm going out with some friends for lunch." 

"That sounds fun," you weren't sure if she was even listening anymore or just saying that. 

Your family had gotten better at not actually listening to each other lately. But you ignored that fact yourself and grabbed a bowl of cereal for breakfast. 

At eleven-thirty, you threw on a pair of high-rise jeans and an oversized t-shirt that you knotted at the waist. You also pulled on a flannel shirt in case it got chilly which was the way the weather was turning lately. Then you texted Dean. 

Y/N: Text when you get here, I'll come out and meet you. 

You wanted to avoid an awkward interaction with your mother. Especially since your brother was awake now and slamming the kitchen cupboards. He wouldn't really care but he was nosey and would start something if he saw how much older Dean was. And you doubted a few hours would've helped much with the bruising on his face. That wouldn't be fair to make Dean explain how he'd got them to complete strangers. Especially since you were pretty sure you knew how he'd gotten them. 

Dean: We're here. 

You shouted a 'Bye' as you ran out of the house, hearing your brother ask your mom where you were headed before the door slammed shut behind you. You shoved your phone into your back pocket and ran down the driveway to where a red Jeep waited. Dean stood outside, leaning against the door. 

He smiled when he saw you run up, "Hey." 

"Hi." You said, noticing his face falling, "What's wrong?" 

"I feel like we're sneaking around," he glanced back at your house as if he expected someone to come running out after you. "Feels wrong." 

"I just didn't want you to have to deal with the inevitable questions about, you know," you pointed to the left side of his face. "But if you want I can introduce you before we go... Or you could come over Friday for family dinner and give that a little more time to heal." 

He stared at you for half a second then shoved his hands in his pockets, "Family dinner sounds nice." 

"Great, I'll set it up tonight!" You smiled brightly and touched his arm, "Feel better?" 

He swallowed and nodded and you heard someone shout impatiently from inside the Jeep. Dean opened the backdoor for you and climbed in after you. You sat in the middle next to a guy with black hair and blue eyes who looked about the same age as Dean. 

"Hey, I'm Cas." The guy greeted you as you settled in. 

As soon as the door was closed the Jeep pulled out onto the road with a bounce from a pothole the tire hit. 

A small brunette in the middle front seat turned around and waved, "I'm Ruby, Sam's girlfriend," she pointed to a lanky guy with long brown hair next to her who offered you a smile. 

They looked about the same age as you, at least you knew Sam was. You noticed right away Sam didn't have any bruises or obvious scars. You felt a bit proud of Dean for that and also a little sorry that he didn't have someone like himself to have his back. 

"That's Benny," Dean said, pointing to the guy driving. "Benny say ‘Hi’."

"Hi." He glanced in the rearview mirror. 

"He's quiet until you get to know him." Dean explained. 

Benny, by far, looked the oldest of the bunch. Maybe it was because he hadn't shaved in a couple of days or maybe it was because he was built like a linebacker. But either way he didn't seem to like you. It was just a vibe you got in the split second your eyes connected. It practically radiated off him and you wondered if you were the only one picking up on it. 

"So, Y/N, how come I never see you at school?" Ruby asked, spinning around in her seat to face you completely and bumping into Benny who growled. Maybe it wasn't just you. "You're not home schooled are you?" 

"No, I go to one near my dad's work." You explained quickly, not really wanting to talk about school. 

"Where does your dad work?" Sam asked this time. 

“At Sandover Bridge and Iron. He’s the Director of Sales and Marketing.” You bounced your eyebrows. Really all that means is he’s barely around anymore. 

"That's cool," he said, shifting his eyes to Dean for a second. 

"Oh," Ruby’s brown eyes widened for a second and you knew what she was thinking. 

"Yeah."

"Am I missing something?" Dean asked, glancing between the two of you. 

"It’s a private school." You explained and it seemed to dawn on him. "What are you smirking at?" 

"You have to wear a uniform, don't you?" He smiled so wide the split in his lip threatened to pull again. 

"If you must know, yes, and it is the bane of my existence." You rolled your eyes dramatically to make your point. 

"So, like a plaid skirt with those long socks?" 

"Careful, Dean. We're friends, remember?" You whispered to him and he opened his mouth to respond, but then snapped it shut and turned to stare out the window. 

Ruby pouted, resting her chin on the back of the seat, "That's too bad. You could've sat with us at lunch and I would've shown you around. Dean says you're new." 

"Yeah," you sighed. That would've been nice to know someone in school. You had begged your parents to let you go to a public school this time, but they insisted. "Too bad." 

Dean had gotten really quiet and you nudged him with your elbow. He turned to smile and swallow thickly before turning a cold-shoulder and staring out the window again. You had only been teasing, but you didn't want him getting any ideas that would only result in him getting in trouble. 

"How do you guys know Dean?" You asked, directing the question at Cas since Benny didn't seem to be much of a talker. 

"We grew up together. Well, me and Dean did." Cas explained, "Benny just kind of showed up one day and we couldn't get rid of him." Benny growled and Cas winked in the rearview mirror. "He really is a teddy bear once you get to know him." 

Once you got to the beach Benny didn't park in the parking lot, instead he drove out onto the beach and down the shore for a long time until you were surrounded by only dunes of sand. It would've taken forever to walk there. He parked at the top of the dunes and everyone filtered out of the Jeep. The guys grabbed the boards from the trunk and Benny got to setting up his grill. You guessed he wasn't really into sand surfing. 

Dean said he was going to teach how to surf, but he was already halfway down the dune with Cas when you looked. And Sam and Ruby were flirting as they carried their boards over to join them and you didn't feel like third wheeling it today, so you hung back with Benny. 

"Need a hand?" Your voice was softer than you'd like it to be but you found him intimidating, even if he wasn't nearly as tall as Dean or Sam who was a moose at sixteen and probably still growing.

"Thought you came for that," he pointed at the dune where the others had run off to and you saw a couple extra boards stuck in the sand at the top. But you still didn't know how to surf, never even been snowboarding. And those surfboards looked a lot more like snowboards. You'd hurt yourself for sure without knowing how to turn or stop. "I hope you know what you're doing with him." 

Your eyes snapped back to Benny's and you squinted, "Excuse me." 

He raised his hands and his eyebrows, "His home life is... undesirable. I know you know what I mean. Last thing he needs is your parents on top of his own." 

You didn't think your parents would bat an eye at Dean. Mainly because they were wrapped up in their own lives and didn’t pay you much attention. But if they did notice, you wondered if they would dislike Dean enough to turn what you have with him into something wrong and indecent. You'd like to think they wouldn't because it wasn't. But it's a parent's job to be protective of their child.

"We're just friends." 

"Not the way he looks at you." Benny cocked his head and started setting up the foldable stand for the grill. "He's not thinking when he's around you. And don't get me wrong, I like seeing him happy, he's been there for me more times than I can count, but- Do you have any idea what his father would've done if he knew Dean took that car out last night. If that's the way he looks after spilling paint in the garage..." You didn't know what to say and opened your mouth like a fish out of water before he continued. "Dean's never done anything like that before. I'm just asking you to be careful with him. He has two years left and then he and Sam can get the hell out of there." 

"Why two years?" That's all you could manage to ask. 

"Dean's tried to get custody of Sam since he turned eighteen but the lawyers always tell him the same thing. He's too young himself, with no steady income and no decent living quarters. Going through courts takes time and money and Sam would likely age out before that time." He explained as you fiddled with the knot in your t-shirt. 

"How'd you know about the car?" 

"I live next door, I helped him push it back up the driveway so his father wouldn't wake up and hear the engine." 

"I'm sorry, I didn't know. I mean, I kind of knew but I guess I believed him when he said it would be fine." You watched your shoes and tried to still your bottom lip. "Just so you know, I'm not trying to cause him any more pain. We just kind of connected last night and I like him. I'm not gonna do anything that'll get him in trouble though. I promise." 

"Kid, I'm not worried about you doing the dumb shit. I'm worried about him." He scratched his slight beard. "It's not fair to ask you to think for the both of you." 

"It's not fair to ask me to not be his friend either." 

"I couldn't ask that of you." 

You kind of missed quiet Benny and the afternoon was starting to feel a lot like last night with your brother's friends. You wiped a tear threatening to fall down your cheek when you were sure Benny wasn't looking; everyone else taking a second run down the dune after climbing back up. You stood around and kicked at the sand until you could feel grains in your shoe. 

"Hey, cher, can you grab me the hotdogs from the cooler?" Benny asked and nodded towards the cooler next to the Jeep. 

You didn't bother digging around and just brought him the whole cooler. He split open the pack of hotdogs and started grilling. Then pulled a can of beer from the cooler and opened it. He handed it to you and grabbed his own. You wondered if you actually had to drink it, but he clearly saw that you were upset and it was a peace offering of sorts. So you took a sip. 

The fifth sip wasn't so bad and the seventh went down even easier. But it still tasted gross and you still didn't see the point. Maybe just a little warmth in your cheeks. 

Sam and Ruby were the first to run back over when Benny rang the dinner bell. Followed by Cas and Dean. Dean eyed the beer can in your hand and you took another sip before you grabbed a hotdog and walked away.

_________________________

Part 3

_________________________ Dean: @akshi8278 @laycblack @thoughts-and-funnies @mrsjenniferwinchester @crustycheeks @kazsrm67 @sexyvixen7 @lyarr24 @suckitands33  @eliwinchester99 @yvonneeeee @igotmajordaddyissues @djs8891 @leigh70 @globetrotter28 @backseat-of-deans-67chevy

SPN: @hobby27

Wild Hearts: @justrealizedimmascifygurl @evieluvsjamie @kimberkingrivers

[lexiepiper]

Reflection

Hey @danthectoman, I was your backup Truce gifter! I hope you enjoy this bitter(sweet) Dan thermos fic!

I know my blog’s formatting sucks, I haven’t been able to change it yet, but you can read it on Ao3 or ff if you’d prefer.

.

There wasn’t much else to do but seethe.

His body, compressed down to mist, strained against the smooth metal walls. He pressed, and prodded, and tried again and again to pop the seal, but it held eternally firm, and he was left with nothing but thoughts in the darkness.

So he softly settled, like low-lying fog across fields, and sulked.

His anger pulsed at first, and every time he thought about things, his core would flare and he would pound himself against the lid once more. Still, it never budged, and he always ended up sinking back into simmering stillness before his thoughts caught up with him and his fury inevitably swelled again.

It was a dark, stagnant cycle, and he didn’t know how long it had been going on until a tiny thought wormed its way through the haze of agitation. Jazz would be disappointed.

It caught him off-guard, and he paused in yet another attempt to break the seal.

She would be, wouldn’t she?

The thought held a bite of anger, and he coiled in readiness to throw himself against the lid again, but before he could lose himself in his rage he managed to picture her. Time had worn her smooth, and she was little more than long red hair pulled away from her face with a teal headband, and fragments of smiles and hugs that always carried more love than he ever felt from anyone else. He pooled again at the bottom of the thermos, trying to fit the glimpses of memory back together. He couldn’t picture her fully, but the more he tried, the more she slid into place in his mind.

His parents followed quickly, and sorrow pricked his core when he realised that he couldn’t remember what his mother’s smile looked like, or the scent of the aftershave that his dad had worn. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to think about them, and now this tiny effort was far too late.

The deep, hollow ache in his core flared up, like an old wound that never really went away, and he curled in on himself. He wanted to stop thinking about them, to make the yawning emptiness fade into the background once again, but he just couldn’t stop himself… His family sprang back to the forefront, whose faces were blurred by time, and who had never known the truth about him. He wondered if things would have been different, had they known. He tried to picture it — ghost hunting with his parents, or making ectocookies, or trying to dodge Jazz when she ruffled his hair after he had easily caught The Box Ghost yet again.

