#you cling to your memories of her from your early college years and the easy closeness the two of you had

[echeveriia]

i’m in full ‘i should text her’ mode help what do i do

[marveldc-imagines-hub]

Subtitles: Episode 8, Previously On

Subtitles Masterlist

Summary: As they seek out Vision a Westview that doesn’t seem to want them to find him, more memories from [Y/N]’s past begin to appear. They almost seem drawn out of the dark depths of their mind by some unseen force but it’s hard to tell whether it’s friend or foe. Who is forcing [Y/N]’s memories to the forefront of their mind--Wanda or someone else?--and is it tied to the suddenly hostile Westview blocking them from finding Vision? Who is trying to keep them distracted?

Word count: 6,584

Warnings: Cursing, descriptions of death and declining mental health. Mostly angst, tbh.

Tag list: @madamevirgo @ravennight41 @multifandomgirl16 @cyanide-mustard @badasspolygenderfriend @austynparksandpizza @sophster1881 @haileyybird​ @maceidelic​ @alexpress @angelvinella

Ko-Fi Shoppe

~~~

You were too busy trying to calm the anxious gnawing in your stomach to notice Westview subtly changing around you. It wasn’t until a vine wrapped tightly around your ankle and made you almost trip and fall face-first into a fire hydrant that you looked around with a frown.

    The vine itself—thick, spiky, and definitely not native to the suburbs of New Jersey—had sprouted from cracks in the sidewalk, which spread and opened further as other vines crept after it. After tearing the one holding you off and stepping out of its reach, you noticed the fences of houses reaching far past their yards to create maze-like paths that covered the sidewalks and street ahead of you. The houses that these fences belonged to were also warped in a way that made them look like you were viewing them through funhouse mirrors, stretching far into the sky and bending overhead in your direction like they meant to block you from leaving in that direction—or meant to block you from being seen by anyone flying overhead.

    Your eyebrows arched so far up on your forehead that you weren’t sure that they were still there. “What the fuck is going on?”

    You weren’t as concerned about the magic happening itself—if some random civilian walked by, they’d barely react at all and the maze and houses weren’t causing any actual damage, just being incredibly annoying—as you were by the fact that you couldn’t tell who was doing it. Your first thought was Wanda, naturally, but it made no sense that she’d be trying to keep you from finding Vision when she was the one who’d originally sent you to go get him; not to mention that she’s never created such a bizarre display of magic, at least intentionally. You considered yourself next, as you’ve known yourself to cause random transmutations when you get too antsy, but this wasn’t the type of power that you controlled and when you tried to reach out to interact with the energy, you received opposition instead of energy bending to your will. It was somewhat difficult to pick out because it seemed to hide away under the blanket of Wanda’s magic that reached across everything in Westview, but the aura of the twisted architecture surrounding you was dark and hostile.

    You first attempted to humor whatever magic was at play and made your way through the maze but as you did so, the fences shifted around you to extend their white picket prison. You stopped and sighed. “The end is nigh… and I am not going to spend it dealing with this shit.”

    A little voice in the back of your head told you that you could probably set fire to the whole magic mirror setup and be done with it but you ultimately decided against it; Wanda would probably find out and definitely wouldn’t be happy when she did. Instead, you placed your hands on the fence and as you did so, posts morphed into gates that you could easily pass through. You continued through the maze via this method and were surprised to feel the opposing magic back away from you after your pushback.

    “Oh, thank god,” you grumbled under your breath as you made it through the last of the maze. 

Unfortunately, you celebrated too early as the cement underneath your feet suddenly began to melt back into its liquid form. It would have been fairly easy to use your powers to reharden the cement but exhausting yourself fighting with the opposing force until the sidewalks of Westview shifted into grassy fields on its outskirts seemed like a bad idea in the long run, especially with the twins’ disappearance, Wanda dealing with Agnes’s strange behavior, Monica’s return, and the warning churn of your stomach telling you to stay alert. So, you settled for trudging along through wet cement until the magic decided to back off again.

Not so much trying to cause damage as it’s trying to mildly inconvenience me, is it? you thought.

Just as before, once the magic trying to keep you distracted was rivaled by your own, it receded and you were soon walking on the regular, hard sidewalk once more. You cleaned your pants and shoes up by turning the wet cement still clinging to them into something much more manageable—water—and continued on your way. Sorting through the mix of concern, nips of mild hunger, and the energy-seeking compass in the center of your now twisting in every which direction, you managed to eventually focus back into the feeling of Vision somewhere in the distance. It got stronger as you walked, so you began to pick up the pace.

Then your unseen opponent returned, stronger and now in the mental realm instead of the physical. At first, you thought the kickback was just Westview’s borders—the Hex, Monica had called it—trying to right the wrongs of someone within it having memories of the outside world, something you’d experienced before. However, you felt the menace rippling underneath the surface of the haze and when you tried to fight back this time, you were met with an angry strength. The fog making your head feel heavy seemed to spread through your bloodstream and take home in your bones, weighing your body down until you stood still and lame in the middle of a random neighborhood. You were a prisoner in your own body; you couldn’t move even if you wanted to, but you didn’t even know if you did because your brain was so full of dark storm clouds that you couldn’t think straight. You knew that you stared slack-jawed into space but it felt more like you were sitting in a dark room inside your skull and watching the outside world from a TV screen. As you watched on, the fog that took over your mind and body took your eyesight too.

===

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The first few memories were fleeting. 

You were a few years old and holding your mother’s hand. It was much less boney and knotted than you remembered your mother’s hand being, as was the rest of her. She was younger and stronger, standing next to you in a worn nurse uniform and overcoat and staring ahead with a scowl, concealing whatever emotions she was feeling otherwise. You were in a bedroom that was only vaguely familiar to you and the two of you watched an old man that was barely more than a skeleton slept under a heap of fraying blankets. As you stared on through the wide eyes of your child self, your grandfather heaved a final breath before falling into a deep, eternal slumber.

A couple of years older, you were in the old but cozy, sunny yellow kitchen that your mom love to cook in. You sat at the dining room table, kicking your legs and picking at the splitting wood as your mother and a stranger argued in the other room. You had never heard your mother raise her voice to such an extent before but at the time, you were much more concerned about what kind of sandwich you were going to help her make for lunch. You never saw the stranger aside from a flash of [H/C] as he left and he was never seen or heard of again.

You were still in the kitchen but its appearance had changed ever so slightly. Yours did too, as you were a teenager now, and now your mother sat across from you at the table. Though she was still healthy now, her overall haggard appearance would be one that she carried on for years to come. She was telling you about her doctor’s appointment but you were only somewhat listening as you were stressed about high school drama and final assignments to be turned in before summer break. You heard words like “dementia” and “Alzheimer’s” but the meanings were lost on you in that moment.

Then you were in a nursing home. You could feel the harsh lighting, hear the TV from the lounge behind you. The smell of cleaning supplies burned your nostrils but the smell of your mother’s stale perfume soothed it. Unfortunately, nothing could soothe the ache that made your heart feel like it was going to shrivel up and die when you came to tell her that you changed your major in college so you would be better equipped to help her, only for her unable to recall having a child at all.

You were pinned against a wall in a Sokovian HYDRA base, although you didn’t know the organization that you were studying with was HYDRA at the time. Shivers of equal parts fear and exhilaration made your entire body quiver and the clipboard you’d been holding clattered to the ground. While a large group of Sokovian war protestors had to hunch together to fit in the cramped and cold holding room, Wanda seemed to take up the majority of the space just from her spot of holding you into place. Her hair was a mess and her face and clothes were dirty but her eyes were full of more life than you’d experienced during your entire time working in the base. She was angry and determined and powerful and gorgeous, and she told you that if you ever ran into her again that she’d kill you—and you were surprised with how okay you were about the idea, as long as you got to see her again. When she let you go and you apologized, she told you what she and the others were doing here; this was the catalyst that sent you investigating into HYDRA and finding out about their much more sinister nature, as well as the pain you’d helped cause.

Finally, the slide show of memories slowed and instead of being confined to your brain, you were back in your own body—or so you thought until you looked around and found yourself staring at a younger copy of yourself. Instead of Westview, you were in a HYDRA testing room, and instead of simply re-experiencing, you were quite literally watching a memory unfold around you as if you were an unwanted audience member standing around the active set of a TV show. Or a ghost, you decided, as the younger you walked through you as if you were nothing but air.

Your younger self was dressed in an all-black work uniform and lab attire, with an identification card clipped to your chest that granted you high-level clearance. You’d worked immensely hard playing HYDRA’s game to get to where you were now, which was standing in the control room with two other agents and preparing to analyze the test about to unfold on the other side of a large glass window. In the test chamber, a door slowly slid open and Wanda, unkempt and spacey, entered.

You wanted to break her out. Judging by the way your younger self tensed up—not enough to be noticed by your superiors; you’d mastered your mother’s emotional lockdown of a scowl at this point—your feelings weren’t far off from the initial experience. 

