#woke up today with a looming sense of dread

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[astro-kitty-launch]

Chances Not Taken

[Wally West x Reader x Dick Grayson]

Chapter 1: Today's the Day

Summary: “Her last sight was Darkseid's massive hands wrapped around Nightwing’s throat as he attempted to choke the life out of her best friend. The God of Evil laughed menacingly, saying that if his father was no match, then he’d be nothing.” "All she could think about is the fact, she broke her promise to Wally West." What if she got a second chance? A chance to relive some of the most pivotal years of her life. To take all the chances that she failed to take the first time. To live the same life but take a different path. To see a whole new side of events that she thought she knew well. Well, she had been given that second chance alright, but not without a cost and a few minor setbacks. Chapter Summary: Dreams either waking or sleeping are not what they always seem to be. Sometimes our dreams are close to becoming a reality. Other times dreams fail to make any sense. ----------------------

TOWER OF FATE

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS 

July 4, 11:00 ET

Jolting up, Sianna woke to the blaring sound of her alarm clock going off over and over. Her throat felt like sandpaper. Her throat was tight as a strangled sob escaped her lips. Her breaths were rapid and shallow, as if all the oxygen in the room had been sucked out. 

Sianna’s heart pounded wildly in her chest as if it could cleave itself out of her body. As she slammed her eyes closed as another hand clawed at her chest. As her body quaked with rage, where had it come from? She felt like she’d never breathe again as she choked on nothing but her saliva.

Nothing made a shred of sense, not even this dark looming pit of dread that was everywhere, anywhere, and nowhere all at once. As though something was happening? Or did it already happen? What is it? What was it? What was the source of this panic?

Higher beings, this needed to stop.

She needed to stop.

She needed to breathe.

She needed to calm down.

Sianna forced her eyes open as her mind raced. She took a look at what was in front of her. Reminding herself that she was in her bedroom. She was in her room. Her room. Then she spotted the proof in her Green Lantern poster crisply taped to the wall.

 A few feet away, her Charmander plush was carelessly on the floor, lying face first. Spine up near her feet, was her copy of Jane Eyre. All these items proved she was in her bedroom at the Tower of Fate.

Next, three things Sianna could hear. Her alarm clock was still blaring in a frenzy. The sound of her own ragged breath was gradually becoming less ragged. Forcing her shaking hands to move to make the final sound by clapping her hands together. 

Sianna kicked her feet up sending her royal blue constellation blankets flying off of her sweaty body. Stretching her arm out to slam the off button on her damn alarm. Her breathing was labored but studied. The shaking was now at a slight tremble. Her racing heart was winding down as she sucked in a deep breath. 

Grounded once more, Sienna's mind was frazzled but far steadier than before. She reminded herself that she had just woken up. She had woken up from a dream - no nightmare, that still flashed through her mind.

There were two solid fragments of that nightmare one that she recalled was: Should you be uncertain, have faith. The second was that brief moment where everything was so bright it was blinding. Her lips dipped downward as her hand clutched her chest, as the raw sorrow still held her like a noose. 

Yet Sianna couldn’t quite understand why she felt this way.

Or why it dragged up such an outburst from her?

It must have just been a dream where her subconscious drew on her frazzled nerves of the day before. Nothing more. Gramps would disagree with her, arguing that dreams held more meaning for some homomagi.

 Another subject they disagreed on was faith or belief in something more when all was lost was important. To her, it was nothing more than ridiculous nonsense. Nonsense that people clung onto when backed into a corner to bring them a false sense of security.

Grimacing, she wondered if her alarm had glitched because she swore that she had turned it off last night. Or maybe it was a false memory, and she hadn’t turned off the alarm the night before. Sianna sat upright in her bed for a few moments steadying her mind and body. 

Releasing a small yawn, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Slipping out of her bed, Sianna stumbled into the bathroom, going through her usual morning routine. Exiting her bathroom, then her bedroom, she was finally ready for the day. 

Descending the labyrinth of staircases, it always astounded her how bizarre the tower was with its love of staircases. Staircases were coming from the ceiling, left, right, and ground, and all of them were woven together like an intricate tetris puzzle. Her grandfather said it acted as both a security measure and a manifestation of order. 

Sianna glanced down at her phone, seeing the thirty-odd unanswered texts waiting to be read. Sianna stuffed her phone back into her pocket. If anything she was sure more than half the texts were from a certain annoying loudmouth. Hooking a right onto the next set of stairs she finally  reached the kitchen door and slowly opened it.

A blast of the warm air fanned her face as she got a whiff of the cinnamon, and the sweet scent of vanilla that made Sianna’s lips curle in a fond smile. The room was nice and welcoming, free of the normal, sterile, coldness of the tower. There, manning the gas stove, dressed in a finely pressed suit, stood Kent Nelson. Over his usual clothes was a navy blue apron printed with teddy bears.

“Good morning. Gramps.” Sianna smiled warmly at the sight of her adopted grandfather. It would most likely make anyone else laugh to see the former Doctor Fate acting like a doting grandfather, but to her, it was an integral part of home. As there was no home for Sianna without her Grandfather in it.

“Morning kiddo, you're in luck, an hour more, and you wouldn’t be able to say good morning.” He chuckled.

“ Take a seat.” Grandpa Kent gestured with his free hand towards the table that was set for two, a pitcher of orange juice and milk on either side of the flower-filled vase.

 Glancing back at her grandfather, seeing he’s already turned back to the stove, she approached. Reaching to take a hold of the sponge in the sink, only to get the back of her hand lightly whacked. She pouted at the elderly man, dramatically clutching her affronted hand.

“I am sixteen, you know. You don’t have to cook for me. At least let me help.” Sianna voiced her protest as she puffed her cheeks out in a rare display of childishness,  a fact she seemed to realise since she scowled right after

“Ha, let this old coot cook for his granddaughter.” The elderly man waved her off once more as his eyes gleamed with silent stubbornness.

“ Okay. Thanks, Gramps.” Sianna heaved a sigh knowing just how stubborn the man could be. Taking a seat, she absently began drumming her hands against the table. Staring blankly at the wallpaper that had once been in style decades ago. Those words still echoing in her brain like a mantra: Should you be uncertain, have faith.

“ So, did you rest well?” Her grandfather inquired, breaking her out of her thoughts.

“I guess,” Pausing momentarily, “Though oddly enough, my alarm went off when I recall turning it off.” She answered, not quite in the mood to discuss that dream. 

Not wanting to hear a spiel about dream magic which Sianna firmly believed was a total load. Even if he didn’t move his gaze from the stove, she knew that he knew that, a fact she both hated and loved

“ Is that so?  perhaps it was fate.” Her grandfather joked, causing her brows to furrow. Oftentimes when Kent referred to fate, he was referring to Nabu. She highly doubted that Nabu gave a flying fuck when she woke up. Plus, how’d he even manage to set it up from the top of the tower? 

“Right, The Lords of order finally decided it was high time to magically gift Nabu a sense of humor. So the first stunt he pulls is messing with my alarm clock. Woo.!” She scoffed, waving her hands sarcastically.

“ I had a dream or a vivid memory of Inza. On that night she confronted me. Leading me to a crossroad on whether to give up Nabu and live or you live Doctor Fate.” Kent, undeterred by her response, continued by presenting his dream.

“Ha, you mean when she grilled you and then ripped Nabu a new one.” Sianna chortled fondly, knowing the story by heart. She always wondered what it would be like to meet the woman described as a force of nature, she thinks they would've gotten along.

“Is that how people phrase it nowadays.” Her grandfather snorted as he poured the batter into the pan to start on the next pancake.

Then again, maybe sharing her dream would somehow help chase away this lingering ache in her chest. Except what could she say, knowing her grandfather, he’d take her seriously. And Sianna wasn’t ready to have a serious discussion about her dreams, in fact, she preferred to forget about them completely. So she decided to keep her mouth shut. It was just a dream playing on her anxiety.

“Your favorite. Cinnamon swirl pancakes. Since today’s the day.” In one fluid motion, a stack of three cinnamon swirl pancakes was placed on the plate in front of her. More accurately, it was a marriage between pancakes and cinnamon rolls. A fluffy, buttery pancake stuffed with a cinnamon-sugar filling.

“Oh yeah, today’s the day.” Sianna cheered weakly and chewed her lower lip, yet, another thing she forgot to do was tell her grandfather the news.

 Averting her gaze to the food before her, she should have known he wouldn’t have forgotten. Guilt washed over her as it dawned on her that all these preparations. Her favorite breakfast. It was all to celebrate the significance of today. He did it for her.

“You don’t sound thrilled, Sianna.” Kent soon settled on the other side of the table with his classic blueberry pancakes. 

“It’s not that I’m not excited… it’s just-I’m just…” She broke off as she frantically tried to figure out how to break the nerve-wrecking news.

He’d deflate with disappointment and then get that look she hated, the same look she got when she got in trouble at school and got kicked out of school. How could she explain that sheer dread that plagued her mind at the concept of her among four other sidekicks being shown the inner sanctum of the Justice League was .  That she couldn’t bring herself to cross that bridge.

Sianna liked where she currently was and was fully adjusted to being Zatara’s sidekick. That she was in no rush to join the league despite wanting to one day join their ranks. She expected that to happen when she was older. How could she tell any of them when they were all excited? They wouldn’t understand. To them, her thinking would be backward and complacent.

And maybe it was, but Sianna wouldn’t believe they’d allow them to join the League based on their age alone. Considering the social outcry that would occur given the history of social outcry from taking them on as sidekicks. It would be social suicide. The League wouldn’t risk that, no matter how skilled they were. 

“ Kid, today I have one assignment for you: Don’t hesitate. Just go for it.” Her grandfather's eyes softened as he jabbed a finger in her direction to empathize the goal he was giving her.

Sianna furrowed her bows at his phrasing before merely nodding at a loss for words. What could she even hesitate about? When they were just walking around JL HQ. A small voice in her head nagged at her just to tell him. To stop hesitating. Taking a few more bites as she turned it over and over in her head. Trying to untangle what he meant by don’t hesitate. Did he want her to believe this was actually happening?

“Umm, Grandpa, I have something to tell you.” Finishing her breakfast, Sianna moved her gaze to meet those sky blue eyes as her fingers fidgeted with a strand of her wavy hair.

“I am not going. A few days ago, Zatara got information about an evil sorcerer plot that he needed to investigate, so he isn’t taking me. I'm sorry I know you were excited and made breakfast… and…” She blurted out, her mind racing as her face burned with shame.

“Oh, I knew that. Which is why I asked Batman and Robin to help. They are coming here to pick you up. Don’t worry, Sianna, you’ll still get to go.” Her grandfather assured as his crow's feet crinkled, becoming more defined as his eyes glimmered with mirth.

“They’re coming to what?!” She blurted out before her mind could finally catch up.  Blinking her eyes rapidly before they widened completely gobsmacked. 

“But Zatara said… I said it was okay. Plus, there will be other times.” Sianna blurted out, abruptly jumping to her feet astounded at the idea that she was actually going. She was going?!

 As her grandfather's magic caught her chair before it hit the ground. Honestly, she’d been relieved when Zatara told her that he couldn’t take her. Last night she had imagined all the ways to break the news to Kent. 

She had imagined that he’d be upset, not that he’d be unruffled by the news. The gears in her head slowly turned. Sianna had  turned the alarm clock off with the intention to “accidentally” sleep in and miss everything. He must have been the one to turn it on.

“How did you find out? Why?” She demanded, thunderstruck at the blatant meddling on her grandfather's part.

“Zatara told me, Kid. Did you really think I’d let this chance slip away for you? I want you to go. I know that you're nervous, but you’ll gain so much by going.” Kent sighed as though he had already foreseen her trying something like this.

“But..but I can’t go.” Sianna sputtered helplessly knowing there was no way of getting out of this. What could she possibly gain from this?! She didn’t see a point in going to the Hall; it wasn't like they were being inducted as members of the League. Couldn’t it wait until she was actually becoming a member of the League.

“Yes you can Kid. I believe in you, and if everything goes wrong, we’ll go to Clair’s to celebrate you trying. Go for this old man and yourself.”  The elderly man offered a pleading look flashed in his eyes.

Glancing away, Sianna heaved a huge sigh, “Fine. I’ll go.” Knowing her grandfather had done this for her. 

She decided to go against every instinct that told her that this wasn’t a good idea. Something about this whole tour around the hall didn’t make sense, other than Roy now that he was an adult. There would be no backlash from the people if he joined.

Sianna stood up, reaching out for her empty plate to clean it, when a golden light enveloped it. Soon the kitchen sink came to life, washing and drying dishes with the power of her grandfather’s magic. 

“I had that Gramps,” Sianna grumbled softly, crossing her arms for a moment before letting them drop. Just as a loud chime resounded throughout the tower.

“ Sure you did, Kid. They’re here.” Kent waved her off, seeming to anticipate her every move before she even made them. Heaving another fond sigh, she let it go knowing even at the withered age of hundred and six her Grandfather was a force. One she couldn’t hope to subdue.

“Thanks. I’ll see you afterwards, Gramps, and I promise to try and to also not hesitate.  I’ll cook you your favorite dinner when I get back.” Sianna stated sternly before giving her guardian a tight hug.

“ Of course, Kid. Now go out there to be a hero. Go out and be Rowena. Try befriending one of those sidekicks.” Kent chuckled, returning the tight hug with as much strength as his old bones had in them. Patting her head gently, she slowly let go, as she was approaching the door, she turned around once more.

“Don’t try to pick up anything heavy while I am gone. Since I won’t be here to save you.” Sianna hollered, flashing a toothy grin before running out the door as the hall echoed with her Grandfather’s laugh.

 Going despite her misgivings and that she liked where she was. Even with her suspicions. Sianna wanted to be recognized as a member of the Justice League. Most of all, she wanted to be a hero. Maybe she was wrong, and her Grandfather was right, that this was a chance for something more. With a simple spell, she changed her civilian clothes to her hero costume. 

Sianna Nelson had now become The Sorceress Hero Rowena. 

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

Sianna P.O.V.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

July 4, 13:30 EDT

Here’s the thing about plans: something always goes wrong. Which made Rowena wonder why the hell anyone made plans if things didn't go as planned. She had planned to skip this whole tour of the Justice League headquarters. Only to be strong-armed into it by her grandfather and Dick. 

Now, here she was in front of a man-made body of water where a star-shaped platform floated in the center. On the other side was the towering dome building that could only be located in Washington D.C. The Hall of Justice, in all its magnificent, awe filled glory. It was far more pristine than any photo on the internet. 

And deep in her gut, Sianna knew something was wrong and that this wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Why did things need to change? They were fine as they were now. Free of any potential rejection of being told they wouldn’t be joining the league.

 Tuning out Batman, her eyes wandered around their surroundings. The white cobbled pavement was too white the trees were too perfect. Not a cloud in the sky, and the sun was shining brightly. The heat was there, but not so hot to the point where she was dying. It was the perfect weather to be out grilling for the fourth of July. It was just right.

Then out of the corner of her peripherals, she saw a tall, muscular figure. It must be Batman. But when had the Dark Knight walked over there? Moving to catch up, her body stilled at seeing an odd dark blue bird emblem. That wasn’t Batman! 

Time stilled as chills ran up and down on her back, eyes widening at the sight before her. Her body moved forward before her mind could process what it was doing. Her hands were stretched out and shaking with sheer joy as she wondered how? Wasn’t he dead? He’s alive! 

Sianna then froze in confusion as her thoughts came to a screeching halt. Who is that? Where had she seen that sleek black hair before? Hair that she knew for a fact was soft as butter. Blinking rapidly but this imposing figure remained unmoved as though he was rooted to that spot. Why does she even care? Why wouldn’t he be alive?

Suddenly she was filled with this need, this wish to go back. But go back where? Sianna had to change something, she just had to change something, anything. Why had she made it? Gaze glued to the mystery man with a pair of escrimas secured on his back. 

Hoping maybe they held the answers.

            Just as she was to take a closer look at the stranger's face.

Then a hand shaked her shoulder gently, causing her to glance away.

“Hey Ro! Why so quiet? Nervous?” Robin's voice and the hand gently squeezing her shoulder had snapped her out of her trance.  

“What? Oh, uh,, no, I… I'm fine…. I thought…I just...” Just as she was going to mention the figure, lifting her finger to point him out. 

But when Sianna glanced that way she saw he was gone, as though he had never existed. And for some odd reason, her heart clenched painfully. But that man had just been there. Now it was just her and Robin. Batman had disappeared, he had probably gone off to take care of some responsibilities.

“Ro? Hey, why are you crying?” Robin startled her as a gloved hand gently rubbed away the tear on her chin. She was crying? Her hand shot up as a shuddering breath escaped her lips trying to confirm for herself, briefly forgetting about her mask. To feel for herself and she was…crying. Higher beings, just what was even going on? And now Rowena had a concerned best friend on her hands.

“ Oh, you brought a camera.” Rowena blurted out unintelligently, pointing at it as it hung off his wrist by a strap, hoping to avoid an interrogation of some kind. Well,  if he were to interrogate her, she was pretty sure  the reaction to her saying; ‘Yeah I am crying over this guy in black spandex that I hallucinated out of thin air.’ would be just great.

Needing to get the excess energy out of her system she started fidgeting with her black gloves, systematically pulling at each finger before pulling it back down. Sucking a slow breath in the hopes to center herself. After all, they weren’t fighting villains or engaging in any dangerous activities.

 Grateful that the mask she wore to conceal her identity covered the majority of her face. Only her nose and mouth were visible, making it difficult for a foe to make out the expressions she made. Though Rowena doubted it prevented Robin from reading her expressions.

Even if her mask hadn’t concealed that much of her face, the glamor she was required to cast when she was Rowena was more than enough. Though it didn’t hide her per se, more like messed with the visual perception of those who looked at her.

“So, do you remember what we discussed?” Robin prompted, completely focused on her, and his eagerness just flowed off him. Her mouth dried up as she did know what he was referring to. It was a conversation they had privately in the days leading up to this day. It was part of the reason she didn’t want to be there.

“That you’ve finally accepted that Batman runs around saving people in underwear?” Rowena flashed a cat-like smile causing Robin to groan loudly. As she hoped that he would just drop it.

Robin shot her a glare that carried no real heat as Robin shakes his head fondly,“ No, Ro, and nice try, but I am not going down this rabbit hole with you.”

“ But it has cookies.” Rowena huffed, sporting a small pout, sensing that this was a losing battle. 

“You know about promising to try and get along with Kid Flash. You know, be friends.” The Boy Wonder reminded her as if she could forget. Except for a brief moment, she forgot the others were coming and would be here soon. Running would have been ideal for Rowena if she knew running away wouldn’t have caused a huge problem.

Robin just couldn’t seem to accept how things were between them. What did he expect from her? The Loud Mouth was really, really, chatty. He constantly acted without thinking, never took anything seriously, and always ran ahead. Which grated her nerves and stressed her out to no end. He also loved, loved, loved to scientifically explain magic away. 

Them being friends was laughable.

“ I see no problem in our interactions. Nor have I agreed to anything.” Rowena sighed, crossing her arms as her lips curled into a stubborn frown.

“ Pretending the other doesn’t exist and only talking when someone is trying to kill us is not getting along.” Robin insisted, much to her displeasure, biting down the retort of ‘Speak for yourself.’. In her eyes, maintaining her distance kept the peace of the group. 

“We’re keeping it professional.” She insisted back, determined not to have her mind changed.

“I still don’t get it. You guys weren’t like this when you first met. What happened?” Robin asked again, causing her to groan. It wasn’t like they were best buddies or on good terms in the year of knowing each other. 

When she first met Kid Flash, he was the guy disrupting her life. Managing to charm Robin into being his bestie. Loathsome as it was, she was jealous that everyone seemed to be pulled in by his sunny charisma. How anyone could be so bright was beyond her. She hated the feeling of jealousy, most of all, how it made her feel more alone. 

Rowena began absently rocking back and forth on her feet, trying to think of a way to end this conversation.

“ Look, Robin. Sometimes stuff happens, and people realize there’s no way they could ever get along. And that's how it is between me and Kid Mouth.” She attempted to reason with him. Except Robin shook his head in disagreement as if it wasn’t good enough for him.

“That’s not true, Ro. Try to give him a chance you might be surprised by what you discover. Please, for me.” Robin pleaded, managing to tug her heartstrings as she clamped her mouth shut. Higher beings, it was hard. Hard to say no when she knew the sort of disappointment that would follow. She dreaded it.

“ Come on, Ro, it’s ….” Just as Robin was to continue, she blurted out, “ I bet The Flashes will be here last!”

“Ha, that’s way too easy and too predictable considering their track record.” Robin snorted fondly as his shoulders slouched. Just a little more.

“ Okay, then we bet on Aqualad and Speedy” Rowena gestured, flashing two fingers out. Just a little more. Just one last push. And just maybe it would work.

“ I bet my limited edition Xbox that Speedy will get here first.” He chimed in, as a cocky grin spread across his lips. Just like that, the weight on her shoulders melted away as relief came crashing down. Rowena wondered what had brought on this need to push her and the Loud mouth to be friends. 

“I say Aqualad will be here first as there’s no traffic in the ocean. And I bet it on my stash of limited edition Ichiran Ramen!”  Chirped the sorceress as she puffed her chest out, placing her hands on her hips. There was no way she was going to lose her precious instant ramen.

“ Oh, yeah! We’re finally not the last ones here!” Suddenly they were blasted by a spontaneous gust of wind as a boisterous voice cheered.

“ How!? You’re always late!” Both Robin and Rowena shouted in tandem at the sight of the speedster. Her eyes were wide, having not fully prepared herself for the hurricane that was Kid Flash. 

There he stood, clad in his signature yellow and red anti friction uniform. He was smiling so brightly she swore she’d gone blind. Well, at least if Rowena was blind, she wouldn’t have to look at him. Those vibrant emerald pools exuded enough excitement and eagerness to power a whole city.

Well, now all there was left was Aqualad and Spee….then it dawned on her, Kid Flash had arrived here before them. Meaning… 

“Thank higher beings my ramen is safe!” Rowena crowed happily, rubbing her hands together and bouncing slightly in place. Her treasure was safe!

“ Huh, well, I guess the bets are off.” Robin chortled as Rowena continued her version of a happy dance.

“ Rob, what’s going on?” Kid Flash raised a brow cocking his head to the side, his foot bouncing rapidly in place. 

Rowena tuned out as Robin went on to explain their bet on Aqualad and Speedy. How the bet on who’d arrive first and what each of them had put up. She took the time to watch as Flash had gone over to Batman, who had magically reappeared out of thin air. 

Flash frowned at Batman as they discussed something in hushed whispers. Whatever it was, it was clear from the way the speedster jabbed his finger pointedly at Batman he wasn’t pleased. Shouldn’t Flash be proud and happy that his sidekick was receiving this opportunity? 

“ Dude, that's great! I like ramen too! Well, there is this great place in Central. What’s your favorite topping?” Kid Flash grinned as he flashed forward. She flinched back at how little distance they had from one another. Their noses were practically touching as she took a huge step back. 

Higher beings, she hated when he did that. It was as if a car was speeding right at you with no time to move out of the way. You expect it to hit you, but in her case, it didn’t hit. That didn’t erase how it made her heart stop every time. But what was more bizarre was how his excitement was directed at her, of all people.

Like clockwork, Rowena stepped back a few paces, mouthing silently at Robin, ‘What the fuck did you do!’. Because it had taken a lot of work to create distance between her and Kid Flash. Soon leaning towards Robin cupping a hand over the side of her mouth as she hissed, “Is he possessed? He's talking to me.”

“ You do know I can hear you, right? And no, I am not possessed. So favorite topping?” Kid Flash piped up with a grin as Rowena silently stared at him. Frowning, she opened and closed her mouth like a fish, completely foxed by the turn of events. There was no way this shift in demeanor miraculously happened on its own.

Robin butted in, answering for her, “I like kimchi, but Ro here prefers pork belly  and scallions.” Rowena’s brow twisted as her stomach clenched with a queasy feeling. She was not comfortable with this at all.

“ Hey, I like pork belly too!” The ginger beamed brightly at her. At Her! Of all people, and she wanted it to stop. Cause she knew what he really thought of her, there was no need for any of this.

  “ We’ll have to get some when we have free time.” Kid Flash added good-naturedly as though they were friends or something. What did Robin do?! Why is he inviting her? Is it a trap to make her listen to how magic is fake, again? Or maybe he was going to forget his wallet at home and make her pay?

Then Kid Flash closed the distance again at speeds her mind couldn’t register, causing her shoulders to lock up. It was then that Rowena had enough deciding Robin could come get her when the others joined them. Rowena retreated to the other side of the park. 

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

Robin’s P.O.V

After Ro ran off, Robin turned to catch Kid Flash's shoulders slumping in defeat. Feeling a sharp jolt through his chest, he reached out and gently squeezed the older teens shoulder.

Robin hadn't expected that. Maybe he had pushed a bit harder then he should have. But he was tired. Tired of the two people he was closest to in the world being coldly distant from one another. He knew each of them had their own reasons for feeling this way towards the other, but he had hoped it was a phase. 

With the significance of this day, Robin thought it was time to turn over a new leaf. Just as they were taking the biggest step in their hero careers, they could take a step to get along. 

“It’s progress, right?” Robin broached encouragingly as change oftentimes was either instant or slow. For this case, he knew it would take more time. 

“I told you Rob, Rowena-” Kid Flash began, except Robin wouldn’t let him continue down that trade of thought, 

“Is equally as stubborn, and if we are taking steps to join the League, this cold war you two are waging would eventually have to come to an end.”

“ Both sides need to be willing, Rob. But I get it. Flash says sometimes you gotta be the bigger man in the situation.” The speedster smiled uneasily, staring in the direction Rowena had run in.