The imagined scenes brought a fresh wave of pain. He’d never told them, and now they’d never know, because they were dead. They were dead, and it was his fault.

He had no physical body to cry with in the thermos, but he burned with the thick heat of grief, and Dan wrapped his misty form tighter around his core. He stayed there, pressed against the cold circular floor of his prison, while his core trembled and his mind dwelt on the little things that made up the people he’d lost. If he thought about it, he could almost smell Sam’s shampoo, or picture the shape and colour of Tucker’s glasses. He didn’t remember if Jazz’s shirt had been black or white that day, or if his parents had been holding hands when they walked into the meeting. He spared a small thought for Mr Lancer too, but then returned to trying to recall what his mother’s perfume smelled like.

He dug deeper into his memory, and every resurfacing detail felt like pulling out a splinter. It was painful in the moment, but once he stopped fighting the memory, and allowed the thoughts to linger, the pain was not so much that of continual hurt, but more akin to the ache of healing.

Sam’s shampoo had been a vegan one that smelled like roses, and Tucker’s glasses were large half-moons with black frames. Jazz’s shirt was also black, his mother smelled like orange blossoms, and right there at the end, they had been holding hands.

He missed them.

He missed them, and there, coiled as compressed ectoplasmic mist, he realised that he still loved them.

He had no mouth or throat, but Dan’s amorphous body clenched and spasmed in the closest thing to a cry, and he tried to remember as much as he could.

He reached for old memories, of the sound of screeching locker doors, and that his mother would always fold his socks so that the edges lined up perfectly, and how sand felt when it crunched and squeezed between his toes, and Dan realised that his family and friends weren’t the only people he missed.

He missed rain on his skin, and the taste of lime, and the way it felt to sleep in jeans after a long day, and a million other little things that made up the sum of life.

He missed Danny.

He missed himself.

He’d never thought that before, so swept up in the rage of abandonment, and then… then the rage of bloodlust. His core shivered, and he tried not to think about it. He tried to dredge up those nicer, softer memories, of picnics and sunsets and life, but every attempt was swept away by the sheer force of blood-drenched gloves and dying, screaming souls.

He’d started with himself, and then had never stopped… but now that he’d been stopped, and left in a soup can to rot? Now, he had time to think, and the more he thought, the more he remembered.

People had been so easy to kill. At the time, it gave him a rush of excitement, of winning the hunt… but now, if he’d had a stomach, it would have been rolling with bile. Unlike the hazy memories of happier times, he could picture every person he’d killed in crystal clear detail.

They rushed him, breaking through the mental walls that he tried to throw up, until all he could do was cower at the bottom of the thermos and face how each of them had looked in their final moments. Each terrified expression drove shards of revulsion deeper into his core, and these visions continued in an unrelenting wave until he had revisited every single victim, and felt the horror and guilt that had been so absent when their lives had ebbed away beneath his cruel fingers. He didn’t know how long it took, but when it was over, all he could do was lie there and steep in the blood that stained his soul.

He wished he had never done it.

He would do anything to have never done it.

As soon as the thought presented itself, Dan felt a vibration stutter through his prison. The thermos shuddered, and then the compression was gone, and Dan burst out of the darkness into a light that burned his eyes with its sudden intensity after so long in the darkness. He curled in mid-air, pressing the heels of newly-formed palms against freshly-made eyes and hissing in discomfort.

When he finally came to himself, the first thing he noticed was a soft, repetitive ticking. It was strangely familiar but misplaced, like the wrong lyrics being sung to a familiar tune. Dan shuddered, dropping his hands and squinting in the light. His core fluttered with the strain of his unrelenting emotional storm, and if he were a weaker being he might have worried about it collapsing due to stress.

He glanced around, frowning at the sight of a ghost screwing the cap back onto the thermos.

“Who are you?”

The ghost regarded him with red eyes, one of which was struck through by an impressive scar. “You know who I am.”

Its voice rasped like sand shifting, and brought to mind the endless dunes of a desert, eternally changing with the ravages of time.

He did know. “Why now?” Dan snapped, but the snippiness was somewhat lost from his tone as his core heaved with fresh guilt. “When I first learned of your existence, and searched the Ghost Zone, I could never find you.”

The ghost didn’t respond, and Dan shook his head as anger finally began to trickle back into his core. It pushed the guilt aside in its demand to be felt. “You… you hid from me!” he shouted, flinging out an arm for emphasis. “You knew what I would do, but when I came to find you, to… to fix this,” he gestured to himself, “you left me on my own! What did that other Danny have that I wasn’t good enough for, Old Man?!”

The ghost of time rippled, and his form changed into a younger man. “Come,” he said, and floated through an open archway set in the wall.

Dan paused. The room he’d been released into was nothing more than a small alcove, with a pedestal that must have housed the thermos up until now. Frustration bloomed in him, but it was quickly overcome with a spark of disbelief.

He was free?

After so long, it felt impossible. He immediately yearned for open spaces, whether the expanse of the Zone or the wide blue sky of Earth, it didn’t matter. He just had to get out of here.

He could run, but if that strange cloaked ghost with the ticking clock in its chest really was who Dan suspected, then he doubted that he’d get very far. Besides, it’s not like he had anywhere that he could run to, anyway.

Loneliness ripped through him, and Dan clenched his teeth and flew through the archway before the crushing grief could come pouring back. “Hey!” he shouted, speeding to catch up with the figure that was floating leisurely down a long, narrow corridor lined with large clock faces that all displayed different times.

The other ghost reached a door recessed between two massive clock faces just as Dan caught up. “Come, Daniel.”

The simple address struck him like a blow, and Dan recoiled, his hand flying to his chest to clutch at the HAZMAT. “That’s not my name,” he choked. “I’m not… him.”

The time ghost paused with a hand on the ornate doorknob. “Maybe not the way you used to be,” he demurred, “but in many ways, Daniel, you’re still you.”

Dan’s core clenched, and the shadows behind the clocks deepened as his hair flared in an inferno of white flames. “Don’t you get it, Clockwork?” he shrieked, the slight tether of self-control crumbling away. “I killed people! Millions and millions of innocent people! I murdered children, and can still see their faces, and feel their blood dripping off my hands! I am not your precious Daniel!”

Clockwork’s hand dropped back to his side, and he turned so that they were facing each other. His gaze was soft and achingly sad, and the ticking of the clock inlaid in his chest sparked a pang of longing that Dan didn’t even know he could still feel.

He shoved it away. “Why didn’t you save me?” he choked, and his core felt like it would smother him. “You saved him, with your time travel and your second chances. What was so special about him, anyway? Why did he get them back, while I became his lesson?”

Clockwork folded his arms across his chest. The watches lining his wrists flashed in the brilliant light of Dan’s hair. “Saving comes in many ways, Daniel. If I wasn’t going to help you then you’d still be in that thermos.”

“I don’t need your help,” he snapped.

Sad red eyes bored into his. “Don’t you wish that you could take it all back?”

The question pierced him to his soul, and Dan faltered, sinking so that his feet hit the tiles. His knees buckled and he sagged, leaning against the wall and grasping his chest as a half-forgotten sound squeezed where his ribs should have been and wormed its way up his throat and out through gritted teeth. It took a moment to recognise the sob for what it was, and by then, another one had broken out as well.

He tamped down on the emotion, blinking burning eyes and leaning heavily against the wall. “Yes,” he choked. “I… I want nothing more.”

The ancient ghost sighed, and it sounded like the faraway chime of a forgotten clock. “Come,” he said again, reaching for the handle once more and swinging the door open. “You are my ward, Daniel, no matter what form you take. I would fight all powers in the realms to give you peace.”

Dan blinked as an undeniable warmth wrapped itself around his core. “Oh,” he breathed, and for a moment, the pain melted away and he felt like Danny Fenton for the first time in what could have easily been a thousand years. It was nice, but overwhelming in its abruptness, and he sank to his knees. “But… but I’m still half Plasmius,” he managed to say past the swelling comfort that cocooned him like a blanket.

Clockwork shrank until he was in the form of a child, his eyes once again level with Dan’s kneeling form. “Without that half, you’re not stable,” he said, and laid a tiny hand on Dan’s shoulder. “You were stronger, and absorbed him. You have his powers, and his temper, but beneath that, you’re still Daniel Fenton.”

The comforting warmth continued to thicken around him, and Dan screwed his eyes shut and leaned his forehead against Clockwork’s shoulder. “Are you adopting me?” he choked as he recognised the bonds forming between their cores.

He felt the other ghost nod. “Technically, you’ve been my ward for over a thousand years now. I just had to leave you in that thermos until you came to your senses.”

“What, you left me in time out for a thousand years?” Dan retorted, but the words lacked any bite.

Small fingers brushed through his flaming hair, and he forced down a shudder at how unexpectedly nice it felt.

“You needed to experience regret,” Clockwork explained, and gently pulled back from the hug. “You had to want to change the past so badly that you’d do anything. You weren’t going to change until you were ready to.”

Dan leaned against the wall again. He still felt wonderfully warm and cared for in a way that he never had, not even during his distant, fleeting time alive. “I do,” he said, and tried not to think about how cheesy this all was, “and I will.”

Clockwork smiled then, and the scar that slashed through his eye crinkled with the expression. He reached out a hand and Dan grasped it. “Come,” he said, shifting into the form of a young adult and pulling Dan off the floor with the change. “You have some time travelling to do.”

[ayo-cowbelly]

when the fire goes out, how do we stay warm? part 2/?

previous part ~ next part ~ masterlist

this chapter is just SkySnips fluff and then *angst*. hope you enjoy ;)

the chapter count has changed- this story will definitely be more than two parts. it just went in it's own direction and i was powerless to stop it.

Warning: descriptions of injuries and a panic attack

***

When Anakin wakes up, he sees sterile white walls and bright lights filling his vision. Everything is blurry. It reminds him of being unconscious, except instead of darkness all he sees is blazing white.

The first thing he registers is that his body, especially his right eye, feels like it’s on fire. Then he realizes that his right side feels suspiciously light. Anakin knows he must have injuries, somehow, but he doesn’t remember exactly how he got them. Usually, when he wakes up in MedBay, the memories come rushing back within a few seconds; sometimes it even makes Anakin nauseous. But this time, there’s nothing. No flashes of battle, no cut off sentences, no ringing of an explosion in his ears.

There’s a blankness filling the space where the last few days (or weeks, he doesn't know) should be. It makes Anakin more unsettled than the nausea would.

He closes his eyes, reaching for the memories, but all he can remember is having a meeting with the Council- about what, he doesn’t know. But he recognizes the feelings that come with it; irritation, resentment, anticipation. The emotions feel stronger than they would normally be. Whatever he’d been doing, it hadn’t been good. He dives into his head again, and almost gets past the Council meeting; but when he tries to get farther, he meets a wall. As Anakin bangs against the structure, it keeps pushing him back. He’s not sure if it’s meant for protection or to deceive him.

Maybe Obi-Wan knows? Now that Anakin was awake, he should comm his master- Obi-Wan would surely be aware Anakin had been unconscious (and it must have been caused by something bad, if Anakin’s stinging limbs are any indication). Anakin looks down at his body, inspecting the injuries. His left arm has red scars running down it, along with his legs. Some look newer, and he knows how to differentiate those from his old ones from Tatooine- those he is intimately familiar with.

There are the small ones on his fingers, from when he was a child reaching for machinery his mother couldn’t reach. There’s ones on his legs (which are currently bare, due to the hospital gown he’s wearing) from the lashings Watto and Gardulla gave him, and of course ones he earned for running through Mos Espa trying to get away from said lashes.