Wanda made her way farther into the room, closer to a scepter with a glowing blue stone that was being held on a pedestal. As she did so, the younger you readied their clipboard and pen to take notes and one of the two agents spoke, “For our notes, Miss Maximoff, can you please state your name and confirm your status?”

The younger copy of your current partner did as she was told. “Wanda Maximoff. Volunteer.”

“Begin experimentation,” the other agent—a doctor and one of your immediate superiors—stated.

“Doctor,” the first man said, “with respect, not one subject has survived direct contac—”

He was broken off as the doctor flicked on the intercom to speak to Wanda again. “Touch the sample.”

Wanda made her way forward but before she could do much, the stone suspended in the scepter—the mind stone, you knew now—detached itself and floated towards her. As it got closer, its glow grew brighter and bright blue magic wafted over Wanda as she stared before reaching out to touch it. While you remembered this situation thus far, what happened next was completely new to you. The mind stone shattered before Wanda’s eyes, revealing yellow golden yellow magic that poured from the remains. There was an explosion of light and within it was a flash of a shadow. From where you were standing, you couldn’t quite make out the shape.

Then the light died and Wanda collapsed, and the rest of the memory ran as you remembered. The scientist and doctor ran out to check that Wanda was still alive, while your younger self recollected themselves enough to take pictures of notes and research reports from the control desk with an old school digital camera that they’d managed to sneak in.

“Well,” a familiar, incredibly out-of-place voice sounded from behind you, “that’s a surprise. I had no idea you and [Y/N] went so far back.”

You spun around to see Agnes and a modern Wanda standing just behind you. Agnes watched your echo with mild curiosity as they carefully rifled through the control desk and gathered as much information as they could to examine at a later time. The dark energy that radiated off the woman was the same that you’d sensed earlier, hiding just underneath Wanda’s own. Being this close to the unhidden source now, the magic felt sharp and acidic and tasted like bile on the back of your tongue. The anxiety that had been gnawing at your stomach increased tenfold as your guts twisted around themselves. It had been Agnes all along.

Past you finished their investigation as they were called in to take Wanda to solitary by one of the other HYDRA agents. When they rushed out of the control room, they passed through Wanda and Agnes, confirming that the women were in a similar state of being to you.

Surprisingly, Agnes was completely unaware of current you’s presence. She walked casually over to the desk and attempted to make sense of younger you’s rummaging before making a face and shrugging.

Wanda, on the other hand, was staring directly at you. To anyone else, it could be said that she was simply looking through you who the commotion happening in the test chamber, but when you met her gaze, the slightest of jaw clenches told you otherwise. While it was Agnes—Not Agnes, a ghost of a whisper in sounded in your head—whose magic had been toying with you, it seemed that it was Wanda’s doing, at least to some extent, that brought you to watch this scene with them. 

“You know,” the ravenette said, “I really did like them for a while. They were fun to string along for entertainment, and they were a hoot at events and to run errands with. Such an awkward little thing. I could see their crush from a mile away whenever you three were around each other. I just thought they’d be the out-of-place, pining neighbor whose love was unrequited, a comedic plot device of sorts. I didn’t think you would actually return their feelings, let alone both you and your husband, you naughty dogs. I should have known sooner that something was up.”

You and me both, sister, you thought with a soundless snort.

“Oh well,” Agnes—question mark?—said with another shrug, “our friendship was fun while it lasted. Let me know if you ever get bored with them. We did often flirt a bit, [Y/N] and I.”

“What do they have to do with any of this?” Wanda asked, throwing a mild glower in the other woman’s direction.

“Why don’t you tell me?” Agnes responded with a sickly sweet smile, then walked past Wanda and out of the testing room. “Come along, dear! We’ve got much more digging to do.”

Wanda glanced at you one last time before following. After a moment, you trailed after them.

===

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Past Wanda was sitting and watching sitcoms via the one amenity she had the dungeon-like room she was held in when your past self walked in.

“Wanda,” past you gasped and moved to rush to her side before freezing and throwing a glance towards a security camera in one corner of the room. The faintest blue-black light danced appeared to dance around your echo’s fingers as the lens of the camera warped and changed into a round silver disc, then the light disappeared and you watched yourself hurry to younger Wanda’s side. 

She didn’t acknowledge you until you placed a gentle hand on her back. She jumped a bit and turned her glassy-eyed, hollow-cheeked face towards you; in the same instant, the TV turned off. 

Past Wanda offered past you a wobbly smile that you returned. You reached into your pocket and pulled out a candy wrapped in colored foil that looked neon in comparison to the dull coloring of the rest of the environment.

“Hey, look, Wanda,” you tried, offering the candy to her, “I brought you something. Remember these? You told me once that they’re your favorite.”

Wanda stared blankly at your gift. After a moment, she took it and began picking at the foil.

Past you gave past Wanda another strained smile. Your furrowed brows caused deep lines to be etched into your forehead, showing no lack of concern, but you tried to stay positive. Gingerly running your hand up and down Wanda’s back, you carefully looked over as she freed the chocolate-covered candy from its wrapper. “You look good. You’re doing much better than you were when we brought you back.”

Wanda’s eyes lazily traced the pattern of the room’s stone walls as she brought her treat to her lips and carefully nibbled at it. When she found it free of tampering, she relaxed a bit and popped it into her mouth.

You watched as your past self rested their chin on her shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m going to get you out of here, Wanda. I promise that I’m going to save you. I just… wish you’d let me help you more.”

Well, young me, you thought, you certainly broke that promise, then went off and murdered a bunch of people. Nice job.

Wanda’s past self finally fully acknowledged yours; she rested her head on top of yours and her thin fingers brushed brushed over the knuckles of one of your hands. She shook her head and mumbled, “I have to do this. For my people.”

Your echo sighed. The two of you sat like that together for a few moments longer before you separated yourself from her and headed out of the room. As you walked out of the room, the silver that blocked the security camera transformed back into a lens. Wanda looked back to the TV and blinked, and the television turned back on.

“Huh,” Agnes piped up to Wanda again, “they were just as piney here as they are in Westview then. Weird. I thought they had a reputation as a crazy psycho killer outside? Hoo boy, did you see any of the work that they did after Sokovia? I looked into it when I figured out that they weren’t just another ordinary townee. The Alchemist? Wished I’d managed to keep them on my side; I’d love to sit down and talk about all the ways they tore up those agents.”

You grimaced. You never regretted going on a HYDRA manhunt but it wasn’t exactly one of your most redeeming qualities.

Wanda frowned. “Trying to cope with all they had done while working with HYDRA was too much and they had to do it alone. I told [Y/N] I would return but then I never did. They thought it was their only solution.”

You were surprised to hear her empathize with you, let alone know about your revenge spree at all. You hadn’t realized how much it felt like a secret that you had been keeping from her until a weight was lifted off your shoulders when she talked about it.

“Still,” Agnes said nonchalantly, “turning an alive former HYDRA agent into a very much not alive scarecrow and leaving posting him up in his own field? Genius and I love the creativity. And the way they turned the guy who shot them into a bloody bag of bones? Delicious.

“But anyway,” she went on, the glee in her voice shifting to something more pensive, “little orphan Wanda got up close and personal with an Infinity Stone that amplified what otherwise would’ve died on the vine. The broken pieces of you are adding up, buttercup. I have a theory, but I need more.”

With a wave of her hand, a dark wood door appeared in the room’s far wall. Wanda’s eyes widened slightly with recognition and she immediately walked forward and through it. Agnes trailed cheerfully after her.

You made a move to follow them but you didn’t make it before Agnes shut the door behind her. You jiggled the doorknob but the door wouldn’t budge, and then it melted back into the wall and vanished altogether. While you were relieved to be away from Agnes’s acrid magic, panic rose in the back of your throat at the idea of Wanda being alone with Agnes and you being trapped in a bizarre memory realm with no idea of how to get out. You ran your hands along the wall in hopes of finding the door’s outline once more, to no avail. You spun around to search for another route—

—and you were suddenly standing on a street in Westview. 

This wasn’t Westview as you currently knew it but Westview before Wanda had turned it into her special little safe haven. Instead of watching this memory like a movie, you were now involuntarily reliving it as a prisoner of your head again as your body and mouth move on its own accord.

You were paused mid-walk across the street and staring at a breathtakingly gleeful Vision for the very first time. He was standing out in the open without a human disguise of any kind, wearing a very attractive form-fitting turtleneck and looking over an empty plot of land. He must have felt you staring because he turned his warm, earth-shaking gaze towards you.

“Hello there!” he hollered with a friendly wave and a smile that made you wonder if one look from a stranger could make you weep over how attractive they were. He stepped from the dirt plot to the sidewalk, then made his way to the curb. He held a slightly crumpled piece of paper in one hand and you could see a red heart in its center out of the corner of your eye.

For whatever reason—maybe because of the fact that there was a very inhuman-looking man, who was causing your body to have all sorts of reactions, walking towards you—you felt compelled to walk over and meet him. 