“Which takes time. I’ve presented the idea now. Ro just needs to see proof. Until then, patience, not all of us are as fast as you. Plus, if anyone can do this it has to be the most bullheaded guy I know.” Robin meets Kids emerald eye, his gaze softening, offering a lifeline of comfort to Kid Flash.

“You’re right Rob. Time is something I got plenty of cause I am me. I was serious when I told you I’d try. Kid Flash isn’t a hero who gives up. ” A grin stretched across Kid Flash’s face, quickly catching his second wind.

“ Robin and Kid Flash, glad you all have arrived. We were waiting on the other side of the park.” The smooth voice of Aqualad came from behind them. Turning around, he saw Aqualad, Speedy, and Rowena walking towards them from across the park.  

“Aqualad! Speedy! You made it. Today's the day.” Kid Flash burst out at the arrival of their fellow sidekicks. 

“Wait, if you were waiting on the other side, that means you’ve already been here for a while. Who got here first?” Robin quickly deduced the implications. Rowena expected nothing else from someone being taught by the world's best detective. 

His and Rowena’s small bet wasn’t over yet. Just because they hadn’t seen Aqualad and Speedy when they first arrived didn’t mean they hadn’t already been there. The Boy Wonder nearly cursed himself at his lack of observation, unfortunately; it happened all but a few paces away from Batman. On all days to get distracted, it was the day they were finally going to take the first step!

“I did. Then Speedy.” Kaldur trailed off, raising a brow in their direction, silently asking for an explanation, only to receive a mournful cry from Batman’s protegee, “What, no ! my Xbox!” before he fell to his knees dramatically. 

“Ha ha! pay up ninja boy!” Rowena cheered, levitating into the air momentarily. 

“ Aww, man! So we were the last ones here.”  Kid Flash whined, crossing his arms.

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This Cross-posted on my AO3

Chances Not Taken

<<<&lt;< Prologue Chapter 2 >>>>>

[nicklloydnow]

“Watching events unfold this weekend in Israel, I thought back to a feeling that I first felt more than two months ahead of Russia launching its war in Ukraine. That same sense of dread is, if nothing, more firmly entrenched in my chest today. The feeling is still nebulous. It’s as if we are all watching a catastrophic car crash and simply don’t have the vocabulary to describe it.

(…)

“Autocracy versus democracy” does not usefully describe the moment. It feels like a discarded line from some kind of late-night brainstorming session. Its purpose was ostensibly to organize thinking — to name a threat and to allow for collective action. In the cold light of day, it reads like self-regard.

(…)

But many woke up on Saturday to the palpable fear of a real threat. Towns and small cities overrun by well-organized militia. Scores of civilians shot dead. Hostages abducted. As I write this on Monday night, the IDF is still fighting battles in Israeli population centers. Soon enough, it will be waging a Stalingrad-like fight in Gaza, doling out horrific human costs in pursuit of retribution. And that’s if no other nasty surprises are looming. The prevailing consensus is that 9/11 is the correct historical parallel for Israel. If Hezbollah enters the fight in the coming days, the 1973 Yom Kippur War will be a more apt comparison.

(…)

No, it’s not about democracy versus autocracy. The wheels are coming off. Our predecessors bequeathed to us a period of unprecedented tranquility. They were not infinitely wise in getting us here — no wiser than we are. But we grew up used to it in ways they could never imagine. We assumed order was normality, that peace was what naturally arose when power-hungry hyperpowers minded their own business. A better and more just world was there for the taking, if only we were moral enough to push for it.

The overarching metaphor in one of Robert Kagan’s recent books is fundamentally correct: order is a garden to be tended, but the jungle is the norm. I still hold that his moralistic “authoritarianism versus democracy” paradigm is misguided. Morality has nothing to do with it. Pessimism about progress — a conviction that nothing is permanent — is a far better guide.

My friend and former colleague Walter Russell Mead penned a prescient column earlier this year. He put his finger on the failings of the Biden administration’s fundamentally optimistic worldview. He pointed out that China, Russia and Iran are eating away at the existing order.

From the outset, the administration knew that the American-led world system was in trouble, but it underestimated the severity of the threat and misunderstood its causes . . . Two years later, the Biden administration is struggling to manage the failure of its original design . . . Russia isn’t parked, Iran isn’t pacified, and the three revisionists are coordinating their strategy and messaging to an unprecedented degree.

The Biden folks really are the third Obama administration. They fundamentally believe that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. At the limit, they see our primary task is to make sure we don’t stand in the way.

It’s time to abandon those good feelings. Our holiday from history is over. Or at least it needs to be over.

The Wall Street Journal ran a strong editorial today calling on the United States to get on a solid war footing. I’ve made a similar case for months now. Given how the Ukraine War has progressed, I’ve argued that President Biden needs to stand in front of the nation and tell the American people that the free lunch is over. We can no longer enjoy the massive “peace dividend” we reaped in 1991. It’s time to embrace that the world is dangerous and unforgiving. Prepare for the storms that are coming.

(…)

The Europeans were perhaps rattled in the first weeks of the war, when everyone thought Kyiv would fall in a fortnight. Even German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was saying how German thinking about security was undergoing an epochal transformation. That didn’t last. And even reports that Russia is by some measures now militarily outproducing both the United States and Europe combined hasn’t altered the mood.

Make no mistake, this isn’t just European decadence. We here in the United States are no less complacent. We talk about shared values and how we must support the Ukrainians until the end. But (not-so) secretly, we are glad that they are dying instead of us. Apart from a handful of military veterans and foolhardy enthusiasts, there are a vanishingly few people putting their lives on the line for a common moral cause. Though we say this is our fight, it’s really not.

Why? We come full circle. “Democracy” is not a real cause, “autocracy” is not a real threat. Or, to put it more carefully, that binary does not resonate today in ways that would have you put your life on the line. Not in the way it did during the Cold War, anyway. Safe peaceful street protests against domestic despots-in-waiting? Sign me up. I’d love to re-enact 1989. But as a unifying narrative with real stakes? It’s misaligned. It misidentifies the problem in some non-trivial way. Everyone feels that disconnect, and shrugs when it is invoked. This is not an assertion, just an empirical observation.

But something is happening. I feel it. I think many others feel it. The jungle is growing back. And we naive civilized folks, we couldn’t even start a fire without matches, much less feed or defend ourselves in the wilderness.”

“The larger context is that the U.S. and its allies now face two regional wars provoked by rogue states that are increasingly aligned. Israel and Ukraine are on the front lines, but the risk of an expanded conflict is real. Iran is feeding weapons into Vladimir Putin’s invasion in Ukraine. Mr. Putin is a junior partner of the Chinese Communist Party, which could try to exploit the moment in the Pacific.

The strategic and political point is that the return of war against Israel isn’t an isolated event. It’s the latest installment in the unraveling of global order as American political will and military primacy are called into question.

The President now has an obligation to increase the defense budget and stop treating the U.S. military as a political wedge to feed the American welfare state. For three years Mr. Biden has proposed cuts in defense spending after inflation, even as the world has become more dangerous.

The President can stop the budget games—the demands that every dollar on U.S. forces be matched with another for solar panels or food stamps—and work with Republicans to rebuild U.S. military power. That package should include aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. It should feature a generational effort to expand U.S. munitions inventories, from 155mm artillery to sophisticated long-range antiship missiles. Ditto for a plan to build more U.S. attack submarines for the Pacific.

Already officials are leaking that the U.S. may struggle to supply both Israel and Ukraine with artillery or other weapons while also deterring China. But America can either meet the moment or regret it later when the world’s rogues attack other allies, or U.S. forces deployed abroad, or even the homeland.

(…)

As for Republicans in Congress, they will have to get serious about governing and elect a new Speaker with dispatch. They need to isolate the Steve Bannon acolytes who treat shutting down the government for no good reason like a personal power play. Americans may be among Hamas’s hostages, and the GOP should support Mr. Biden if he sends a military mission to rescue them. The world needs to see that the U.S. can unite in a common security purpose.

(…)

The growing global disorder is a result in part of American retreat, not least Mr. Biden’s departure from Afghanistan that told the world’s rogues the U.S. was preoccupied with its internal divisions. But too many Republicans are also falling for the siren song of isolationism and floating a defense cut in the name of fiscal restraint. The Hamas invasion should blow up dreams the U.S. can “focus on China” and write off other parts of the world.

Donald Trump didn’t rebuild U.S. defenses as much as he claims, and his political competitors should say so. Former Vice President Mike Pence was correct when he said over the weekend that the awful scenes abroad are what happens when political leaders are “signaling retreat from America’s role as leader of the free world.” Nikki Haley sounded similar notes.

They seem to know what time it is. The rest of Washington needs an alarm clock.”

“Exactly 37 years ago, on a bleak outlook overlooking the Atlantic, the two remaining Cold Warriors met in Reykjavik and proposed the almost unthinkable — to rid the world of all nuclear weapons.

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev began a dialogue that set in motion a series of summits that would ultimately not achieve this bold objective but resulted in what many historians cite as the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

However, the question remains: to what end?

While the Cold War came to a close, the threat of nuclear war did not. The global nuclear arsenal had reached its peak in 1986 with over 63,000 weapons in circulation compared to 12,500 today, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

But the number of missiles is immaterial, as today’s weaponry is five times more lethal than Big Boy and Fat Man — the two bombs dropped on Japan at the end of WWII.

In addition, the range and mobility of the current arsenal have expanded significantly with the ability to reach any destination — from London to Moscow to Washington — in a matter of minutes, wiping out millions of people instantaneously.

(…)

The subsequent arms race that ensued between America and the Soviet Union led to the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, that served to handcuff both sides with the premise that “if you fire on me, I’ll fire on you.”

A flawed concept to be sure. Yet the MAD strategy (which it truly is) remains the primary nuclear conflict deterrent today.

Adding to this MADness is the nonchalant manner that a large part of the world has adopted toward the threat of a nuclear conflict.

The possibility has shifted to the back of our collective psyches allowing us to focus on more important issues crowding our agenda.

A case in point is the most recent Republican presidential debate. While there were several questions around Taiwan and Ukraine, there was no specific reference to the “what if” of a nuclear engagement.

(…)

As a child of the Cold War, I can still remember the air raid drills in my community and hiding under my school desk.

That clear and present danger had lurked over the civilised world’s head but has since dissipated into the ether.

One would hope bright minds in political capitals around the world are gaming how to avoid a nuclear conflict.

But that notion calls to mind a moment when President Reagan after being briefed on the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction posed the simplest of questions, “What is Plan B?” to which his advisors had no answer.

And today as we celebrate their famous meeting in Iceland almost four decades later it is time again to ask our leaders — “What is plan B?””

[nekofantasia]

The sound of her pounding heart is what woke her up this morning, and then a very heavy feeling was made aware as soon as she aware of herself.

Feeling tired after sleeping is not all surprising for her. She’s always had trouble sleeping and then were even nights where she couldn’t get to rest her eyes at all. For a youkai like her, having most of her nights like that might not kill her…but even she had to admit that this is something she would love to get rid of it as soon as possible. It really made a difference when she was able to sleep soundly, even if she would wake up all groggy for no reason.

But today was…different? Let’s go with different.

She couldn’t recall the moment she got back on her feet. In fact, her whole body ached, as if she repeated her master’s training sessions so many times. And why was she so drenched in sweat too? Sure it’s still warm out there, but even the morning air felt chilly around her. Her heart was still pounding after a while…There’s not much she could recall prior to all this–Except for an intense sense of dread.

Was it a nightmare again? No, she could’ve recalled it easily. Besides, nothing would’ve gone as far as making her jump out of her mattress so violently like that. Her mind was too foggy to recall anything, but she was sure that such experience could only be compared to those where she had run or fight for her own survival. Whenever she encountered with something that really really terrified her. And just like in those situations, her body would cool down and her aches would start to become more unbearable by the minute. She looked at her own hands, her knuckles were pale and the palms of her own hands were slightly injured as what it seemed to be from her own nails digging into her skin. Her own clothes looked rough too, as if she braced for a very bad fall at the mountain. Did something attacked her while she was sleeping in her…

Wait.

Was she…was she even in her room at all?

Thankfully she was still inside the household, she was only a few steps away from the sliding door that separated her room from the hallways. Confusion transitioned into dread again, a few pieces surfaced in her once unreliable memory.

Something appeared in her room, she was sure of it and it must’ve been very dangerous with the way she acted. With a second surge of adrenaline coursing her body, she could feel a heavy presence still looming within her bedroom. As much as she wanted to run for help, she couldn’t get her eyes off the sliding screen. No, she can’t risk it–If the intruder is still there then it’s her only chance to make sure it leaves her masters’ home. She was trained for this kind of situations, she MUST be able to do it.

Yet, her hands were shaking to a degree she’s never done before. She couldn’t even breathe properly, afraid that any movement could give it all away to the threatening entity that invaded her room and mind. She gave herself just three seconds, and in one swift movement she pulled the screen to one side.

Only to find nothing.

Except for a chaotic mess in her room, which might’ve done it herself considering there were no obvious signs of intrusion.

But it still felt difficult to make the first step inside. Her body still felt tense from all the stress she just put her body through. She would check one side to the other and found nothing to be afraid of, everything looked normal. Despite that, she hesitated when she tried to close her room. She couldn’t bring herself to relax yet.

She sat on her futon, still wondering about all this. Is this something she must report to Ran and Yukari? Well, there’s no evidence of a trespasser…No, that would look bad. Truth to be told, it would be hard to share such thing. She can’t bring herself to make them worry. Maybe it’s best to just sleep it off.

Yes…sleep sounds good, she thought.

Her master might scold her for sleeping in, but at this point, she was feeling too tired to care. She couldn’t even tuck herself properly either, the nekomata just couldn’t wait to forget all this as if it was nothing than a bad dream. Her once erratic breathing would become steady and quiet as her eyes never dared to open for a while.

The world can continue without her today.

[kowaiitenshii]

Eternal Flame

Brahms Heelshire x Reader

(( SFW. Slow burn, beginning of mutual yearning type beat. Also some backstory to how you became a permanent resident of the Heelshire Estate. // TW: mentions of an abusive ex (no descriptions of abuse) // murder // fear ))

It had been a little while since brahms had revealed himself to you; since you had accepted him.

A few days? A week? You didnt know.

Here, time seemed to flow differently.

Days faded effortlessly into weeks. Months.

Today had been a day for English studies, and you had been reading Homer’s Odyssey. Excerpts of it anyway.

He had been rather good for his studies that day, generally he could be somewhat whiny and impatient when it came to actually learning.

Usually he would seat his doll in his place, choosing to listen behind the walls.

But today was different.

Enraptured by your story telling skills, he had sat quietly in front of you, his eyes wide with a sense of adventure. You put a little extra theatrics into reading for him today, going into different voices and acting out the dialogue.

He answered your questions about the story quietly, but obediently.

As you ended the excerpt, Odysseus making his escape from Polyphemus with his cunning wit as usual, Brahms impatiently whined.

You felt a sharp twang of anxiety run through your body at his discontent.

You out a soft chuckle and gently close the book, a fine tremble in your hands.

“It’s alright brahms. We’ll finish reading our adventure tomorrow, okay?” You say to him, half smirking, a hint of discomfort on your face.

He huffs and slumps his shoulders, nodding.

He begins to get up from his spot on the floor, his looming figure towering above you.

The sight of him a rich dichotomy of what you once believed he was.

You werent used to him, not this visage of him anyway. You could see his muscles rippling underneath his skin, a silent testament to his strength.

His eyes meet yours. Dark spheres drinking you in, studying you. You feel yourself grow hot and your eyes snap down to the floor.

Your heart beats against your chest like a metal bat against a wooden cage.

You feel his eyes on you like heat radiating down your body.

He takes a long stride, closing the gap between you. You feel a cold wave of anxiety, of expectance, like a fist in the pit of your stomach.

Yet you dared not to move.

Part of you frozen from fear, yet part of you… part of you was frozen in sick curiosity.

You couldnt lie to yourself, you felt… magnetized. To him.

His size made you feel small, like he could swallow you whole. You believed he could.

🗝🥀🔥🔪

Your mind flashed back to that night; the night he revealed himself.

Your ex had found you, even though you had ran so far to escape them.

Your heart pounded in your chest and your head was swimming.

You felt sick from the dread you felt. If they found you… if they got their hands on you… hot tears welled up in your eyes.

You could hear them banging on the front door, screaming your name, screaming obscenities at you, begging you to come home.

Tears running down your face, you ran the only place you could think to go.

Brahm’s room.

Your sweet little brahms.

You had found the doll strange at first, sure. But the Heelshire’s story pulled at your heart strings.

And when strange things began to happen with the doll, you were sure, positive; that little Brahms was inhabiting the doll.

So, you obeyed the rules. You cared for him and spoke to him as you would any little boy, your heart softened by his tragic story.

He was a little boy after all, all he wanted was to be cared for.

You ran into the doll’s room and locked the door. You had already tucked him in for the night, so you carefully knelt by the edge of the bed and woke him up.

You spoke to the expressionless doll. “Brahms…please wake up… please, I…I…” you begin to explain, tears still streaming down your face.

the banging on the front door echoes through the empty hallways of the manor.

You sat on your knees with the doll, pulling it to sit in your lap. You hugged it tightly.

“I’m scared Brahms. someone is here, and they want to take me away.” You choke back a sob. “They want to hurt me…” you look into the dolls empty, glassy eyes.

It felt like a silly thing to be doing with your last moments, but it was your only hope.

“Please help me.“ you whisper. Sounding more like a whimper than a plea.

You hear the front door finally give way. Swinging open hard and hitting the wall behind it. You rest your head in the crook of the neck of the doll, weeping softly.

“Please help me Brahms…”

Your tears are cut short when you hear the entirety of the house begin to shake.

Loud bangs booming throughout the entirety of the manor.

The very walls sounding ready to burst.

Then you hear it.

A mirror shattering downstairs.

You cover your mouth as you begin to sob harder.

They’re coming for me. you think. Surely.

You continue to cradle the doll. I’m sorry.

you think as you look down into the expressionless face of the boy.

Then, you hear more shouting. Angrier this time and, more… urgent.

The shouting devolves into screams.

Your eyes widen, and you look from the doll to the door, shuffling yourself closer to listen.

You could hear a sickening, repetitive, thick squelching noise. You clap your hand over your mouth as you listened to the noise, trying to determine the source.

The screams stop.

You hear a sickening thud.

Like if someone had dropped a sack of meat. Your stomach flips and you feel ill.

Shudders of fear, expectancy, and dread run through your body. Your stomach feels as if someone poured battery acid into it.

You listen for a few more moments, hearing nothing.

You slowly make it to your feet, gently setting Brahms in a small rocking chair in his room. Gingerly, you place a hand on the door knob, and press your ear up to the door; Listening to the sounds of the house.

You hear nothing more than the buzz of the electricity in the manor.

Your hands shake violently with fear.

Gently, quietly as you can muster, your slowly turn the knob, and push the door open a crack.

Still, you hear nothing, and you see nothing as you peer into the long hallway.

You slowly step into the darkened halls, looking around at your surroundings.

Your heart pounds almost uncomfortably in your chest.

Sharp, cold waves of fear wash over your body.

Taking carefully calculated steps, you make your way through the house, encountering nothing until you make it downstairs.

When you make it to the downstairs, in the hallway leading to the foyer you see a mirror, shattered.

Its fragmented pieces litter the ground.

You look at your reflection in the pieces, a hollow spectre of yourself, operating solely on fear.

You reach down and gently grab a piece of the fragmented mirror.

If they were still there… if they attacked you…the least you could do was put up a fight.

Looking in your face in the piece, tears streaming down, face painted with dread, you steel yourself.

You grip the piece of mirror tightly and let your hand drop to your side, the sharp sides of the piece digging into your hands, the sense of pain grounding you.

You shakily draw in a deep breath, and release it. You slowly creep down the hallway to the foyer, keeping close to the wall.

When you get to the end, you see it.

The once threatening body of your ex crumpled in a heap on the floor.

Blood surrounding them like a crimson moat. Dread washes over your body and you feel the knot in your stomach twist again; your breathing erratic.

Your eyes trail from them on the ground to…. The hulking form of a man.

His chest heaves as he slowly turns to face you. A cracked porcelain face, similar to the doll you had been diligently caring for, placed over where his own visage should be.

Dark eyes watched you through it, an animalistic look over them.

Your breaths shallow, eyes wide, you stumble backwards over your own feet, backing into the wall.

Your own chest is heaving, you feel as though your terror will swallow you whole.

“(Y/N)…” You hear trailing from behind the mask. In that similar little boys voice…

The realization punched through you like an icy shard. The world seemed to go white.

Brahms… this… hulking, looming monster… was your Brahms.

And he had killed your ex.

You had asked him to.

Your savior.

You began to shake harder than before.

Your tears running from your eyes quickly now, forming hot rivers down your cheeks.

He stepped slowly towards you. “(Y/N)…”

He said again, this time in his own raspy, rumbling voice.

Your eyes snap up to his, you thought but… your eyes only meet his collar bone.

It’s beautiful. you think… if only for a moment.

Your eyes trail up to his, dark spheres staring at you. Analyzing your reaction to him.

You feel heat spreading across your cheeks. He dwarfed you.

You look away quickly, feeling shame for thinking he was beautiful.

Your body was awash with emotions, all of them conflicting.

Your conscious screamed at you, begged you, to run.

But with him in front of you, chest heaving, hands painted crimson, you could feel a sense of desperation coming from him.

He had killed for you. Your little brahms….

You tensed when he spoke, snapping out of your thoughts.

His head leant down towards yours slightly, to whisper to you.

You could hear his heavy breathing behind his pale unmoving visage.

“Stay….” He whispered quietly in his strained childs voice. His voice quivered.

He closed the gap between you.

He was close to you now, almost touching.

Your eyes flicked to the body on the ground. The realization hit you again, like a hammer on the head.

He had killed for you. Because you asked him to.

In some way, you were also guilty.

You looked back to the man in front of you.

You were afraid of him, terrified even.

But… could he… would he really hurt you?

“Stay. Please.” He said in his own voice, tainted with urgency and fear of abandonment.

He notices the flush on your face, trying to understand.

You were afraid, that much he could tell.

But… there was something else there. Something… different.

He tilted his head and looked down to your hand. The piece of mirror gripped tightly, your knuckles white. Drops of blood ran down your hand from you gripping it so hard.

Slowly, he reaches for your hand.

You watch it as it happens.

He touches the shard of the mirror in your hand, fingers dancing softly over the sharp edge.

“Y/n… I’m sorry… I’ll be good… please stay…I’ll do anything.” he says roughly, begging you.

You break under his words and drop the mirror. It makes a harsh clattering sound as it hits the floor.

He looks at it, then at you; expectantly.

You swallow thickly, bracing yourself.

“Okay Brahms.” You nod slowly, breathing deeply to try and calm yourself. “I’ll stay.”

🗝🥀🔥🔪

Youre snapped back to reality only by the sound of his low, rumbling voice, carefully disguised as a child’s.

“Miss (Y/N)…” He says meekly.

You look up at him, craning your neck to look him in the eyes. You swallow.

“Yes Brahms?” You reply, watching his dark eyes as they roamed over your body.

Slowly, he extends a hand towards you.

He watches as you visibly tense at the idea of touch, yet, you don’t move away…

“I want to….” He trails off.

You stare up at him, waves of fear and something else… something more… wanton rushing over your body.

You wait patiently for him to finish, lightly cocking an eyebrow up at him.

“Can I touch you?” He asks, his usually rough voice as soft as a whisper.

You could feel your heartbeat in your face you were so red. His towering form looms over you, anxiously waiting for a response.

You nod gently, and your eyes flutter shut.

Your heart was pounding.

He could do it right now, he could kill you right now, if he only wanted to.

But… somehow you could not believe that he would.

Your little Brahms… he would not hurt you.

You wait patiently.

You can hear him breathing, steady.

He reaches out his hand, slowly, gently, as if hes afraid if he makes one wrong move, youll bolt. Poor boy is practically vibrating.

Finally, you can feel him gently place one of his large, rough hands on your head.

Plunging his hand into your silky locks, He laces his fingers into your hair, and you can hear his breathing hitch.

You cant help but melt a little at the touch.

It had been so long since someone had touched you gently, with reverence; Like you were something breakable.

You were ashamed with yourself.

Waves of dread and desire wash over you like an ocean of icy hot.

You shouldn’t like this this much, you shouldnt want this this much…

He slowly ran his fingers down through your hair, examining the silky texture, reveling in the feeling.

He leans even closer to you, you can feel the heat emanating off of him, his porcelain nose resting right on your hairline.

You hear him breathe in deeply, drinking in your scent laced with musk, and floral scents.

You look back up at him, you can see his chest rise and fall, deep eyes filled with something… primal, but not violent.

Something deeper, stronger.

You stare back at him, your eyes wide, your own breath catching as well.

Waiting. Expectant.

You both stare at each other for a moment, the tension between you palpable.

You hear his clothing shift as he leans down closer to you, to your face, until the tip of his porcelain nose touches yours.

Your eyes flicker from his cold lips to the unwavering heat in his eyes.

You breathe shallowly, staring back at him.

Before he has the chance to close the gap, you snap him out of his trance.

“Brahms.” You say firmly but sweetly, watching him jolt visibly and back up a step.

He cocks his head slightly, always watching you with his darkened orbs.

“Time for dinner.” You say with a smirk.

He sighs and his shoulders droop understandingly.

If youre going to be his nanny, and you need to follow the rules, this means you must make him dinner.

You gently make your way out of the room, gracefully making your way to the kitchen.

When you get there, you exhale longingly and slump against the kitchen counter.

Your mind feels fried from what just happened. Your head was swimming.

You could still feel his fingers in your hair, touching you so softly, like you were a piece of fine art.

Like one wrong move would completely unravel you.

Little did he know he could.

He could have you, a mess in his hands.