But these new marks… he’s not sure where they’re from. Anakin reaches up to his right eye, trying to discover the source of the pain. He runs his fingers over the scar, wondering why it feels… longer than it used to be. Anakin follows the stitches (why he needed stitches on an old scar, he had no idea), dread swirling in him as he traces them down to just above his jawline. His cheek feels swollen and numb.

Anakin counts about 15 new wounds on his left arm, and those are just the ones he can see (some, he notices, run under his sleeve. He doesn’t want to know where they go). There are some bandages on his legs and he thinks he senses one on his left shoulder. Anxiously, he slowly turns his head to his now-weightless side. The sight before him shocks him to his core.

His right arm. It’s gone.

Not just the prosthetic. His entire right arm. Is not there. His limb just... ends at his shoulder, a small stump the only thing left. Anakin slams against the wall in his head, demanding answers, but the damned thing stays strong. The effort almost exhausts his already ragged mind. What happened to me?

As he surveys the MedBay, it’s seemingly empty- save for a few other sleeping troopers, so it must be during the night cycle. His eyes land on the bacta tank. In it is Rex, eyes closed. His body is covered in marks as well. But they’re not as bad as Anakin’s, not even close. The Jedi looks closely at the other troopers in the room, checking if they have anything resembling lashes or cuts- but they don’t. It’s just him and Rex, from what he can tell so far.

The door to the MedBay opens, Kix striding in. When he sees Anakin, he almost drops his datapad. “General! You’re awake!” Judging by the tone of the medic’s voice, Kix is genuinely surprised- just how long had Anakin been out?

“Yeah, I am- Kix, what happened? Where did my kriffing arm go?” As he talks, his throat aches with soreness- Anakin doesn’t try to figure out why (he knows he won’t like the answer).

Kix walks forward slowly. “You… you don’t know, Sir?”

“No,” Anakin says, disgruntled. “I can’t remember anything from before my last meeting with the Council.” His stomach drops a bit when he sees Kix’s eyes widen.

Swallowing, his head medic inspects the bandages and marks on his body. A tense silence fills the room. Anakin hates it.

“Kix. Where did Rex and I go?”

“Sir, I- I’m not sure I’m the right person to tell you.”

Anakin feels a flare of anger. Kix means well, he knows that; but when you wake up with new scars and a missing limb, with your captain in a bacta tank- well, you’re bound to have questions.

“Just tell me why my arm’s gone, Kix, if you won’t tell me where we were.”

Kix lifts his head, looking Anakin in the eye grimly. “Your prosthetic was gone by the time I got to you. The rest of the limb was too infected and torn up to be saved.”

Anakin looks back to the stump at his shoulder. Eyes closed, he whispers, “Why was my arm torn up?”

“General Skywalker, really, I don’t think I’m the best person-”

Anakin silences Kix with a wave of his left hand. “Fine, then, just- can you get me Obi-Wan?”

At his General’s words, Kix pales but doesn’t say anything. “I’ll- I’ll get you Commander Tano, Sir,” Kix says shakily, before turning and walking out.

Anakin has more questions than answers.

He waits, fidgeting with his hospital gown, wondering why the hell Kix seemed so unsteady around him. As he sits in his bed, he tries reaching out to Obi-Wan in the Force. Anakin locates their bond- but it’s unstable, the thread fraying on both sides. He pulls on it, and is met with a wobbly burst of surprise, distress, love, and sorrow from Obi-Wan. Anakin sends back feelings of confusion and slight impatience. He doesn’t receive anything in reply.

He’s about to reach out again, but is interrupted by a shout of “Skyguy!” Anakin turns to Ahsoka, her feet pounding over to him. She throws her arms around him, holding tight.

“Snips?”

“Oh, thank the Force you’re awake- it’s been awful, Master, without you or Rex here- please, don’t ever do that again-”

“Ahsoka,” Anakin says. He gently pries her arms off his, but still keeps her close. His Padawan- his little sister- has tears in her eyes as she looks over him. “What happened to me? Where’s Obi-Wan?”

Ahsoka’s eyes overflow. “Master, he’s- they- I tried to tell-” The sentence is cut off by her broken sobs. Anakin pulls her into his chest again, and she gratefully holds on. He runs his hand over her Lek, making soft shushing noises.

“It’ll be okay, Snips, whatever happened- it’ll be okay,” He whispers. Ahsoka only cries harder. Anakin wonders if his Master is- no, he can't be, Anakin felt him through their bond- Obi-Wan is not dead.

~

The next day, Anakin sets off to the bridge, intending to get answers.

Well, he tries. Whether or not he actually got there is a different story. Ahsoka, Kix, and even Cody (who has apparently been on the Resolute for as long as Anakin’s been out- the Commander looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks) all sternly ordered him to stay put.

“Master, you just woke up last night; you need to rest.”

“I can’t rest, I need to know where Obi-Wan is, where I’ve been-”

“Sir, as head medic, I’m respectfully commanding you to stay put,” Kix finishes replacing a bandage on Anakin’s leg, sternly giving him a look.

Anakin, knowing not to argue with Kix, tries a different tactic. “Cody, you agree with me, right?”

Cody, who looks incredibly worn out, just shakes his head at Anakin, making the Jedi sigh.

“Please, just tell me what happened,” Anakin begs, looking around at the three of them. The two clones share a glance before saluting quickly and walking away, nodding to Ahsoka.

She stares at the closing doors, hands twisting and pulling at her clothes. Anakin’s eye catches on an angry-looking line on her uncovered right shoulder. Had she been on the mission, too? Anakin hopes she wasn’t; whatever mission this was, it had been catastrophic, if he was missing an arm and Obi-Wan was gone- No. Don’t- don’t think about that- he’s alive, you felt him, you’ll find him-

Ahsoka takes a deep breath. Then another. She wipes her eyes, turning to face him. “Master, we were on…” she pauses and takes his left hand, as if telling Anakin to brace himself. “You, me, Rex, and Obi-Wan… we were on Zygerria. But after that-”

He can’t hear the rest of her sentence. The word ‘Zygerria’ triggers a myriad of emotions in Anakin. Anger, fear, sadness, pain, despair, hopelessness- he doesn’t know what to make of them. He feels numb and overstimulated all at once. His heart twists in his chest. Anakin wonders if he’s about to float away or sink into the floor, and he distinctly remembers yelling and crying and wondering where the Root was-

“Master?” Ahsoka says, but her voice can’t bring him back. He faintly registers a tentative brush of sympathy and love in their bond, but he can’t reply- he’s lost in his head.

Anakin is stuck in an ocean, and he’s going to drown, why can’t he swim- where is Obi, how can I get out, DON’T TOUCH ME- where is the Root, I want Obi, GET AWAY FROM ME- I want to rest, I’m so tired, let me sleep, LEAVE REX ALONE- why can’t I see the Dunes, they’re supposed to be here, I can see Mom again, I HATE THIS PLANET- let them swallow me, I TOLD YOU TO STOP- I want to help, STOP PLEASE STOP, STOP, DON’T DO THAT, STOP- Obi please help me-

The thoughts that must be from the mission whirl around his brain, but he can’t grasp onto the memories they hold. Anakin wants them to go away, he wants them to stay put, he wants to make his hand stop shaking. Why is he burning if he’s about to drown? His heart pounds and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, his legs don’t work, he is going to sink-

Suddenly, his spiraling mind is gently pulled at with a sweep of affection and love. The feelings aren’t his, but from someone nearby (he can’t remember who). The person keeps building up the sentiment, until they become a thick blanket that is laid over Anakin, shielding him.

He finds that his eyes are closed. He slowly comes back into his body, and realizes his left -his only- hand is tightly gripping something.

It’s another hand. Ahsoka. He opens his eyes, breaths regulating. Anakin releases her, and turns his head to look at her. His little sister looking at him worriedly, questions in her eyes.

“Anakin?” She breathes.

“‘Soka?” He croaks out. His throat is even more sore than before. “Where- where’s Obi?”

A heavy pause. “The queen has him, Anakin,” Ahsoka says quietly.

 Anakin can't help but be relieved that Obi-Wan has been confirmed alive. But the Zygerrian queen has him- and Anakin knows that that is so much worse than his Master being dead.

  I would rather my child be dead than be a slave like me.

But this time, it's his brother.

"'Soka... what happened... after we were there?" Anakin asks, part of him not wanting her to answer.

"You- The guards, they found you and Rex, and they shipped you off- They put me in a cell," She says. Searching his face, his apprentice knows he needs more details. Sadly, she continues, "They took you to Kadavo, Master. The queen made Obi-Wan her servant."

Kadavo. A place all slaves knew, even on Tatooine. It was the planet that everyone had nightmares of. He had been sent there- The thought almost sends his mind spiraling again, but before it happens, Ahsoka takes his hand and fills their bond with comfort. Anakin meets her eyes. "How long- how long were we-" He can't bring himself to finish. It doesn't feel real- but it must be. They made him into a-

 Don't finish that thought.

Anakin turns back to Ahsoka. Another pause. Eyes closed, Ahsoka mumbles, "It was about a month before we were rescued, Master."

He doesn't know what to say to that- he had been on Kedavo for a month? "H- how did they find us?"

"It took them a while to figure out where you were, but once they did, they sent Master Plo to get us. Once they got you, they went for me and Obi-Wan- Rex told Master Plo where we were before he went unconscious, apparently. They found me, but... nobody knows where the queen put Master Obi-Wan."

Red fills Anakin's vision. Obi-Wan, his brother, is missing, in the hands of some slaver queen-

 She will pay.

[mercifuldeaths]

Vertigo: Chapter 11: Hallowed Ground

Vertigo: Chapter 11

Hallowed Ground

Jim Mason x Reader

Warnings for this chapter: Intense descriptions of drug use, overdose, and implications of suicide.

Summary: Waves, rocks, fire, salt, stars.

Notes: I cannot believe I’ve taken so long with this. It’s been finished in my drafts for...months now. Interaction with writers is so important, guys! It truly keeps me going. 

Anyway, this is dark. PLEASE don’t feel obligated to read if anything in the warnings is triggering to you or makes you uncomfortable! It’s a bit of a departure from my usual style, but I enjoyed making some parts of this chapter a bit more ambiguous and abstract. 

I hope you enjoy xx

Word count: 6.1K

Gif credit: (Unfortunately, I can’t find the source of this beautiful gif. If anyone knows, please tell me and I’ll credit them straight away.)

-----

It was a grey morning. The sun not yet risen, but light enough that stars were hidden in the illumination. Overpowered by something greater. It was still. Everything unmoving. Stagnant. 

And for once she was happy about that. Not the ebb and flow of water, the waves, but something that could maybe give them a little more time. It’s how Medina knew something was desperately wrong in the universe-that she was okay with this stillness. She lived for motion, the rocking sensation, whirlpools, rips, anything that moved her but that morning gratitude settled in her chest for the crushing calm. A lake. Not the ocean. 

They couldn’t find him. Jim.

A missing person couldn’t be reported until it was twenty-four hours after the time they went missing, she thought. It had only been about seven. But someone could go lots of places in seven hours. Lots of things could happen in seven hours. 

The cold started to seep into Medina’s thin jacket, her nose running, eyes red. She didn’t bother blaming her tears on the cold. Jim was gone. She could feel it in her bones. In her soul. She didn’t know why she was still rushing because she knew they were looking for a body. Seven hours was much too long post mortem to do anything about it. 

She bet that he was cold, too. 