“Excuse me,” Vision said as you got closer and pointed to the lot behind him, “I’m looking to buy this spot here. Do you live around here?”

Temporarily, while I try to look for a cure for my dumb-bitch memory disease, you thought. Instead of saying this aloud, though, you said something much more stupid. “Are you aware that you’re red?”

Vision blinked. He looked at his hands if he was in fact just now realizing this, then looked back at you with wide eyes. One hand moved to touch the golden gem embedded in his forehead, which you now connected to the mind stone on the previous memory that you had experienced—Wanda’s memory. 

“Oh, goodness,” Vision said, “yes I am. I’m sorry, I hope my appearance doesn’t make you uncomfortable. If it does, I could make a more appealing one—”

You felt yourself break into a grin and one of your hands waved itself dismissively at him. “Not sure there’s a way to make yourself any more appealing than you already are. It’s just unusual is all.”

Vision chewed on one side of his bottom lip before smiling sheepishly at you. If only you’d been able to tell when this interaction had actually happened that he was “blushing” in the only way his synzethoid body allowed over you complimenting him; you would have had a field day with making him flustered.

Then his eyes drifted slightly above your eyeline and the hand touching his forehead gem fluttered slightly to the right—his left. Without thinking of how it might come off, he said, “You’re unusual-looking yourself.”

Luckily, you weren’t too easily offended. You briefly touched the gunshot scar on your forehead with one hand, the exit wound scar on your neck with the other, before dropping them both and shrugging. “Got shot in the head once. Operation gone wrong.”

“A soldier?” 

Unfortunately, the version of you in this memory was already struggling to recall memories. Instead of telling the pretty stranger that, though, you said, “Something like that.”

Vision nodded and awkwardly fiddled with the paper in his hands. His gaze flitted around before settling on you again, “Well, I think you’re appealing too.”

You felt your cheeks grow warm but you hid your embarrassment with a snicker. “Thanks.”

The man cleared his throat. “Yes, well, that’s good then, isn’t it? That we both like each other’s looks just fine. Not… that I want you to find my visuals appealing. Not— not that that’s a bad thing to be doing so either! It’s just that—” he paused to collect himself. “I have a partner. A girlfriend of sorts.”

“Of sorts?”

“It hasn’t really been discussed,” he clarified, “but we are deep in the throughs of our relationship.”

“Congrats? Also yeah.”

Vision blinked. “I’m sorry?”

You pointed over your shoulder. “I live around here. In a hotel more often than a home but I’m considering getting a rental a couple houses over.”

Because if I don’t find who I’m looking for—a doctor? Scientist maybe?—I’ll be stuck here until I remember where I came from.

    You were brought out of your grumbling thoughts by the childish excitement that erupted from Vision’s shining smile and spread throughout his body until he was practically vibrating. He quickly scrambled the rest of the way over and flashed the paper he held at you, then almost immediately folded it up before you could actually see anything other than a flash of red on white. He told you how wonderful it was to be meeting someone from the neighborhood and before you open your mouth to say anything in response, a billion questions seemed to pour one after the other from his mouth. You caught a few—did you know why the plot he was looking at was open, if there was a nefarious reason behind it lacking any home already? Was the neighboorhood safe, did you like it there?—but you soon found yourself distracted by the way the gear-like patterns in his blue irises swirled faster as Vision became increasingly giddy.

    Then one word came flying out of his rambling mouth and you felt like you had been hit in the gut with a sack of bricks. You actually had to stop yourself from choking on a gasping breath and steel yourself in preparation in case he said her name again. Luckily, Vision seemed too deep in his his own thoughts that he didn’t notice you blanching from the kickback of yours.

    Wanda? It couldn’t be. It wasn’t like there weren’t any other Wandas in the world. Then again, you’d never met another Wanda since your Wanda and there was something about her name coming from his mouth that assured you that his Wanda was yours too.

    Is that why you had come to Westview? Was Wanda the one you were looking for?

    You placed a hand on Vision’s shoulder, both as a way of grounding yourself and grabbing the man’s attention. It worked and Vision’s bumbling died off as he looked at you with wide eyes.

    “I’m so sorry,” he said, and lifted his free hand to scratch at the side of his neck, “I got quite carried away there, didn’t I?”

    This past version of you wanted so desperately ask about the Wanda he spoke of, to confirm that she was the Wanda that you’d known in what seemed to be a past life at this point. You wanted to know if she was safe, happy, and if he was taking care of her in the way that she so needed after everything she had been through. When you looked at Vision, though, and the plot plans in his hand and the place of his and her future home, you bit your tongue. Something told you that it wasn’t your time to ask nor was it your right to do so. It had been so long since you’d tried to help the Sokovian woman escape a dingy HYDRA base and failed, and wherever she was now, she was probably better off without you intruding.

    You put on a mask of a friendly smile to hide the way your heart was being picked to pieces by a thousand imaginary needles and gave Vision’s shoulder an equally friendly pat. “No worries. I do have to stop you, though, have an appointment to get to. I’m really not the person to ask about future home life—like I said, usually a hotel—but if I have anything to tell you, it’s that this is a good place to settle.”

    Vision beamed. “Really?”

    You dropped your arm and stepped away from the robotic stranger to take your leave. “This place is easy to turn into a home. You’ll love it here.”

    Vision heaved a sigh a relief and he waved to you and you gave a parting nod and began walking. “Thank you! Oh, and it was nice meeting you, neighbor! Hope to see you again soon!”

    Something deep in your heart told you that you wouldn’t be seeing the British gentleman again, or maybe you were finally coming to terms with the fact that your brain would drop yoru memory of him before the day was over. You cast one last glance over your shoulder, trying to commit every detail of Vision to memory the best that you could, before heading back across the street.

    “Looking forward to it!”

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    One minute you were walking and the next you couldn’t feel any part of your body that was below your waistline. The scene had shifted again and you now found yourself staring spacily off ahead. You were outside and you felt the familiar presence of a large facility behind you but you couldn’t place what the building was for or why you were there. In fact, try as you might, you couldn’t place much meaning to anything. Your brain was blank aside from several questions that you had no answers to.

    Why were you in a wheelchair? What had happened to your legs? Why were you outside? Why were there old people and people in scrub uniforms milling around you and talking to you in passing as if you had any idea who they were? Where was your mom? You had classes to attend and needed a ride.

    You took a sighing breath and felt a tanginess of citrus on your tongue that sent shockwaves throughout your body—or what left of it that you could feel. Your eyes shot open wide and you swung your head around, looking for the source of the taste of candied citrus, the feeling of thin fingers carefully brushing across your knuckles. There was a memory there, clawing just under the surface of thought-killing fungus that seemed to have taken over your head over… however long it had been now. You just had to remember—

    Before you could could remember, you saw her appear before your very eyes. She was walking down the street past you with only a green yard and strip of sidewalk separating the two of you. She wore a dark outfit and her hair cascaded behind her in the breeze, fluttering like flames. You couldn’t see her face well because of the distance you could feel the deep, powerful sadness radiating off her in waves; it was almost strong enough to force you into tears. Still, she walked with purpose and she held a piece of paper in her hand that she glanced at every other second. She happened to turn her head to toss a stray chunk of her back over her shoulder and for a brief moment you thought that her dark eyes met yours.

    You screamed her name and attempted to chase after her. However, in that moment, you forgot that you were paralyzed from the waist down and stuck in a wheelchair, so when you lurched forward to stand, you were quickly greeted by hard earth knocking the wind out of you. You hissed in pain but the impact didn’t stop you, nor did your lack of working legs. You shoved the wheelchair away in a fit of irritation, then began crawling your way across the public yard, following a trail of a very specific shade of red as you dragged your body along.

    You didn’t make it very far before you felt strong hands grasp your shoulders. You flailed around, prepared to fight whoever was trying to disrupt your mission, only for you stop struggling altogether when a flash of reddish hair appeared in the corner of your vision. You looked up at and stared at the only face that held solidity in your mind with eyes the size of dinner plates as she knelt next to you and helped you into a decent sitting position. Once you were settled, her hands moved from your arms to cradling your face and when you could see the heartbreak in her eyes this time, you actually did feel a few tears wet your cheeks.

    Your eyes fluttered shut as her gentle hands caressed your face, brushed away the tears that were now flowing like a waterfall. Your own hands found their way to her waist and you held on for dear life. With a wobbly voice that was barely above a whisper, you gasped her name again, “Wanda…”

    You felt the warm touch of her forehead pressing against yours, her nose ungracefully bumping against your cheek as she held you. “[Y/N]?”

    Hearing your name on her tongue sent you into a fit of sobbing laughter, though you weren’t sure why. Goosebumps erupted across your skin and you felt the stuttering of a billion bird’s wings in your stomach, pounding against your ribcage. You had so many things you wanted to say and yet you could remember a single word, so you merely fell into a bumbling chant of “My Wanda, my Wanda, my Wanda, my Wanda…” Your eyes stayed squeezed shut for fear that if you opened them, she would no longer be there. 