You longed to feel that reverence again.

Sighing deeply, you stand up, dust yourself off and begin to pull ingredients from the pantry and fridge.

[no-droids]

Promise Me (It’s Yours)

Part Eleven of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 10K

Warnings: OMFG might be the first chapter of rough day to not need any warnings, can you believe it?? I mean of course there’s language, a splash of smut, and just the briefest reference to suicide, but pretty PG-13 this time my guys I apologize

A/N: I’m sorry I know people show up for the smut but I was feeling soft in this Taco Bell parking lot so here this is, I hope y’all like it.  I guarantee none of the math is correct but please go with it

***

You jerk awake to the sound of whimpers.

It’s late.  The bonfire is nothing more than glowing coals, and your back is resting against a scratchy log instead of a long, comfortable chest.  You blink rapidly, trying to figure out where that noise is comi—

The kid.  Fussy in his crib, his gasps starting to turn into quiet sobs.

“Hey,” you murmur, aiming for soft and comforting, but the sleep sits right in the middle of your vocal cords and splits your voice in half, making you sound like an exhausted demon.  Weirdly enough, it seems to chill him out (did a demon actually teach him how to choke people without touching them?) and you sit up to blearily look around.  Where’s Din?  “Where’s—” you rub your eyes and squint around once more, “—where’d your dad go, bug?”

The clearing is bare.  The field is, too—no path, excluding the one you three made on the hike here.  Nothing in the distant forest, and the black duffel bag sits somewhere near your feet.

Alright, no worries, maybe he just… went to take a leak or something.  Really… oddly far away.  That’s fine.  Sometimes humans have to do that—maybe he has a.  A shy bladder.  Or something.  You’re totally fine.  The kid blinks back at you through equally tired eyes, his head tilting as he seems to be taking cues from you right now in the absence of his father.  You both should just try to go back to sleep…

Or you can wait up for him.  That sounds like a better plan.  Don’t panic, just trust him.  Give him the benefit of the doubt, it’s the least you can do.

You take a second to look around again, still coming up empty.  It’s dark out, but the moon is suspended high in the sky.  The fire doesn’t even give off much light anymore, just dying embers.  Your eyes scan the ground again, catching on the black bag at your feet.

Was that there when you went to sleep?  No, the last person who had it was Din, and he was sitting over there, in front of the boulder behind the kid’s shield.

You blink down at the stationary bag for a few more seconds, studying it like it’ll spill all of its secrets if you glare hard enough, but then something sparks in your memory.  Something odd, something you only noticed for a second last night.  There was a red light that reflected off Din’s helmet when he reached into the bag for food earlier, wasn’t there?

You think back on it, try to isolate the hazy memory.  If it was a laser sight, you would’ve recognized the bright beam and panicked, but you didn’t.  It was unfocused, dim.  Flashing.

Had… had Din brought a tracking fob with him from the Crest?  But why?

Maker, it’s like your mind knows it should speed up but it’s still too stupid to actually do it.  You should… you should check the bag, right?  Just in case… you don’t know.  You’re being ridiculous.

You reach out to catch the dark bag nonetheless and then unzip it, rifling through it for a particular item you figure should be in here somewhere.  Food, food, more food…

Somewhere…

—It’s not here.  No tracking fob here.  No red light to be seen of.

Had you been imagining it?

No, you determine after a second.  No, because you remember thinking it was odd—you specifically noticed it, clearly recognized it but didn’t contemplate too much into it at the time.

Alright, no worries, maybe he… maybe he went on a quick little hunt while you were both sleeping.  He must’ve gone back to the ship to grab his armor and guns and then set off.  That’s fine, there’s more food in the bag.  He said he’d be here when you woke up, which most likely means morning.  Right?

Cool.  Cool cool cool, you can wait until morning.  You can just settle back down against the log right here and find a comfortable position—there we go—and just wait for the sunrise, wait for the inevitable return of your missing party member.  Party leader, arguably.  He’ll come back, he always does.

Your body begins to relax, even though something still seems… strange about this.  Like there’s something important you’re still missing.

… The field is bare.

You instantly sit up and turn back to study it in the moonlight, study the single path you left on your way here.  You remember hiking at least… a grand total of two hours to get here from the Crest, maybe?  Granted, you took quite the detour, but that just means he would’ve carved a distinct, new path on his way back—

Would he… would he really go on a hunt without going back to the ship first?  Would Mando truly venture out—without telling you—to go collect a quarry without any weapon on him whatsoever?  Any piece of armor besides a helmet?

Does that seem right to you?

Fuck, you suddenly feel wide awake, and the baby starts gasping out troubled cries again.  You push yourself up to your feet and stumble around the dying flames to go comfort him, dropping to your knees next to the reflective sphere.  Your head stays on a constant swivel as you quiet him, brushing the pad of your thumb along his wrinkled forehead and shushing him as you keep looking out at the breezy field of grass, trying to see if you missed anything.  

Fuck, maybe you’re just overreacting.  What direction is the ship?  Which way did you…?  You think back, trying to piece together limited information of what you can remember about today.  Glancing back down at the log you slept on and then the path leading away from the clearing, rapidfire calculations start going off in your head.  No, you realize after a second of frantic thought—no, the sun would’ve—if you walked…

Eventually, you’re able to pinpoint a general idea of where the ship should be, and if you’re right, then he definitely would’ve left a new path to get back to it.  You don’t like this.  It’s out of character for him.  It sits too weird with you, and the kid rarely starts crying unless something is bothering him.

Alright, alright, don’t panic.  Din is a professional.  He must’ve left on purpose—you would’ve woken up if there was any sort of struggle, or even just an exchange.  Odds are, he grabbed the tracking fob and just… went to go get the quarry.  

Without waking you.  Without telling you.  Without bringing anything else with him.  No armor.  No guns.  Just the fob.

Some strange sense of dread begins to fill you, one that feels all the worse when there’s no clear explanation for it.  You won’t pretend like you’re an expert, but to a Mandalorian, that seems like it could be considered suicidal, wouldn’t it?  What reason would he have to do this?

The field continues to wave, undisturbed, in all surrounding directions except one.  You look over at the clearing leading to the dark forest, the treetops too thick to let anything but traces of crystal moonlight through.  If he left… he’ll have gone that way.  The only direction that wouldn’t leave a path.

Okay.  So there's a decision that needs to be made.  You can either stay here, in the middle of this wide open field until the sun comes up, and hopefully he comes back by then.  Or… you could.  Go check if something went wrong.

The forest is gorgeous from here, you can see that.  Thick treetops, drifting gently in the breeze, steady and quiet and picturesque.  Admittedly, you can also see a haunting, looming nightmare of darkness warning you to stay away from whatever it’s hiding.  This is an unfamiliar planet.  You know it’s safe, this is the most isolated sector and Din said practically no crime happens here, but.  He also said he’d be here when you woke up.

Hang on, wait.  Something catches in your peripheral.  There—right on the other side of the kid’s crib, you see—

A glove.

… He left the glove.  Whether on purpose or by accident, Din left his glove.  The one connected to the vambrace, the one that houses all his controls.  

The one that houses the comm link.

The piece of armor is already in your trembling fingers before you realize you even went to grab it.  Anxiety, stress, dread—you don’t know which weighs on you heavier while you slowly rotate it in your hands, trying to understand what’s happening right now.  He left his emergency communicator.  The only chance you have at contacting him unless he decides to come back.

Panic suddenly constricts in your chest, and you make your decision blindly.  The kid continues to squeak out little whimpers as your arm sinks down into the leather and you pull the gauntlet up almost to your elbow, flexing your fingers inside the fabric and feeling your heart beating in your throat.  The controls are fairly basic, it doesn’t take much time to figure out which button he synced with the hovering sphere, which command he uses to lock the two locations together.

“Chill out, kiddo,” you whisper, doing your best to calm your own raging uncertainty.  Conviction is key, you think.  You made your decision.  Not wanting to waste any more time in case something went awry, you sling the bag over your shoulder and set off in the direction of the trees, feeling… woefully underprepared for whatever may potentially face you.

The forest is quiet as you finally make your way past the first few trees marking its beginning, or end, and you need a second to blink and adjust your vision.  It’s dark—if you thought it was dark when you awoke, it’s nothing compared to this.  The treetops are thick and barely allow any moonlight to pass through their dense leaves whatsoever, just bits and pieces scattered here or there.  There’s no path, no trail, just nature.  Fallen logs, moss, rock and boulder formations you have to avoid.

You shush your agitated ward again, wanting to control yourself because you’re getting the kid worked up into baby battle mode with no visible threats to see.  He reads energies—he’s capable when he wants to be, when he deems the situation fit.  Right now he’s quieted somewhat but he’s still on high alert, recycling your inner panic outwards until you feel the air shifting around you, an… unexplainable phenomena you can’t even describe properly.

Well, you figure.  If anything, he’s far more dangerous than any weapon Din typically carries with him.  You tend to forget, most of the time.  He’s never hurt you, no matter how boisterous the tantrums sometimes are, and you find yourself very rarely thinking of him as anything other than an innocent, helpless baby you’re tasked with protecting.  Though it appears that most of the time, he’s been the one protecting you.

What are you saying?  There’s no need for protection right now, you’re simply searching for your absent ally.  You’re not being brave—no matter how quickly your heart is beating or how much your hands are sweating, you’re not being brave because bravery implies facing something you fear.  You have nothing to fear, it’s nothing more than an abandoned forest.  A backdrop for your endeavor.

Though… though now that you think about it, this setting looks eerily similar to one you’ll have seared into your memory forever.  The forest on Corellia.

You will the thought away with a frantic shake of your head.  Naboo is safe, Naboo is safe—it’s not like Corellia.  It’s not crawling with people desperate for food and credits, desperate enough to resort to kidnapping and slave trade.  Naboo will economically prosper no matter what threat befalls the galaxy, its industry comes from tourism and resorting.

You stop for a second, needing a breather.  Just for a second.  You haven’t been walking more than fifteen minutes but the terrain makes your feet hurt.  Sure, there are clearings between trees and the ground isn’t complete overflowing with obstacles, but they’re still present.  The scattered rocks dig in under your shoes and some of the bushes you pass by have sharp leaves or thorns—but it’s the sprawling root systems that prove to be the worst.  They crawl across the ground like they can’t decide whether they want to be part of it or not, and more than once you stub your toe on a hidden tube arching a few inches out of the mossy soil.

A part of you almost has to remind yourself that you’re here because you’re looking for somebody, rather than being trapped here trying to evade something.  The adrenaline and fear are starting to get the best of you, make you too antsy, warp your senses.  You’re deep in the forest now, but not enough to feel the wind disappear yet—you can still hear it rattling around above you, leaves slapping against each other, branches creaking as they tower over you.  You almost wish it were quiet.  You don’t feel comforted by the breeze anymore, it doesn’t feel like an ever present reassurance as much as it does a burden that masks the noises you could otherwise be hearing.  The snapping of twigs that could potentially be there.  The crunching of leaves under feet that aren’t your own.

So.  You should probably admit now that this was actually a horrendous idea.  Because you’re fucking stupid for not realizing this earlier, but.  Din ventured into this hellscape to find a quarry, did he not?

A… wanted criminal.

Shit.  What the fuck.  That’s a hell of a fucking thing to register this late, isn’t it?

You can turn around, you figure.  You can turn around right now and head back to the campsite—actually, that sounds like a great idea.  You should do that.

You spin around and begin retracing your steps… which, you figure out about five minutes later, is an impossible feat.  None of your surroundings look familiar—or shit, maybe it all looks familiar.  Like… trees.  And fucking rocks.  Trying to distinguish landmarks is almost impossible now, and there’s no way to tell which direction you’re going with no visibility overhead, no celestial body to guide you.

You don’t immediately panic, not until you (quite literally) stumble upon a small stream of water flowing through some stones under your feet.

Well, okay.  That’s not good.  Okay, well, no, you suppose that could be good.  It’s water—it’s a landmark, sure, the tiniest little landmark you've ever seen, but that’s exactly the problem.  You’ve never seen it before.  Which means you’re most definitely not going in the right direction.

At this point, the only option you have is to turn around again.  Maybe you can unintentionally make the same series of stupid mistakes once more to start you right at the beginning.  The kid is still glancing around in his cradle, making sure no harm comes to your useless ass, but then you freeze when you begin to hear something in the distance.  

It��s an unfamiliar sound—a deafening one, even from this far away.  Long and echoing, a giant chorus of… something.  Something you’ve never heard before, something you can’t place.

Your heart is thundering as you walk closer to the source of it, moving slowly and cautiously forwards and having no clue what it could possibly be.  It doesn’t seem to amplify much as you travel closer, which means it must be a ways away still.  It’s terrifying nonetheless—the anticipation, how sweaty your hands are, the way you’re very aware of the muscles in your stomach for some reason.

The baby coos softly at your side, but the suddenness of the gentle noise nearly makes you jump out of your skin.  You gasp and look down at him for the first time in what feels like ages, clutching at your chest, but then—

—then footsteps rush you from behind and something grabs at your shirt.

You react completely on instinct, your body nearly throbbing with adrenaline as you whip around and launch a mean jab aimed at the dark silhouette behind you.  It slams directly into his solar plexus hard enough to bend him in half and ripple through your whole arm with the blowback.  Your other fist pulls back and instantly goes for him again, but he just barely manages to jerk his arm up and block it in time—

And thank the Maker he does.  Because you were just an inch shy from colliding your knuckles against the side of his head in your wild stage of panic.  The one currently covered in devastatingly strong, shiny metal, the helmet just barely visible in the dark forest.

It’s like it doesn’t even register with you—you’re already going to hit him again when Din’s hand hooks around your arm and he yanks you forwards.  Your body slams into his and then he’s wrapping himself around you and holding suffocatingly tight.  Everything inside you still wants to struggle against him, gasping into his shoulder as your heart continues to gallop with terror no matter what your logic tells you.  But he holds harder than steel and the sound of his voice eventually returns to you after a moment, repeating harsh words at you through a familiar vocal filter.

“—me, it’s me, it’s me, I’m right here, stop it, stop it, stop—”

You blink desperately against black fabric, letting the familiar scent, touch, and embrace bring you back down again.  He’s so solid—has such a strong hold on you, absolutely no give to be found, and the devastatingly tight embrace manages to quickly settle you.

But he doesn’t wait long.  As soon as you stop fighting him, he releases you in favor of grabbing your shoulders and shoving you out at arm’s length, frantically jerking the helmet up and down your body and twisting you back and forth while he looks.  Your arms dangle with the inspection and you readily let him move you around like a rag doll, not having enough sense to register anything beyond safe.  You’re safe.  Everything seems to exist in a box right now, far away and yet compact at the same time.  The visor snaps back up to your face and you blink dazedly up at him.

“I’m sorry,” you immediately tell him, voice pitched high and awkward, “woah, hah—whew, ahah—I’m sorry, I-I’m just—“

His fingers hook at your chin and he pulls it up, tilting your head back and forth, allowing the small patch of moonlight beaming through the treetops to catch the water in your eyes.  It glints in shameless betrayal, and you try unsuccessfully to blink it away despite the damage already being done.  Din drops his arm and you lower your chin without the platform propping it up.

“You just—you just—” you gasp out, delayed relief suddenly filling you and making your voice wobble dangerously, “—y-you went on a hunt but you left your armor.  You left your guns, you left everything.  I didn’t know—what could’ve happened, I—why’d you do that?  W-Why—why didn’t you t-tell m—”

He wraps his hand behind your head and pulls you into his chest once more, not saying a single word.  This hug is just as tight as before, just in a different way.  He still uses it as a way to calm you and it still squeezes the air from your body, but this one doesn’t feel like it’s entirely for your benefit anymore.

It takes you a few more seconds to realize his hands are trembling.

You go to pull back, but he tightens, anchoring you to him.  “What’s—” you gasp against the fabric covering his shoulder, “—what’s wrong?  Are you okay?  Where’s the quarry?  What’s—what’s making that sound?  Are we safe?”

Din takes slow, shallow breaths, and you hear it almost too well with your ear shoved against his body.  Little by little, he loosens his grip on you.  Both of you are still panting by the time you’re able to wrench back and look up at him.

Bare, shaky hands push your hair back away from your face, eventually coming to rest framing both of your cheeks.  They’re warm and strong where his fingers wrap around the bend of your jaw, securing you in place, and when he speaks, he sounds like he’s been through hell and back.

“Don’t ever,” Din whispers brokenly, tugging a little bit to make sure you’re listening.  “Don’t ever—ever run away from me like that.  Ever again.  Understand?”

You stare up at him, wide-eyed and dumb, unmoving.  Is that what he thinks?  That you were trying to… to run away from him?

“I—I wasn’t running,” you immediately stutter out, blinking rapidly at him and trying not to let the confusion show on your face.  “I’d never run—I-I told you I wouldn’t—” 

“I came back and you were gone,” he breathes, his quivering thumbs brushing along the height of your cheekbones.  “I—my kid, he was gone, everything was gone, I-I…”  The helmet shakes back and forth the slightest bit, and then he drops his grip to clamp down on your shoulders, clearing the fragile turmoil from his throat and hardening his tone.  “Listen, you can’t do that—you can’t take my kid and just… just disappear like that, please, promise me you won’t do that agai—”

“You disappeared,” you accuse with a whisper, but it’s like he doesn’t even hear you.

“Promise me,” he urges, shaking you enough to make your head bobble just slightly, and the quiet plead of his voice through the modulator compels you to acquiesce without a second thought.

“I promise I won’t disappear,” you vow to him, unwavering and earnest.  “Now promise you won’t, either.”

Din stares at you for a moment, his body tense and completely stationary.  He’s still breathing heavy though, his chest rising and falling hard enough for you to count.  One, two, three…   Seven.  Seven whole breaths, before he finally responds.

“I promise,” he eventually declares, before taking a step forward and crowding you, pulling your shoulders in and slowly tilting his helmet down until it rests against your forehead.  The cool metal feels like ice on your burning skin—but you ignore it and allow him to get as close as he can possibly be, to hold you tight and keep you there.  “I promise,” he goes on, “that if you ever—that if something ever happens to you two, and you just… just vanish on me like that again—then I’d—I’d…”

And then his next words steal the air from your lungs, wipe your head clear of any thoughts whatsoever—the hushed, vehement sincerity in his voice.  Yet… calm.  Certain, composed, and with purpose.  Almost as if he could only get you to understand one thing, then he would want it to be this.

“Then I’d tear this whole galaxy apart to find you,” he tells you quietly, tightening his hands on your arms and swearing an oath to you.  “Both.  Both of you.  I’d—I’d never stop.  I’d rain hell.  Tell me you understand.”

“I… I understand,” you finally murmur, and Din quickly pulls you to his chest and wraps himself around you once more without another word.  His fingers tangle in your hair and encourage you to rest your face in the crook of his neck, so you do.  Even though his helmet jabs uncomfortably at your cheek like this, you do your best to just settle down and breathe him in, bring your hands up to rub at his back and wait for his heart rate to slow.

Eventually it does.  It seems like it takes ages, but eventually he's able to unwind his large stature from around you, letting you have a bit more of your own space.  He doesn’t take his hands off you, though—his palm drags down your elbow and catches your bare hand in his, gently tugging.

“Let’s go,” he says quietly, beginning to lead you… somewhere.  Probably out of the forest and back to the ship, but you don’t question it and completely forget about the low rumbling still echoing in the distance.  You follow directly behind him and away from the mysterious sound, the fingers of your right hand still laced with his left, knowing there are far more important questions to be asked.

“Din,” you whisper, but he doesn’t need anymore prompting.

“I thought I’d be quick enough,” he admits, pulling you along by your hand.  “It’s barely been a couple hours.”

You stay silent and focus on your feet, letting him go at his own pace.  More than once he plays bodyguard, standing in front of wickedly sharp branches while you and the kid pass, and there’s never anything said beyond a quiet ‘thank you’ every time he does it.

“I’ve…” he says after a while.  “I’ve been doing this job for awhile.  And there are things… things you learn.  Quick.  Ways to predict people, ways to get in their heads.  Last known locations tell you a lot about a quarry.  Smart ones go to populated planets, planets like Coruscant, planets that make it nearly impossible to find people.  Brave ones go to dangerous planets, suicidal ones try their luck in the Unknown Regions, idiots continue to go about their business on their homeworld without caring.  But planets like this—like Naboo… those are the pacifists.  The ones that don’t ever put up a fight.  Watch your feet.”

You blink and stumble over a hidden root nonetheless, trying to keep up both physically and mentally.  Din tightens his grip and catches you by your elbow.

“This one was like you,” he goes on, pulling you up and leading you forward once more.  “Wasn’t trying to run.  Just wanted to spend his last few months hiding out on the most beautiful place in the galaxy before he got caught.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?  Why’d you go in the middle of the night?”  You whisper, not upset anymore.  Just trying to understand.  “You couldn’t have waited until morning?”  But Din just shrugs.

“I didn’t want to remind you.”  His sentence is short and stunted, yet serves to answer all three of your questions without providing any information beyond that, the unspoken sentiment barreling forth and smashing into you full force.  He didn’t want to remind you.  He wanted to leave while you were asleep and then return before you woke up, never letting you remember that responsibilities exist beyond this gorgeous planet for the time being.

You’re a bit shocked, to be honest.  In hindsight, though, you suppose it makes sense.  Din was the one who navigated to this sector, kept the bag out of your reach the whole day.  If the kid had decided to wake up just an hour or two later, he would’ve been back by then, and you would’ve never known any different.

“Anyway,” he clears his throat, and a wave tiredness suddenly grips you.  Fuck.  Too much thinking.  “The quarry went willingly, they always do when their last wish is to chase down a pretty landscape.  Nice guy.  Found him camped out by a giant—”

Din suddenly goes oddly quiet, and you’re too exhausted to push it.  You’re starting to drag a little bit.  You woke up in blind panic and have been on edge ever since, and now that you know things are okay, your body just wants more sleep.  The trees blur as you keep moving forward, zoning out and knowing you likely have another few miles of walking before you’re back.

You almost trip over him.  You don’t even notice he’s there until you nearly run into him.  In your defense, the only visible part of him is his helmet; the clothing is too dark under the thick treetops to see anything else.  Still, it takes you a second, and you blink down at Din’s crouched figure in front of you, blocking your intended path.

“Up,” he turns to mutter over his shoulder when you ultimately fail to comprehend.

…There’s no way.

Hesitantly, you lift one of your knees to his side and feel his arm firmly hook under it.  Emboldened, you lean down until your forearm can wrap around the front of him, and then you do a stupid little bunny hop along the curve of his spine.  Din easily catches your other leg before rising up.

He bounces you higher on his back once he’s upright, and you’re automatically resting your chin on his shoulder and clinging to him, your heart filling with butterflies as he begins trudging forward.

It’s… oddly comfortable.  As long as you keep your arms wrapped tight around his chest, you can bury your face into him and drift in and out.  He goes out of his way to keep you as level as you can possibly be, trying to soften his steps so your jaw doesn’t bounce on top of him while he steps over fallen logs and ducks to avoid low hanging leaves.

Later—you’re not sure how long it’s been, his voice comes through the modulator, ringing with your ear pressed against the helmet no matter how quiet he tries to be.  

“How’d you know I went on a hunt?”  He asks, and there’s a soft reservation in his tone, as if he doesn’t really want to speak but needs to ask you anyways.

“Mmm?”  You slur into the fabric stretching over his shoulder, probably drooling on it a bit, too.  “Hmm?”

His voice increases marginally in volume, but still maintains a gentle undertone that lulls you into relaxing deeper.  “You knew I left to look for the quarry—how?”

“Fob,” you tell him tiredly, not having much energy to spare the words.  “Wasn’t in the bag.”

You’re too out of it at this point, it takes a moment to realize Din has abruptly slowed down.  “How’d you know there was a tracking—”

“You’re… reflective?”  You ask, though you don’t really know why you’re asking.  “S’to your detriment.  Sometimes.”

That seems to stun him somewhat, halting him in place for the time being.  The biggest response it gets from you is the tiniest little eyebrow twitch inwards, wondering why the steady movements of your transportation seems to have temporarily stalled.  “How’d you know I left my armor?”

“Hmm?”  You ask again, not really hearing him.

“Hey, stay awake for a second,” he bounces you and you groggily mutter something under your breath that even you can’t comprehend.  Din glosses over it while you blink your eyes open.  “Tell me how you knew.  You didn’t go back to the Crest.”

You drag your head off his shoulder and squint around, looking around at the edge of the forest and the flowing grass beyond and trying to think with your stupid, tired brain, really needing to focus on the question.  “…No?”

The curiosity in his voice can’t be masked, not by him nor the filter through which it’s processed.  “So how did you know I left my armor on it?”

“You would’ve left a trail,” you shrug. “The grass is tall.”

“I could’ve just taken the path we made earlier,” he eventually proposes, still completely motionless in the middle of the relatively sparse number of trees leading to it.  “Gone back to the ship exactly the way we came.”

“Y’could’ve,” you admit with a yawn. “But the ship is that way,” you lazily raise your arm and point a good fifty or so degrees to the left, and Din follows his own outstretched gauntlet you’re still sporting around your hand with the visor.

“I’m impressed,” he finally says, shifting you on his back but perfectly content to keep his feet rooted to the spot.  “I didn’t think you had a good sense of direction.  You know where the Crest is on this planet but not when we were on Canto Bight.”

You snort a laugh.  No, no you have no such thing—you got lost as fuck in this forest.  A good sense of direction counts as a solid survival skill, and you’d say you still very much lack most of those.  Besides pulling water out of thin air, you can’t claim to know much of anything at all in that department.

“Mmm.  No, that was just—“ you shake your head.  “Y’know, jus’ some… panicked?  Math?  That’s all.”

“Panicked…” Din repeats slowly, “…math.”