They had decided to split up- to cover more ground, was what she told Y/N but it was really because Y/N still was hoping and Medina knew she couldn’t live with false belief. Maybe it was so she could cry a little, too. They checked the beaches first-it’s where she thought he would go. To the water. To her. 

Beaches were strange, she mused. It was all really just one, right? Stretching along a coast...people just decided to name different parts of it. Off topic. It was weird. Her mind wanted to think about anything, anything, but Jim. Cold and blue and grey with his eyes open staring at nothing. His hair curly from the sea air, hands tensed, knuckles covered in dried blood, thin skin stretched over bone. Maybe the sea started lapping at him. It was going to be high tide soon and the winter waves were high. Off topic.

She walked along the shore, where earth met water, the temperature icy but reminding her of why she was there. For the first few hours, she ran. Ran through the sand and the dunes and over fences screaming. She screamed until she tasted blood. He was alive then. His pulse living inside her. The second heartbeat, because they always came in twos. The best things did.

Now, she was tired. And he was dead. So it didn’t matter anyway. 

Medina walked, letting the water splash up soaking her jeans. Good. Along the way, she collected sea glass, throwing the ones that weren’t smooth enough back into the water. Someone else will find it when it’s ready.  She walked in a straight line pretending a balance beam was under her. You always imagine the weirdest things, Medina. When his voice echoed too loud she turned backward and walked that way. What? No remark this time, Jim?

She looked down the coast both ways. Empty. 

She was empty, too. 

--

She smelled burning. Fire. 

“Jim, what are you doing?” Medina whispered out her window down to Jim who was crouched next to a bonfire he had created in their backyard. 

“Oh hey! Come down here,” he shouted, much too loud for the hour. Medina’s phone said it was close to three in the morning. 

Choosing to placate him was easy. He was….she couldn’t tell. But he was talking to her. So he was probably high. She held onto whatever shred of hope was left that he wasn’t. She made it down into the yard and sat next to him without a word. They never had to speak, but she found herself unable to think of anything to say to him. 

Jim flipped through the stack of papers he had next to him, licking his thumb, then flipping again. She almost laughed. He had them organized by age but he was mostly done by then, just finishing up when his sister noticed. She looked to him with wide eyes, a weary smile on her face and he felt his chest tighten. Pity. He was suddenly reminded why he was doing all of this. 

He found that he liked the warmth that radiated onto his skin from the flame. Orange and hot. Not blue and cold. It was like the sun from that coffee shop. He’d miss that. Added to the list. But it would be okay. In the end, anyway. The smoke curled up into the sky but he tried not to look. He’d miss that, too. The stars. Added to the list. 

Medina was looking up, though. Looking for him up there, he knew. Because that was the thing- he wasn’t stupid. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what he was doing. Each pill each line perfectly planned to destroy him in the best way. Sometimes Jim was reckless, but not with this. Methodological down to a science. After all, he knew his limits by then. 

The way that it hurt them though….wasn’t accounted for. Y/N...Medina. That’s why he wished it was done already. So they wouldn’t have to hurt for him anymore. Y/N...I want to see her. Stop being a selfish asshole, she hates you. I don’t care. I want to see her smile a few more times.

“What are you doin’?” Medina asked, finally looking to her brother. 

Jim sighed. “Just getting rid of some shit.” He lifted one of the stacks he had left. This one labeled ‘Kindergarden?’ because he couldn’t be quite sure. 

Medina leaned in and tried to read the label but he pulled it away before she could. Hearing him speak, she was almost sure he wasn’t high. And he’s talking again… A flicker of optimism. 

“What is that?” she asked, moving faster than him, and managing a grip on the stack. In her haste, a few of the smaller pieces of paper fell to the ground next to her. On instinct, she reached down to grab it and found that it wasn’t a paper at all but a photograph. 

The two of them, sitting on the steps of their home back in Michigan. It was the first day of school, she remembered that day. She had cried because she wanted a blue backpack, like Jim. Jim had cried because he was scared. Over waffles, before the bus came, she promised she would watch out for him-make sure nothing bad happened. 

Her stomach rolled, nausea creeping in. 

“Oops,” Jim sang as he threw another pile into the flames. 

“No, stop!” Without thinking she reached into the fire to pull out the photos and small tokens of their childhood together. The only markers of their history besides the memories they held too close to share. “Fucking,” she hissed as the papers fell to the cool grass under her feet, the small flames dying quickly, the pages still scarred and curled at the edges. “What are you doing? Jim, this stuff’s important.”

“Why?” He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and used an ember from the burning pile to light it. “It’s not like I’m gonna need it.”

A pile further from the rest caught her eye. “Is that your birth certificate? And passport?” She rushed over to it, smoke clouding her face. He didn’t bother to try to beat her to it and took another lazy drag off the cigarette balanced between his fingers. “Jim,” she said a little more firm, trying to recapture his attention back from the curling pages in the fire. “What are you doing? Really?”

“I’m just not going to need it, Medina. I’m finally getting out of here.” He smiled. The first one she had seen that wasn’t full of malice in forever, it seemed. 

She hesitated, wary of what he was implying. “Where are you going, then?”

“Right now? Probably over to Y/N’s. ‘Miss her.” He stood abruptly, forgetting his plans to keep burning now that Medina would inevitably put a stop to it. She stood back, hands still tracing the edge of his birth certificate. 

“If you’re leaving...you’re going to need this,” she whispered and held up the slip of paper. 

He flicked the cigarette into the flames that were starting to die down, running out of kindling. Another smile graced his lips but it was dampened by the shake of his head. No.

“I won’t need it.” He winked and stepped closer. She gasped when she felt him pull her into a hug, arms wrapped tight. “You’re my favorite, you know that?”

That was what he always said to her. ‘You’re my favorite.’ She never bothered to ask his ‘favorite’ what? But she really didn’t have to ask. Because he was her favorite, too. 

She held onto him, probably longer than he intended the hug to go on for, but he didn’t pull away. Unable to help herself she placed her ear to his chest. His heartbeat was there. The sound that she had grown accustomed to in those nine months sharing a womb with him provided little comfort. He slowly started detangling himself from her, after dropping a kiss to the top of her head. She felt the sinewy muscles pull away and she wanted nothing more than to grab them back around her. Just one more time.

Without another word, he spun on his heel and managed to gracefully clear the fence around their yard, headed to Y/N’s house. He managed a small wave back to his sister, over the shoulder but still moving forward. 

She grew cold without him there, despite the warmth coming from the dying fire. He liked fire. Not water.

They had gone camping a few times throughout their childhood and if it was anything Medina remembered it was to not douse the flames with water before retiring for the night. It’s supposed to burn itself out. She resisted the urge to cool the embers with the seawater that was so close to their home. Unable to sleep until the embers were blackened and cold, she stayed awake, watching them burn from her bedroom window. 

--

Y/N had the heat blaring in her car-too stuffy and warm, but the outside was too cold. The worst part was the getting in and out of the car. It wasn’t enough time to completely warm her to the bones so her hands remained chapped and stiff gripping the steering wheel, anything to stay grounded. 

Her and Medina opted to separate. Sure, ‘cover more ground’ but also because Medina’s slow glances and supreme uninterest were not helping the situation. Y/N knew Medina need to be near the water so she was stuck driving looking for him. 

The roads and houses didn’t change when everything else had. Nothing changed in Palos Verdes, she noticed. Each paved street turning onto more asphalt, leading to a tan house with a red tiled roof. Carbon copies. A wave of nausea settled in her belly as she continued looking into the grey where everything started melding together. The red roof, house, street, sand, ocean-all became one under the blanket of fog. 

She tasted blood and realized that she was gnawing on her lip. Briefly, she was about to ask Jim to bum a cigarette but her blood ran impossibly colder when she remembered the empty passenger seat. The vacancy was palpable.

When she reached the end of the street, a dead end leading to a trail to the ocean, she pulled over, hearing the tires spin in the sand. Before she could even hear the car door slam behind her she felt the biting cold on her hands and face. It wasn’t enough of a distraction from the nausea and the ache in her eyes, almost too exhausted to keep going. But she knew she would no matter how bad she really did just want to stop. Let it happen. If he wanted it this bad...shouldn’t they respect it? Stop letting him get in your head. 

The walk down to the beach was a longer one than she was ready for, ice in her veins but fire licking her skin. This cove was opposite the side Medina was looking on. The coves were nice because once standing inside it, enclosed on the three sides by high bluffs, there was a clear view of the definite shore. No stretching landscapes, sand extending in both directions, ocean in the other, just the semicircle of beach. Almost completely enclosed, the only way out through the ocean. The bile rose in her throat before she could stop it and she retched into the hilly dune off to the side of the worn sand trail. “Fuck,” she muttered to nobody while licking the back of her hand to rid the acidic taste. 

He wasn’t there. She could see that in the first few steps onto the soft ground. The only reason her feet kept pulling her forward was the pile of black ash that stained the creamy expanse. A beach fire, no doubt. As she grew closer she saw the emptied beer bottles haphazardly strewn about, cigarette butts lazily thrown into the edge of the circle of ash, but no Jim. It was a foolish thought that maybe there was some massive misunderstanding and he had somehow wound up down here with some of the boys. But the peeling logs that once held warmth were cold and damp from the morning dew, she reached a hand down to make sure it wasn’t warm, lit recently...a sign that maybe he was there earlier. Not alone and...just not alone. 

Exhausted, she kneeled next to the blackened sand, jeans now damp, too. They had fires there. There was always a fire when they were together. 

--

It had been a long day that extended into an even longer night. Jim still radiated heat, probably from the slight sunburn he was sporting after spending all day on the beach as she felt herself press into him to avoid the summer chill that came when the sun finally went down. A group of the usuals surrounded a small fire someone had managed to build in the center of the cove, warm oranges spreading over the dunes on onto the bluffs. 

The party had lasted from sunset onward but once it hit closer to sunrise than sunset their friends started clearing out either falling over themselves or linked arms with whoever they were planning on spending the remainder of the night with. And that’s how Jim found himself half laying against one of the makeshift benches, really just washed up driftwood, Y/N comfortably tucked under his arm. 

“I don’t know why you like it so much.”

“Hm?” She looked up at him, a little groggy from the booze that was starting to lose its effect. Jim liked it when she was like this, a little sleepy and vulnerable, but completely herself. 

“The sunrises. You’re exhausted, let’s just go-” he started.

“No, no it’s almost up. Just relax,” she sighed and further leaned into him, preventing him from getting up even if he wanted to. She felt Jim laugh a little and drop a kiss to her hair, wild from a day of surfing and playing in the sand. 

“It’s all new, you know?” she whispered, afraid to disturb the universe. 

Jim nodded, but was still unsure of what she meant. ‘It’s all new’. He wasn’t a fan of new, preferring the comfort of worn in tee shirts, old cartoons, the same jacket for years now. They were familiar, something grounding. New wasn’t...good. New was moving to Palos Verdes. His mother’s new personality, his father’s new wife, his sisters abandonment. Because she really did. And he hates to blame her, but she’s the reason he became...whatever it is. 

His mother was only the spark that lit the flame. Medina and her newfound obsessions and distance were the true catalyst. And his father. And maybe his mother...maybe there wasn’t even a spark. Maybe it just happened. It wasn’t a spark, it was sinking. His pockets weighed down with pills, sinking until he hit the seafloor, salt filling his lungs. 

“You like new beginnings,” he stated matter of factly, a sort of revelation. 

“And you don’t.” She knew him better than she let on. An innate feeling, not something she could explain or reason but she felt Jim in her soul. 

“I like some new beginnings,” he said a little defensive even though he knew he had no reason to be. She could read him like a book. “I like this.” He nodded between them.