    Wanda’s lips brushed against your eyelids and then your cheeks, not quite leaving kisses but a warm, tingly feeling nonetheless. A smile was there, you could feel the curve of it as her mouth traveled from your temple to your hairline, but it was one of the same sadness that you’d seen in her eyes. She mumbled against your scarred forehead, “Oh, [Y/N], what happened to you…?”

    You finally opened your eyes—luckily, she didn’t vanish into thin air once you did—and finally met her gaze again. You moved your hands to cover hers that still held your face and pressed them harder against your cheeks, as if you could imprint her fingerprints into your skin.

    After a moment of just silently basking in her presence, you sighed softly and replied, “I don’t know.”

    Pain further etched itself into the lines of Wanda’s face; you quickly reached out to smooth them out with your fingertips.

    “You don’t remember anything?”

    “Not much,” you replied. Then you smiled. “I know you. All I know for sure is you.”

    Wanda looked like she was on the verge of bursting into tears herself but she swallowed her sobs instead. She adjusted her position and sat back slightly, scrubbed her hands over her eyes and looked around at your surroundings. She glanced at the paper she’d once been holding but now sat in the grass next to her before her gaze settled back on you. Sadness shifted into determination as she took your face her hands once more.

    “I’m going to get you out of here, [Y/N],” she said, “I promise I’m going to save you.”

    You went to nod but the sound of something flying overhead caught your attention, then a flash of yellow light over Wanda’s shoulder.

    A powerful jerk in your stomach seemed to control your entire body, forcing your head and body upward. Then you were standing on the sidewalk on the outskirts of a neighborhood with a maze of twisted houses and picket fences behind you. You were no longer trapped inside your own head, watching or reliving memories, but standing mid-step in the Westview that was bubbled by a Hex of modern Wanda’s own creation.

    Vision was flying through the air nearby and approaching fast.

    Your powers seemed to move one step ahead of your mind; before you finished the thought, one of the fun mirror houses was turned into a staircase that led to nowhere in the sky. As you turned and began racing up them, you waved your arms in Vision’s direction and hollered, “Hey! Toaster oven!”

    Vision was clearly on a mission home but you managed to catch his attention before he flew too far past you. He rounded back around and met you at the top of your stairs. He quickly surveyed your immediate surroundings, taking in the bizarre scenery before casting a concerned look your way. “What in the world is going on here?”

    “Uh, well,” you paused and took a glance around yourself, then rambled off, “I just spent a nondescript amount of time trapped in a mental live-action remake of my past and I’m pretty sure Agnes is not Agnes but some unpleasant, magic-y person who kidnapped our kids and now is trying to get… something, I’m not sure what, from Wanda. Also, I think she might have a crush on me and I’m pretty sure she caused the carnival set-up next to us.”

    Vision blinked. “Well, that’s… a lot.”

    You hummed your agreement and nodded. Then you held out your arms to him. “Shall we?”

    Vision eyed you from your place on a freshly mutated staircase then snorted softly as he gathered you into his arms, bridal style. “Surely there must be a way for you to travel with those powers of yours.”

    “There is,” you affirmed, “but this is probably faster and I should probably keep my strength to save our kids and your wife. Oh, by the way.”

    Vision gave you a questioning him as he prepared for flight. You wrapped your hands around his neck and brought your lips to his in an quick kiss. When you pulled away, you met his curious gaze and said, “I’m so happy to have met you.”

    Vision’s expression grew warmer and returned your kiss with a softer one of his own. He briefly nuzzled his forehead against yours before pulling away.

    “I’m glad to have met you too,” he said softly. Then he shifted his gaze to look past you, towards home, and he said, “Now, let’s go get our family.”

[threeletterslife]

01 | Redefining Destiny

→ next chapter

→ summary: You were convinced you were in love with him. A former member of the mafia in the states, that is. It was true love. Destiny. Until one day you wake up with a memory lapse; then that love is replaced with hatred. The thought of marriage is substituted with revenge. If your love with Jeon Jungkook really was destiny, you’d fall head over heels in love again. But if only he weren’t such a hot, goading asshole. 

→ pairing/rating: jungkook x reader | PG-13

→ genre: 70% fluff, 25% crack, 5% angst | e2l!au & soulmate!au

→ warnings: none??? (ok fine JK thinks ‘shit’ once but that doesn’t really count)

→ wordcount: 3.4k

Sweat slowly trickles down the back of Jungkook's neck as he stands behind the fiery heat of the burger grill. He's been gripping the metal spatula for so long that there's an angry red dented mark in his right hand. The greasy smell of oil from the french fries has penetrated through his nose for hours now; at this point, he has no other choice but to breathe sparingly through his mouth. God, he hates working overtime.

But he desperately wants to provide for you financially, and working overtime at his local burger joint was just one small step closer to financial stability when you both graduate. It's the least he can do for you.

Jungkook adjusts his red hat, which is part of his work uniform and checks the clock hanging on the wall. Ten minutes and he's out of here. He can definitely take this hot, stuffy kitchen for ten more minutes. He's been through a lot worse in his life; in comparison, this was nothing.

Ten minutes pass painstakingly slowly, but once the clock strikes 10 p.m., Jungkook pushes the spatula into his co-worker's hands and dashes out of the kitchen, grabbing his casual clothes from his corner at the back and rushing into the restroom to change. He hates the greasy, fast-food smell that clings onto his work clothes even more than you do.

And today's supposed to be a special day. Normally after a late shift, Jungkook likes to go home and lay in bed with you as you stroke his soft hair until he falls asleep. But today is definitely a special day.

When Jungkook comes out of the bathroom wearing his normal black jeans and an oversized hoodie, he sees his long-time friend Yoongi waving at him in a corner seat of the parlor. Jungkook smiles, rushing over to slide into the seat across from his friend.

"Hey," Yoongi says. "Just finished your shift?"

"Yeah," Jungkook answers.

"How was it?"

"It was okay," Jungkook lies. "It's bearable. And it's extra money."

"It's been a while since we got to meet up like this, huh?" Yoongi sighs. "How are you holding up?"

"Since..." Jungkook whispers.

Yoongi nods. "It's been nearly two years, Jungkook, but I know how much you miss them... or him."

Jungkook nods solemnly. Yoongi's right. It has been nearly two years since the Crescents collapsed and everyone but Jungkook was murdered on the spot. He's been having nightmares about that night ever since it had happened. Nightmares about his best friend... Taehyung... He shudders just thinking about it.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Yoongi says. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for it."

"It's really fine," Jungkook says, shaking his head. "It's not a big deal... I just miss Tae once in a while. It doesn't always plague my thoughts," he lies. "Besides, I have Y/N, you know?"

Yoongi nods, smiling. "You lost a loved one so the universe brought you another."

But Jungkook doesn't think anyone could become the Taehyung of his life—not even you, though he loves you more than mere words can describe.

"Oh, right. I forgot to tell you, Jungkook," Yoongi says, leaning forward in his seat and grinning. He's trying to lighten up the mood; Jungkook can tell. "My wife's pregnant!"

"Really?" Jungkook gasps, his eyes turning wide as he stares at his proud-looking friend. Well, this was news that he hadn't expected at all. "Wow, congratulations!" He really means it.

"I dunno about congratulations, but I am pretty glad I'm finally going to be a father," Yoongi hums. "Except that child is hoarding my wife's attention. And I'm kinda nervous," he sighs. "A lot of pressure to be a perfect example now..."

Jungkook nods. "I can imagine. But you'll be a great father."

His friend smiles. "Thanks. That means a lot. Anyways, how's school been going?" Yoongi asks, resting his head on his propped up hand. "I know you were kinda worried because of the age gap and everything..."

Yoongi's right. It wasn't easy to start up school again after neglecting to go to college in his early adult years. He would be at least three years older (or more) than everyone else in his classes... and he hadn't touched a textbook or actively listened to a lecture since senior year of high school. He was worried that he would be severely behind all the bright and chipper students who hadn't taken several gap years. And he was behind at first. But his determination to be somehow involved in law was just so much greater than the adversities that academics hurled at him, that he fought through. Of course, you'd helped him as well. So, as of now, school was going—

"Great, actually," Jungkook answers. "It's because I'm doing what I'm interested in."

"Good," Yoongi answers. "My wife sends you her best of luck. She said being a paralegal will definitely suit you."

Jungkook smiles. "Tell her I said thanks. That was sweet of her."

"You know my wife," Yoongi snorts. "Always trying to do the right thing. Oh yeah," he pauses, "how's the love of your life?"

"She puts up with me," Jungkook chuckles. "She's been great. We've been talking about her moving in for a while and it finally happened a few weeks ago."

"That's amazing, Jungkook," Yoongi says, smiling. "You really love her. I can tell."

Jungkook laughs, face heating up just thinking about you. "You know what's funny? I hated you for the longest time—no offense—because you left us, you know, for your wife. But now I know what it feels like to be crazy in love."