You nod, frustrated that he’s still not moving, clearly waiting for you to explain your rapid, chaotic thought process from earlier.  Still, you do your best for him, trying not to slur your words too much.  “We… walked towards the sun this morning to get to the field.  I remember, because your shiny ass was blinding me the entire time, what must’ve been like.  A whole fucking hour?  At least.  And… and then we walked a little less to get here, forty-five minutes probably, then me ‘n the kid watched the sunset leaning up against that one log, which was at a solid angle—little more than fifty degrees to the right from the path.  You could’ve retraced your steps from earlier if you really wanted to, but taking the shortcut would’ve shaved off about...” you snuggle your face into his shoulder deeper for a moment and think really hard about it.  “Thirty minutes?  Or an hour round trip.  Give or take, since the kid slowed us down.”

He still doesn’t move, and you huff quietly, feeling like you’re on top of a stubborn blurg that just can’t be fucking bothered.  Should you squeeze your legs around his middle?  Will that work?

“You… went on a hunt, sweet girl,” Din finally says, bluntly, after way too long of a pause.  He sounds vaguely impressed for reasons beyond that of your comprehension right now.  “In your own little… panicked way.  How does it feel?”

“Unsuccessful,” you breathe, burying your forehead into his shoulder once more and blinking your eyes shut.  Too much thinking, too much thinking.  You need to sleep.

“You were on the right track,” he hums, bouncing you up and setting off again, and you can’t help yourself.  It’s completely involuntary, tumbles out of your mouth without thought.

“Craziest bounty hunter in the guild,” you slur, and Din doesn’t give you even a shred of the laughs that deserves.

“I should make you walk just for that,” he threatens instead, though he does no such thing.  He just keeps leaning forward in a position that can’t be comfortable for him and lets you fall asleep on his back, holding you tight to his body as he finally breaks out of the last trees and continues hiking through the familiar field to go back home.

***

You rouse twice.  Once, when hands allow your legs to slowly slide down a firm body and settle on solid metal.  He spins around to catch you before you can collapse, and then slowly eases your exhausted body down to the floor.

A bare hand cradles the back of your head until that finally settles down, too.

The second time, you can’t quite be sure of.  One of those moments where you’re barely conscious, drifting to the point where everything around you could be part of your dreamscape, where you can’t trust your own ears or mind to differentiate between what is real and what isn’t.  All you’d need is a single person telling you this didn’t actually happen and you’d accept it without question.

Pacing.  Quiet footsteps moving back and forth across the floor as you sleep, pausing every once in a while to stand in front of your slumbering figure.  Something unintelligible is mumbled as he walks away, the hollow thunk of boots clambering up a ladder.  Engines rumble to life under your ear, and gravity gently pushes you deeper against the flat metal supporting your body.

The footsteps soon return and start to pace around once more.

***

“Hey,” a quiet voice murmurs, your shoulder rocking back and forth slightly.  “Wake up.”

You blink your eyes open to a familiar visor looking down at you, his hand quickly leaving your shoulder and brushing a gloved thumb across your cheekbone when he sees you’re awake.  “Mm?  Din?  Wha’s—” you glance around you at the dark hull of the Razor Crest, before blinking your tired gaze back to him, “—s’going on?  Wha’ time s’it?”

“Late,” he whispers.  “We’re in the air.  I had to wait until the kid was asleep, but I want… I want you to see something.”

“What is it?”  Still blinking blearily, you sit up, but then Din grabs your hands and keeps your momentum going until you’re slowly dragged to your feet.  What you do when you’re standing upright doesn’t really qualify as standing or upright—you just sag against him with exhaustion as he wraps his forearms around your lower back, keeping you pressed tight against him as your ankles drag uselessly against the ground.

“Use your feet,” he reminds you quietly, and you harumph in a grumpy response.  Maker, you want to go back to sleep.  You’re sure you tell him as much, but he just shushes you and encourages you to hold yourself up, letting go while you steady yourself but hovering his palms a few inches away from your arms just in case.  “I want you to put my helmet on.”

“Excuse me?”  You ask him, swaying slightly and rubbing one of your eyes, not feeling amused.  “Is this some kind of… power trip?  Or something?  Because you’ve spent the last few days literally beating me up, I’d assume that would be enough for y—”

“I let you beat me up,” he grumbles under his breath.  “How are you ever gonna take a punch if it hurts you that bad to just throw one, sweet girl?”

“I’ll punch first,” you respond groggily, trying to move forwards so you can lean on him again, but being stopped by a firm grip on your shoulders.

“I know you will,” he mutters, letting go after a second to brush your hair away from your squinty eyes.  “Listen, I want you to put my helmet on, okay?”

You nuzzle your head into his leather palm and hum, giving it some thought.  “Are you gonna… turn on the light thingie?”  You clarify, not being able to remember what the setting is called, and he nods.

“Yes,” he tells you very seriously.  “There’s a… stars, a ‘noise thingie’ that I’ll turn on, too.  You won’t be able to see or hear for a little bit—you’ll have to trust me.”

“Is this for sex?”  You blurt as soon as the thought occurs to you, and Din sighs heavily, letting his head drop to his chest in exasperation.  “Like some sort of a… sensory deprivation thing?  Because if so, I can like—I mean I can get into it.”

“If I say yes, will you put it on?”  He tries, and.  Well, that question shouldn’t wake you up nearly as much as it does.  You blink at him, actually registering the sight of the mirrored visor this time.  Your gaze drops to see he’s back in full beskar regalia, his body looking even larger and broader with it on.

“Oh,” you say quite suddenly, remembering the question.  “Oh.  Shit yeah, I will.”

He shakes his head.  You’re getting better and better at reading him—becoming more fluent in helmet, one could say—and this head shake says he can’t believe he’s actually surprised that worked.  “It’s not for sex,” he tells you immediately, deadpanning the delivery even more than he typically would.  “Will you still put it on?”

You look at him blankly, wondering why this is even happening.  He said you’re in the air right now, and there’s… something he wants you to see?  Whatever this is, it’s spur of the moment.  Something he felt the need to wake you up for, but likely won’t push if you decline.

“Yeah,” you nod, “'course I will.”

“Close your eyes,” he murmurs, tipping your chin up slightly in the dim hull so he can watch.  Since they already want to do so regardless of the gentle command, your lids readily dip shut and you wait patiently as his touch leaves you for a moment.

You’re already sagging a bit by the time one of his hands returns to your cheek, and then plush lips press gently to yours.  The sigh you give him is completely involuntary—aching and quiet and longing as you let it go right in his mouth, your expression narrowing with concentration.

But he’s quick.  He leans back before either of you can get lost in it and reminds you with a gorgeous, rumbling baritone, “You’ll have to trust me.”

You nod in confirmation and soon his helmet is carefully being lowered over your head.  This is the second time around he’s done this—and you suppose if you couple that with your still lazy demeanor, the silent darkness that comes along with it doesn’t bother you as much as it did a few months ago.  The padding still grips your cheeks and you still feel disconnected from your surroundings—even more so now than the last time he put it on you—but it’s welcoming, in a way.  Giving you a reason to cling to him and tilt your head with the unfamiliar weight, breathing slow and easy while isolated in your own little pitch black world.

Oh Maker, you could probably fall asleep again just like this, so long as he keeps holding you up.  But Din has other plans, clearly.  He eases you backwards, continues to walk you back and back and back some more, and you have no problem just going with it.  He’s strong, taking almost all of your weight and somehow instinctively knowing how to hold you so that you’re fully supported no matter how you’re positioned.  He shifts you to one arm at one point, does something with his free hand that you can’t really figure out but aren’t really bothered by either.

He guides you both a few more steps backwards, and you start to wonder how long the hull actually is.  But then he suddenly grabs you tight—tight enough to make your eyes pop open to the black void in front of you and panic slightly, before he tilts you back even more and suddenly the ground is dropping out from under your feet, the air rushing silently around your entire body.

Okay, now you full-on panic.

He doesn’t let go, thank the stars, even when you scramble up to straddle and cling to him, heart clanging hard against your sternum at his fucking audacity.  The jet pack?  Are there just no fucking rules anymore?

Sure enough, the thrusters kick in and he’s good enough with the phoenix to counteract the gravity shift as much as possible, making it a gradual thing instead of a rapid change in motion.  You’re almost confident you would’ve slipped out of his grip and gone slamming to the ground had he not done the preventative maneuver.

Regardless, you’re gonna fucking kill him.  You’re going to murder Mando and get your own bounty puck, one with your name on it.  It won’t end well; everyone after you will have a personal vendetta considering you offed one of their own.  If you survive the confrontation then you’ll likely get taken to mine spice somewhere for the rest of your miserable life, probably Kessel—that is, assuming he doesn’t kill you first, within the next however many minutes.

And oh, he seems like he takes his sweet fucking time, hauling your fuming, decapitated ass along on a late night joyride.  Every second he continues to allow you to fly in blind, deaf isolation is another butt whooping you’re vowing to give him, and it pisses you off even more that you can’t even express your righteous fury because you can’t let go of him.  You’re a parasite in midair, clinging to his metal body while he slowly descends, navigating you both down until you feel his boots finally meet solid ground.

You carefully reach for the ground with one foot and try to feel it with your tippie toes just in case he’s somehow tricking you, until Din drops you down and your feet mercifully meet dirt.  As soon as you find your balance, you shove an open palm against the metal of his chestplate in anger and Din quickly catches your wrist, the beskar shaking slightly under your hand like he found the whole thing rather humorous.

You don’t have much time to fuss.  He spins you around and then his hands settle on your shoulders, and for some reason… you only notice it now.  The fabric covering your torso and legs is gradually becoming damp for some reason.  You can’t feel any real splashes of water—no raindrops or anything, but it gets worse and worse the longer he holds you steady in front of him.

His hands eventually drag down your arms and elbows, until they’re catching your wrists and slowly pulling both of them up.  Din cradles the backs of your hands as he presses your palms against the cold metal helmet around your head, and then he gradually begins to pull it up, and—

—Loud.

You stop for a second.

… Tears spring up.

Din keeps pulling.

What starts out as a dull hiss continuously amplifies as the beskar slowly lifts, growing louder and louder in volume until it’s a deafening, violent, thunderous roar.

Yet still, you don’t open your eyes.  You just… listen to it.  Let the sound of it fill your heart, the same sound you caught earlier in the forest but now amplified exponentially, almost surrounding you with reverberating white noise.  Your whole body is practically drenched in water by the time you finally open your eyes and blink through the heavy mist.

He said no oceans, and he was right.  It isn’t an ocean—it’s… something so unbelievably beautiful that you don’t even have a name for it.  You don’t want one, not really.  There isn’t a name that would be good enough.  It’s easily—by and far, in your measley handful of decades of existence—the most majestic thing you’ve ever seen.  A gigantic, enormous cliff dwarfs you on three sides, with tens of thousands of tons of water arcing over their sharp edges and plunging into the rocky lake below.  

The cloud of droplets ricocheting from the base of the jaw dropping cascade is massive in and of itself—easily taking up a good quarter of your field of view even from this distance away.  The shore sits close enough but the spectacle is still somewhat distant, remaining an untouchable heaven, a gorgeous lake separating you from it and rippling with waves that settle to lap at the sand.

The rest of the setting comes later, after you’re able to process the main event.  You’re in the middle of the forest from before—familiar colossal trees wrap around the shoreline and vibrant shrubbery blankets the edges of the falling water, evergreen and fed by a constant nourishing mist.  The sun is also beginning to come up.  You can’t see it yet, but you can see the way the sky is starting to gradient itself from a starry midnight blue to pale lavender, the first rays beginning to peak over the treetops.

You feel yourself take a few, slow steps forward, but leather catches your hand from behind and gives it a firm squeeze before you can move completely out of reach.  You don’t even have to look back at him to know what it means.  The sentiment transfers seamlessly—be careful, he says, before dropping it and letting you continue forth.

Reaching the shore brings even more beauty to a backdrop you didn’t think could get any better.  You have to carefully step over—oh, heavens—small, transparent crystals tinted every color you can imagine to reach the water, sparkling under the gently lapping waves.  They’re like thin, flat shards of glass, and you know that if the sound of the falling water wasn’t so deafening, you’d probably be able to hear the muted crunching noise they make shattering under your boots with every cautious step.  Jagged edges and multicolored powder is all that’s left in your wake, no matter how careful you try to be.

You almost don’t want to move since they’re so delicate and everywhere, probably blanketing the entire floor of the lake, but you push forward with purpose until you’re just close enough to squat down and dip your fingers into the cool water.  It’s crystal clear and reflects the lightening sky with every gentle ripple and disturbance.  You study the pieces of glass as the repetitive waves distort their shape, the colorful shards turning to smooth, round pebbles the closer they are to the water.  A large green one catches your eye—circular and comparatively tiny, but standing out amongst all the rest.

You pluck it from the shore and let the almost perfectly round emerald sphere roll around in your palm, scanning the shallow water once more.  Then, ah—there, you reach out and grab a slightly larger, heavier, unassuming brown one that you have to hold up to the gradually rising sun to see its sparkle.  It’s got harder edges and feels rougher in your hand but you like it that way.  You like that there’s a bit of a warm amber at its center when the light hits it right.

Perfect.  Taking another moment to study your choices, you eventually end up finding a gorgeous, slightly pearlescent piece that sits just between the size of the other two in your collection.  It’s tinted a pale, off-white amongst a sea of color and there’s something gentle about it that speaks to you, something that feels right about the gradual sloping curves and how it sits in your palm.

Carefully pocketing the three pieces of fragile glass and rising up, you glance back to see Din standing there, helmet on once more and frozen right where you last left him.

He looks… awkward, almost.  Holding his hands behind his back, all his weight shifted to one foot while the other twists back and forth against the ground just slightly.  Nervous, for some reason.  Feeling unsure of his place.  The posture tugs at your heartstrings, as well as the spectacular gesture, and you soon make your way back to him.

“Where did you… where did you find this!?”  You have to yell over the rushing water once you get close enough.  “I didn’t see anything on the navcomp—”

“—wasn’t—navcomp—” he replies, barely just loud enough for you to hear.  You miss most of it, but you’re able to piece together the gist based on what little you can catch.  “—quarry—isolated sector—uncharted.”

Uncharted.  It’s uncharted, the navcomp wouldn’t register it.  Untouched by millennia of progress.  Plenty of people have probably seen it before, but apparently none of them have ever told anybody about it.  The universe is vast but it’s also old—it’s unbelievable that cartographers have plotted almost the entire galaxy but they still missed something like this.

The roar of the marvel is so deafening, it takes you a moment to realize he’s still speaking

“—nobody—yet—it—” he nods the helmet out at the spectacular landmark, “—it’s yours—you want—”

“My what!?”  You bellow, but he doesn’t clarify or add anything new.  He just spins you around again, extending his arm out over your shoulder to point at the breathtaking view and then dropping his helmet down next to your ear.

“Yours,” Din repeats firmly, resolutely.  Nothing more to be said.

You’re not sure if you’re crying yet, there’s too much water in the air to tell.  All you can do is just instinctively lean all your weight back into his chest and let his arms lace around your body, and you have to blink the droplets away as they start to trail down your forehead and into your eyes.  He keeps you like that until the rising sun begins to reflect off the cloud of mist at the rocky base of the monument, scattering light in all directions and splitting it into a beautiful spectrum that reflects every color.

You wonder if Din can see it.  You wonder if there’s a filter on his helmet that isn’t infrared or night vision, where a computer isn’t constantly alerting him to movement or sudden changes in atmospheric pressure.  Just… pure, unobstructed, visible light.  You know there’s probably all sorts of tracking measures programmed in, you know he can zoom and spot a sniper from a vast distance—you know he sees things you don’t.  Things you won’t ever see.  But you also hope the visor isn’t shaded too dark—you hope there’s a setting that works like a one way mirror, if only so that he can also see the beauty of this planet the same exact way you can.

You eventually turn in his arms and take one small step away from him just so you can look at him, and sure enough, the visor is tilted up towards the natural beauty.  Your eyes study every inch of him as if you’ve never seen him before, as if he may as well have taken the helmet off right in front of you.  This is thoughtful.  It’s so fucking thoughtful of him.  For being such a mystery, this right here… this is soul bearing.  It’s not an ocean, it’s a million times better than one and the fact that he not only remembered you telling him something like that, but he actually flew you out here to see it.  It makes your chest ache with an unknown feeling, one you still have trouble recognizing.  It settles down right in the softest part of you, makes your mouth open and give it a four letter name.

You say it so softly, confess it knowing he’s not looking, knowing he’d never be able to hear above the sound of the cascading rapids crashing against the rocks below.  You can’t hear it either, but you can feel it.  The way the word lilts off your tongue, the simple truth in it that’s impossible to hide from any longer.

He glances back at you, before doing a double take.  Gently, Din pushes at your shoulder and urges you to face forward again, to take all of it in while you still can, and yet.

All you can see is him.

His head slowly turns back down to face you, and your eyes keep shamelessly scanning every bit of him, watching the mist droplets chase each other down the reflective metallic curves and contours of his helmet.  Din slowly leans in, carefully eases his arm under yours and wraps tight around your lower back to bring you closer to his side.  You sigh and press up against him, your palm creeping up the damp fabric wrapped around his throat.  The visor doesn’t leave you, even when your temple comes to rest against his pauldron.  No, he just allows the smooth metal covering his forehead to gently touch yours for a moment and hold there.  Both of you tucked away in the middle of a hidden paradise, standing in front of a gorgeous monument crafted by the hands of the Maker himself.  

And, like the two starry eyed idiots you are, neither one of you can seem to look away from the other.

You mouth a silent thank you to him, hoping he can read the heartfelt candor from your lips.  Something tells you your message was received, because his grip tightens.  As if in slow motion, his whole body lazily drops down just enough to scoop you up with an arm hooked under your knees—before Din suddenly rockets upwards.

You squeal and cling tight to his shoulders as he lifts you up higher, and higher—he slowly rises across the considerable length of the lake and closer to the falling water.  You’re already beyond drenched but as he gradually approaches the base of the falling water, it starts raining down and splashing you in buckets.

Once he’s near enough to the powerful, arcing column pouring over the long rocky edge, Din carefully spins around and hovers until his back faces it, which means you can hide your nose and mouth from the splashes against the armor shielding his shoulder.  He slowly rises up the length of the natural landmark and lets you watch the rushing water up close behind the safety of his body, sacrificing his own view so that yours can be all the better.

Eventually the falling waves break and you look down at the broad, gorgeous rapids flowing out towards you, the sun casting its dawning light over their foaming peaks.  Din spins around and you adjust yourself accordingly against his chest, knowing you’ll never have a view like this again.  He flies low along the river and you can see the colorful glass sparkling through the strong, yet completely transparent current.  Soon he levels out and you cling tight to him, burying your face in the soaking wet fabric of the cowl wrapped around his neck and sighing, unable to recall a time you’ve ever been happier.  It swells in your heart and warms your entire body even as it’s drenched in cool water, and you wonder again how he could’ve ever thought you were running from him.  How could he ever think you’d run from him when all he’s ever done is give you wings?

***

The Crest hurdles through hyperspace while Din silently removes his armor and then strips you both of your sopping wet clothes.  You remember your glass souvenirs at the very last second and carefully remove them from your pockets despite your closed eyes, reaching out to hand them to Din without looking.  His palm catches the pebbles with the quiet sound of them clinking together, and you feel him pause for a second, probably studying them as he cradles them in the dim, single fluorescent light he left on.

You feel him leave you momentarily, hear him gently set them down someplace safe without a word.  When he comes back and his warm arms snake around you once more, he lowers you down to the blankets and then proceeds to make the softest love to you he knows how on the floor of his ship.  

A small part of you wishes you were still on Naboo, but somehow.  Somehow, despite the dead quiet hull, it’s better than anything you can remember.

His naked body presses tight to yours, his mouth always open and tasting wherever you’ll let him venture, never letting you forget for a single second that he’s just as bare and exposed as you are.  Your hands take full advantage, feeling everything.  The strong, rippling muscles of his back as he props himself over you, the soft hair curling at his nape, the length of his spine shielding you from the rest of the ship, allowing you the opportunity to pretend you’re somewhere else if you really tried.  If you tried, you could convince yourself you’ve got a mattress beneath you instead of a blanket draped over hard steel.  You could convince yourself your eyes are open while he kisses you, despite knowing it’ll never be allowed.

But… you don’t.  You don’t need to.  There’s nowhere else you’d rather be.

And then at one point, his mouth is between your legs and you see a flash of his forehead on complete accident.

To see it on any other person would be nothing, it would mean absolutely nothing.  It’s not like it somehow makes him anymore recognizable to you—plenty of people share the same exact features, you still wouldn’t know him out of a trillion different faces.  He could walk right by you and you’d never know.  Technically, it’s not even his face—it’s just a small fragment of it.  But to you, the quickest glimpse of dark, wavy locks curtaining over the smooth, golden skin just below his hairline… it means everything to you.  You sear it into your memory, right alongside the sight of crystalline water roaring over an enormous cliff edge.

You never tell him you saw.  He never finds out.

[awkwardgtace]

Secret Brother Pt3 (Final)

Ending for Ian and Mikhail.

TW: mentions of abandonment. This part specifically mentions pet like treatment. It is painted as how wrongly Ian was treated Mikhail does not stand for it.

Part 1 Part 2

Secret Brother Part 3 (Final)

Ian was shaking his head mumbling no. Mikhail almost wanted to laugh at himself. He was so upset about everything, he didn’t even have to worry about growing right now. He took a step towards Ian who matched with a step back. He let out a deep sigh and sat down on the table waiting for Ian to approach. Ian just started pacing, clearly unsettled. This went on for a few minutes.

“Ian, can we talk?” Mikhail asked. Ian looked at him, eyes wide with fear. This is exactly what he was dreading since he first shifted to help out. He hated the fear borrowers always had when it came to him changing sizes.

“Why should I talk to you? I don’t know you at all.” Ian tried to sound fierce, but fear was seeping through.

“Ian, just because I can change my size doesn’t mean anything else is different. I’m still the same Mik who helped you.”

“You’re Mik?!” he screeched. All right, if Ian was willing to interact after this he was teaching the kid to focus on details. There wasn’t any other way for him to know his name. It was also kind of funny to hear just shock about it, Mikhail started laughing. “Don’t laugh at me! How was I supposed to realize!?”

“Buddy, I’m not laughing at you, it’s just funny. Here I was so sure you’d figured me out. That I had no options to avoid telling you now, but I could probably have played it off until next week when I was planning to talk to you.”

“So-so you’re the human, so you don’t need to be protected. So this was a waste,” Ian looked at Mikhail with a mixture of fear and acceptance. “W-What do you plan to do with me now?”

“Well we can talk, you can tell me about this human that scared you. You can just go back to the walls and I’ll leave you be. We can keep going like before if you want. You can move and I’ll help you or you can move on your own. Next steps are up to you. I’ll follow your lead, I know the fact I’m human sized most of the time can be troubling.”

“What will you do if the bad human shows up?” he asked.

“Keep you safe.”

“What if I ran away from them, wouldn’t most humans give me back?”

“Nothing will make me change my mind. You’re a person and from how you acted it doesn’t sound like they treated you like one.” Mikhail was positive he wouldn’t let Ian get caught by that person again. There isn’t anything Ian could tell him to make him change his mind. He wasn’t going to encourage Ian thinking he didn’t have choices. Ian was a person who could make his own decisions.

“Fine, I'll tell you what happened with the bad human. We’ll see how serious you are after that.” Ian moved closer to sit in front of Mikhail. His face was more serious than he’d seen until now. It made him nervous, this wasn’t an easy story it seemed.

“I lived in the house with the bad human and their family pretty much my whole life. My family didn’t like how curious the child was and had been talking about moving for a few years. When my mom got pregnant, my dad decided I should start borrowing. He didn’t want her out, and wanted me to be able to get supplies we needed once the baby was born. It went fine at first, I’d practiced a lot, but I was seen. I told my parents and we packed up everything, they’d been prepping for that for a long time. They didn’t want to risk staying with the curious human child so we left the same night. It was raining and I got caught in a current. My dad held my mom back from trying to help me. He said it was better to let me live with the consequences, it was my fault we were moving anyway. She fought against him, but the current was strong and I was pulled under. When I woke up I was in a room I recognized. It took me a few minutes to realize I was also in a cage.

“That was the bad human’s room. At first they were nice, they said they were just keeping me there so I wouldn’t get hurt. After a week I started to ask when I could leave. They would play up this idea that I would be in too much danger. One day I decided to try to leave, they hadn’t taken my things so I could open the cage pretty easily. Apparently while I’d been out they found all the entrances in the room and blocked them off. The human was angry when they came back. They took everything, but my clothes that day. Then I started getting punished if I acted wrong. Days without food and water, sometimes they’d leave a sheet over the cage so I couldn’t tell any time. A few times other borrowers showed up, they promised to help me usually. I would point them to an exit and never see them again. I can’t blame them, I probably wouldn’t risk capture by a human who kept an underfed borrower.

“I’m not sure how long I’d been with them, but eventually they started talking about some project. The human took me with them to that building. They kept saying something about the perfect topic. I’d been behaving for a while so they’d started making mistakes. They left me on their desk along with some other things. I stole what I could to make a hook and tried living in the walls,” Ian took in a shaky breath. Tears were falling down his face as he spoke. Mikhail was trying to stay calm as he listened, ready to go find the cruel person and show them how being caged felt.

“Then there was the day you showed up. I’d been listening to the bad human a lot and they were planning to try and capture me again. I knew climbing in your bag might be a bad idea, but you didn’t live in that building. I didn’t want the bad human to get me again. I figured once out I’d either make it work in the new human home or die trying.”