“I like this, too,” she laughed, liquor still on her breath. After a moment, Jim saw the clarity in her eyes, all traces of tipsy gone. “I really like this, Jimmy.”

His fingers cradled the back of her head, thumb rubbing small circles, and tilted her face up towards him. He didn’t like the change from the night before and sighed, the irony not lost on him. Last night the fire threw orange shadows across her cheekbones and it made her glow. A few times he caught himself glancing over at her looking like some ethereal being. She was unreal. 

But at her favorite time of day, her face tilted up to the sky, up to him, a grey washed over her. She always tried to explain that it was soothing to her, the part of the day when the world was still, quiet, grey. Nothing truly existed in those precious minutes. Jim found it almost morbid. They greying landscape with fog rolling in to blanket reality. She let out a hum and Jim watched her eyes flicker shut. He had to look away. 

Nothing existed at this part of the day, though. That was the one part he could get behind. Not existing. 

“What do you think is gonna happen?” Jim asked, voice soft.

“What do you mean?” She shifted, eyes cracking open to meet a view of him looking out onto the waves. 

“To us.” His face shifted into something of being haunted by something that hasn’t happened yet. Y/N felt her stomach clench.

“...I don’t know, Jim. Can we just...be?” she said knowing she was dancing around the topic.

She was surprised when Jim gently shook his head. “I need to know there’s something for us. I need something to hold onto.” The last part was supposed to stay in his head but the lingering effects of the alcohol made his lips loose. 

“We’re…” she trailed off, thinking. It wasn’t a secret, Jim’s fear of commitment, so this was new. “We’re gonna be fine.”

“But really,” he said with a little more emphasis as he straightened his back against the driftwood. Y/N rearranged herself accordingly and sat between his legs, his chest to her back, both looking out from the cove. The grey morning was turning into a yellowed hue as the sun peeked through the clouds that decorated the open sky. 

“I think we’re going in the right direction, babe.” She tilted her head back to rest on his shoulder, trying to look at him even though the angle made it impossible. He did that on purpose. 

“I just want like--I just want it all. With you,” he stuttered.

She took a deep breath and Jim could feel his heart palpitate. “I do, too.”

“Like-everything. A stupid house and a dog and like I don’t know. I want to like...do taxes with you?”

A laugh passed her lips. “Taxes?”

“Yeah, taxes,” he sighed, giggling and felt his face burn. “Just like, even the stupid shit. I want that. With you.” He was raw, an exposed nerve on display for her to do with that she chose. 

“I want a stupid house, too. And a stupid dog, and kids-one day. And sure, taxes,” she mused maybe a little too quiet for him to hear properly. 

His eyes were still cast out onto the horizon, scanning for something it looked like. 

“I mean, let’s not rush things.” She gripped his hand that was resting around her waist, completely wrapped in his embrace. “We have time.”

Jim nodded but she didn’t fail to notice the small crease in his brow, his tell for when he was overthinking. “Let’s...start with coffee.” Y/N detangled herself from the cage of Jim’s arms, missing the warmth but consoling herself with the thought of Jim inevitably smiling into the warm drink.

Jim looked up to her. The outline of her body blocking the sun that kept rising, hand extended towards him to help him up. He couldn’t help but place a small kiss to her palm before letting her help him rise. He noted the sand stuck to the jeans she was wearing and couldn’t resist playfully swatting her ass a few times as they made their way back to his car.

“Just trying to help! Can’t have you covered in sand all day,” he laughed as he went in for another tap-just missing and grazing her thigh.

 Her little squeals made him smile. 

--

It was the wrong beach, not the one he was going for, anyway. But was he going for a beach at all? Did it matter? Yeah. 

He remembered there were stairs but not much else. And then it was dark and cold and the water was there. He was there? Fuck. 

There were the pills shoved in his back pocket...that happened at some point. Right?

He reached into the jeans pocket and was met with emptiness. Well really fuck. It made sense, he supposed. The way his heart was going so fast he swore it was going to rip his ribcage open, his breathing was slow though and that was confusing. But the drooping eyelids and desire to just fucking lay down was all too familiar. He must have at some point because he felt some sort of grass or plant stuck in his hair. 

Jim reached to tangle some of it out, his long fingers combing through knots and wincing a little at the pain that he couldn’t really feel. Probably thanks to the oxy. He found his hand sticky when he returned it back to searching through his pockets for a cigarette. It was dark and he couldn’t find his phone-did he even have it to begin with? The streetlights were just close enough to see his fingers painted red. Oh, the stairs. 

He supposed it really didn’t matter anyway. Nothing did anymore. There was no recollection of what he took. The handful of pills were all different colors, sizes. They were beautiful. There were a few bumps of coke taken off his own hand. His nose still tingled and he could taste the bitter on his gums. 

But there were no stairs or pills or powders or Medina or Y/N or his mom, dad, friends there anymore. 

The beach? Oh yeah. 

It was the wrong one. He knew that much. 

He sat alone in the center of the sand, head lolling to the side. 

Go closer.

“No, I don’t wanna move.”

Too bad.

“Fuck.”

He wasn’t crazy. He knew that. He just...something pulled him to the waves. 

I get it, Medina. 

--

It was a Thursday when Y/N had managed to drag Jim out of bed early enough to  get out before anyone else. 

“You have no classes, you have no excuse!” she sing-songed as they wandered down the path behind Jim’s house to the bay, grey waves already crashing onto the shore. He smiled at the winter waves, bigger than ever and pulling whitecaps every so often, and was secretly glad that she managed to force him out. It was that but also probably the breakfast burrito she brought. Yes, she was willing to bribe him. 

He had been acting...off. Nothing to worry about, but just the stress of his thesis and some stuff with his mom had him looking just a little more tired. Typical of a college student, though. Some more coffee, a Red Bull here and there, and Y/N didn’t need to know about the lines of coke he would sneak in the bathroom between classes. Just sometimes, though. 

He’d convinced her to wax his board for him while he leaned back against the rocks to have his breakfast. Watching her hands glide over the board in familiar strokes and circles was meditative for him. It was comfortable, the coconut smell of the wax mixed with the lavender of her conditioner, the waves crashing, the song she was humming without realizing it. It felt more like home than the house just up the path did. 

“Jack Johnson?” he mumbled around a bite of burrito, managing to catch a piece of avocado before it fell onto his wetsuit. 

She looked up from her work on the board and took a second to register that she was even humming. “Oh, yeah,” she gave a gentle laugh. “I always see the poster on your door.” She shrugged and got back to work, moving slow enough for Jim to enjoy his breakfast. 

He smiled, forgetting all about that poster. “Put it up ages ago-when we first moved. Banana pancakes, huh?”

“It’s a good song!” She set the wax aside and looked over the two boards ready to be put to use. 

“I’m particularly fond of banana pancakes.” He shrugged. 

“Is that you saying you don’t appreciate today’s breakfast?” he voice rose playfully and she nodded at his mostly gone burrito. “Because I don’t have to do that anymore…”

“No, oh my god no!” he rushed to get the words out. “You know you’re the only reason I’m like...alive. Not eating hot pockets for every meal.” 

She laughed. “I’m kidding, babe.” 

“Okay,” he sighed a bit more relieved. “I don’t know how nobody has wifed you up yet. I get wake up calls, food cooked, you’re a goddamn dream.” 

“Well I guess someone has to make a move, eventually.”

“You’re young...we’re young,” he murmured, methodologically folding the tin foil his breakfast was wrapped if before setting it in his bag to throw out later. The mood had shifted and Jim cursed himself. He saw the way her lips tightened and her movements more controlled as she picked herself up. Tucking her board under her arm she let out a wavering laugh, “Ready?”.

“Always,” Jim whispered breathlessly. 

Walking down to the waves he was sure to drop a few kisses on her temple while thinking of how he would never be lucky enough to be the one to ask her to be his wife.

--

After a particularly long morning, the sun and salt became overwhelming as Jim and Y/N made their way back onto dry land. Jim’s friends had a tendency to ruin things and Jim wasn’t having it. He found himself tucked into a diner booth before they could show up to the beach, Y/N across from him, biceps wonderfully sore from paddling and still feeling the sun’s warmth in him. 

It was probably a little early for burgers and fries but neither of them cared. Jim glanced across the table to where Y/N was quickly sending a text before catching him looking. “What?” Her eyes looked up to his, face still tilted to her phone. 

“Oh, nothing,” he laughed. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t feel right saying how he was just mesmerized by the water that dripped off her hair to water stain the shoulders of her shirt darker. Small sand granules still stuck to her hair and skin even though they tried to get all of it off. The way her skin practically glowed under the light that spilled in from the window she was sitting next to, her eyes that looked just a little smaller without mascara on...he loved them. He loved her. 

He loved her. 

He did. 

And sometimes it would hit him at the most random times like when she would trip over a curb, or say something that she probably shouldn’t have, or like when she was stealing fries off his plate-which she always did. And she was doing just that while scrolling through a text message as Jim looked on and just took in...everything. Because it felt mostly right. Only mostly because Palos Verdes sat looming outside. Anywhere else in the world and it would be okay. Probably. 

He knew he was running from problems. That things might not be any different if he got away. 

On stained napkins, Jim planned his escape route. Rough sketches of his future. Maybe theirs. 

“I’m gonna get us out of here.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jimmy.” She still smiled, knowing that he would get out one day. 

--

If it was night then why was it so fucking bright out? White. Blankness, blindness, the world still spun but he didn’t know how because he couldn’t see it, so how could he feel it? It was night- he was positive about that because the sea was black. Ink black. 

Even when he was older-no longer a child, just moved to the bay, looking out into the nighttime waves sent ice down his spine. Watching the surfers bob over the swells, black turning to grey where the wave broke, his chest tightened. It was swimming in ink and dark. He bet that when you came out you were covered, dripping in the stuff, staining and tainting every inch of flesh, maybe even the insides, too. Swallow some of it or breathe it in and let it paint the inside of you black. He always wondered what monsters lived there, under the blanket of dark. 

It was stupid, he knew. Sea monsters didn’t exist but it was primal. Something in his blood screaming to stay away, that something down there was going to kill him, rob him of the breaths he struggled to take in anyway. Chest always tight. Lungs covered in soot and ink. Blood crashing waves, uncontrollable, and deadly-potentially tragic, but poetic. Sparking inspiration for writers, musicians, the everyday man. They all go to the sea to cleanse the soul but they didn’t see it at night. Not the way Jim did from his window every. Single. Night. Just outside, just out of reach. Just far enough away to let him sleep, but close enough to be a threat. 

But Medina dragged him down to go night surfing. 

He watched it swallow him whole. 

He was one of the monsters that lurked down there. 

Everything returned to the sea, he knew that. His thesis. Pollution. What? He managed one steadying deep breath, tricking himself into thinking he could feel the tissue expand in his chest cavity. His hands shook. It wasn’t bright anymore. 

It was dark. And night. And the waves crashed in front of him. 

He wanted to run. 

Jim made himself sit. Cross legged, back hunched over- Sit up straight, mom will complain- he straightened. Everything in him screamed to run, go anywhere but here. One more breath. A pause, a beat. His eyes narrowed at the black sea in front of him, staring at the white foam that broke off. 

The wind picked up and he felt his hair tangle and curl in the salty air. He didn’t bother moving it. The cold ripped through his body, though. Chilled to the bone. 

The lights had gone out. The streetlights? The moon? Did it matter? It was darker than before. Jim faced the ocean, mind finally blank. Numb. A breath. A beat. A clear mind. Until it wasn’t. 

Chills turned into sweats, his temperature rising impossibly fast, he felt it seep from his forehead but he still shivered. He blinked the salt from his eyes-from sweat? Or...how did I move…? The ocean lay in front of Jim. Black, swirling, and breaking, growling whispers and words to him. Calling to him? Probably. 