Yoongi snorts. "Yeah. Wait until she's pregnant with your kid, though."

"I still think I would love her as much as I do now," Jungkook says. "I don't think our love can ever fade."

Yoongi laughs out loud. "Oh, to be young and in love!" he declares.

Jungkook makes a face that makes Yoongi laugh even harder. "You're only a year older," Jungkook protests. "And if you were in school, we'd be in the same year!"

"Sure, sure," Yoongi says.

Jungkook's about to say something snarky to get back at Yoongi when he hears the familiar tune of your favorite song playing on his phone. Last Valentine's Day, you'd gone out of your way to customize Jungkook's ringtone when you call him. It was some Christian song that you belted out every Sunday at the top of your lungs—a song that Jungkook knew every word to after listening to it so many times. "Hold up, my girlfriend's calling," Jungkook says, fishing out his phone and clearing his throat to answer.

Yoongi leans back, nodding to himself as he watches his younger friend get excited over a call from his girlfriend. Jungkook presses his phone against his ear, lips already pulling up into a smile just at the thought of talking to you.

"Hey, baby!" you chirp the moment Jungkook picks up. "Can we please have ramen for dinner? I'm craving it so hard for some reason! And it's not like we can really afford anything else..."

"Of course, baby," Jungkook says, unbelievably happy just hearing your voice. "Do you want me to make it when I get home?"

"Yes, please!" you exclaim in your bright, golden voice. "We have a nasty quiz in ethics tomorrow, remember? I have no idea how you're hanging out with Yoongi knowing that, but whatever. I've been FaceTiming like six of my friends to cram for it... But also at this point, I'm kinda getting distracted—frick, I'm going off into tangents again. Wait, okay, sorry, Kook, I have to go."

"Don't worry about it, babe," Jungkook says. "Study well, okay?"

"Okay! Bye, Kook. Have fun with your friend!"

Jungkook can tell you're smiling just from your voice. "Bye, Y/N!" He ends the call, putting down his phone and looking a bit dazed.

Yoongi laughs at him. "God, Jungkook, you really love her. It's been like what, a year? And you're already even living with each other."

Jungkook scrunches his forehead. "You ran away from the only family you ever knew to be with a girl you've reunited with for less than a year," he retorts.

Yoongi chuckles. "Touché. Maybe we're both deranged love-seeking lunatics."

Jungkook laughs. "Maybe..." he muses. "Or maybe we've found our true soulmates and we're not stupid enough to let them go."

"Ha, good one," Yoongi laughs. "If I told my wife that we were soulmates, she'd tell me to open my eyes and wake up."

"Really? But she loves you and you love her," Jungkook says.

"So?" Yoongi asks. "You loved my wife too, once. So did..." he hesitates. "So did Seokjin and Taehyung... Just because we love each other doesn't make us soulmates."

"I loved your wife a long time ago. That shouldn't even count. And that was before I knew my soulmate existed," Jungkook huffs. "I guess maybe Y/N and I are lucky."

Yoongi smiles. "Extremely fortunate," he says. "True love like that doesn't happen often in this cruel universe." He folds his hands in front of him like a wise man, leaning in as if he were going to tell Jungkook a secret. Naturally, Jungkook leans in to listen to what the wiser man has to say. "You deserve it, Jungkook," Yoongi tells him. "You deserve to have someone like Y/N to give you purpose to live. To put purpose in your life. You deserve a lot, and from what I could tell, Y/N is the 'a lot' that you deserve."

Jungkook can't stop the wide grin stretching his lips. It's rare that Yoongi has such heartfelt words to say so openly in public. He must be out of his mind—or insanely excited about becoming a father.

"Thanks, Yoongi," Jungkook says.

Jungkook knows that Yoongi's always been a practical man who doesn't believe in soulmates or destiny or any of that cutesy, Disney princess, Hollywood shit. And for months, Yoongi was Jungkook's makeshift role model—someone to take the place of Kim Taehyung, who was dead now... But Jungkook knew he and Yoongi were too different when he met you. You were something else. Something so completely different that when he's with you, he feels like he's taken to the moon. He has to disagree with Yoongi on this one. Destiny exists.

Because destiny, and what was written in the stars of the vast universe, is what brought you and him together to fall in love.

You immediately sit up in bed when you hear an ear-piercing scream, quickly reaching across to switch on the bedside lamp and turning to your boyfriend. He's kicking the covers and whimpering, sweat running profusely down his face as he squeezes his eyes shut and frowns at the figures in his nightmares. You put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Kook?" you whisper, yawning and trying to blink away your drowsiness. "Hey, you were screaming again," you say, shaking him softly.

Jungkook nearly hits your head with his when he jerks awake. And the moment you see the fear in his wet but alert eyes, your drowsiness vanishes. "Baby, you're crying," you say, pulling him into your arms and hugging him.

He relaxes a bit in your embrace for a split second before tugging back and shaking his head. "I'm so sorry, Y/N," he groans nearly breathlessly as he massages his head with his hand. You try to wipe his tears away with the sleeve of your nightshirt. "It's so early in the morning... And we have a quiz today. You need to sleep."

You shake your head, ruffling Jungkook's hair. "Sleep is the least of my worries, Kook. Tell me, it's about your friends again, isn't it?"

Jungkook stays silent, still trembling slightly from the leftover shadows of his nightmare.

"C'mon... I wanna help, baby," you say, reaching out to hold Jungkook's hand. He's sweaty and his skin feels hot against yours but you don't mind. "You can tell me. It'll make you feel better, I promise."

"It was horrible," Jungkook finally whispers. "And you were right. It was about the Crescents again..." he hesitates and you patiently wait for him to gather his thoughts and continue. "I-I watched T-Taehyung be b-brutally tortured. A-And I... I couldn't do anything about it b-because I was in invisible restraints." He lets out a gigantic sigh, shivering from the last remains of the nightmare in his mind. "Everyone else was already dead and bled out," he quickly says, spitting the words out so fast he doesn't have time to stutter. "I want to spare you the details." He's shaking as he tells you this, eyes fogged up and lips set in a thin line.

"Oh, Kook..." you breathe. You reach out to hug him. "Hey... do you want me to get you an ice pack and a glass of water?" you ask, rubbing slow circles on his back. "We can talk about it in-depth when you're feeling better."

"No," Jungkook murmurs softly in your ear. "I swear, I'm fine, Y/N. You don't have to do anything. It was just a dream..."

"It was a nightmare," you correct him, pulling back from the hug. "And you keep having them. What can I do to help?"

"You're helping right now," Jungkook says. He gives you a grateful smile. "I'm sorry I keep waking you up at ungodly hours of the night."

"You shouldn't be sorry," you reply. "You've been through a lot, Kook. It would only make sense for you to have bad flashbacks about it... Hey, if you don't want to go back to sleep, I'll stay up with you."

Jungkook shakes his head. "No way. You need your sleep."

"You do too, silly," you say. "How about we both go to bed?"

Jungkook smiling, slipping back into the covers and dragging you under with him so that you're using his pillow instead of yours. "Can you stay by my side until I fall asleep again?" he whispers hopefully.

"Of course," you say, "you're really warm, anyways." You snuggle against your boyfriend, closing your eyes immediately to relish in the darkness. "Goodnight," you whisper. "I'll pray for you so that the nightmares won't bother you again this night."

"What would I do without you, Y/N?" Jungkook sighs as he closes his eyes too, wrapping an arm around you.

"Everything," you murmur. "You're... a strong man... Kook..." you trail off. Jungkook waits for you to continue, but it seems like sleep has overtaken you before you could say any more.

Jungkook smiles. When he's in your arms, he can finally have a peaceful slumber away from the nightmares and horrible memories. He dozes off the sleep again and this time, he isn't plagued by the fatal cries of his friends' last words.

When the 2 p.m. alarm rings, Jungkook's the first one up, hopping out of bed and checking to see if you are awake. You obviously aren’t, so he decides he's going to let you sleep for a little bit longer while he makes breakfast—er, lunch.

It's Friday, which means you and Jungkook only have one class today—ethics. Jungkook has a habit of studying for his classes little by little and every day but you tend to cram last-minute. You were up until 3 a.m. last night studying and you'd also woken up at around 4 to comfort Jungkook. Feeling a little guilty, Jungkook pads into the kitchen with heavy, drowsy feet and lets you get the extra sleep you deserve.

The smell of bacon sizzling on the pan permeates through the small apartment's air, reaching the bedroom to wake you up. Soon, you're making your way into the kitchen, stretching your arms as you yawn.

"Hey, baby," Jungkook greets you, turning around from the stove to give you a warm smile. "Sorry about last night... er, early morning."

You yawn again, waving a dismissive hand as you open the fridge to take out some eggs and apples. "It's nothing, Kook. Can you scramble these eggs? I'll cut the apples."

Jungkook nods, taking the eggs from you and cracking them open expertly against the fry-pan before letting the contents fall out. He takes the cooked bacon from the pan before it burns, looking around to find some plates to set them on.