Mikhail couldn’t hold back anymore. He stood quickly walking over to Ian. He fell to his knees in front of him, pulling him in to a tight hug. He felt himself grow a bit, the desperate need to keep Ian safe taking a bit of control. He fought himself to keep close to Ian’s size, now wasn’t the time to loom over him. Ian froze, but soon turned into Mikhail’s chest crying. He grabbed the cloth of the shirt in tight fists, letting out everything he kept inside. Mikhail held him tightly until he’d worn himself out. Ian had started to fall asleep, it made sense and Mikhail let him. This was a rough night and he deserved some rest. Ian’s world was changed a lot. As Ian fell into a deep sleep, Mikhail moved to get them both off the table. He had grown carrying someone before, although this was the first time in a long time.

He sat at the table edge with Ian in his arms and focused on getting back to human height. He watched as the boy got smaller, sliding him off into one palm as he reached his human height. He slid off the table trying to be quiet enough for the borrower in his hand. He watched for any signs he woke up, then turned to grab the hook off the table. Mikhail took slow, steady steps to his room. He wanted to let Ian sleep, he’d clearly been on edge for a while. He placed the hook on his palm next to Ian and used his free hand to pull a pillow off his bed. He placed it on the nightstand and carefully slid Ian off on to the plush pillow. Ian curled up smaller, tempting Mikhail to lift him back up. He grabbed a shirt from his dresser laying it over the borrower, he placed the hook just out of the way in case he moved in his sleep. Mikhail wouldn’t let Ian think he was trapped.

Mikhail got into his own bed, facing Ian with a sad smile. He’d been through a lot, it wasn’t fair he’d had to deal with all that. He would make sure whichever student it was didn’t have a chance to get near him again. He felt himself slowly drifting off to sleep, hoping Ian wouldn’t have run off tomorrow morning. His sleep was dreamless and he was thankful. He wasn’t happy when he was woken up by someone banging on his front door. He opened his eyes, sleepily looking towards the pillow. He couldn’t tell if Ian was still there, he wanted to check, but more bangs came. He sighed knowing he couldn’t take the time to talk with Ian while this was going on.

He slid out of bed and stalked over to his front door. He wasn’t expecting anyone he knew to be there and was ready to yell at the rude solicitor. He opened the door, getting far more annoyed when a student pushed past him into his home. He glared at the girl who invited herself over. She had been far too pushy from the start of the year and this was a breaking point. He had no time for her today, especially with how sure he was that this was Ian’s captor.

“Can I help you Anise?” he asked, voice dripping with annoyance. “I don’t particularly appreciate students barging in to my home.”

“I’m sorry professor,” she said, with no ounce of remorse. “Just that topic I’ve been bringing to you for the last few weeks. I know it sounds crazy, but I did have proof that I could use for the project. I know this sounds crazy but if you’d just let me look around for a few minutes I know I could find it. I’m positive it left with you when you held the study session.”

“Anise, I’ve told you before this is a scientific course, you will not be doing a paper on the folklore of small humanoid creatures,” Mikhail was barely controlling his anger. “I expect you to leave. Now.”

“Professor, just trust me!” she yelled. He’d had enough of this student and was ready to kick her out. Unfortunately there was an audible yelp from the bedroom, one that she had clearly recognized. She started walking towards the bedroom seeming sure this was her chance. “Professor that noise, I’m positive it’s my proof if you’d let me just-”

Mikhail had enough, he slammed his arm across the doorway she was just about to enter. He could tell he’d grown a large bit, but honestly couldn’t care less. She stormed into his home, going on about using a person as proof, and intended to just wander around. He glared down at her, not willing to put up with her much longer.

“That noise you heard was my brother, who you just woke up,” he growled. “I’ve had enough of this fantasy. I will be removing you from this class effective Monday. I will also be contacting the school about this conduct. And to entertain your theories, even if these humanoid creatures existed based on the folklore you so heavily have referenced, they would be sentient and equal to us in intelligence. I question your ethics based on how desperate you seem for this fantasy. This field expects a level of compassion which you clearly lack.”

“Wait no please just-” she tried to argue. She knew that Mikhail was respected in his field, it wasn’t good to be on his bad side.

“Get out of my home before I throw you out,” MIkhail’s voice was dark. He had definitely hit over a foot higher than normal, he was lucky this girl wasn’t focusing on that. She opened her mouth to try again, but she stopped as she met his glare. She slowly turned and walked out of the house. This was poor conduct, it would be handled and he’d be letting his family know about her. He slammed the door behind her, a bit harder than he’d intended. He tried to calm down as he walked back to his room, Ian was probably terrified. He couldn’t calm down enough to get his size back to normal, unfortunately.

Ian was sitting up on the pillow, the shirt pulled up around him. It looked like he’d been shaking. Mikhail sat on the floor in front of the nightstand, it made him just about eye level to Ian. He couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes, he didn’t want to see him scared. It was bad enough he wasn’t a borrower, but he was pretty clearly bigger than his usual human size. Although he could luck out again with how oblivious Ian proved to be after last night. Ian seemed to be just as lost with how quiet the room was. Mikhail looked up a little, but couldn’t read Ian’s expression at all.

“You actually stopped them,” Ian said. Mikhail almost thought he heard awe, but that couldn’t be right.

“I told you I’d keep you safe,” he smiled a little.

“You said I was your brother.”

Mikhail blushed, he hadn’t meant to grow so attached. He didn’t mean to announce it like that either. “Yeah, I uh, I kind of think of you like that, after the last few months.”

“So what’s next if I stay here?” Ian asked. Mikhail looked at him with wide eyes.

“Then, we figure out the boundaries for us,” he answered. “You can stay in the walls or we can set something up out here. Up to you entirely.”

“Is it ok if I think you’re like a brother too?” Ian’s voice was small, Mikhail had to strain to hear it.

“I’d love to have a secret brother like you,” Mikhail smiled. He leaned his face closer to the pillow, just realizing he’d gotten down to his usual size. Ian crawled to the edge of the pillow hugging Mikhail’s nose. His smile grew and he carefully cupped his hand behind Ian. This wouldn’t be easy, but having a brother like Ian sounded pretty great.

[myrulia]

An Oiran's Sacrifice - Kokushibou x Oiran!Reader

Oiran

Oiran (花魁) was a specific category of high ranking courtesan in Japanese history. Divided into a number of ranks within this category, oiran were considered – both in social terms and in the entertainment they provided – to be above common prostitutes, known as yūjo (遊女, lit. 'woman of pleasure')

Warnings: Strong language, prostitution

Word count: 3758

Next chapter

`` Why must you do this to yourself? ``

`` For my family. ``

`` Family means nothing if you are working as a self degrading prostitute. ``

`` It is what I must do if I wish to live. ``

               ◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

It was yet another late evening, alone in your compact minka, yet it never was a bother, for this was how you usually spent your nights. Due to your poor living style, your father was driven to thievery. It was the only way to keep the two of you somewhat fed, clothes on your back, and a roof over your heads. Your living style has helped you become more grateful of any small blessing that came along your way. Even the smallest fortune would put a smile on your face because it ended the little sorrow in your heart at the realization of your poverty.

``[Y/N],`` You heard a voice beckon to you. The voice you knew all too well at this time of night that originated from the only person who would even dare leave do commit such crimes. `` Coming father. ``

Getting up slowly from your dimly candle lit chabudai, you scurried your way to the wooden door of your minka, letting inside the only other family member you had, your father. Watching how he takes slow strides inside the bleak, wooden-paneled small space of your home, you mentally cursed yourself for ever allowing yourself to come to terms with your reality. Deep down you hated how the man in front of you risked his life nearly every night just to make sure the two of you were fed, yet, it is not like you could do much to change your misfortune, for it is your depressing reality.

`` Miracles do happen [Y/N]. I promise you, with this, we can finally turn our life around, and leave this dreadful place. `` Being intrigued by your father's words, you eyed the gleaming object in his hands that you unfortunately recognized. `` Father, why? From the Suzuki family no less? They will have our heads if we are to be caught..! ``

Your worry was bothersome to your father. He knew just as much as you what the consequences are if he was ever to be caught. It wasn't easy for the male to successfully loot the expensive statue in hand, so you didn't doubt he'd do his best to hide any evidence of his caper. You couldn't help but worry of your future, because the Suzuki family was the most wealthiest family in your little mountain-side village. Known for being ruthless to anyone that disrupts their peace and fortune, the Suzukis will not tolerate such thievery inflicted upon them, which is why your worry only increased even more because you did love your father of course, and to see his head served on a silver platter was gut wrenching.

`` [Y/N], rest assured that we will not be caught. We will use this to escape this little village and live somewhere safer, maybe in the forest like your mother always wanted. We can live a peaceful life without relying on thievery. Please, my beautiful blessing of a daughter, place your trust into me. `` You merely sighed at your father's declaration. You knew he'd pull the mother card on you just to persuade your emotions even more to agree with his actions. Obviously you do not, because at the end of the day stealing is bad and punishable by death, so the constant worry always lingered in your heart.

`` I do not care if we are the lesser fortunate of our village, I just want to you to stop stealing. I already have a job- ``

`` That barely pays you enough. This is why I do what I must to keep us alive. I am ending this conversation here, I do not want to hear another word from you [Y/N]. Now, please get your much needed rest, you are developing eye bags. `` With those somewhat encouraging words to actually get some rest, you trudge your way to your comfortable futon, which wasn't too much of a distance because everything was set in the same confinded room of your one room house.

Your father blew out the warm colored candle before getting comfortable in the similar futon next to you, letting out a small groan as his muscles seemed to relax. Letting a small sigh escape your lips, you turned over so that you were laying on your side. Whilst closing your eyes, you finally allowed yourself to escape into a somewhat peaceful slumber, since you strongly believed you were in the clear from being beheaded in public since your father managed to get away unscathed.

Just as quickly as you fell asleep, you found yourself waking up to the bright light of the sunrise that glistened through the only window of your home. Yawning, you covered your mouth while slipping out of the warm fabrics of your futon, peeling open your eyes slowly. From how quickly you woke up, you felt as though it was going to be a rather long day. Truth be told you wish you had the urge to sleep longer, for you did not wish to face the day with a guilty conscience lingering over your head as a constant reminder of what your father does in the wake of the night.

`` Father, we have lots to do today, please wake up. `` Expecting to hear a soft groan in return, you turn your head to the now empty futon before you. Shock was all that was found on your face, because your usual routine was to wake up your father and start the day by finding any food to buy from the market place, but that is not the case today. Your father was gone.

`` Father? FATHER?! ``

Worry took over your emotions just as fast as your shock did. The man who was usually still in bed was no longer there so obviously you'd do your best to look all over for him. Getting out of your futon just as speedily as you woke up, you slipped on your geta shoes and bolted out of your living space and onto the busy street of your village. It was all too sickening when you tried to make sense of the situation, but only one solution came to mind. That solution only seemed to make more sense as you ran through the people-covered streets, pulling up your kimono just a bit so it'd be easier to run around until a loud boisterous voice was heard from the townsquare that confirmed every suspicion you had.

`` This pitiful man chose to steal from me! How sad that his life must end like this. It is only fair that death is his punishment for taking a precious family artifact right? `` The cheers of those in the audience caused a ringing in your ears. That was your father they were wishing death upon, and yet nobody seemed to care. As long as their own heads were on their shoulders, they were fine.

Pushing past the multiple men and women in front of you, you managed to escape from the crowd, yet to your disapproval, you were now directly in front of the cause of all the commotion, Suzuki Kenta. Your act of boldness triggered all eyes to be on you, but you could care less. You did not want to lose yet another family member in the arms of selfish people. So, bowing down quickly, you mustered up the confidence to beckon out to the head of the Suzuki family. `` Suzuki-san, as this pitiful mans daughter, I beseech of you to please, spare his life. He knew it was wrong yet it was only to save us both from the misfortune inflicted upon us!! Please, I beg of you..! ``

In your desperate plea, your eyes became bloodshot since tears were welling up on your bottom eyelid. Now looking up from your bowing stance, Suzuki Kenta had prominent veins on his face that showed his distasteful attitude towards your cry of desperation. It was obvious the angered male did not want an interruption, especially from a poor female no less, so obvious agitation was expected.

`` This woman.. really believes she can save this scum of a man... how cute. `` Kenta took slow strides to your smaller, still beneath him, form. You could practically feel him looming over you in utter disgust for ever believing you could persuade such a powerful man himself. Deep down you had a feeling that both your heads would be severed off, or hanged and humiliated publicly for your foolish actions. Who would believe this is how you unfortunately came to your end. Desperately trying to save your thieving father, knowing what he did was wrong? Bitter. The Bitter truth always hurts.

`` Look at me. ``

And as just as quick as he said his order, you gave in and risen your head from the ground, your cheeks being stained by hot tears rolling down your face, looking even more pathetic than what you had wished. Although if it was going to save your father's life, then so be it. If you were going to look like the dirt that everybody walked on, then that is what you will do. Sacrifices like these were common you, especially saving your own fathers life multiple times before this so this was nothing new.

`` You are just as pitiful as your father. You wish to save this low life man who had the audacity to steal from me? `` Kenta snarled in distaste. You had no choice but to stay silent, for there was a blade in the male's hand that he could use any second to take your life, and if you wanted to live, you needed to be careful and word your sentences just as carefully. `` I apologize on his behalf, I wish to make it up to you Sakimi-san. ``

`` Clever girl.. I have taken rather a liking to you. You are smart and you know your place, I will respect that. `` Letting out a relieved sigh, you eye the weapon in his hand before averting your gaze back to his twisted and still somewhat agrivated face. Kenta looked as if he was contemplating something in his head, all the while his bodyguards made your bloodied father watch everything unfold before him without a say in anything.

`` You do have quite the beautiful face, and a body that compliments you oh so well. I will give you two options Miss Fujisaki, you either return the stolen item and watch your father die here and now, or, you become an oiran for my lovely son. Pick wisely, and immediately. I expect an answer now. ``

Murmers were heard from the crowd who also stayed to watch the commotion unravel before them. Of course everyone knew all too well what the life of a low ranking oiran is, and knowing that the options given were supposed to be a punishment, you were going to be no more than a yujo, working as a sex slave for Sakimi's sex hungry son. But, if it meant saving your father's life, then so be it. `` I will accept the life as an oiran.. Sakimi-san.. ``

`` Perfect! I didn't want to get this perfectly good suit dirty so gentlemen, let the scum go. `` Just as quickly as Kenta snapped his fingers, the bodyguards let your father go. Seeing his bloodied and beaten to a pulp body ignited a fire in your heart as he tried his best to make his way over to you. `` Father please save your energy, we'll get you some help.. `` you addressed as he pulled you into a tight embrace.

`` Oh do not worry! My men will get him the help he needs in due time, for now please allow yourself to be escorted to my estate for further details of your new living space. ``

`` I thought I was an oiran, do I not have the decision of going back home. ``

`` My lotus, please do not talk ba- ``

`` You will be nothing more than a yujo. Your face is sweet but your tongue is bitter, and so as a punishment you will be completely submissive for my son. ``

Your eyes practically doubled in size. The fact that Kenta believes you are so willing to not at least have a shred of your dignity left is beyond anything you ever thought of. After being publicly humiliated, you'd at least expect for him to understand how you felt, but at the end of the day, selfish rich people know no boundaries. Sighing once more with your father in your arms, you slowly stand on both your dusty legs, all the while helping your father keep his balance. ''Fine then..'' was all you said.

You found yourself now following the Sakimi bodyguards, for they were escorting you to the one and only Sakimi estate. It was rather large and sat on an even larger hill, so the trail up the grand staircase was a bit of a hike for the beaten man that you loved so dearly. During the entire walk it truly allowed you to comprehend your reality for the rest of your life. You were going to be a oiran, the lowest ranking form of oiran no less. It had your blood boiling with how easily you are so willing to save your father from death time and time again.

Since the small little hike would end soon, you took the chance to take in your surroundings. It wasn't like your previous way of living in the village, but a more extravagant way of living. There were statues with small-scale ponds in front of them that had different colored koi fish inside. The afternoon brightness of the sun reflected upon the water, but that was not the only thing because you could catch a glimpse of your dirtier form from your bow of respect from earlier. Looking back you realize the man who you will be working for deserved now ounce of respect, for your body was yours, even if you were to be a yujo you'd still keep your dignity.

Other than that, in your barely noticeable reflection, even under all the small specs of dirt and filth, your face resembled your mother. You pretty much looked like a copy and paste version of the woman so it was no surprise that you had her beautiful features. Above all that it still saddened you that from above, she'd be watching her daughter become a self degrading prostitute if it meant saving her dear father from execution. A reality, that was so tart to even look at in the eyes of others.

`` Ahem.. Fujisaki, ``you heard a feminine voice call out to you. It was shocking so your head whipped to the side to whoever called out to you. To your misfortune, it was the head oiran of the Sakimi estate. Lowering your head out of respect, you partially gripped your father's shirt out of nervousness because it would be the start of a new chapter in your life that you never wanted to reach. `` Now that I have your attention, let me look at you. ``

Before you knew it your father was ripped from your arms by the same bodyguards who held him at knife point. Your face of worry was noticed by those around you, so to direct your attention the head oiran, who you had yet to introduce herself to you, held your face in her amazingly soft hands. `` Ignore them, they're going to patch him up and send him home. You, my beautiful underling, will be coming with me and my ladies. ``

Her boldness wasn't shocking, so following her didn't make you as uncomfortable as you perceived it would be. The beautiful woman who held your wrist as you finally entered the large minka, had started speaking so quickly that your mind took a bit to process. `` I am the head oiran known as the tayu and you are my precious little yujo. I'm Sakura, over there is Jade, that's Blossom, and there is Waterlily. You will address us by our oiran names only and the same goes for you. You will no longer be "Fujisaki," but rather a lovely name, Lotus. ``

The irony in that moment made you want to cringe. You only permitted your father to call you such a thing, but now that it is what others shall be addressing you, it caused an obvious look of discomfort to be plastered on your face. Just as suddenly as Sakura stopped talking, she just as suddenly dragged you to another, more secluded, area of the minka. Inside the room she pulled you in looked like an oversized closet, easily bigger than your one room home.

`` In here is where you shall prepare yourself to look proper, right now you look like actual filth, so please, make yourself look presentable for Master. ``

Before you could utter out a single word, Sakura left you, alone in a pretty large room without any guidance. During the time your mother was with you, the both of you would pass men with many different beautiful women surrounding him. Despite being too young to fully understand their jobs, your mother simply said, `` They are called oirans my dear, beautiful women for service. ``

With that in mind, you remembered how the others look and tried your best to copy their image. Grabbing a nearby hakuhodo, you dipped the end into the white power and began gently stroking your face, turning your fair skin milky white. It was a longer process than anticipated so once you were done you had to message your muscles because making sure the powerdy substance stayed on your face took the longest. You felt embarrassed to call for help, so you being you decided to do everything yourself. Grabbing what you perceived to be an eyeliner pencil, you tried to keep your hand steady as you basically used yourself as a canvas of art.

Unfortunately it was another long process because a few strokes were a bit wobbly, but finally perfecting the look made you feel a sense of pride that you could do such things yourself. Grabbing one more brush, you dabbed the end into a red power and brushed lightly where the end of your eye starts and stopped just about before your hair line. Moving onto the multiple shades of lipsticks, you grabbed a bright red and began applying the shade onto your lips. `` I look ridiculous, don't I mother? ``

Your tilted your head up to imagine her soft laughter at how content you are with your actions. You still felt pride in the fact that you were able to successfully look like a professional oiran without help from the tayu. Smiling gently to yourself, you got up from the plush chair to look for your new kimono that'd you'd be working in starting from that point on. When you came to no prevail, you sighed once more while scampering your way to the wooden sliding door. `` Sakura-san? ``

`` Yes my underling? `` Was all the beautiful woman said from a little ways away. Telling by the gentleness of her voice, she wasn't too busy at the moment so you scurried over to her as quickly as you could.

`` If you are not busy at the moment Sakura-san.. may you help me with my kimono?``

`` Of course not my little lotus, come with me. ``

Following behind her yet again, she leads the both of you into the dressing rooms where you originated from. Her movements were fluid and as gracefully as she could, pulled out each layer of kimono you'd be wearing for the one they called "master." Placing each layer onto a nearby chair, she faces you with a softer expression while holding your face in her hands once more, like earlier. `` For a fresh underling, your make-up is more professional than most. I must admit that I am proud of you my Lotus, so please hurry and get dressed so I can give you a proper tour of the Sakimi estate. ``

And with that, Sakura left, leaving you to your disposal of getting dressed. Unfortunately she hadn't told you the order of each layer, so it was more like a ball game to see if you actually got it correct. From your eyes, it seemed like everything was a test to see just how much you knew about an oirans job. In contrast, you were a clever one, so it wasn't too tough to memorize the oirans you passed as a child, remembering each layer and how they dress accordingly.

Yet again, another long process which you figured out all on your own.

Looking in the mirror, you no longer recognized your mothers features on your own face. In your eyes, you saw another person entirely, that was no longer you. To everyone else you'd be known as Lotus, not [Y/N] Fujisaki. It was the future you brought upon yourself, so keeping your chin raised high, you took slow strides out of the dressing room and looked for Sakura who was supposed to give you a proper tour, but to no avail, you did not see the woman from earlier.

And so, you took it upon yourself to look around until you found yourself on the engawa that wrapped around the entire minka. The evening breeze hitting your face as you looked down at the small forest beside, taking in the sunset cascading down upon you. You hadn't expected for the entire day to simply rush by. It felt like just yesterday you were waiting for your father to return from his capers almost every night, but no longer shall he steal, owing to the fact that you'd make money as a yujo.

This was your life, and you had no say in how it was to go for the rest of your days.

◇◆◇◆◇✧◇◆◇◆◇

`` Ohhh..~ She is a pretty one Kokushibou-dono~ I want her as my next meal. ``

Kokushibou, who wasn't listening to the Upper Moon Two, eyed a woman who had changed entirely since the last time he had seen her. His confusion didn't go unnoticed due to the Upper Moon One usually having a stoic expression. `` You seem to have taken a liking to her? How pitiful she is nothing but a prostitute n- ``

Before the demon could finish his sentence, one swift movement of Kokushibou's blade had his head off in seconds.

`` Silence, Douma. ``

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

[awkward-and-indecisive]

Thank You Mr. Werewolf!

Summary - You wake up feeling bad but Dean is there to make it all ok.

Pairing - Dean Winchester x Female!reader

Warnings - Fluff, angst, reader has anxiety

Word Count - 807

A/N - Just a cute little drabble that came to me.

This was beta’d by @msmarvelouswinchester so a biiig THANK YOU!!!😘😘😘

Please tell me what you think about it.

FEEDBACK IS HIGHLY APPRECIATED!!!

Happy Reading :)

*****

A feeling was pulling you from sleep. A bad one. Even if you hadn’t even opened your eyes and were still half asleep, you knew this feeling all too well. The tightness in your chest, that dark cloud looming over your head and that dread that something bad was going to happen.

Your brain was still fuzzy from sleep when you reached out towards your boyfriend’s side of the bed and didn’t find him. Your eyes fluttered open, still blurry from sleep. You pushed the covers away and went to find your green eyed boyfriend.

Your bare feet padded softly on the cold bunker floor as you made your way to the kitchen. After finding no one but the half empty coffee pot on the table, you made your way to the library to continue your search for him.

There he sat. His laptop opened in front of him as his eyes searched the web for a case. You walked up to him and sat on his lap sideways, nuzzling your face in the crook of his neck while your arms were wrapped around him.

His arms instantly came around you making you feel okay for a moment. Protected. He placed a kiss at the top of your head. A few minutes passed in silence with Dean rubbing your back.

“Morning sweetheart! You ready to kick today in the ass?” He asked softly.

“I’m ready for today to kick my ass.” You replied, burying your face further into his neck like you could hide away there. From the world. Your anxiety.

“Hey, what’s going on?” He questioned, a little worried when he sensed something wrong with you.

You just shook your head, your arms getting tighter around him, letting his solid but soft embrace surround you and drown out all the voices in your head screaming at you.

“Is your mind telling you things that are not true again? ‘Cause you know none of it is true.” He said, rubbing his hand up and down your arm.

“Anxiety was bad when I woke up.” You mumbled against his skin.

“Well I can think of a few things to make it go away. Firstly, we need to get you a big breakfast to fill that stomach. Then I’ll run you a bath with all those fancy oils and other stuff you got, to calm you down. And if it still doesn’t get better, you’re getting a Dean Winchester back massage and cuddles in bed all day.” He said with a soft smile on his face while his jade eyes shone with love.

“Where did I find you and who do I need to thank for it?” You chuckled.

“I think it was in that cabin in the middle of nowhere and you have to thank that werewolf for it.” Dean teased.

“Thank you very much Mr. Werewolf and may you rest in peace.” You said with a hint of amusement in your tone.

“You’re crazy.” Dean chuckled.

“You love it.” You said.

“I love you.” He said.

“I love you too. But maybe a little less than that werewolf who made me meet you.” You giggled.

“I think I love that werewolf too.” Dean said.

Just then, Sam entered the library from his morning run. He was a sweaty mess, panting, and just looked miserable overall. It reminded you of what Dean once said, ‘I mean, I know it keeps you healthy, but God, at what cost?’

But the one thing that you still couldn’t comprehend was the fact that his hair was perfect. It pissed you off a little if you were being honest because if you went on a run with your hair down, you’d look like a bird made its nest on your head. But you still loved that giant with your whole heart.

“What are you guys talking about?” He panted, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“How much we love werewolves.” You answered.

“What?” Sam asked, his face scrunching up like you were not making any sense.

Your eyes met your boyfriend’s and you both started laughing hysterically. Sam just shook his head and made his way to the shower while mumbling something about how you both were weird.

You nuzzled your face in his neck again, when you both calmed down, cuddling with him for a few more minutes when Dean pushed back his chair and picked you up bridal style, making his way to the kitchen.

“How do waffles sound?” He asked with a kiss on your head.