When did...my heart--? If he knew how to crack a chest-Dad knows that, he’s good at it…- he’d rip it out. Offer it on a silver platter to whoever wanted it. Nobody did, though. Anything to get it to stop. His hands shook and the waves still crashed. They didn’t stop, they wouldn’t stop. 

He moved closer. Why? 

I’m scared.

I know. 

You have to. 

...okay.

Trembling legs carried him closer to the beast. It crawled closer on its belly, an inch from his sneakers, and controlled him. The closer it came the tighter his chest, the sharper his inhale, filling him with emptiness. Exhales were good, he pretended that it was him blowing it away until the pattern shifted again, waves overlapping and nothing discernable. Even Medina didn’t like it when it was like this- tides changing. No pattern. But it was still hers, and hers alone. She was born in a cradle of brine while he was drowned by it. 

He wished he knew how to swim. 

But he belonged in the sky, he tried to look up but his eyes were trapped, held by the dark in front of him. There was no escape- no way out from under it. Its reach clawed at the land until it took chunks of it, winning. It tore through his skin until he was nothing but exposed and raw. Its silent demons moving amongst and within him, gifting him with every burden bestowed upon him. 

Mom, dad, Medina, Y/N...me. Jim. 

It’s your fault, you know. 

I know. 

Everything.

I know.

He knew it already even though his mind insisted on whispering every chance it got. Blinking got hard, eyes heavy. Everything heavy all of a sudden. 

The weight of solitude settled on his shoulders and found a home in his belly. Not just on the wind whipped beach but everywhere. Laying in bed with Y/N he always found himself alone. Not alone-lonely. 

But there is no time to be lonely when there’s a grave to dig.

The thought of her cracked him. He looked away from the monsters, hiding his eyes in his palms he felt his tears stain the cuts. How they got there, he wasn’t sure. 

Tendons, ligaments, bone- all weakened, he felt something push him to his knees. It had to have been her? No. But maybe? He couldn’t be sure. That or...whatever was out there. It’s you, you dumb fuck. 

Sometimes he forgot that he was one of them. Slicked black and melding into the monster itself, bobbing on the surface but knowing just how easily it could smother him, should it choose. 

It crawled away in retreat when Jim’s hands fell to his mouth to muffle the scream that threatened to rip from his chest. He couldn’t let anyone hear, not when he was so close. You’re almost there. Don’t stop. Do. Not. 

“I won’t, I won’t,” he whimpered, voice cracking and high. He didn’t sound like himself. Or maybe he sounded more like himself then ever. Raw. There wasn’t any more time to put on a front. 

A stillness came over him when the water rushed to surround and saturate his knees, half buried in the sand-kneeling in worship or terror. He let it run over his fingers, feeling the push and pull, his inhales and exhales no longer synched. They were slow. Slower than they should be. And they hurt.

The water was almost clear when it was close enough. He saw the blood wash away off his trembling hand when the wave was sucked back in, taking a part of him with it. 

His head bowed, not in reverence, he was sure. But because there was no point in holding it upright. There wasn’t a reason to look up, all the stars had gone. Snuffed out by the water that wavered in his view. He wasn’t going to make it there, anyway. He felt an ache in his chest when he realized that he wouldn’t be able to meet her at cassiopeia, as promised. 

It wasn’t just a dull ache, though. He felt the way oxygen flowed in and out of him too slow, the way his heart was throbbing too fast…

He fell over, face half buried in the sand, unable to move, paralyzed as the tide rushed in, claws open and ready to claim him. He didn’t remember being able to take one last gasping breath, salt filled his lungs and light filled his mind. 

For the first time, he was ready to go somewhere on his own. 

He smiled. Relieved, after so much waiting.

--

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[emphasisonem]

I Get Knocked Down (But I Get Up Again)

For @kiriei​ who send me a great list of beach prompts, so this happened. 

Summary

“You sure you’re ok?” the blond asks, and Bucky really appreciates the fact that the guy isn’t laughing, considering his friend can’t seem to help snickering at Sam’s outrageous display.

“I’m fine,” Bucky huffs with a smirk. “Pride’s a little bruised, and I’m guessing I look like a fuckin’ drowned rat, but no permanent damage.”

A slow- and frankly, evil- smile makes its way across the blond’s lips. There’s a flicker of uncertainty in those blue eyes, but it’s replaced with a nearly-predatory look that gives Bucky goosebumps.

“Shame,” the other man teases Bucky. “I’m pretty good at kissin’ things better.”

In which Bucky Barnes is a show off at the beach and pays the price.

You can also read the fic here.

“I think we have an audience.”

Bucky groans as turns to face his friend Sam, shading his eyes from the bright afternoon sun glinting off the waves. He’d been thisclose to dozing off after a quick swim. The soft sand below their blanket and the warm sun on his bare skin had lulled Bucky into a dreamy half-sleep, and he’s reluctant to pull himself back into wakefulness.

Although, in fairness to Sam, they’d come to the beach to hang out together, not to waste the great weather napping. It was a perfect day, Sam had said earlier that morning, to swim and lounge and people watch. Apparently some other beachgoers had had the same idea.

Bucky wracks his brain, thinking about the other people scattered across the sand around them. There aren’t many – it’s still the offseason, after all.

Sam smirks at Bucky when the burnet quirks a brow.

“Three o’clock,” he tells Bucky. “Blondie looks just your type, Barnes.”

Bucky rolls onto his stomach, brushing some sand from his upper arm as he glances in the direction Sam has indicated. About five feet away from them are a man and a woman sprawled out in low-to-the-ground beach chairs – a couple of the brightly colored old ones with that sort of latticed look to them, Bucky thinks with amusement – watching Bucky and Sam as surreptitiously as possible.  The woman is gorgeous, all smooth, pale skin and bright red hair, but her friend…

The blond man sitting beside her is nothing short of the most physically perfect person Bucky’s ever seen. He’s sitting down, but Bucky can tell the guy’s probably north of six feet tall. His broad shoulders and chest indicate a hell of a workout regimen, and his flaxen hair is thick and healthy looking.

Bucky wonders what color the eyes hiding behind the man’s aviators are before turning back to Sam with a sly smile.

“He is,” Bucky replies with a mischievous grin. “Wanna give’m both a show?”

Sam snorts and shakes his head, but he’s rising from their blanket and grabbing the football they’d brought along just the same.

“Such a goddamn exhibitionist,” Sam mutters as he heads toward the water. “They��re probably a couple anyway.”

Bucky chuckles as he pushes himself up off the ground, taking one last glance at the blond before following Sam across the sand. Bucky’s certainly not going to deny his friend’s claim of exhibitionism. He’s never been averse to showing off a little bit if there’s a cute guy or girl around to watch him. And blondie is beyond cute.

“Guess that makes you an enabler,” Bucky teases, biting back a laugh as Sam throws an exasperated glance at him.

“And who cares if they’re a couple?” Bucky asks as he falls into step beside Sam. “Still checkin’ us out, aren’t they?”

Sam doesn’t dignify that statement with anything more than an eye roll and a terse, “Just go long, Barnes.”

Bucky laughs, then breaks into a sprint. He moves horizontally first along the line where the ocean meets the sand toward their admirers, and then moves a little further into the surf.  Bucky watches as Sam draws his arm back and then throws the ball.

Sam’s overthrown it just a bit (their high school football days are nearly a decade behind them), but Bucky can still jump for passes nearly as well as he did their senior year. He nabs it with a pleased crow, landing with a splash.

It’s hard to tell because they’re both wearing sunglasses, but if the way the redhead is smirking and leaning over to talk with the blond is any indication, they’re definitely still watching.

Bucky grins and launches the ball back toward Sam.

“They noticed us noticing them,” Natasha says as the two men she and Steve had been eyeing head for the water, a football in the hand of the dark-skinned man. Steve nods, but his eyes never leave the long-haired brunet who’d caught his eye.

His gaze is drawn from the man’s handsome face to his left shoulder blade as the guy and his friend head toward the ocean. Steve thinks he might see scar tissue, but it’s hard to tell given the guy’s chosen to tattoo the whole area along with his left arm. Steve is intrigued by the swirls of color and the story behind him.

He’s also intrigued by the guy’s perfect butt and thick thighs, but, really, who wouldn’t be?

“He keeps looking this way,” Natasha says as the brunet glances back at them before tearing off across the sand. “I think he’s checking you out.”

“They’re probably both checking you out, Nat,” Steve laughs, shaking his head. “Couple of guys like that? No way they’re not straight.”

Natasha smirks and leans toward Steve as the dark-skinned man throws the ball, and Steve’s breath catches as the way the brunet’s muscles bunch and flex as he leaps to catch it.

“You know what they say about making assumptions, Steven,” Natasha chastises him, and Steve rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m an ass,” Steve murmurs, body tensing as the brunet’s eyes land directly on him. And then the asshole has the audacity to smile at him, and fuck if that isn’t the prettiest thing Steve’s seen in a good long while. He wishes he could believe that maybe he’s the cause for that sinful grin.

The brunet throws the ball back to his friend, and while it’s not as impressive a throw, it still reaches its target.  Which Steve thinks might be unfortunate because Natasha takes the opportunity to applaud enthusiastically.

“What a catch!” Natasha calls out as Steve sinks into his chair and tries to ignore the blush rising to his fair skin. “Get it!”

Steve can hear the brunet laughing, and he doesn’t miss the way the dark-skinned man winks at Natasha. Clearly his and Nat’s attention isn’t unwelcome.

The two men continue their game of catch, Natasha hooting and hollering the whole way through, and Steve might applaud once or twice. Maybe even wolf whistles.

Steve notes that the brunet’s eyes are in fact drifting toward him more often than not. Interesting in the extreme, he thinks.

The brunet wades deeper into the surf with every passing throw, and maybe the guy’s paying too much attention to Steve because he’s about hip deep when Steve sees a fairly large wave building behind him.

“You think he knows there’s a solid chance he’s about to get clobbered?” Steve asks with a rueful smile as he turns to Natasha. The redhead’s brow furrows for a moment as she looks out at the horizon, but Steve knows exactly when she spots the wave because a mirthful laugh bubbles from her lips.

“Are you kidding?” she teases. “You’re way too distracting. That boy is toast.”

Bucky feels the rough pull of the undertow before he sees the wave, but he knows he’s fucked as soon as he realizes that he can’t really swim against the current.

“Buck, watch it!” Sam shouts as Bucky turns, but it’s too late. There’s a giant wave coming for him and he’s only got around three seconds to consider exactly how stupid he’s about to look in front of blondie before it breaks, knocking Bucky off his feet and carrying him closer to shore.

After a moment, Bucky breaches the surface, coughing and sputtering as he pushes his now-soaked hair away from his forehead.

Of course, that’s when another wave comes and hits him square in the face.

Fortunately, it forces Bucky into shallower waters, and he’s on his hands and knees trying to get his lungs back in working order when three pairs of feet stop in front of him.

“You all right, Buck?” Sam asks, and Bucky nods through his coughing fit so that Sam won’t worry.

Bucky shouldn’t have bothered with concern, though, because Sam proceeds to say, “Shit, man, that was funny as hell.”

“Fuck you, Wilson,” Bucky chokes out, glaring up at Sam as his friend bursts into laughter. Hands-on-his-knees, can’t-quite-breathe laughter. Like Bucky needs this shit.

Bucky begins  pushing himself up from the hard, wet sand, and is surprised when he feels a strong hand gripping his bicep and an arm around his waist. When he looks up, blondie is staring back at him with a small smile. The aviators are sitting atop his head now, and Bucky’s a little stunned by how blue the eyes gazing into his own are.