"Here you go," you tell him, handing him just what he needed.

Per usual, it's like the two of you have telepathic communication.

Once the bacon is hot and ready on the plates, the eggs are scrambled into a golden yellow and the apples are freshly washed and cut, you and Jungkook sit down at your small table and eat. Jungkook's just about to finish up his eggs when you sigh. Jungkook looks up at you, and he sees that you have abandoned your silverware, twisting around your gold purity ring—it's a small habit you picked up when you're nervous.

"Is something wrong, Y/N?"

"No, nothing's wrong, Kook," you tell him. "I'm just worried about you. You keep having nightmares, baby, and I just think it might be detrimental to your mental health...”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” he lies, shaking his head in denial. “I’m fine. I promise, Y/N.”

You know he’s lying, but you don’t say it out loud. “In that case, I have a verse from the Bible for you,” you say, pausing to close your eyes. “Maybe repeating this in your head can somehow help you...” Your brows furrow as you concentrate to pull up the scripture from memory. "Be strong and courageous,” you begin, “do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

"Joshua 1:9," Jungkook finishes for you. "I know, Y/N. I know."

He doesn't really, though. Jungkook respects your closeness to God; he respects your religion and your beliefs, but he, a murderer, a major sinner, cannot possibly receive salvation. He can't take back the lives he's ruined, the people he's tortured and turned insane, the victims he'd killed slowly, taking his sweet, sweet time... You understand his struggles, so you don't push the subject of religion on him. But it had been a hard move for you to choose to date Jungkook. To choose to move in with him. To choose to sleep on the same bed and maintain your purity. Jungkook understands. And this mutual understanding—even though none of it was spoken verbally—is what makes the two of you so special.

You connect on a level that transcends speech and language.

"You don't deserve being haunted by the things you did when you were younger," you say. "Former mafia or not, you're a good man, now, Jungkook." You grab his hand from across the hand, encompassing it with your own. "That's what matters."

He smiles, nodding. "Thank you..."

"Of course," you say. "Hey, after class, wanna eat out for dinner? You know, to celebrate another quiz."

"Ah..." Jungkook sighs. "I can't, baby. I have to work overtime today."

"What?" you pout as a frown places itself on your lips. "You worked overtime yesterday. And you didn't get a good night's sleep today..."

"Well, we need all the money we can get," Jungkook says. "I'll be fine. Maybe you can get dinner with your friends? I'll meet you outside my workplace at 10?"

You sigh. "Alright, Kook, but you have to promise you'll sleep in tomorrow."

"I promise," Jungkook grins. "Hey, I'll clean up so you can cram a bit more for the quiz."

You laugh, shaking your head as you gather up your utensils and your plate. "No way, Kook. You know, I don't have to try as hard anymore. I'm not going to intern abroad."

"Really?" Jungkook asks, frowning. "But that's such a great opportunity, Y/N! You can't just miss out on it..."

"Well, going abroad would mean we'd be long-distance... And what if I never come back?" you say. "I'm not gonna risk that. I'm not going. I'll have to explain that to my parents... somehow."

"You don't have to give up on your future for me..."

You laugh out loud. "I think God meant for me to have a future with you, Kook."

Jungkook hums. "In that case, I can't really argue against what He planned for you, can I?"

"No," you giggle, shaking your head. "You can't."

Jungkook smiles; God or not, you and he were meant to be, and he'd prove time and again that he is worth your love.

After the ethics quiz that had gone fairly well, you and Jungkook part ways after he kisses your cheek goodbye. Usually, Jungkook walks straight to the burger parlor, but, today, he takes a little detour to the flower shop.

He's been buying you one sunflower every week since the two of you began dating. He doesn't really know how that tradition started, but it never really stopped because the two of you enjoyed it so much. But today, he wants to get you something special.

Jungkook feels a little guilty, after all, that you'd given up your internship abroad to be with him and that you always had to wake up in the middle of the night or at early dawn to comfort him through his nightmares. It isn’t much, but sunflowers give you happiness.

He makes his special purchase and walks to the burger parlor where the smell of grease and oil isn't as bad today—his mind is preoccupied with your reaction when he gives you your present.

You're already waiting for him outside the burger parlor when Jungkook comes out, a bit sweaty with the smell of burgers still lingering on his skin.

"Hey, babe!" you say brightly, hugging him and immediately taking his hand. "How was work? I went to get some street food with friends. It was so good! I have to take you there some time—goodness, are those—" Your eyes turn huge as you see the packet that your boyfriend is holding.

"Sunflower seeds," your boyfriend smiles. "I know I usually get you sunflowers... but I figured it would mean more if we could plant them and grow them ourselves."

You gasp, putting a hand to your heart. "That's so thoughtful, Kook. I don't even know what to say."

Jungkook shrugs shyly, face blushing. "It was nothing, babe... But hey, did you walk here alone? That's kind of dangerous..."

You laugh, shaking your head. "Oh no, my friend dropped me off here. I didn't even wait that long for you. You don't have to worry."

"Sorry," Jungkook says, squeezing your entertained hands. "I'm just... paranoid, I guess."

He's referring to Jimin and you know it. "Hey... I'm fine," you say. "It doesn't hurt to worry or be cautious, you know. Wanna start walking home?"

Jungkook nods as the two you begin to walk down the familiar streets, the bright moonlight illuminating what was otherwise dark. A few minutes pass before you speak again.

"It's a full moon, tonight," you say, looking up at the sky.

"I really like full moons," Jungkook hums.

You turn your head to look at him in shock. "Really? I always thought crazy things happen on the night of a full moon. Like men turn into werewolves and witches brew their potions and warlocks cast their spells?"

Jungkook laughs as he looks at you fondly through his half-opened eyes. "Maybe," he giggles. "But... I don't know... it's just that it's a better, more completed version of a crescent moon. I feel like it guides me in the right direction."

"I thought I did that, not the full moon!" 

Jungkook smiles. "You're better than the moon," he says, pointing at the stars twinkling in the night sky. "You're the stars, Y/N. You're the sun. You're my sunflower!" he exclaims confidently.

You smile, a faint, rosy blush tinting your cheeks. "I really don't know what I would have done without you."

"You'd be abroad," Jungkook says. "Studying a foreign language and becoming successful."

You shake your head. "Not at all. I'd be unhappy. I'd feel stuck. You know I hate what I'm learning..." you shrug. "Without you, I wouldn't have anyone to lean on."

Jungkook smiles. "Me too."

You smile, about to say something sweet right back to your boyfriend, but you halt walking instead. Jungkook stops with you, looking around to see if anything is wrong.

"Hey," he says. "You good?"

"Was that always there?" you say, tilting your head and looking curiously to the right. "I've never seen it before."

Jungkook looks to where you're looking and smiles curiously. It's a little shop, the windows displaying glowing potions and little sparkling trinkets. "A magic gag shop?" he asks. "Maybe it's new."

"Gosh, it's adorable!" you gasp, running toward the windows to peer inside. "Look, baby! There's a cute little flying teacup set! I can barely see the string that's holding it up!"

Jungkook catches up to you, looking in to see exactly what you are talking about. "It seems so professional," he says in awe. "Do you think the owner works in the film industry or something? Some of these look so real. Look at that!" He points at a crystal ball in the middle of the shop, displaying vibrant images of sunflower patches. "That's insane!"

"It's like it was made for us," you laugh. "Let's check it out!"

"Woah, uh," Jungkook hesitates, "it's late, Y/N. The shop's probably closed."

"The lights are on," you pout. "C'mon, I wanna talk to the owner! I wonder what they're using to get such vivid photos on that thing!"

With that, you tug your boyfriend into the little magic shop with you. One step in, it's like you've entered a new universe.

—next chapter

—masterpost

[clansayeed]

Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ― Chapter 7: The Hierophant

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ⥽

They fled New York with one purpose. Find, hunt down, and return with a way to kill a vampire god. They abandoned their loved ones and survived the City of Shadows; had their trust broken and darkest secrets brought to light. All that... and Gaius still won anyway. But now that they have nothing to lose, Nadya and her friends are finally ready to do whatever it takes to see the King of Vampires overthrown.

They just have to avoid a vampire population eager to gain favor with their new monarch, the ruthless Order of the Dawn, and whatever plans Gaius has that involve Nadya captured and brought to him alive. So... easy-peasy, right? The worlds of both dark and light hang in the balance. The time has come for the Bloodkeeper to embrace her destiny. So if anyone wants to clue her in on whatever that means, now would be great!

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing reimagining project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

TAG LIST: @googlesentmehere​, @cess02​, @hellyeah90sbaby​, @tayab12​, @saratustra4​, @imnotdonewiththeelementalists​, @thepotatobleh​​ 

*join the Tag List here!

⥼ Summary ⥽

In Prague, Nadya and the others seek the audience of the most famous name in histories both mortal and vampire. It's probably for the best that she doesn't get her hopes up.