“Waffles sound amazing.” You said, kissing his pillow soft lips.

*****

WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT IT?!

TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS PLEASE!!!

[missinghan]

broken umbrella ⤖ han jisung

❖ genre : high school au; fluff

❖ word count : 1,6k.

❖ warning : explicit language

❖ summary : a typical day in your life starts with having candies poured over your head and ends with breaking han jisung’s umbrella. 

❖ note : I wanted to write smth dumb okay-

one.

Jisung gives his desk a harsh kick, one that does no good in releasing his inner storm, only to wince in pain later because he’s an idiot. 

Classes have been somewhat less than boring these days, partially because his mind is occupied with thoughts of you half of the time and partially because…well, more thoughts of you. Oh wait, today is a little different than usual considering the fact that you did not give him a proper response. 

To what?

Putting it simply, he woke up early this morning to go over his routine more thoroughly—styling his hair, making sure that his tie isn’t sloppy-looking, and spraying himself with his brother’s cologne. He doesn’t usually care for any one of those things until junior starts and you show up. Call him desperate, or delusional, or childish even but it truly felt like fate when you two first encountered each other. 

“Yeah right, fate,” Hyunjin snickers loudly, swirling a strawberry-flavored lollipop inside his mouth. “You meant when you fell on your ass on the bus the other day and you accidentally grabbed her collar?”

Jisung feels his cheeks heat up thanks to his friend’s less than necessary comment. “Shut the fuck up, you’re just jealous.” It was great. Not only did he fall head over heels for you, but he also left a bad impression. 

Back to the point. All of his hard work this morning is reduced to nothing because of the rain. His hair is messed up, his uniform looks sloppy, and his shoes are covered in mud from skipping through puddles. Not to mention, he showed up timely enough to be there when you opened your locker, having various candies and sweets poured down your head, scattered all over the hallway. 

Yeji should have told him you didn’t like sweet things yesterday, damn it. Because he’s never seen you giving him that look before. The look that makes him believe you will make him experience torment and pain, begging for the mercy that never comes—make his life a living hell basically. 

“How did your plan go, by the way?” His friend asks out of boredom. 

“Fantastic,” he replies under his breath when everything is, in fact, not fantastic. 

Hyunjin tilts his head. “Did she know?”

“Know what? That I’m in love with her? I mean I wasn’t trying to be subtle or anything-“

“No, did she know that it was gonna rain today?”

Shrugging, he closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose in exhaustion; forty-five minutes periods should be illegal. “Why does that matter?”

“Hey, Han!” 

Jisung turns his head to the voice and sees Felix sliding the door to his classroom open, uneven breaths as if he’s been running for his life while holding two umbrellas in his arms. He glances at his friend’s state with a grimace, head cocked to the side in confusion. Luckily, no one really spends recess in class except for loners like himself anyway. “What are you doing?” 

“Y/N didn’t bring an umbrella!” The freckled boy exclaims with excitement, only able to coax an amused hum from Hyunjin. “But you have an umbrella, and it’s still raining! Which means…?”

A comical silence falls upon the three of them. It takes Jisung approximately five taps of Hyunjin’s finger on the table to fully process his friend’s point. Realization lights up in his eyes like a candle but dies down with a pout on his face. “But she can just go with her friends?” he says with expressive hands, though a little disappointed. 

“I’m not gonna half-ass it if I plan on helping you,” Felix gives the two umbrellas, a white one and a pink one, in his hands a slight jerk, looking oddly proud. 

This time, Jisung catches on immediately; his eyes go wide in shock as though his friend has committed the greatest sin. “Yeji and Lia are so gonna kill you.”

two.

“Did you bring an umbrella?” Lia asks while hopeless rummaging through her stuff. “I swear with my own eyes I saw myself putting one in my bag this morning.”

Yeji shakes her head in defeat, tugging at the straps of her backpack. “I was pretty sure I brought one too. I even used it to walk to the bus stop this morning! Someone must have taken it during recess,” she sighs, dreading the pouring rain and grey clouds. 

It’s raining again. It’s only been raining today, the weather forecast did predict that it’s most likely going to last for a whole week too (not that you bothered checking). You don’t mind the rain, though. You like the fact that they make the world appear mistier, hazier like a fever dream. 

What isn’t good about the rain is the fact that your parents won’t be too happy to see you come home looking like a wet rat. Or the fact that you’ll probably get a really bad cold, and that won’t be pretty during midterms week. Or the fact that most students are absolute idiots and didn’t bring their own umbrellas either. Everyone is shoving each other for space under the canopy at the main gate so the rain won’t soak their clothes. 

You’re not having it. At all. 

“Yeji, Lia. I’m going home,” you purse your lips together and take a breath. 

Lia frowns at your particular solution. “Already? But you’re gonna get wet.”

“My house is a ten-minute walk away. Shouldn’t be too bad,” you say lowly in faint annoyance, eyes squinted from the discomfort of lack of space; these students have no manners whatsoever, you’re getting claustrophobic. 

With a determined huff, you pull the zipper of your jacket up and throw the hood over your hair. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Shadow suddenly looms over the top of your head, warmth radiates to your clothed arm. In the corner of your eyes, a familiar face comes into view and forces a heavy exhale from your lips. 

“Hey, do you wanna go with-“ Jisung pauses midway when you take off running, shattering his fantasy of living in a drama into bits without mercy. “Y/N! Wait up!”

three.

“Come here! Or you’ll get sick!”

“Why the hell do you care?”

“Y/N, stop being so stubborn! You’re gonna catch a cold!”

“It’s none of your business.”

After walking down several blocks down the road, past nothing but empty plazas and mostly closed café, you even take an extra U-turn, going through a skeptical alley just so Jisung will get tired and stop following you. Your effort doesn’t not prevail so you give up eventually, deciding to take the proper turn to head home before it’s too late to prepare dinner. 

The poor boy can feel the rain drizzle down his black umbrella before falling onto his windbreaker, soaking through the fabric to stain his senses with a chilling sensation. He has already calmed every racing thought that ceases to ease his erratic heartbeat but no matter how hard he tries, there isn’t one second where he isn’t thinking about your well-being.

“Hey,” he calls out; when you turn around, he’s closing his umbrella and tossing it to the ground, leaving it to graze the tip of your shoes. “Take it and go home. I won’t bother you anymore.”

You roll your eyes before picking it up, mercilessly letting it flop right in front of him. “I don’t need it.”

Jisung clicks his tongue in irritation, not caring that droplets are falling from his head and his skin is crawling from the cold. Somehow, he’s starting to become baffled for no reason. Perhaps it’s because of your nonchalance about the current situation; you shouldn’t be so apathetic when he’s genuinely worried sick for your health.

His eyes are heavy with rain droplets so he blinks them away before glaring at you slightly. “You need it more than I do. Would you please stop acting irrationally, take the umbrella and head home? The rain isn’t stopping anytime soon.” His leg jerks up to kick at the innocent object; still isn’t enough to relish the turmoil hurling his innards.

He brushes past you, shoving your shoulder a little while expecting you to finally accept his offer. To his dismay, you once again grab at the poor, poor umbrella, and throw it at his leg with more force this time. When it drops to the ground with a small thud, his heart pauses awkwardly in disappointment. 

The sun is going down by the second but you can still see the faint outline of his scowl. “Go home, Jisung. It’s getting late,” you remark coldly, stuffing your freezing hands into your pocket. 

With a loud groan, he marches back to where you two were originally standing, a curse word lingers on the tip of his tongue. But he manages to swallow it back down before gently tugging at the sleeve of your jacket. “Take the umbrella at least,” he voices softly, the crack more evident than anything at the end. “Look, I know I’ve been nothing but a nuisance since we first met. I just really like you and I care for you okay? Go home, Y/N.”

“Please.”

You look at him after moments, your once hateful eyes finally glinting with something else other than general distaste and annoyance. It only takes one glance of his tired eyes to pierce through your phlegmatic front, leaving your raw emotions out in the open. Before Jisung can say another word or take notice of the rare warmth creeping in your gaze, you take his hand in yours and pull him toward a nearby apartment complex to not wait out in the downpour any longer. By the time that you’ve released the grip, he’s still staring into the nothingness, eyes slightly wide in shock.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you gonna go home?” he blurts out finally after snapping out of it.

“This is my apartment complex. But I must have dropped my card somewhere. So I can’t go inside.”

A sigh. “Is anyone home right now?”

“My phone is dead.”

Jisung perks up and his hand fishes inside his pocket. “You can use-”

You inhale deeply, looking away. “Enough is enough, Jisung. Go home.”

“You broke my umbrella,” he mentions, blinking rapidly to bat the droplets away from his eyelashes. “I can’t go home like this.”

Few beats of silence later, a middle-aged woman dressed in a beige trench coat walks past the both of you, two high school students pathetically standing under the canopy like wet rats; she swipes her card against the security lock and the glass door pops open without much effort. Sparing you the last look, she’s probably thinking ‘kids these days’ before heading inside with a roll of her eyes. 

Jisung hurriedly skips over to hold the door open for you, motions for you to walk in with his head. To his surprise, you comply but bring your steps to a halt to situate yourself in front of him. His lashes are wet and heavy; that’s when you realize how soaked you both are and how terribly cold the temperature it’s getting. Your hand reaches out to brush the raindrops away softly, shaking his heart to the core. 

The silence is graceful in the wake of the moment, the rain in the background just makes everything that much more cinematic. However, Jisung isn’t in the right mind state to fanboy over the fact that his drama fantasy is one step closer to reality. He wishes to cling to this moment forever because he just can’t get enough. He can never.

“I’ll get you a towel,” you pull away calmly, thinking how cute he sort of looks when his cheeks are three shades redder. “And a new umbrella.” 

His smile has never been brighter, you notice. Even when he’s out in the brutal cold and completely drenched from head to toe. And wait...have his eyes always been so pretty?

[amarantine-amirite]

Friday The 13th

Most people hate Mondays. I hate Fridays. I’ve learned that Fridays are to be feared.

Growing up, my parents would come home from work upset more often on Friday than any other day of the week. In particular, my mother would be so upset to the point of tears. I quickly learned that nothing good could ever happen on a Friday.

It wasn’t until eighth grade that I learned the rest of the world loved Fridays. My fear of Friday was unusual. The first step to reconciling my fear of Fridays begins with a girl with pink hair wearing a sweatshirt with the logo for TGI Fridays. “Who’s TGI Friday?” I asked.

The girl in the sweatshirt replied, “It’s a restaurant.”

I tipped my head over to one side. “That’s a funny name for a restaurant.”

“The name comes from the expression Thank God It’s Friday.”

Then it hit me; that powerful sense of dread that came from Fridays. “Why would you feel good about a Friday? I’ve never felt good about Fridays.”

Sweatshirt girl's jaw dropped. She laughed, “There’s no reason to feel bad about Fridays. Fridays are good! Fridays are awesome!”

“Not at our house,” I said. I shook my head and sat down. “At our house, Fridays are for coming home from work angry, exhausted, and frustrated. Not something to be thankful for.”

“Poor thing! Well, that stops today,” she said with that perky expression that gave me the sense that she was either on the cheerleading squad or a party animal. Either way, she overacted it.

I spent the second half of eighth grade learning to love Fridays like the rest of the world. And I did love Fridays. They were my favorite day of the week.

That is, of course, until 11th grade.

Why 11th grade? Because something happened that year that made me wonder if I had perhaps been on to something. Maybe Fridays were scary after all.

I couldn’t be left in the house by myself, so my parents insisted that I sign up for as many school clubs as possible. Unfortunately, a lot of these extracurriculars had performance quotas and the leaders insisted that we treat them as full-time jobs. Underperforming meant getting kicked out. Getting kicked out meant angry parents.

Staying in anywhere was tricky, but the act of getting in was harder because I was overweight. I had to take medications that caused me to gain weight like crazy. Because of my size, I didn't exactly have teachers begging to have me in their classrooms. None of the other kids lined up to be my friend.

Having people reject you for being fat goes beyond school. Doctors reject you, organizations reject you, and summer programs outside of school reject you. If they can reject people, they will reject me. Getting in anywhere usually happens because somewhere along the line, somebody thought I was someone else.

In 11th grade, I finally found an extracurricular that I could do: Model United Nations. I could sleep during Model UN and no one would notice. Mrs. Markland, the teacher in charge, had only one performance quota: sit still. It’s like being asked to take a nap.

Usually, when I signed up for an extracurricular, they kicked me out within the week. I’ve been in Model UN for three months. How can a fat person that does nothing but sleep survive in Model UN for as long as I did? What must have happened is that the teacher in charge accidentally mixed up the people who applied to be part of the Model United Nations on the go and no-go lists. Since nobody on the outside wanted to double-check, she had no choice but to let me in.

This happened on Friday the 13th, the day they had finally caught on in my little act of sleeping through Model UN meetings.

It started very simply. I started talking in my sleep. Someone had taken something that I had said as an insult and got the teacher involved. Depending on who you ask, either what happened next was my colossal mistake or the sleep talking was the colossal mistake and this just compounded it. I shouted, "Danger! Danger!" when Mrs. Markland woke me up. Worse, I put up dukes. Within two minutes, I found myself suspended. "All right Sarah, get your things and get in the car."

I packed everything up and got in. We drove off down the road. Mrs. Markland took every effort to stay on the side streets. I assumed she was going to drive me home.

I spent most of the drive staring out the window. A heavy fog loomed over the road. Periodically, the fog would lift and reveal that what you guessed would be in the fog, you guessed wrong. Trees lined the streets; they took the place of the houses. At first glance, you would think that it was the humble abode part of town. The minute you noticed the lack of houses, you knew that you were on the other side of the last chance to go to the bathroom. This was somewhere where you needed to pay close attention to your surroundings. Maybe Mrs. Markland took the long way home due to road construction, I thought. "Did we make a wrong turn somewhere?" I asked, "because my house is the other way."

"I'm not driving you home," said Mrs. Markland as we drove over the bridge into the city. "I'm late to my other job, and you're coming with me because I'm not leaving you out of my sight."

Nothing looked familiar. Everywhere I looked, I only saw either skyscrapers or cranes plus a dense, low-lying blanket of fog. The only reason I think Mrs. Markland found where she was supposed to go was because of this unearthly red glow coming from the windows on the third floor from the top. "Come with me," she ordered.

We took the elevator up to the third floor from the top. She went into her cubicle. "Sit there, don't touch anything," she barked at me as she pointed to the hard plastic chair outside the cubicle bay.

I don't like to be told no. Within 10 minutes of Mrs. Markland starting her work at her other job, I got up and helped myself to a little adventure. I walked over to the outdoor access and wandered over to the other end of the building. I saw two people in the window arguing. From what I gather, something broke. The first guy tried to blame the second guy, but the second guy insisted that it wasn’t his fault.

I had no idea what the specifics were, but it sounded like the first guy was a landlord, and the second guy was a tenant about to be evicted. That whole incident illustrated that in the city, everyone can hear you scream. And then they complain to the landlord. And then you get evicted.

There’s no sympathy for the guy that was evicted for making too much noise. The only eviction victims to get sympathy are either those who’ve lost their jobs and can’t pay the rent anymore or those who got kicked out because the landlord decided to renovate everything so they can turn around and sell it again at a premium. If you get evicted because of the commotion you caused, you only get sympathy if your baby or toddler created the excessive noise. Anybody else, you’re an idiot. No sympathy for you.

When the two of them left, I went into the room to see what happened. Something flipped the mattress upside down, pulled the curtains apart, and karate sliced the end table in half. Also, the ceiling fan melted.

It soon became clear who did the damage. The closet door opened up. A poltergeist hovered in the closet, emanating a cherry red glow.

The poltergeist looked like someone in a slap-dash narwhal costume. It easily towered over me and had long limbs, and hands tipped with long bony fingers. Its skin is a pale grey, darkening towards the ends of its clawed fingers and feet.

As it exited the closet, it flattened out and bent its neck in ways that no human could achieve. One look at its lush, ruby lips, giant ears, and lack of eyes or nose sent a hefty message: I was in deep shit.

I booked it out of there. It wasn’t enough. It puckered up its lips and encased me in shiny, lime green slime. An appendage rapidly emerged from its neck. It fired off a spark.

ZAP!

I could smell my skin cooking like it was the hairiest bacon ever made, yet I felt no pain. The searing heat from the emerald green and heliotrope purple flames had killed my nerve endings. I could feel only the vibration of the vast electrical current as it coursed through my body. Seconds before I lost consciousness, the poltergeist disappeared in a sparkling cloud of zeroes and ones.

I spent the next month in a coma. Upon awakening, I had to relearn all those basic functions such as walking, sitting up without falling over, and using my hands. I would never be the same. I now had a newfound respect for the fact that Fridays are scary for reasons far worse than stressed parents coming home from work.

@wonderful-prompts

[stevesharrlngtons]

what i want.

roman godfrey x reader

summary: takes place in s1 of hemlock grove just after roman’s coma and the aftermath.  

word count: 3.1k

a/n: yeaaahhhh so i know this is st related but it felt more right to post this here over my marvel account? anyways, i just really really wanted to write for roman and this poured out of me yesterday (which is surprising bc i can’t remember the last time i wrote a fic all in one day) but even though i already know this is gonna flop, i wanted to post it anyway just for fun (: i hope you enjoy and if you do read, please let me know that you think!!!!

With an ear pressed to his chest and a hand cradling his neck, you counted the rhythmic beats of his frail heart.

He looked the same, felt the same, smelt the same; but the man we lay still below you wasn’t Roman. Not in the metaphorical sense at least. This man who’s lashes lay gently against the apples of his cheeks obscuring his large doe eyes, wasn’t your love. He was still and quiet and lacked the emotion of your Roman. Your Roman who could never hide how he really felt, who wore every feeling on his sleeve, unable to mask his emotion.

At least, always around you.

A soft french ballad played in the background as you hunched over his hospital bed in the attic of the Godfrey home. You could hear the faint scratch of the needle against the vinyl, more so when there was a lull between songs.

Heavy footsteps entered from your right and you knew before they reached you that it was Shelly to fetch you for school.

“I know, Shell.” You said quietly, like you might wake Roman from his restless sleep if you spoke any louder, “I just need a few more minutes with him.”

The tall girl loomed over you both, watching you stroke Roman’s cheek lovingly with your thumb, the rest of your nimble fingers still holding his thin neck.

She had never experienced the kind of unequivocal and palpable love that she did when she observed you and Roman together. She often wondered if all the tales of true love and soulmates that were regaled in some of her favorite novels were actually true? Because the way you looked at Roman, and the way Roman looked at you, could not be fabricated or faked.

After a long beat of silence, Shelly gripped her phone and typed out a simple message to you.

“I miss him, too.”

She could see tears forming in your eyes once more. Your eyes that seemed to have not ceased their perpetual filming for the last two weeks Roman had been under.

All you could was nod in response. When Shelly placed a dense hand on your shoulder, you silently wept.

It all felt so surreal. But Roman was always larger than life, you probably should have prepared for something like this. You were just so scared.

That night two weeks before, when he had come to you in the pouring rain, drenched to the bone, you had been scared then, too. Roman was dramatic, yes. But never anything like this. He trembled fiercely and his fingers twitched and his muscles rippled with fear.

He didn’t seem himself as you wrapped him in blankets and placed him in your bed to warm his icy bones. You had wound your arms around him as he cried into your neck, tears and snot streaking your skin as you soothed him the best you could.

“I’m ugly, I’m a monster, I am unlovable and disgusting.” He chanted between hiccups and deep intakes of breath, like he was under a spell.

“Please stop, please don’t say that. You’re not, you’re not, you’re not. I love you, I always will.” You whispered sincerely to him, beginning to shutter yourself at the uncharatieric behavior he was displaying.

He startled you even more when he grasped your wrists together with one hand and flipped you onto your back, meeting you with a fierce kiss before you could comprehend his actions.

It was all teeth and tongue and labored breathing as Roman pulled your strings in only the way that he could. Once he was inside you, he only became more brutal. It was more pain than pleasure as he looked at you with soulless eyes and his mouth agape. But everything Roman was, was good. Even now he felt like heaven.

When he had finished and pulled two orgasms from your body, he collapsed on top of you. You cocooned him with your limbs, whispering loving words and frightened questions as his body seemed to pass out from sheer emotional exhaustion, anchoring you beneath him.

The next morning, you were dressed in nothing but Roman’s cardigan and tucked underneath your duvet with no knowledge of his departure the night before.

It was only minutes after you woke that Olivia called to curtly inform you of Roman’s condition.

You placed your own hand, the one not holding Roman, over Shelly’s and squeezed it.

“He is so lucky to have you.” You said, swallowing thickly to look up and give Shelly a smile, “He loves you so much, I know he’ll wake just for you.”

Shelly knew you were trying to soothe her as well, something you had a knack for since you came into the two Godfrey’s lives. She appreciated it greatly, but wished you would let yourself swim and stop trying to make sure she stayed afloat.

“You, as well. He will wake for us.” Shelly typed and you squeezed her hand in a tight pulse.

“We can only hope.”

You dropped Shelly’s hand as she went to turn the music off while you kissed Roman goodbye.

“Where, today?” Came Shelly’s mechanical voice as the music ceased.

“His left eyelid.” You replied, standing up and stroking Roman’s porecelain cheek.

You had taken to kissing a new part of Roman each day as you left him. To cherish him even while his mind was missing. You were saving his lips for when he woke, hoping his subconscious would crave your mouth on his enough to jar him from his slumber. Roman was never quiet about his appreciation for your lips.  

“And tomorrow?” She asked.

“The other.”

As you sat in english class, you couldn’t help but feel Peter’s absence in the seat next to yours. With neither him nor Roman around, you felt off kilter. The boys had been going through a rough patch lately, but Peter was still your friend when Roman wasn’t looking. Giving you winks that would reply with an eye roll, and chatting between classes. You believed you could mend the fence between the two men by simply being Switzerland, but after the police incident, Peter wasn’t so sure.

But you and Roman were alike in many ways, you told Peter as much.

“You two will work this out. Even if it gets hard.” You say flippantly one day as you rummaged through your purse for a tube of lipgloss.

“Yeah? And how do you know? Are you an oracle and just haven’t told me?” Peter jokes as you take the cosmetic from your bag.

You remove the fuzzy doe-foot applicator from the pink make up with a loud squelch and smirk at him.

“Because not only do I know everything,” a swipe of the goods on your lips, “But, I always get what I want.”

Now, his absence along with Roman’s seemed to be significant. Connected.

And then you got a call.

And the ID almost gave you a heart attack.

You fled the classroom without the formality of an excuse. It wasn’t any secret that you and Roman were a couple, so some teachers had been far more lenient with you since he had fallen under. Thankfully, Ms. Day was one of them.

You ran from the class and around the corner for the veil of privacy before you picked up the call.

“Roman?”

“God, how I’ve missed your voice.” He said, punctuated with his melodic laugh.

You burst into tears, clenching your phone tightly in your sweating palm as Roman cooed to you.

“Hey, hey, no. No tears, baby. Too fucking hot to be sad, you know that?”

“I’m not sad, God no! These are tears of joy, of fucking relief.” You felt suddenly very fatigued from the worry and dread escaping your body at the sound of Roman’s voice, and slid down the wall to the grey linoleum below.

“Good, hate to think you’d forget about me after two weeks out of commission.” You could see his smile in your minds eye and your stomach twinge with love.

“You know I could never forget about you.” You replied, whipping your damp cheeks on the back of your hand.

“I’m glad. I was counting on it.” You can see his smirk now.

“Dick.” You laughed and he did as well.

“Eh, you love me.”

“Yeah, yeah I do.”

There was a silence and you wished so helplessly that he was in your arms. Your Roman. Not the still and sterile one. The one with a wicked tongue and a beautiful smile that he offered to you so freely.

It was in this silence though, that you heard the purr of an engine.

“Baby, are you in a car? Are you with Olivia?”

“Uh, no. Not exactly.” And the bubble of joy popped just as it had formed.

“Roman, where are you? Why are you in a car?”

“It’s nothing for you to worry about, my love.” He hummed quietly his adoration and immediately you knew what was happening.

“Put Peter on the phone.”

“How did you-”

“Just fucking do it, Roman.”

You could hear him curse, then the shuffle of the phone being passed between hands.

“Hey, (Y/N/N), how’ya doin’?” Peter asked, faking a calm tone.

“Let’s forget the goddamn pleasantries, Peter. What in the living fuck are you doing trying to track this wolf when Roman just rose from the dead?”

“Rose from the dead sounds a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Does it sound like I give a shit?”

“Frankly, no. It doesn’t.”

“And what does it sound like I give a shit about?”

“Probably Roman not doing this right now.”

“Bingo, Fiddo. Now you either take him back to his house or I am coming to find you two and I promise you, I can be scarier than Olivia.” You hissed into the receiver, looking around to make sure no rouge students in the halls were hearing your conversation.

“Oh I don’t doubt it. But this was his choice, (Y/N). Nothing neither of us can do anything to change his mind.”

“Peter, I swear to-” This time, you were the one cut short.

“Baby, listen,” Roman said after commandeering his phone back.

“No, Roman, you listen! I know you have some attachment to helping kill this thing, but now isn’t the time.”

“But it is. It’s complicated, but you just have to trust me on this.”

“I do trust you, Ro. I do. But I don’t trust whatever this thing is.” You sighed, leaning your head back against the wall, “Unfortunately I do trust what it is capable of. Which is a fuck tone pain.”

“I’ll be safe. I have Peter, Peter’s got me. I got this. We know what we’re doing.”

“Wish I could believe that.”

“Baby, I promise. I swear, even. We are gonna find some answers and then I’ll be home to you in one piece.”

You pause and Roman calls your name from the phone, his voice vulnerable.

“It’s funny. This morning you were in a coma and you were more safe then than you are right now.”

“I love you.” Roman says firmly.

“I know.”