“You sure you’re ok?” the blond asks, and Bucky really appreciates the fact that the guy isn’t laughing, considering his friend can’t seem to help snickering at Sam’s outrageous display.

“I’m fine,” Bucky huffs with a smirk. “Pride’s a little bruised, and I’m guessing I look like a fuckin’ drowned rat, but no permanent damage.”

A slow- and frankly, evil- smile makes its way across the blond’s lips. There’s a flicker of uncertainty in those blue eyes, but it’s replaced with a nearly-predatory look that gives Bucky goosebumps.

“Shame,” the other man teases Bucky. “I’m pretty good at kissin’ things better.”

Sam whistles low at that, and he and the redhead erupt into a fresh wave of giggles as Bucky glares at them for a moment before turning his attention back to Steve.

“Well, then,” Bucky grins. “Why don’t you tell me your name and let me buy you an ice cream or somethin’ and maybe I can find a spot that needs kissin’ better?”

The blond barks out a laugh, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m Steve Rogers. And I’d like that.”

“Bucky Barnes,” Bucky replies as he tugs Steve away from their ridiculous friends and toward the vendor up by the dunes. “You like Chipwiches, Steve? Or are you more of a Choco-Taco man?”

Steve eyes Bucky with a smirk. “If you think I’m not getting a popsicle to pay you back for every moment of that shameless display of athleticism of yours before that wave wrecked you, you’ve got another think comin’, pal.”

Bucky barks out a laugh and without thinking says, “Marry me.”

“Let’s see how the ice cream goes first,” Steve grins, winking as the two of them reach the ice cream cart.

Bucky’s pretty sure he’s going to be utterly powerless in the face of that smile.

And also that he’s already about halfway to falling in love.

[joulethieves]

“limitations,” chapter one; post-game; eventual balthier/vaan

The death toll from Bahamut rises with each passing day. Rabanastre reeks of corpses, mottled with blood and burns, dragged from the ruin. Imperials, beastmasters, engineers - but no sky pirate, and no viera.  Plumes of black, thick smoke bleed from the fallen war beast and permeate Rabanastre, as if it hasn’t seen enough already.

It haunts the streets and alleyways, a dark and hovering specter. Ashe has deemed the air unsafe to breathe, and as the new Queen, implements her first mark of order by sending the citizens underground. She does what she can to protect her people.

Lowtown’s snaking passageways stretch far beneath the city, further than even Vaan knew, much to his chagrin. All Penelo can do is shrug and say, “Even Lowtown has its secrets.” It does nothing to quell his incredulity. Word has it that these tunnels reach as far as Nalbina, used in the past for private correspondence between Dalmasca and Nabradia.

Rabanastre takes cover beneath the desert, but it’s Vaan who pushes against the constant flow of bodies shuffling deeper into Lowtown like a current of mindless zombies, until he reaches a secret that he’s sure only he knows.

The trap door opens in Migelo’s shop. It’s deafeningly quiet, abandoned in haste, potions and remedies strewn about the floor. Vaan clambers up and wastes no time. It won’t be long before Penelo notices he’s gone.

He slams the trap door behind him and runs. 

The smoke outside pulls tears from the corners of Vaan’s eyes the closer he gets to the gates yet he pushes forward. It burns his throat, and tastes of death. Bahamut’s death will not be swift. He pictures Balthier and Fran, somewhere deep within its corpse, lost, smothered, injured,

dying.

The ashes engulf the Westersand, turning the golden desert into a bleak grey. Vaan unravels the sash ‘round his waist, ties it in front of his mouth, and runs along the dunes. Bahamut is massive, even robbed of all its glory, burning alive on enemy land. The heat emanating from its fiery core singes his skin like an entite.

Balthier! Fran! he yells, and yells, and yells. Over and over and over again, he yells their names. He takes five long paces to the left, calls again. Five more paces, again. He repeats.

Balthier, Fran! Where are you?! Balthier! the smoke claws its way down his throat and he chokes on the final syllable.

He won’t leave them out there.

A distant explosion within Bahamut’s northern tip pushes Vaan backwards and he’s coughing up thick, black soot. He’s on his back now, heaved upon the sands. Or perhaps on his side. Maybe his front - he can’t tell. The world spins before him, and he calls out their names, voice cracking above the fire’s roar and swallowed by the sand against his mouth.

He imagines Balthier burning within, covering Fran’s body from an imploded glossair ring spewing fire deep within the maze of the monolith, and gives in to the suffocating blackness barbing at his lungs.

—

Balthier doesn’t know how long it’s been. It’s quiet, deep within the wretched beast Bahamut, and he counts time by the steady breaths Fran makes draped over his lap. Surrounding them is a darkness that rivals that of Giruvegan. They are, as far as he’s concerned, suspended in oblivion. Briefly he wonders how his cursed father dealt with such darkness, all Cid’s time spent in it - before he realizes Cid was indeed completely fucking insane, therefore having never, in fact, dealt with it at all.

The fallen sky pirate wonders if he will become mad too, and realizes Fran - were she awake (and could she hurry up with that?) - would admonish his melodrama. He won’t budge until she wakes. He will die there with her, if he must, melodrama be damned.

He’s leaning against something hard and jagged but can’t find the strength to move. The thought passes him in every slow, shuddering breath Fran makes - they may die here, indeed. The thought is infuriating - to die in a blaze of glory as pirates-turned-heroes is one thing, to slowly starve to death in the dark surrounded by charred curs and corpses is another.

Idly he strokes Fran’s hair, and finds it anchors him somewhat. He closes his eyes, decides perhaps now is a good time for another nap - someone will rescue them, eventually, probably, hopefully.

Balthier! Fran!

The voice is far, and Balthier could very well be imagining it. His eyes snap open though all that greets him is black. Is that… Vaan?

Balthier! Fran, where are you?!

Balthier stirs in a frenzy, leaning forward and shouting back into the void. “Here! Vaan, is that you? We’re here!”

Balthier! Fran!

“Here, I said! By the gods, I said here!” His voice lands tinnily on whatever surrounds them and the silence following makes his ears ring.

Nothing answers Balthier for ages—he releases a heavy sigh, leans back against the metal scraping into his marred back, and counts Fran’s breaths again.

—

Vaan wakes in Lowtown, heavy-lidded and light-headed. Blonde pigtails, feathers, a worried lower lip—the familiar, hovering sight of Penelo greets him and even in his daze he can see the relief lift the weight from her shoulders. She’s crying, arms thrown over him, and Vaan hears Old Dalan’s voice somewhere nearby.

“Lucky you are, m’boy, that you’re alive. A few more minutes out there and you’d've been like the rest of 'em.”

It’s heavy and hollow and piercing all at once, the realization that he came back empty handed. Somewhere deep within Vaan, the wound he had only barely begun patching in the wake of Reks’ death tears open again, leaving him breathless and tattered.  He stares upwards at the dim oil lamps lining Lowtown, and yells at the unfairness of it all until he can no more.

——

It burns still, a week later. Rabanastre’s citizens have resorted to the children for help now – they run back and forth from Giza during the rains, bringing water to douse the smoldering metal.

Penelo and Vaan stand alongside their neighbors under the clawing shadow of the monolith, and cast water magicks until their throats burn and hands creak under the strain.

“Useless,” a Dalmascan spits next to them, throwing a water basket aside. “Whoever isn’t out of here already is long dead.”

Vaan’s jaw clenches and he isn’t responsible for what happens next. The impact of his fist against the man’s face is hard enough to hear cartilage break beneath his knuckles, and the man falls to the ground. It’s quiet now, tension so tight in the air Penelo could do acrobatics along it. She pulls him back, a gesture not so difficult as Vaan realizes what he’s done. Everyone is staring, eyes accusing and scared. Blood speckles the sand and the man writhes, holding his face, gurgling curses.

An unreadable expression veils Vaan’s features, but Penelo is already casting a healing spell despite her exhaustion.

The desert feels so, so hot, suddenly. He can’t find it in himself to apologize, because he isn’t sorry. Bahamut still burns, and so does he. Wordlessly he stalks away, until he disappears behind a hard crevice of Bahamut’s fallen steel to begin casting again.

Penelo finds him later that night in the Strahl, docked safely in the Aerodrome. He’s sitting in the cockpit and he doesn’t stir when he hears her approach, not even when she places cautious hands on his shoulders rife with tension. His skin is hot as if he, too, burns. Her voice is gentle, and she treats him like glass.

“They’re out there still,” she says, nearly a whisper. “I just know it.”

The hard line settling across Vaan’s lips does not falter, as  if he would crumble at the slightest touch. Silence meets Penelo and, though disturbing to her, she leaves him in the captain’s chair of the Strahl where she found him, where she finds him every day.

——

Slowly but surely Balthier and Fran persevere in the thick black of Bahamut’s mocking maze. They work in a seamless silence, hyper-aware of each other’s movements, falters, breaths.

“Once we’re out of here, my dear, where would you like to go first?” Balthier’s voice is ragged and low, throat singed by heat. It’s been so long since they’ve had water; even Balthier is unsure of if his own question is ironic or not.

Fran limps, her stilettos long-abandoned. She is quiet, and for a long time all he can hear is the stumble of their hands along the walls leading them deeper into the dark. Balthier thinks she ignores him for favor of saving her breath, before she finally says, “Home.”

Balthier knows her well enough after all these years to tease apart the secrets of her words. In the thick black, he too thinks of sunbeams weaving through the trees, the playful lilt of birdsong, and dust motes floating in air that smells of honeysuckle and sap.

“To the Wood it is, then.”

They wander in the darkness still.

—

It’s been two weeks, and Bahamut still burns a low, guttural, slow burn. It sputters smoke, leaving black entrails scarring the blue skies above. Its death is long and Rabanastre watches it with a weary gaze. The stench stretches thickly across the desert and far beyond, but at least Her people are above the ground in the sun again.

From the Sandsea, the Urutan-Yensa arrive at dawn in droves to the smoldering war machine. Their scurrying bodies litter the desert like dust. Bony fingers pick and clink in furious unison as they strip the ship of its scrap metal like scavengers, hundreds of them. Vaan finds it fascinating; the fall of Bahamut has turned Ivalice upside-down, if even the Urutan-Yensa journey from Jagd.

Vaan is content just observing them from his perch atop a jagged cliff, until one lights an explosion mote to break off a chunk of steel. The sound isn’t even that loud, but it shakes Vaan deep in his core as he imagines Balthier and Fran, still in there, somewhere deep and dark.

Enough, Dalmasca has seen enough. No more, he thinks.

His Aeroga spell rips through him like a storm, powerful and beautiful and merciless, and he kills them all. Their frail bones seem to be made of naught but dust as the spell lands with a muted thud across the sand and spreads their remains into the wind.

When the sand clears after what seems like ages, Bahamut sputters one last oil-fueled cough laced with fire; it is a scorching laugh and leaves Vaan’s eyes watering from more than just the smoke in its wake.

—

There isn't much Penelo can do to rouse Vaan from his stupor that renders him lifeless and hollow. He is a shadow of himself. She thinks of Reks when she sees him, and it causes cold ice to twist and coil in the pit of her belly until she can't breathe. Still, she tries anyway.

The Estersand is nearly pristine in comparison to its battered western sister, and she drags him along it with light feet, chasing cockatrices and slashing at cactoids. It's something to do, at least, and if Vaan won't sleep or hardly eat, she thinks some fresh air on cleaner sands will at least rouse him to do one of those things after today.