content warnings: language

[READ IT ON AO3]

Prague is cramped roads and buildings of all sizes and heights all mostly the same four or five different earthy, rusty tones. Cobblestone streets and narrow alleys she can’t help but look at even in passing and think, with the hairs on the back of her neck standing to attention, there goes another hiding place for something wicked and foul.

That isn’t to say Prague isn’t beautiful. Because it is. One of Nadya’s favorite things about living abroad in college (and only in the very smallest back of her mind in Paris and the other cities they’ve hopped to and from here while on the run for their lives and the very fate of the human race) was all the old architecture she got to walk past every day like it was the most natural thing in the world. And Prague is full of opportunities like that.

In her most Nadya-esque fashion, she chooses to focus on that instead of what may or may not lurk in the shadows. She chooses to look at the beauty and history around her because you don’t see stuff like this every day.

That, and because she knows it doesn’t matter what hiding place she might spot — doesn’t matter whether that alleyway or this abandoned road is empty or not. There are things out to get them — out to stop them — regardless of whether or not she’s lucky enough to catch a glimpse.

That’s just their new reality.

Prague is chillier; a fact not made any better by the fact none of the bodies she can cling to in the cold have an ounce of warmth for her to leech. Prague is also kinda rainy; and more often than not when she has the chance to push back the curtains of their modest hotel room the sky is the same shade of grey it was the day before. That’s totally fine — just add some snow and it’s almost like home.

Prague is also the long-time home of Vlad Tepes, the vampire more popularly known around the world as Dracula.

Don’t forget that bit.

Lily certainly hasn’t.

“C’mon,” she’s brought this up half a dozen times now and it always ends the same way but when has that ever stopped her before, “he can’t really be that bad.” Because she’s convinced herself that Kamilah, Serafine, and Adrian are all being a touch too dramatic when it comes to their biased opinions on the most (in)famous vampire in history.

And part of Nadya is inclined to agree… but it wouldn’t be fair not to take into account how literally none of the aforementioned vampires are prone to excessive hyperbole. So maybe he can really be, well, that bad.

Kamilah simply sighs and continues sipping her wine in idle silence. She stopped entering the discussion early on; probably of the mindset that Lily will see exactly what they all mean when the time comes. Whatever that means.

At this point the only one who will actively engage with her is Adrian. Which says a lot — that’s really out of character for him. “I thought much the same before I met him in person, but the truth is much stranger than the fiction when it comes to Vlad.” He’s said something to this effect every single time, too.

And don’t think Nadya hasn’t noticed how he usually ends up shifting where he sits and-slash-or stands. Or how Serafine is usually there to offer him an affectionate touch in some form or another. There’s a story there, she’s certain of it. But she trusts him to bring it up if or when it becomes relevant to their current dilemma — and if it isn’t then she looks forward to teasing him when the world is safe and Gaius is dust in the wind.

Because it’s important to note that truth and fiction are as different as oil and water when it comes to the man, the myth, the legend. Who apparently did his fair share of noteworthy conquests in his human years and even his first couple of decades as a vampire; but somewhere down the line wound up going from famed ‘impaler’ to something that — based on Serafine’s general description anyway — is shaping in Nadya’s mind’s eye to look something like a cross between Vegas-sensation Mario Bautista and KISS without the face paint.

“There’s something to be said for the measure of success Vlad has been able to attain while living in the heart of the Order’s battleground,” says Serafine almost absently, “but any praise for him should live and die there — even that I find myself questioning from time to time.

“He has been widely reviled from the moment he brought that ridiculous novel to light. Not only for placing us in the public eye but for doing so with such utter… disregard for our truths.”

Jax raises an eyebrow. “You’d think spreading a bunch of lies that humans end up believing wouldn’t be such a bad thing.” But everything on Serafine’s face disagrees.

“One might think, perhaps. But if anyone was less suited to such an ill-fitting ego…”

“So he’s got a big head,” Lily shrugs, “what’s the big deal?”

The Big Deal is, apparently, how Vlad Tepes has gone from boasting ass to full-on diva in the centuries that followed. Something Serafine seems to take more than a little personally. “And one could suffer his endless tales when they revolved around little more than himself. When he shifted his focus to the Church of the First things became… complicated.”

Needless to say the entire premise of ‘Vlad Tepes—the Dracula—considers himself to be a prophet for the First Vampire in all but official theophany, and serves as Europe’s go-to for all things related to the devotion of Rheya Herself’ is something Nadya has been struggling to wrap her head around for… this whole time.

Maybe seeing it all with her own eyes will do something about that, she thinks, if only so Lily will finally stop trying to poke and prod for answers their friends don’t seem eager to provide.

Unlikely, but, you know.

“How a person takes in faith is unique to them, and a deeply personal experience. Regardless of their…” Serafine purses her lips for the right words. Or at least ones that are a little more in English and a little less like curses. “… unchecked vanity.

“While I cannot speak with certainty as to whether or not Vlad was a true believer in the ideals of the Goddess, whatever he did feel was enough to earn him a place at Gaius’ side during the pivotal years he spent spreading Her belief.

“What he lacks in all else he makes up for in his ability to sensationalize anything that comes tumbling out of that vacant head of his.”

Which explains the whole ‘singing Gaius’ praises’ thing; the largest source of disagreement when it finally came down to whether or not they were willing to risk it all for what Vlad might know.

And while it was unanimous that they would have preferred to wait and see what more concrete information they could dig up, time isn’t on their side. “Still an awful lot to risk on a mere hunch,” comments Cadence — whose natural affinity for research has made spontaneously vanishing away to Prague more than a little stressful for him.

“I just can’t understand how anyone would even consider believing his claims to have seen the Eternal Tree for himself when there’s literal published proof he’s a pathological liar.”

But this is something they’ve been over, too. Not that Nadya doesn’t totally understand venting the same frustrations in the wake of inaction. But it’s not faith in Vlad Tepes that she has.

Her faith lies in Kamilah. That is more than enough.

“Time and time again I witnessed retribution served by Gaius unto those who claimed to have been touched by the First in some divine form or another. He would not suffer anyone speaking falsely of Her — for good or for ill. Vlad’s claim to have seen the Tree with his own eyes wasn’t exactly kept quiet, yet he remained untouched and, unfortunately, very much alive.”

Which pretty much confirms it’s the one impossible thing he’s actually telling the truth about. This is a good thing!

“And you’re sure you are up to the task, petit?”

Nadya knows Serafine only asks because this is something they can’t do without her. Serafine could try to suss out the truth from him on her own but it would only waste more time.

For once though, Nadya feels… not-as-uncertain as she usually does about these things. She wouldn’t be so bold as to call it confidence, but how hard can one ordinary (fame aside) vampire be after she literally pulled Gaius’ oldest memory out of thin air?

“I am.”

“And if your way doesn’t work, we can always go my route.”

And perhaps the most disconcerting thing of all is how those who would normally oppose Jax’s methods of sword-related threats and violence remain pointedly and purposefully silent. Not that anyone is particularly inclined to draw attention to it.

Just like they don’t draw attention to the way Kamilah tactfully uses the rim of her wine glass to conceal the barest twitch of her lips.

Though none of them are surprised at his offer however, Serafine seems to have outright expected it. She throws him a coy smile across the table; a devious glint in her eye.

“Actually Jax, I’m glad to hear you are up to the task. As what I have in mind will not be possible without your help.”

Sometimes the best plans are the ones that take the most direct route to get to where you’re going. And there’s really nothing more direct than what Serafine has in mind.

The estate is a little under an hour away from Prague itself; swathed in lush and vibrant countryside — or that’s what Nadya imagines. It’s kind of hard for her to see out of the tinted limousine windows as they venture on their lonely road after dark.

Not that the place itself is hard to see. Like a beacon in the night the Tepes manor and surrounding land is lit up in the night. Even with the moon hidden behind roiling clouds the moment their car pulls in and begins ambling up the long gravel pathway they are met with what’s practically a battalion of lamp-posts to show them the way.

All she can think about is how long it must take someone to travel the grounds and light up every single one.

The rest of Vlad Tepes’ lands are hard to see properly. On account of the towering and neatly-trimmed hedge walls that flank their path. “Vlad’s labyrinth is somewhat of a popular novelty,” Serafine explains quietly, “though our heightened senses take most of the intrigue and mystery from the search from start to finish.”

But some well-manicured bushes are nothing compared to the splendor of the actual castle itself. With its sprawling Gothic architecture in spires and buttresses it’s truly everything one would expect when they hear something like ‘the Castle of Vlad Tepes.’

Flickering flames in old stained-glass windows somehow both perfectly preserved and still allowed to age with grace. Not unlike vampires themselves, Nadya thinks fleetingly, and lets herself drink in the passive appreciation of it while she can.

Before something inevitably goes wrong and, much like in the way of Marcel’s castle back home, has her thinking back on it with a sour taste in her mouth.

“I still can’t believe you just called the guy up.”