Another pause and you know you can’t scold your way out of this one.

“Just… please call me when you get back. I don’t think I can take another minute of being away from you.” Your tears were beginning again.

“Me too. You’re all I can think about,” Roman sniffles, “I need you, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

You both sit in silence on the line before Roman tells you he needs to go.

“Ok… but hey, Turner?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell Hooch to be careful. Both of you just… be careful.”

“Always.”

And the line goes dead.

After school you debated going straight to the Godfrey residence to wait for Roman to return, but decided against it. You weren’t sure exactly what Olivia knew and didn’t know, and didn’t feel like being alone with her while you figured it out.

So, you waited anxiously in your bedroom, doing everything possible to quell your shaking nerves. You had a perpetual tremor in your body as fiddled with your phone to try and distract yourself. Which was partly true, the other reason your phone was glued to your palm was so you would know the second Roman contacted you.

Though, as the sun descended in the sky and the night sky spanned for hours, you were becoming more restless. Whatever Peter and Roman were doing was no doubt dangerous and time sensitive, and it made you sick that it was nearing midnight without any word from either boy.

As the night continued to wear on and your mind ran away from rationality into an amalgamation of pure fear and absurdity, you decided you couldn’t sit around anymore. You weren’t going to wait for Roman to call and tell you he was home safe. You were going to drive to his house and wait for him there, and if he wasn’t back in an hour, you’d go out looking for him yourself.

As you put on a pair of house slippers and a sweatshirt over your nightgown, your phone vibrated on your vanity. Your heart began to speed up in your chest as you rushed over to the table and picked up your buzzing phone. On the screen was a text alert from Roman, with only one word present:

Come.

And you didn’t need to be told twice.

When you arrived at the Godfrey’s, you fled your car so quickly you almost forget the keys in the ignition. You ran up the front steps and banged both fists on the door needing to use your excess anxiety and adrenaline for something. And while you didn’t want to face Olivia’s wrath, your judgment was clouded by the chance of seeing Roman, alive and well.

When Roman finally opened the door, you wasted no time throwing yourself into his arms. He stumbled at the impact of your embrace, but was quick to remedy his shock by wrapping his arms around you. The feeling of this made your throat constrict.

“Jesus fucking Christ I missed you.” Roman all but growled as he firmly smoothed flyaways from your hair and placed his strong hand on the back of your neck.

“You have no idea how much I missed you, Ro.” You said, voice thick with tears as you began to pepper kisses anywhere you could reach.

Neck, jaw, ear, temple, cheek, shoulder, trap, clavicle, repeat.

Roman groaned appreciatively in your ear as you covered him in your lips.

“You scared me half to death you know?” You said between kisses.

“I know, I’m sorry. Things have been… odd. I still can’t remember it all.” Roman says, his tone confused.

“Well, Olivia said-”

“I know what she said. I just don’t know if I believe it.”

You furrowed your brows and tried to wiggle in his hold, silently signaling for Roman to place you back on your feet, but he only gripped you tighter.

“Not yet. Just, stay a while.” His voice wavered.

You finally pulled back to look at him, his eyes red from tears and shadowed. Sometimes it was difficult to look at him, his beauty and pain were just too much.

“I’m staying, Roman. You couldn’t get me to leave if you wanted to.” You reply.

A wash of emotion washes over his features as his lip quivers and his eyes attempt to blink back tears. You opened your mouth to try and alleviate him of whatever he was feeling when his mouth crashed to yours.

You forgot how good his lips felt against yours as your mouths meshed together. The velvet of his tongue and the mint and smoke on his breath. His hands gripping you everywhere as he pressed you impossibly close, moaning into you with deep primal noises sounding from his chest.

“Roman, baby,” You pulled away for air and Roman promptly moved his attention to your neck and clavicle. “I need you. Take me upstairs, I can’t wait any longer.”

Roman groaned and bit you hard on the shoulder before hitching your legs higher on his hips and running you both up the winding staircase behind him.

Bruises, at the behest of his mouth and fingers, littered your body as you lay on Roman’s chest as you both still reeled in the blissful aftermath of your climaxes. Roman’s fingers idled along and spine while his unoccupied hand rested behind his head.

He had begun to tell the tale of his night, of Peter and the turn and Chasseur and his mother. He told you Peter was upstairs unconscious and that he was unsure what was going to happen when he woke.

“So, after all this, everything’s still shitty? Is that what you’re saying?” You muttered.

“Essentially. But I have hope… we’re going to figure this out. I know it.” Roman nodded, like he is reassuring himself more than you.

“Me too. You two are smart,”

“You flatter me.” Roman chuckles and looks down at you.

“Just trying to butter you up to get into your pants.” He laughs again and slaps your ass.

“Clearly it’s working.” He replies.

“Well that, and I always get what I want.” You say with a content smile.

Roman hums, “Don’t I know it.”

“You enable it.”

“Again, I know.” He kisses your forehead and you burrow closer to him.

You two lay in silence a bit longer before he sighs.

“I think we should move to sleep in the attic. Just in case something happens with Peter and he needs us.”

We. Us.

The small implication in his word choice makes you smile and once again fall under a wave of emotion, just so happy that your Roman was back to you.

You don’t know what you had done if there was no we or us with Roman any longer. But you choose to not fixate on the past.

You just nod and kiss the underside of his chin. Roman gives you a small grin and begins to get up. As you do the same, Roman throws you one of his white button downs, giving you a stern look as you raise an eyebrow in question.

“Just put it on. I got two weeks to make up for, baby. It started with reuniting, then fucking, and now you in my shirt.”

You try to hold off the wide smile that was threatening to take over your face and put on the shirt, buttoning it to just above your cleavage.

“Yeah? And what’s next?” You ask, watching Roman round the bed toward you.

“Sleep.”

Now in a pair of threadbare silk pajama pants and nothing more, Roman extends his hand to you.

“Shall we?”

“We shall.” You reply, taking his hand, weaving your fingers as he led you to the attic.

i hope you enjoyed even though it was for a different show!! and if you did, pls i’d love some feedback (:::: also let me know if you would possibly want another roman fic bc i have other ideas lol

[cxffexngel]

[ @aaetherius​ ] || [ dFSÑDSFDf thanks for reminding me to open the submit page, so now you have free real estate with length of asks!!! ]

Kiss day was something the Singularity had mentioned to him before, and something he was already familiar with due to Sandalphon once citing it as a reason for suddenly stealing a kiss from him a day that felt like less than a breath ago. But when it had come up again in conversation with the airship's stalwart leader, whom Lucifer, unfortunately, happened to get far too much information from when it came to the customs Skydwellers held, he had learned just how scared a holiday it was. Now he was utterly determined to return the favor to the archangel. But Sandalphon had slipped from his grasp early, and in his sleep-touched daze he hadn't truly registered the other's missing warmth against him until he had groggily sat up on a collection of tangled sheets as his palm lazily patted the mattress in search for the other only to find the area beside him empty. A few blinks and he woke to a room devoid of the Supreme Primarch, losing his chance to gently wake him with a kiss.

Swiftly following his first failed attempt to ensure he celebrated the day properly - as the Singularity had ensured him not doing so would have dire consequences, and he would not wish for anything ill to befall Sandalphon - he quietly made his way over to the cafe where he expected the other to be. The smell of coffee had been fresh in the air when he had slowly poked his head in, but, alas, by the time he had gotten there Sandalphon had already left. With his wings sagging against his back, he carefully followed after any trace of the archangel, the Singularity even popping in from time to time to help him locate the other. But every time he came close to, he could sense Sandalphon's presence begin to fade. By the time sunset had become to trickle in through the windows of the Grandcypher, his core is heavy with worry. He's scarcely seen the other all day, and he fears Sandalphon is working himself too hard once again. It morphs his excitement into dread until, finally, he spots the other beneath the orangey-pink hue of the dwindling light, and allows a breath of relief to flutter past his lips. His core, the fragile thing that it is, simply can't wait to embrace the other, and instead of following the advice the Singularity had given him (urging him to surprise Sandalphon), he simply rushes over to the archangel.

His strong arms come to wrap so tightly, yet still somehow gently, about the other's waist that he nearly, unintentionally, lifts Sandalphon off of his feet. Burying his face into the crux of the other's neck, he allows the scent of coffee to almost overwhelm as he nuzzles softly into the other's skin, and the fabric of his shirt. "Sandalphon," he whispers faintly as he slowly lifts his head after a few moment, gingerly holding the other as close to him as he can manage. "Forgive me, I pray you have not been working too hard, but I have missed you." Slowly, he leans forward to give the other the gentlest kiss upon the tip of his nose. "The Singularity has informed me it is Kiss Day, and I wish to celebrate it, together, with you, if you will allow me to."

          All the day spent with the other’s footsteps trailing his heels, and Sandalphon wasn't doing it for any ill intention at al - no. It was just fond fear, Lucifer now most prepared than ever with newfound knowledge he really has to someday question it’s sources had the former Supreme primarch much more giddy and all the more determined to properly 'celebrate' days such as these. The itch to go and throttle the life out the captain bubbling like a gentle fire fueled by petty alone, but the chance for retribution never once dawning for his hands hold that little trouble seeker. No, instead the danger loomed dangerously close, always sensing the other's presence no matter where Sandalphon manages to excuse himself to. From somehow making it out the bed without waking the former, to at least opening the cafe until time had called and he left someone else to serve for the time being. Manage to hang some laundry without much trouble and then unceremoniously scramble from the other's field of vision. And again, it wasn't for naught nor because he did not wish for Lucifer's love at all. It's just that he knew that once the other's strong hold embraced him, that's all for the supreme primarch; it's mark his penance and be showered upon kisses and kisses until left a complete breathless mess laughing like an idiot, feathers sticking everywhere and his hair a worse mess than it somehow manages to look certain mornings, as if a strong storm had hit the airship while taken by slumber.

           Yet sundown is already before the Grancypher's periphery, strong orange rays painting sepia the grand vast of skies and dots of what could be lone islands within the distance to be seen - And worry paints Sandalphon's core now that it's been a while, the chase having drawn enough to at least spare the other and left Lucifer find him, finally. So he stops, the handrails that make the best part of the airship's edges so no one would fall a good leverage to let his palms rest atop them, leaning a bit so his armor less frame meets the edge and take in a gasp pf air that his lungs had begged for a while now - unable to shake the fluster that weights his core and the slight guilt that also hangs from that branch, which he knows wouldn't last. Fate sealed when those footsteps once more meet his ears and muscles reflexively tense a bit, but then relax with silent relief; praying the skies to be prepared and let all that contained love the other bleeds with overwhelm his soul, whisper an apology for purposely hiding from the other in some sort of childish play the younger crew members often entertained themselves with considering the grand amount of rooms, corridors and places to hide they could choose and test their abilities. Yet it all proves for even more naught, no matter how much he braces himself or trains his mind and body to somehow meet the other's presence and simply melt with it - his strength rips the air from his lung, that bold hold striking the deepest parts of his core and cold blod rush through his entire body as blinding lightings and leave trails of scalding heat in their stead. Unceremonious noise, akin to a gasp and squawk unfiltered past lips that part with the surprise clearly painted across sharp visage and that's how he knows that not even today Sandalphon was going to survive this man's shamelessness. yet, as always, there will never a better way for Lucifer to express his emotions like this, it is something he'd never change or wish for it to cease in any way. Just prays his own core can somehow build enough stamina to not painfully throb at each and endless ways Lucifer finds to express himself outrageously.

         " L-Lucif— " Strained voice barely manages out, a higher pitch as hands had somehow found where Lucifer's circle his waist, relishing on his the tip of his heels seem unable to meet the familiar worn wood of the deg's surface as the other holds his smaller frame as if his life depended on it - and probably it does, because now that he finally has a look, from over his shoulder, to Lucifer's messy strands as they veil from sight how his visage might be. Yet even without looking Sandalphon already can feel the relief dawning upon the other, how that intake of air simply nourished his core with everything that is right and bright. It doesn’t fail to dust his cheeks a faint rosy color, and it doesn't help too the bashful chuckle bubbling from the depths of his chest as it heaves out within their silence. " I... Missed you too. I apologize for my absence. " But he doesn't have the heart yet to say the truth, not when it had somehow burdened the other now that he thinks of it; did Lucifer think something worse? But nearly tangent thoughts banish the second he processes the kiss laid upon his nose, blinking his own worries away in a miraculous spell as he slowly shifts to face the other better, and rest his hips upon the handrail as it lazily creaks with the newfound weight added to it. Sound that gets carried away by the gentle breeze along the downy pale skirt that flutters slowly under the belts that keep them upright, laying his palms at the edge where those long gloves end, and skin peek from Lucifer's biceps. " If to celebrate it with you somehow fills for the time we spent apart, then I would never say no. " It was impossible to deny further the other, his core also yearns for it even as they have exchanged more touches and kisses than the two thousand of years worth of silence could dare and even recall. Oh how Lucifer's soft tone was all in the world to undo his own stubbornness, the only thing along; stronger than Lyria's beady eyes or Gran's unbearably kind soul, that could sway his core into caving and forget about responsibilities for once in a while, even if his war torn body aches to do things, to meet battles or go around the airship doing things. So one of his hands, the one even now adorned with the shining golden ring carefully traces where that pale skin radiates warmth, touches with featherlight gentleness against the other's broader neck where fabric edges with golden rims, and then cups the taller primarch's jaw with an unspoken apology all written on his eyes as they soften when he meets his gaze with one of it's own. Thumb tracing aimless circles where the a rosy hue paints the edge of the other's lashes with life and admiring how the sunset's light never cease to frame his visage almost as if he had been descended from the stars themselves. " I hope this counts as an apology, too, dearest Lucifer. " He tries to sound a bit timid, but it's impossible to not let his adoration drip from his tongue, head tilting as eyes relishes on Lucifer's clear senseless and unconditional worry even now having a strong hold to Sandalphon's own guilt, one he will make up no with endless spoken apologies, but with actions that would tear the remaining hours this day was left with, and simply let himself be engulfed by the cocoon of feathers the other may subject him with, if his own didn't manifest first and steal Lucifer for himself in a selfish streak.

[houseofhurricane]

ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (19/28) | Elain x Tamlin, Lucien x Vassa

Summary: Elain lies about a vision and winds up as the Night Court’s emissary to the Spring Court, trying to prevent the Dread Trove from falling into the wrong hands and wrestling with the gifts the Cauldron imparted when she was Made. Lucien, asked to join her, must contend with secrets about his mating bond. Meanwhile, Tamlin struggles to lead the Spring Court in the aftermath of the war with Hybern. And Vassa, the human queen in their midst, wrestles with the enchantment that turns her into a firebird by day, robbing her of the power of speech and human thought. Looming over all of them is uniquet peace in Prythian and the threat of Koschei, the death-god with unimaginable power. With powers both magical and monstrous, the quartet at the Spring Court will have to wrestle with their own natures and the evil that surrounds them. Will the struggle save their world, or doom it?

A/N: Lucien attempts to return the Autumn Court to its rightful High Lord, while trying to figure out the worsening effects of the curse on Vassa. You can find all previous chapters here, or read Bloom & Bone on AO3. Thank you for reading! ❤️ If you'd like to get an early preview on the next chapter, follow me on Instagram at @house.of.hurricane.

The days after Vassa’s rescue are so filled with political deliberation between the High Lords and nobles of Prythian that even Lucien’s mind, so accustomed to strategy and scheming, is overwhelmed. He had planned for his reunion with Vassa to feature sleepless nights and tangled sheets, a variety of creative positions and a thousand different sounds of pleasure leaving Vassa’s lips. Instead, as soon as the meetings are over for the day, a member of the Night Court winnows her to the day’s meeting place so that she can join the long dinners, then ferries her to the Spring Court where she and Lucien fall into sleep. She reaches for him, insists despite the pain he can see in her eyes, the tears that fall as soon as their kisses reach a fevered pitch.

He always rises to find that in sleep, she has rolled to the farthest corner of the bed, where he cannot touch her even accidentally.

Still, when he tries to ask her what he can do, how he can help, she insists that he has other priorities. As if he cannot see the darkness around her eyes, the way that, in mere days, she’s grown almost frail. A shadow of herself.

When it’s decided there will be an attempt at diplomacy with the Autumn Court, Vassa rouses herself, invites Tamlin and Elain to join them for champagne to celebrate their emissaries, Lucien and Elain both having been selected.

“You’ll make sure she’s out of danger,” Tamlin says to Lucien as soon as they clink glasses, and Lucien, nodding, sees Vassa roll her eyes at Elain, who smothers her answering laugh behind her hands.

“You’re sure a firebird would not advance your cause?” Vassa asks, the joke turning plaintive. Elain reaches out her hand and then drops it, a thump against her skirts, before she can harm Vassa with a conciliatory touch. They’d agreed that the risk to Vassa did not merit the benefit of the clear alliance with the human realms. Not when the stories of Lucien and Vassa had begun to spread.

“I will keep him safe, Queen of Scythia,” Elain says after a moment, the smile in her voice, returning them to the moment, the kind of camaraderie she’d longed for in those weeks at the Night Court.

“Good,” Vassa says, and for a moment her face is alight as it ever was, her eyes sapphire-bright, “because I never worry about you anymore, Elain Archeron. You listen very well to me. Unlike certain High Fae males who love to hover over extremely capable women.”

She shoots a glance at Lucien, her lips pursed comically, and when he allows himself to laugh, he feels the brightness spread over his body, more intoxicating than the sparkling wine. He lets himself pretend, just for the space of an evening, that everything is fine, that this haven could be a lasting one, that he will hear these three laughing and teasing and happy all his life.

Before dawn, she kisses him and sets off for the lake alone.

“You can save this world with your words alone,” she says, her fingers on his face, gentle on the scars that surround his ruined eye. Watching her expression, he’d never know this gesture caused her pain. Still, knowing what he knows, Lucien cannot bring himself to take another kiss.

“I’ll save you next,” he tells her.

“Or you’ll watch as I save myself, Vanserra.” She smiles then, and swings herself from the bed to the door in a single fluid motion, as if they existed in a moment they have never known, when everything was all right.

Before the rest of the manor wakes, Lucien lights a candle, busies himself with the strategies, all the reminders he wants to give the rest of the diplomatic party, which will comprise Nesta, Elain and himself. It had been agreed that the High Lords would stay out of the initial stage of negotiations, and still Lucien worries that this group is too small, too tied to the Night Court, with two Archeron sisters with largely unknown powers who were all too recently human. And yet he has held his tongue. Because Elain has surprised him and Nesta has terrified him, and all three sisters seem to have a knack for prevailing when the rest of Prythian thinks they’re doomed.

For a moment, he wishes that he could consult Eris, but his brother has been staying in the Night Court, no doubt to Morrigan’s dismay. Still, given Rhysand’s relative strength, it makes sense to mark him as an ally. And for all that Lucien likes his brother in spite of himself, he much prefers the nights he spends in the Spring Court without the threat of his judgement and withering remarks.

Instead of ruminating over the past, he takes one more breath, reviews his notes, all the things that could unfold today, and decides that he is as ready as he can be.

By the time Lucien joins Elain and Tamlin for breakfast, he’s decided that the mission will prevail. Elain has even worn a dress in the tawny browns and deep greens of the Autumn Court, tied her hair back from her face with a red ribbon.

“Those colors don’t suit you,” Tamlin is saying, lifting a cherry turnover from the serving platter to her plate.

“What colors would you prefer me in, High Lord?” Elain’s cheeks are pink and while Lucien is sure that there are headier implications to her question, he decides he will not consider them.

Instead, he heaps his plate high and talks through the strategy with Elain, more for Tamlin’s benefit than hers.

“Do you think that Nesta will behave herself?” Tamlin asks, once the review is complete.

“Nesta likes Eris more than anybody,” Elain responds, in a tone that barely covers her amazement.

“Nesta’s job is to be terrifying,” Lucien adds.

“It’s what she’s best at, isn’t it?”

It is, of course, Nesta behind him, and Lucien shoots Elain a look, asking how will she kill me? Elain, standing to greet her sister, does not cover her commiserating smile, which seems to suggest his death is imminent.

“You’re ready for the Autumn Court?” Nesta asks Elain, who stand alongside the grand table, a study in contrasts. Nesta has come in her Illyrian, her hair braided in a crown on her head and her sword at her side. Her body is small but all of its angles are fierce, almost severe. Next to her, Elain looks impossibly soft, so gentle that Lucien is reminded why everyone always underestimates her.

But still Elain shoots back, “I’m the one taking us there. You’ll know when I’m ready for the Autumn Court. Would you like Lucien to remind you of the strategy?”

“Rhys and Feyre woke me up early to review. You’d think the dignity of the Night Court was at stake.”

“Only the peace in Prythian,” Lucien drawls, his eyes darting to Tamlin who, as expected, has his knife and fork clutched in an extremely tight grip.

“Feyre told me the same thing before she crawled inside my mind,” Nesta says, running her eyes over Lucien, redoubling her statement. “I know I’m only to speak when you want me to scare them.”

“And if Koschei is there, you do not fight him,” Elain adds, smoothing her fingers over her skirts. “Let Lucien winnow you.”

“You’ll let Lucien winnow you also,” Tamlin says, his voice strangled with restraint. Lucien can tell that he is trying very hard not to loom over Elain.

“I will let Lucien winnow me,” Elain echoes, meeting his eye as her cheeks go pink. Nesta lets out a sigh that sounds very like a snarl, and if it weren’t a sign of worry, Lucien would bury his head in his hands.

There are a thousand more important things at this moment than romantic tension. And still Lucien wishes this was his only problem.

So instead he meets Tamlin’s eye and promises to winnow Elain, does not look away from Nesta’s glare as he tells her that she is welcome to speak, he’s heard she has good diplomatic instincts, but he will welcome her sword if everything goes to shit.

Then, because for a moment he feels like his old self again, he meets Elain’s eyes and says, “Let’s see if you’re a real emissary now.”

When Elain sticks out her tongue at him, it’s impossible to hold back his laugh.

“Feyre is having too much fun watching you,” Nesta says, extending her hand towards her other sister. “Now can you please take us to the Autumn Court so I can stop hearing her cackle in my mind? I don’t think it’s good form to be late.”

Elain’s smile flickers out but she reaches for Lucien and Nesta, lets the tethering spell bind them, and the Spring Court rips away.

&

&

&

The wall of fire around the Autumn Court castle is new.

“I told you we should have arrived directly inside,” Nesta says, eyeing the unbroken flames.

“It would be an act of war to simply appear inside the court itself,” Lucien says as levelly as he can, reaching out to the wall of fire with his own magic, scanning it with his golden eye. There are protective and defensive spells interwoven with the fire itself, powerful enough that unraveling the magic isn’t a practical option. Anyway, an alarm has likely sounded.

Sure enough, the flames part just wide enough to let a person pass.

Lucien knows things are headed to shit when he doesn’t recognize the gangly squire who appears to greet them. He had hoped that his mother would be the one to welcome their group, even if his brothers would have been the more appropriate group, would-be High Lords welcoming the delegation sent by the other rulers of Prythian.

Instead they are welcomed like beggars, and the young male who greets them looks nervous.

He sees Nesta reach for her sword and doesn’t bother to try and restrain her. His brothers begin with disrespect and then quickly move to violence.

“We are the delegation sent by the High Lords of Prythian,” Elain says, her voice honeyed in a way that makes this nervous page blush and fidget. “Lady Cybele should be expecting us after our message.”

“Cybele d-doesn’t rule this court,” the page says, trying out a nasty tone that distorts his features.

Elain flexes her fingers and her skin takes on a golden glow that is distinct from the firelight. When he glances at Nesta, he sees silver flames flicker to life in her eyes. He wishes they would save this bravado for his brothers, but at any rate, the page grows pale.

“We’ve come to meet with whoever does rule this court.” Elain’s voice is now too pleasant. “And I’m sure you can agree that we should expect to find that a brother of its ruler welcome to enter without this kind of horrible scrutiny.”

“I was told that the b-bastard has to stay outside.”

Elain turns her glance to Lucien, her eyes gone wide. She can pull Nesta from the world, but if Koschei is inside, Lucien was always intended to be the quick exit.

Nesta interrupts, fingers wrapped around the sword at her hip.

“Who is inside the castle, boy?” Her impression of Amren is impeccable, and the page’s face grows pale.

He reaches for Elain but Lucien is too swift, and in half a breath the darkness has enveloped them and released them to the forests of the Autumn Court.

“He was going to take you to Koschei,” Lucien says before Elain can begin her protest. “Thank the Mother that my brothers are too stupid to train their henchmen.”

“Tell Feyre that we’ll need protection at the Spring Court,” Elain says to Nesta, squeezing Lucien’s fingers as she gives the order. “They could be coming for Vassa next.”

“The Valkyries are guarding her today,” Nesta says, “but we should get out of this court before we have to deal with any more Vanserras.”

“One is enough?” he asks, preparing the tethering spell, snipping its edges so that only the three of them can be carried by Elain’s magic.

“I’m fairly certain you and Eris are the only decent ones.”

“His mother is trapped in that castle,” Elain points out, grabbing tight to Lucien’s wrist, to Nesta’s. The forest becomes the passageways, becomes a winter forest scented with pine, a marketplace, an expanse of tall concrete buildings seemingly held to the clouds by magic, becomes, finally, the great hall of the Spring Court, where Tamlin waits, clad in his battle armor, two swords strapped across his back.

Behind him, still in his flawless court jacket and shining boots, Eris waits. And it is to that spotless figure that Elain runs, all the colors of autumn, her magic still aglow on her face.

Lucien launches himself after her but there’s a hand on his chest. Nesta. A warning in her eyes that he can’t decipher.

Elain stops inches from Eris, close enough that his features are cast in her golden light. Behind her, Tamlin looms, a sword drawn in his hand, ready to strike. But Elain does not hear or notice him. Her focus is only on Eris.