Vaan follows her along the familiar dunes with heavy feet. Exhaustion pulls at the inner corners of his eyes but somehow he forces a grin when she turns to him, beaming as a cockatrice chick bounces along her foot with a chirp. She picks it up and it's nothing but a round, fat ball of feathers and she returns it to its clucking mother. When she turns back to Vaan, her smile fades. He's staring off into the distance, an empty look behind his eyes, and she feels she's lost him again.

"Come on," Penelo urges, and wraps her fingers around his wrist gauntlet baking in the sun, "I'll race you to the Nebra. Loser has to do the stock check Migelo's been hounding us about."

She runs ahead and hopes that if she doesn't look over her shoulder, he will follow. She's half-right; after several stretched moments of her legs springing her ahead, she hears him gaining on her.

In any other situation, Penelo would never let Vaan win. But she feigns her falter for the sake of his smile, and watches him run ahead, until the shimmering crystal blue of the Nebra river greets them both.

By the time she catches up with him, he's already shed his vest and boots, and is working on unclasping the armor about his shins. It's so hot today, and the river looks so seductively inviting in the heat that causes visions ahead to dance and sway. Penelo can't help but mirror Vaan, and sits down to undo the buckles on her leather boots. She doesn't even have the first one off yet when Vaan dunks himself unabashedly in the water, resurfacing moments later with a refreshed gasp. His warm wet hair clings to his tanned cheekbones and he lets out a breath that Penelo is sure he's been holding for three weeks now.

"Feels good, huh?" she chuckles, and undoes her braids. Vaan kicks on the sand beneath the water and floats on his back, muscled arms outstretched like wings on either side.

"Yeah," he says back, and it's the first response she's gotten out of him in what feels like hours. He's so quiet lately, as if he has too much to say and no way to say it, the words clumping together in hard knots that catch in his throat.

She dips her toes in the water and watches him float across the surface like a steady ship on the Naldoan Sea.

That night, for the first time Penelo has seen since the fall of Bahamut, Vaan retreats to the captain's chamber of the Strahl and sleeps for two days.

--

The sun touches Balthier’s skin and he wants to sing, opts instead to shut his eyes tight in the presence of Dalmasca’s marveled sunrise; too long have they lingered in Bahamut’s corpse - endless dark dripping blackness - to be rendered blind now.

Desert air, dry as bone and laden with the wake of smoke, tears through Balthier’s chapped lips. He swallows it like a starved man.

Fran’s weight presses heavily into him. He steps and drags her, slowly; she breathes but doesn’t wake, rendered unconscious by the residual Mist bursting from the vent from which they finally escaped.

How many fortnights has it been? He doesn’t know. He cannot tell. All he can do is laugh until he cries a dry, tearless retch of a sob.

They live, they live, they live.

Notes:

A lot of inspiration for Balthier and Fran's time in Bahamut is from ColoredInk's Four and Twenty Blackbirds which, in my opinion, is one of the top ten literary masterpieces this very talented fandom produced back during the LiveJournal days. The fic is on AO3, do find it and give it a read. It's amazing. Thank you to 1000Needles for beta-ing :) I am in need of a second beta for plotbunny purposes. This will be around 4-5 chapters or more. 

[autumn-elwood]

The Reunion

Sorry, this is late.  April was crazy.

Also available on: Blogger

Kain couldn’t help but feel bored for some odd reason. He honestly shouldn’t be feeling bored with the number of adventures Cyrus and himself had been on together since they took up the pseudonyms, Castor and Pollux, and joining the cavern of Hermes.

They had made tons of new friends in Eris, Apollo, Thanatos, and Persephone. They had raided a slave auction and dug up objects and tomes from the buried pre-rest buildings in the dunes of the Estival Desert. They had even met up with Lady Alma to make sure she was getting on alright, for crying out loud. Kain was safe from Lord Zafar. Cyrus was safe from Lord Zafar. They got to transcribe books and sell them in Apple-polish market.

Why was he so bored?!

“Um… Are there any titles you would recommend?” a familiar voice queried.

He looked up to see a man with short blond hair and a scruffy beard. He looked familiar too. Had he met this man before?

“Oliver Twist’s pretty―,” he began before cutting himself off, the man’s identity becoming shockingly clear.

“You bastard,” Kain growled, eyes filled with rage.

The bastard blinked in surprise, unsure of how to respond to Kain’s sudden insult.

“Pollux,” he heard Cyrus say with a sharp a sharp warning before making apologies to the customer.

Kain clenched his fists, his anger rising even higher after realizing Cyrus didn’t recognize the bastard in front of them. And even worse, the no good lying son of a bitch didn’t recognize them either. Kain threw a hand in front of his brother in a clear sign for the younger boy to be quiet. Cyrus’ voice faded off and he stared at his brother nervously, wondering what Kain was going to say.

“How dare you show your face here in front of me after what you did!” Kain sneered.

The man looked flustered as he glanced around the market at the stares they were attracting. “Sir, I believe you have the wrong―”

Kain slammed his hands on the front of the stall, cutting the man off.

“How dare you show your face after you abandoned your wife and children to the mercy of Lord Zafar!” he screamed, a mixture of hysteria and anger coloring his words

Cyrus gasped as the meaning of those words sunk in.

“Kain,” the man proclaimed in shock.

Kain slugged him straight in the nose.

Sick satisfaction filled him as the bastard stumbled back and landed on his ass. The bastard let out a short “fuck”. Cyrus stiffened and let out a squawk like he wanted to shout “language!” but didn’t because he wasn’t sure if it was appropriate.

“Pollux, Castor, what’s going on?” asked the hurried and stern voice of Captain Hephaestus. His coat was rumpled like he had just woke up and the goggles on his head were crooked. His were slightly frantic with concern. Were the boys in danger? Had Zafar’s men come for his boys?

Cyrus let out some sporadic unintelligible attempts of explanation before settling with staring at his… father. The father he hadn’t seen for years. The father he hadn’t seen since before his mother died. The father whose face was a blur and decaying photos hidden in the fabric of their suitcase. The father he could hardly remember. He couldn’t believe it: what were the odds that they would run into their father at the stall they were working at, in a town about 60 miles from Zafar’s manor. It seemed so improbable that it was impossible, yet here we are. Talk about a shock you never thought you’d receive. He would be less surprised if his mother rose from the grave to tell him he was pregnant.

He desperately wanted to hug the man. He wanted to run away into the desert and be buried in the sand. He wanted to cry. He wanted to ask him why he had never come back for them. But above all that, Cyrus just wanted to throw up.

“Just an unruly customer,” rumbled Kain’s muffled voice.

“Do you really expect me to believe that, Pollux? You just decked a customer…”

Cyrus stumbled toward the fallen figure. His… father looked up at him. Confusion, embarrassment, and fear were held captive in his eyes but there was no recognition. He didn't recognize Cyrus. He didn't recognize Kain. Cyrus’ vision began to blur and a hot flame consumed his chest.

A series of “I hate you" ‘s forced themselves through his lips. His throat felt tight like he couldn't breathe.

Cries of “Castor" echoed in his ears. A glint of gold light grabbed his shoulder. He flinched away. Gold bracelet- it’s only Athena, he thought in panic. She backed off and started humming in his ear, a surprisingly gentle thing for the stoic assassin. Persephone’s green hair flashed in his peripherals as she wrapped him in a hug. His low moan of “no" and the burning arms disappeared.

Eris was nowhere in sight. Perhaps she was behind them in her dark scarves, twisting her hands together nervously, unsure of what to do. That was for the best in this instance.

A confused and angry murmur rose from the voices of Captain Hephaestus, Apollo, Thanatos, and Kain. His family.

“Why did you leave us?” He wailed quietly.

Kain pushed past Hephaestus and began yelling at their father anew. The Captain wrapped his arms around his brother, barely stopping him from grabbing their father by his clothes and shaking him down.

“Answer him you piece of garbage or so help me I’ll cut off your genitals and feed them to a lion you absolute fuck beaver!”

“Why!” Cyrus asked firmly, trying to pull himself together.

Tears began streaming from the man’s golden eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I came back but As far told me you had all died… That he had killed you. I’m sorry… Please, where is your mother? Where is Amira?”

He looked so pathetic that it tore at Cyrus’ guts. He wanted to say it was okay but… the explanation felt hollow and tasted like spoiled milk on his tongue.

“Liar!” Kain shrieked. “You left us and never once looked back. Mom died and you weren't there. I lost my leg and you weren't there. Cyrus almost died and is permanently scarred all over his body and you weren't there. When we needed you there, you weren't, you were just gone and you don't get to say you're sorry and say you thought us dead, like that'll fix anything.”

“Kain… I’m–"

“No. No more ‘I'm sorry.’ Pick a book, buy it, and get out of here. We don't need you anymore!”

Cyrus violently wiped away his tears. Their father’s eyes looked broken. Kain needn't have been so sharp but he was right. The man needed to leave. It was too late for them to be a family and Cyrus didn't handle having this man back in their lives. He could forgive the man’s actions but he just could not forgive the man. He couldn't. What does that say about me, he thought bitterly, dewdrops trying to sneak from the corners of his eyes.

“Please… sir. Go,” he whispered hoarsely.

”Are you okay, boys?” Captain Hephaestus asked after… Tarea left.

Before either of them could spit out a lie, Apollo cut in, “That’s a stupid question. Of course, they're not okay. Jeez, way to be sensitive.”

Hephaestus flushed. “Well, what was I supposed to say?”

Thanatos crossed his arms, a frown etched on his face. “I don't have anything better but not that.”

“Do you need some space, perhaps?” Eris suggested, moving forward with confidence, relieved the tears were gone.

Kain’s mouth was set in a firm line and his eyes were alight with concern. “I think that would be an acceptable question to start with but I have never been very good at comforting.”

He paused and took a deep breath. “Do you need space, Castor?”

“No-o, Brother. I’d rather not be alone right now.”

Athena gave his hand a tight squeeze and Persephone pulled him into a sidearm hug, wary of making him uncomfortable again. “Oh, honey,” she whispered.

Athena glanced at Hephaestus from the corner of her eye.

“We should close the stall. Head back to the Library.”

Hephaestus turned to the stall in dismay. The novels lay on the ground covered in sand from where they fell when Kain smacked the stall. Kain turned ruby and rushed towards the books.

“I'll pack up for today.”

He dropped down shakily, almost dislodging his prosthetic.

“Pollux, you…” Hephaestus started.

“Let him,” muttered Thanatos. “He needs something mundane to calm his nerves. He hasn't had to yell like that in months. He hasn't felt so in danger in months either.”

Hephaestus bit his lip and nodded.

Cyrus wondered what he was thinking. Captain Hephaestus really cared for them, more than anyone had in years, they all did. The caravan was truly like a family. Captain Hephaestus was like the father with Athena at his side like a mother. Thanks and Eris acted like the anti-social uncle and aunt who really cared for the family but were left confused due to never having had their own children. Apollo was like the cool big brother and Persephone the caring older sister.

Kain and himself were the youngest of the group at 16 and 17. The babies of the family.

Cyrus had never been happier. He finally understood why the group didn't need to tell each other their identities to trust each other. One’s past did not define you if you didn't let it.

“It's time to go home,” Apollo shouted.

Cyrus blinked.

Home.

A home. A home with a mother and a father. A home with an aunt and an uncle. A home with three caring older siblings that would all die and live for one another. A home where it was safe. A home where no one would hurt you.

Cyrus felt a smile bloom on his lips.

“We’re coming,” he shouted, pulling Athena and Persephone up as he stood.

“Cas,” Persephone laughed. “I’m going to kill you.

He smirked at her and broke into a run.

“Try to catch me, Sister.”

Thanks for reading!

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