“Will you break the alliance with Koschei?” she asks, her hands on her hips.

“We’ve discussed this at length,” Eris says. Lucien can see in the tightness of his jaw that he’s trying to determine whether Elain can kill him, whether Tamlin will slice him to bits at her command. That he’s realizing the relative weakness of his own position, his rightful position as High Lord dependent on too many factors. That if Elain tried to destroy him, perhaps nobody would stop her.

“I am asking you as emissary of the Spring Court and friend to the Queen of Scythia. As the person who helped rescue you from Koschei, the death-lord who holds you under a curse. I am asking as the female who can harm you with a single brush of my fingers thanks to his spell on you.”

“I didn’t think you realized that it wasn’t only your human friend under his spell,” Eris says, and nobody can miss the way he leans back from Elain, an unmistakable confirmation.

“Koschei will try to tear apart Prythian until he claims both Vassa and me. He is likely searching for you as well.”

There’s a shift in Eris’ features, a pain he tries to hide, and suddenly the situation becomes deadly clear to Lucien.

“What did he promise you?” he calls to his brother, the only one he has a sliver of hope in. In a flash of movement, Tamlin’s sword is pointed at Eris, and Nesta surges toward him, coming alongside Elain with her own blade pointed at the would-be High Lord of Autumn.

“I haven’t allied with him,” Eris says, managing to smirk even at the steel pointed at him, all the allies he stands to lose. “But there are whispers that he can break this curse on me. A curse which a High Lord cannot bear. Not if he will truly rule his people.”

Elain steps toward him, her skirts sighing. She’s so close that Eris could grab her if he wanted, Eris who never shows his hand until it suits him.

“I know what it is to be a pawn,” she says. “And I am working to understand the complexity of Koschei’s magic. I don’t know, yet, how we could release you from this curse but I am working to find out. When I learn how, I will unbind you myself.”

“They should write legends about the overconfidence of your family,” Eris says, assessing her.

“If you ally with Koschei, Eris, they will never write legends about you at all,” Nesta points out, letting the tip of her sword snag on a button, which falls to the ground with a ping. “And you will lose the allegiance of the Night Court.”

Tamlin only tucks Elain against his side. He knows the allegiance of the Spring Court does not much matter, especially to a member of the Autumn Court, who so easily invaded.

When Lucien finally speaks, he’s surprised at how easily the words fall from his lips. As if he had been dreaming them.

“If you vow to fight against Koschei,” he says to his brother, “I vow that I will not rest until the High Lords of Prythian go united into battle for your throne. You should know that I have friends in every court who listen to my counsel. You will not reclaim the throne without allies. And together, perhaps those same allies could join together and rid you of Koschei’s curse.”

He’s thrown in this last without knowing if it’s possible, without knowing if the High Lords would ever agree, especially given what happened to Feyre, but Elain stiffens at Tamlin’s side, the gesture her body makes when she has a new idea.

“I haven’t forgotten that you killed my father,” Eris says, finally, and the words sound like a threat, but Lucien knows his brother well enough to see the relief in his voice, the tiniest hint of the smile he’s unable to hide from a practiced observer.

“Beron tried to harm my friends.” Lucien meets his brother’s eyes, lets his meaning become clear. He lets his magic, the light and fire, burn in the air around him.

Eris steps back, away from the swords and the tense and thickening magic.

“Promise you’ll free me from this curse and I vow I will never ally with the death-lord Koschei.”

“As soon as Vassa is free, we will free you,” Lucien says, watches as Elain nods, as Tamlin lowers his sword, and Nesta reluctantly follows. “But first, it seems we will need to go to war for your throne.”

[grim-faux]

05_A Looming Constant

First

Too close!

 That had been too close!

 It should have all ended badly, him torn out. A sad shadow. Stole! Just like her! Bad mistake! Bad mistake.

 How did it keep finding him?! True, trying to drag her out of the television was dumb. The man in the hat was too crafty to have let her get away; the trap was cunning. Almost though! He could’ve sworn he would have gotten her out of there. Two more seconds, three tops.

 The man in the hat would find him again. He mistook the man for slow and cumbersome, but he just knew. Knew where he was going, where he’d stumble up. Knew too much. Fearsome, strange trickster. At the same time, he didn’t understand why he… well, that didn’t matter! He got away! And from now on, he had to stay away. The Thin Man plotted something, and it involved him.

 So he ran like he’d never run before, accepting that around the next corner that terrible man would be there, looming, ready. This recess was borrowed time, and he dreaded… he dreaded….

 Somewhere in the crawlway, the packed silt disintegrated and he dropped. He tumbled in the murk, a wadded mess of coat and shape, hands clasped to his paper bag to save it from destruction. The tight walls rebounded his form until at last he was skidding across a more stable surface, something that felt like wood. He didn’t waste a moment to get back upright and continue, pawing at the empty black. Light shimmered in the distance, peering around tall and wide pillars. He could hear the rain, as well.

  The narrow crevice opened in the center of a wall. Not too high to deter dropping down, though the boards creaked when he landed, eliciting a shudder from the intruder. He shuffled around the side of the room, eyes already fixed on the open window parallel to his stance. A collapsed bed afforded an easy ascent to the shattered frame, the sopping curtains slapped his shoulders as he skidded onto the sill.

 Before ducking out, he turned back and gave the vacant room a short study. The door was open, but he wasn’t interested on further exploration on account the tower being the other direction. Outside was better than inside. This was good travel. It might be possible, he could still lose the Thin Man.

 A plank of wood connected the metal balcony, to another balcony adjacent to the window. It was wide enough for him to brave a sprint without losing balance, but regardless his numb toes lost traction and he went skidding down the tilted flat of wood. He coughed at the water sloshing against his paper mask, and lost visibility for a moment when his legs swept off the side. His arms managed to hang tight, though he couldn’t dig his fingernails into the slimy surface.

 Lightening struck the sky high above, casting overexposure through everything, and bleaching out his own vision despite his mask. That sinister, rolling snarl followed. Mono clawed at the beam, swinging his legs up until he knotted his heel over the furthest edge. With a few deep breaths he hauled himself up, got up to his feet, and resumed running. This time, more careful about his steps and slowed down.

 When he reached the next balcony, there was no opening in the window that was immediately visible. The window frame was likewise too high for him to reach. To the side a tattered cord did hang, among a braid of monstrous tangles slinking downward. He dropped to the slick rope and anchored his grip. Before descending, he adjusted his bag and fixed his gaze into the sky.

 The tower, a monolith looming in the midst of this husk of civilization. He knew she was there, just as he knew this was all his fault. His fault. Again. Not careful enough. Stupid. Trying to work through things that were traps. He should’ve known better. Should’ve done better. He would fix this.

 He thumped the front of his head to the cord. The rain was thunderous against the paper surface, but it barred out the awful sensations. Blotted out the eerie prickling. Stupid idea. Bad.

 Going down was never hard. It was getting down without breaking something, which was the trick. He does a good job of it, keeping his grip tight and digging past the fast-moving water flooding into everything. He was soaked to the bone, and the chilled air seemed to live in his skin.

 The third window he came to was open a crack, at the bottom. He planted himself on the ledge and turned his sight down, evaluating what was below. It looked like an alley, cluttered with stuff and the people. With the rain crowding his senses, he couldn’t hear if they were alive or broken; he couldn’t tell if they were distracted by the televisions. The wire didn’t extend much further, and he was trembling remorsefully against the gale.

 He didn’t give it a second thought as he squeezed through the gap. It was very tight, but manageable. The room within was dark, but mostly dry – aside from the ribbons of water trinkling from the ceiling. The whole place creaked, as if it was a ship lost at sea amid a battering storm.

 He only knew some stories about ships and sea. A door made a fine raft, but sea fairing it was not.

 First listen. Aside from the hammering rain and the creaking, nothing stood out. His whole wardrobe was waterlogged, and the soft globs of water oozed into the carpet beneath his feet. He left the drowned halo and made his way across the room. Everything dark. Dark was good. He didn’t particularly like the dark, but it gave him the chance to hide from dangers first. Hear them as well, because he was moving slowly, and primed to freeze at a moment notice. Or run. Running was good too. But first, listen.

 He paid careful attention to the headache working in his head. If the man in the hat came close, he’d sense that first. But nothing alarmed him thus far, but he did have a creeping sensation on his neck.

 By the time he reached the corridor, his eyes had adjusted enough that he could make out the outline of the walls and floor. There were still lumps of clothing or debris on the floor, snagging at his feet and his numb toes. Though if an exit appeared, he’d likely see it. No holes, no crevices as of yet. This place seemed stable. For once, that was not good.

 Light flickered from an open passage to the side, and he knew what would be waiting for him. In his defense, he was being optimistic.

 Those people. The Viewers. A whole cluster, huddled around the flashing box. But they were facing away, their silhouettes barred him from the device. If he managed to get to it, where would it take him? Was it worth it to try? Could be… trap.

 He huddled beneath a chair, taking a small spell to catch his breath. Listen. Think. What would happen if he didn’t reach her in time? Don’t think about that. Whatever is waiting at the tower, deal with it when you’re there. Focus here. TV? Or no?

 At his back something shuffled, and he froze. It took every ounce of his meager strength to hold his feet rooted, not budge an inch, or take a breath. Just like when he woke up earlier… stay still. Don’t panic. This is difficult, given he was barely caught up on his second wind. He couldn’t risk turning or checking, did something see him? A Viewer, or the man in the hat? The Thin Man, with his terrible capacity for locating him in the most random of places? Was it him?

 He inched his eyes up, inspecting the gargling figures across the room. Mesmerized by the television. Maybe it too was already lost in the suffuse haze.

 Then movement, and he clenched his fingers into the soft wood. Just hold perfectly still. Nothing’s wrong. Everything is fine.

 The lumbering steps scuffled away, dragging across the room. He nearly exhaled all the stale air he’d held when he saw yes, thank you, that was a viewing people. It flung itself at the others intending to get at the screen, and knocked three over in its mindless haste. One plopped against the floorboards, and even though he couldn’t see which way the ‘head’ was facing, he knew of all that could go right in the world today, this monster had to be looking right at him.

 GARGHH!?

 He hated being right.

 The whole crew gathered themselves up or wretched around, gurgling and snarling – as if he had anything to do with the interruption. Two scurried on their hands and feet, another three lumbered… they were fast. He’d forgotten, in all the drama with the tall thin man, these people were feisty, fast, and possibly more relentless.

 He pivoted and dove into the gloom. After staring so long at the screen, he’d lost whatever adjustment gathered from navigating the dark. As such, he ran straight into the wall before ricocheting away and barreled down the corridor.

 Find door. If no door, hide. Escape first, hide second. There were only so many places to curl up in one room, but he staked it all on the one that recently joined, came from someplace other than a hole in the ceiling.

 The Viewers were thundering down the corridor, shrieking their bizarre shrill – something of static and mechanical gears, and another part painfully childish. They were having trouble cutting the distance, due to a habit of hauling each other down and crawling over the next if they became too sluggish. The rough behavior rattled the building, the floor creaked and bent.

 There was door! A looming blackhole in the corridor, ominous but welcoming all a once!

 The sight of it gave a few extra sprints to his legs. He wouldn’t have time to take a second guess, right or left. One thing that comforted him was the fact the whole neighborhood seemed to be behind him, which meant it was unlikely a few stranglers would be in the—

 His foot went down, and down. A snap burst loud and clear, and his body tensed, prepared for agony and perhaps death. The buzzing worked its way through his spine and bones, but for the life of him he couldn’t determine where it came from. Then realization dawned, as one of the shadowy figures lunged at him. A horrendous crackling filled the air; a chilling, accusing sound. With a screech, the Viewer dove out of view – the hand swiped at the back of his ankles but missed entirely.

 The floor!

 He swung around and scooted back, nearly blinded by all the thrashing and distressed wailing as the Viewers scrambled among the jagged beams folding up. The floor tilted sideways, plaster and dust rained down across his mask. Something crashed at his side and skidded toward the chasm, and without thinking he propelled himself onto it – before one of the Viewers could stretch out and swat him.

 It was the door, torn off its hinges and banking sideways. He tried to snag the shiny handle when it flashed, but something apart of the wall or whatever, smashed into the side of the panel and he was flung off. His shoulder skimmed the toothy side of the floor as he plummeted into the dark, the yowling cries beneath offered a frightening reading of how deep this went. Swabs of light came, from windows dotted throughout the ruptured building interior. His breathing became tighter, more panicked as everything sped up. Before he knew it, he was going to be a boney smear.

 Something flapped in the breeze, and without a thought he lashed out snaring what felt like a slime filled shirt. He dug his fingers and toes in, curling up and trying to constrict his whole body around the safety line. He swung wildly, twisting and whirling, barely missing the shattered underside of the banister, from where the shirt hung. Before the movement slowed a bit, he began clawing his way up the foul fibers. A sickening, wet-tearing sound alerted him swiftness was paramount. Unfortunately, he barely reached the shoulder and the rail that held his life raft. His fingers scrapped the polished wood, but he was once again falling without arrest.

 He was still holding the shirt piece as the scenery flashed by. Not that it did him any good, aside for giving him something to hold onto. He tried to crumple it up under himself to cushion the impact, and it must’ve helped somewhat because he didn’t lose consciousness when he collided with one of the broken Viewers.

 Still alive. It didn’t feel very good, though.

 Fortunately, the Viewer was very dead and broken, and no retaliation came when he crawled off the shattered backside and flopped onto the floor. Solid ground. He raised his head to check, there was enough light from… somewhere. The other Viewers that managed to survive with minimal impairments, were up and wallowing around. He should probably move.

 One of the vacant faced peopled heaved its dislocated head his way and gave its most agitated screech.

 He took a long, deep gasp on the dust filled air, and coughed harshly. Definitely needed to move.

 But when he sprang to his feet, they failed him. Not that they were in pain, more like they didn’t want to move him anymore. He crouched low and hugged his knees, taking another hard lungful of more chalky air. It was so hard to breathe; harder to stand and hold his weight. Cringing at the harsh shrill, he dared look back and just see where it was.

 The Viewer swam across the broken bodies, gurgling. If it had eyes, they might’ve been flashing sparks.

 He pitched forward with a wet fit of gagging and made the weirdest noise ever. But his feet seemed to have received the delayed message, because he was stumbling forward, dodging around chunks of ruble and cracked panels of wall. He scrambled over a series of planks and crashed to the other side. The Viewer wouldn’t let up.

 A long slat of light in the wall snagged his undivided focus, and he scurried under a crumbling desk to reach it. For a moment, or forever maybe, the Viewer fumbled around searching. While it is on that mission, he squeezed through the tight opening and shuffled all the way out.

 He never thought the rain would be so good against his dusty clothing. He was barely starting to dry off in there, but he was so choked on dust. He needed to be outside in the air and water for, for a bit.

 Then a sound he decided he did not like, erupted further along the building side. The Viewer flung itself out of a window and landed on the sidewalk in a shower of glittering teeth. It barely landed, when it began twitching.

 He sat down, wrapping his coat tail around his knees and laid his head down. Not unfair. This was so unfair. He didn’t care how wet he was now, or how much of the dirt soaked out of his clothing. Everything was so despairing and empty. He just wanted it all to be over. He wanted to have her back, see that she was safe and in one piece. He wanted more than anything, to see her safe. But he didn’t know if he had it in him anymore, if he had that kind of strength still.

 He shut his eyes and just listened to the rain hammering against the walls and cement around him. The puddles sloshing, the smell of oil and….

 His eyes popped open and a clap of lightening near blinded him. It was a bad dream, replaying itself over and over. His skin bristled, and that whittling pain worked its way through the back of his skull and into his chest. Letting his head roll over, he checked the road, and the mist swirling.

 There he was, at last. The tall thin man, unhurried but always where he needed to be when it was most unhelpful. The rain sizzled across his shoulders and the hat he adorned, though Mono couldn’t really see the person’s face. He imagined he was not pleased to be out in the rain.

 Okay.

 Mono took a deep breath, easing air across his battered ribs. Something popped in his shoulder as he slowly rose, hand stretched to the side of the fissure he crawled through. He needed to steady himself, but the more time he wasted, the nearer the tall gentleman came. He didn’t want to…. He couldn’t….

 Without warning he took off, ducked into a full sprint. Cover-cover-cover-cover-cover-cover! It’s what he needed right now, somewhere to warm his muscles and assess the damage.

 He tried to give the Viewer a wide berth, but the maniacal thing lurched to life and snatched for him. In a reckless leap, he dove over the wrists and kept going with barley a stagger. It was trying to get up behind him, and that was going to be a problem.

 Ahead was the open wound of an alley. Was it the one he looked down on from above? They all looked the same, and usually collected the clutter and canisters that could give him hideouts. He scrambled over a shopping cart and tumbled, clawing to his feet and skipping around the corner. In his wake, the Viewer was still moving at its own pace, though mangled it was.

 What would have normally brought despair, did rekindle optimism. An ugly chasm splint the alley in two down the middle, and much of the terrain was too treacherous in his condition. The reason this sinister gash pleased him though, was due to some sort of… bridge or ruptured fence, along one side. It was flush to the remains of a devastated building, the tall skyscraper bent and as if swaying in the harsh wind.

 If he lost his footing or the slates failed, he would plummet. But the risk was worth it, given his options. He skipped across the chunks of asphalt and made it to the edge. The fence felt study enough, for his weight anyway. Without a thought he latched on and began scooting along the horizontal rail path. He looked over as the Viewer came hurtling across the ruined road, squealing.

 Then it plunged. Nothing was bellow but darkness and mist. He never heard it connect with anything, not even the sides.

 He nearly lost his grip. That was satisfying to watch, even if he didn’t get to see where it wound up. But he had to hurry, he was okay moving but holding still too long ached his muscles. With more care and paying close attention to the wooden slates, he scooched dutifully along. The other side of the chasm wasn’t that far, but he wasn’t accustomed to moving sideways or dangling so long.

 When he reached the end of the level ladder, the end bent and arched downward. He stared at the dark emptiness beneath his feet, and then looked at the eroded ledge further away. And he looked around some more, wondering if there was an easier way to do this; meanwhile, his shoulders burned and his ribs throbbed.

 This might end badly, but it was going to be worse if he stalled longer. Bracing his feet into the fence, he leapt and fell.

 And fell.

 His fingers bore into the clay earth, and his slide was arrested. Okay. Okay. That wasn’t bad-bad.

 Looking up, he inspected the jagged edge of the road. His breath was shaking, each puff shuddering against the paper mask. One hand up, then the next. He dug his toes into the grainy soil and inched up. Little by little. His fingernails fastened into the icy pebbles, and by his fingertips alone, hauled himself up and rolled over the edge. Everything in him whirred or hummed or vibrated; his shoulders trembled, he could scarcely get a good breath in.

  For good measure, he scooted away – palms and knees skittering across the road. Solid ground. He’d never thought he’d be so happy to be on a desolate old road, of all things. He sat on his haunches and tilted his head back, as another impressive slice of light splint the sky. When the radiance faded out, so did his soul. He let his head tilt back further, and further, until his neck was stretched tight. He took a shaky breath and swallowed, but not a thought crossed his mind.

 There was the constant in this treacherous world. A tall man in a hat, a very Thin Man. Approaching, as if he had all the time in the world.

 And as Mono flipped his gaze back to the chasm, and what was meant to be his deliverance from his tormentors, it reverted back into what it had been, and never had ceased being. A death trap. A spring loaded snare. An awaiting grave.

 He sank deep into the safety of his coat and brought his hands to his eyes, blotting out the sight of rain, the reflections in the puddles everywhere, the harsh crash of lightening. His breathing picked up as the bitter prattle of needles drilled his nerves, warning him, begging him. MOVE. He could not, he was done. This was good enough, he needed… he didn’t know what he needed. He didn’t want to need anything, anymore.

 Everything in him seized up when the rain stopped falling.

Next

[thanks-captain-obvious]

How Damian Realized He Loves Marienette: Part 2

Okay. First off, I watched Frozen 2 yesterday and attended gazillion parties this past few days soo the update is late l. Apoarently, a lot of people I know just turned 18. Wow. I feel so ancient.

Anyway, here's the tag's list :)

@maribat-owns-my-ass @bluerosette23 @novicevoice @vixen-uchiha @ladysblackcat @vivilakitty @elspethshadow @dawnwave16 @jardimazul @schrodingers25 @theyellowfeverexperience @derpingrainbow @mikantsume

———

Its been a week since Damian woke up at the manor after that fateful night. Bruce grounded him for acting so foolishly. Thus, no night escapades for him for a month.

Damian didn't really care. He does what he wants.

Meanwhile, Jon is telling him about this cute girl who works at a massage parlor his mother frequents to. Her name is Adrienne Wang.

Damian, after much begging, pestering, convincing from Jon decided to share the story about "Blue", as he dubbed the girl at the park.

He shared about the graceful way she move along with the wind as she owns it, and the blueness of her eyes that could rival the oceans and sky.

Anyway, Jon introduced "Adrienne" to Damian. Damian immediately sensed that there's more to this Adrienne than meets the eye.

And he hates secrets. Secrets are unoredictable. They could harm you, so he immediately warned Jon about Damian.

Jon looked at him funny when he said that.

Imagine his surprise when he got home one day and found Adrienne wandering around the manor.

His immediate thought is: Did Father adopted.... her?

He found out later that he didn't. And thank goodness he confronted his father about it, Bruce admitted he's seriously considering it. Damian revealed his suspicions of Adrienne.

But Bruce dismissed him, saying that Adrienne is an orphan from China, and will be Alfred's personal physical therapist from now on.

Damian couldn't believe his father so he turned to his siblings, turning to Jason first.

Jason adores Adrienne from head to toe.

So is Tim.

And Dick. Who is not surprising because he adores pretty much everyone.

So Damian felt that it is up to him to find out about this Adrienne Wang.

He made no secret of his distrust to Adrienne. Which the girl ignored.

Meanwhile, Damian decided to investigate about Blue as well. For research purposes. Its not like he's undergoing the usual stalking your crush phase. No sir. He is a Wayne and an Al Ghul. Stalking like that is not his thing.

One night, however, during patrol, the Joker decided its too quiet in Gotham and a good shaking the neighborhood is in proper order.

Robin sensed it before he saw it. A crowbar to the head, aimed to give him a painful but instant death.

He glanced around and saw his father running towards him. Damian knows Batman will not make it right on time to save him.

His brothers staring in horror, as absolute dread loomed on their chests.

He turned around and close his eyes, accepting his death.

Which never came.

Because in a blur, a figure tackled the person trying to kill him. He saw as his savior and attacker fall on the floor.

In a jolt, he recognized the petite figure of Adrienne Wang.

He rushed to get the girl on her feet. Though still shaken up, he made sure that the girl is safe and away from the chaos. He gave her a curt "Thank you." before leaving.

Later, in the manor, the Batfam discussed what happened and his brothers and father agreed to offer a room for Adrienne at the manor.

To their surprise, Adrienne refused and almost scurried away from them as if they threatened her life.

Bruce decided to give her a pay raise at least.

It still changed a lot of dynamics in their circle though. Damian, not understanding her and feeling guilty for being suspicious of her before, started to pick more fight with her.

Jason is strongly on Adrienne's side, thus sowing a resentment between the two.

Blue completely disappeared from Damian's mind as his full attention has been focused to finding out the truth about Adrienne.

Damian has been seriously grounded after a big fight with Adrienne. He said something that the usual calm and poised Adrienne took offense to, and run off on the verge of tears from the manor.

He realized he's been such an a-hole to Adrienne and decided to make peace with her the next time he see her, and wait for her to open up about her past instead of going behind her back.

Adrienne did not show to the manor for a month. Jason keep shooting glares at him and even though the others does not do it openly, he still felt their disappointment to him.

Somehow, the next time he saw her is while Scarecrow is wreacking havoc on Gotham.

And once again, Adrienne saved Damian Wayne.

He watched in horror as Adrienne fell oh her knees, after inhaling Scarecrows fear toxin, and sob. No tears leaked out of her eyes but the empy blankness in her eyed, sent him in panic.

Just what is Adrienne's worst nightmare?

She kept whimpering and muttering under her breath. When he strained his ears to focus on it, he heard her say... Adrienne over and over again? Why was she muttering her name.

The Batfam found them later and Bruce gave her an antidote.

Adrienne remained shakened up. The Batfam is in panic.

While sleeping, Adrienne screamed. Everyone quickly dashed on her room and saw the most heartbreaking sight they saw.

Vases broken, everything trashed on the room, and in the middle of it is Adrienned who keeps screaming "Chat Noir please wake up."

Bruce investigated who is Chat Noir and saw articles about a young black cat-themed superhero who died fighting a villain, and his partner who disappeared after the villain is arrested.

At the same time, he found out about the missing child of Gabriel Agreste, who is the villain otherwise known as Hawkmoth.

And on one of investigation, he saw a picture of a girl who looks exactly like Adrienne— and her name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Bruce then managed to put two plus two together. Chat Noir is Adrien and apparently, Adrienne, or Marinette should he say, is close to the superhero.

He tried to investigate about the whereabouts of this Marinette, and found nothing. The last he saw is her application for passport to America— specifically, Gotham.

Alfred convinced him not to mention it to the girl in the meantime.

Damian heard his father and Alfred discussing and thus, finding out the truth as well.

He then vowed to himself to protect Marinette, the girl who became a sort of guardian angel with the amount of times she saved him.

When she woke up, he would keep checking on her and attending to her needs. He even started calling her Angel.

A few days later, Adrienne come clean to the Batfam about her real name. She explained everything to them, minus she's a superhero part. She felt that revealing her real name to them is too much as it is.

Anyway, the bond between Marinette and Damian formed and over the course of few weeks, everyone can't help but notice how Damian will light up (which spook his brothers at first) upon seeing Marinette.

Yo pips that's all for today. I'm tired again. Lol.