Jax has barely paid any of it a second glance; not the journey or the destination. He’s stayed in pretty much the same position the entire drive; arms never uncrossing from his chest and, to literally no one’s surprise, with his sword never leaving his lap.

“How would you rather I have gone about arranging this little parley then, hm?”

The two vampires stare one another down in silence. Suddenly the cabin feels a lot more cramped and heated than it did just a moment ago. Nadya tugs at the collar of her shirt in discomfort.

“I’m not saying I had a plan, but if I’d had time to make one it wouldn’t be walking through his front door.”

But the younger’s irritation only seems to amuse Serafine, who purses her lips into a thin line to keep from smirking at him too obviously.

“Ah, oui. I suspect you would have gone looking for a secret entrance of some kind… perhaps a sewage tunnel by which to secret yourself in and out undetected?”

Jax just shrugs. “Can’t say I wouldn’t.”

“I can.”

Two words and just like that all the mirth is sapped from the air around them. Nothing fills the void left behind; it stays hollow and empty with foreboding.

“If such a passage did exist, which I can assure you it does not, would the Order not have used it long ago in much the same way?” She raises a single eyebrow at Jax, continuing before he has a chance to answer her.

“While your modern methods are indeed a fresh eye on an old war, Jax, they seem to blind you to the full scope of the kind of life we have lived here for all these centuries. Safety is but a fleeting dream to us. No shadow goes undisturbed for signs of the enemy. Every shelter — from a boarded-up chapel on the wayside to a sprawling manor house such as this — has been deemed safe only after proceeding with the utmost caution.

“Even someone as brazen as Vlad would not dare risk his own life by doing anything else.”

Nadya swears she can hear Jax’s teeth grind in his set jaw. That may be the gravel under the tires though.

The limo starts to slow down as they pass through a break in the hedges to reveal a wide arcing roundabout that stops just shy of the castle’s imposing front doors.

“So what you’re saying is if this goes to shit tonight there’s really no escape plan, huh?” Jax finally asks, and with a much softer voice than either Serafine or Nadya would have expected.

It makes the vampiress throw him a sympathetic look. One he pointedly ignores, but when has that ever stopped her before?

“Have you such little faith in my charming disposition?”

It’s a meager attempt to lighten the somber mood at best, but it’s enough to at least ease his suddenly white-knuckled grip on the sheath of his katana.

“More like a lack of faith in your judgment.”

“Inspired by?”

“Whatever the hell you see in Raines.”

It’s as though the driver has been taking his sweet time waiting for a break in their tension to finally get there. Which can’t possibly be the case; since the partition has been up from the moment they pulled away from the hotel and the ones they left behind… can it?

He cuts the engine abruptly. Something about the reigning silence makes Nadya’s heart start to inch its way up into her throat. Jax, sitting closest to her and no doubt hearing the spike in her pulse, reaches out and squeezes her shoulder.

“You okay there?”

She gives a noncommittal shrug, glad when he doesn’t drop his hand. “Situationally or existentially?” The joke, unfortunately, doesn’t quite land.

“At least this one is above ground.” He tries to reassure her. But apparently neither of them are allowed the luxury.

“The parts you can see…” Serafine says; her last words before the door opens to signal their arrival.

The night air is cold and makes Nadya’s eyes water as she steps out between her companions. She would have rather had Kamilah or Adrian at her side but that just wasn’t possible.

Serafine had made a point that couldn’t be denied. Between Kamilah’s assumed death and Gaius’ known ability to hold a grudge longer than most modern civilizations had been around, those two were pretty much screwed if anyone just so happened to recognize them.

With Antony and Isseya off the radar since Kamilah’s return and none of them having any hint or clue as to whether or not Gaius had started extending his reach overseas yet, they were better off housebound (metaphorically speaking) for the time being.

As it is they’re risking enough bringing Jax along, but apparently the fact he hadn’t made “much of an impression” on Gaius, to put it in Kamilah’s own words, was to their benefit. They were playing safe over sorry with Lily and her newly-acquired quirks too.

It was easy to write off the fact that Serafine hadn’t even allowed Cadence to volunteer before shooting him down as being, well, Serafine and Cadence being Serafine and Cadence. But there’s still a lot they don’t know about whatever had happened to their friends when the group split up — whatever it was though was enough to ease that tension in ways nobody would have expected.

“The intention is to meet with Vlad as quickly as possible, and ideally without arousing suspicion from him or any who might be in his entourage.” Serafine had explained. “Seeing as Cynbel of the Trinity has been famously dead for over a century now, seeing him suddenly reappear in the midst of Gaius’ ascension might as well be the definition of suspicious.”

The argument was fair and valid and lucky for them to have that kind of forethought, honestly. But when Nadya thinks back to the vague air of their talk back at Ahmanet in London and pairs it almost absentmindedly with the way Serafine and Kamilah exchanged a long and almost nervous glance at one another when Cadence’s back is turned…

Let’s just say at this point she’s just waiting around for the other shoe to drop. Or the other-other shoe. Like the kind of shoe an octopus might wear or something.

All of that and only Nadya is left; always the odd one out. But the Bloodkeeper can’t not do this, so what choice does she have?

They just have to hope Kamilah was right when she assumed Gaius would want to do everything in his power not to let Nadya’s name and face spread too far or wide. That he wouldn’t dare run the risk of someone else getting to her before he could.

Neither option appeals, for the record. But at least she’s not the only one risking her neck.

The driver gestures for them to wait at the base of the castle steps, letting them know they will be shown in shortly. He doesn’t linger, job completed, and soon Nadya is throwing a glance over her shoulder to catch the bright red tail lights before the car disappears back around the hedge line and out of sight.

Serafine’s hand comes down in between her shoulder blades somehow both heavy and comforting. A simple touch that eases the tension beginning to knot there that Nadya hadn’t even realized existed.

“Your heart is racing, Nadya,” she states the obvious with a gentle smile of her own, “we may be able to account his notoriety for your nerves but please… try to control your breathing.”

She nods, wide eyed, and swallows through her dry throat before inhaling deeply through her nostrils, holding, and letting it out as a warm breath on her lips. In, and hold, and out, and in, and hold, and out several times before she glances and sees the tiniest nod of approval from the vampiress.

“You’re pretty calm, given everything.”

“Why would I not be?” asks Serafine in obvious surprise. A little too sincere, in Nadya’s opinion.

“The way you’ve been talking about him sounds a lot like you guys aren’t old friends.”

Her rouge-tinted lips purse wryly. “No, I would not associate myself with him so plainly.”

“Then why did he agree to meet with you?”

A fair question, too. One that has Jax listening attentively even if he doesn’t look away from the doors still not yet opened to greet them.

Given the gravity of the situation, Nadya’s grateful that the woman doesn’t seem to need the time to carefully choose her words on this. Hopefully that means she isn’t sugarcoating it.

“The truth is that I did not reach out to him, but rather chose to finally accept a long-standing invitation.”

“Invitation to what?”

Serafine’s answer is drowned out by the sudden opening of the front doors; old heavy wood on ornate hinges designed more with the aesthetic in mind. Their harsh squeal cuts into the trio’s ears and makes Nadya flinch violently.

Soft yellowing light spills out into the night. A haze that stretches down the stone steps and all the way to where they stand gathered on the gravel. Nadya quickly throws the back of her hand over her eyes as she blinks away hazy colorless dots in front of her sight.

It’s just one big gaping hole of uninterrupted brightness… until a shadow starts to cut a long path through the din. It stretches longer and longer until it nearly reaches all the way back near the break in the hedges; a towering figure that, once her eyes adjust to the new lighting, doesn’t quite match the reality that stands before them.

“As I live and breathe — what be this vision before me? It could not be the captivating sight of one Serafine Dupont, surely!”

There’s so much to unpack there but Nadya’s brain is already frozen and buffering on account of the singular thought that consumes her entire being.

Those are some tight leather pants.

The fact that Vlad is wearing all black only adds to the formidable, if shapely, shadow he cuts across the front path. He gestures widely and exuberantly and with no small amount of purpose; the kind of motion that makes sure his large billowing sleeves move in precisely the right way and give him the perfect amount of flair.

Even without the combined warnings from Kamilah and Serafine prior to this exact moment, Nadya’s certain this first impression is all it would take for her to know exactly the kind of man Dracula is.

A one-hundred percent unrepentant drama queen.

Neither Jax or Nadya miss the sight of Serafine quickly steeling herself. How she tucks away any lingering distaste (though maybe it’s the whole psychic-connection thing but Nadya swears it’s not that hidden if she can still feel the remnants of it) and slips on what could very well pass as a genuinely sincere smile for how natural it looks.

Oh, she’s good.

“Vlad,” she coos, somehow both a greeting and an endearment both with one meager syllable. “I see the years have remained kind.”

With his hands on his cocked hips Vlad lets out his own rich bellowing laugh. The kind that has Nadya looking subtle as she can over her shoulders to see if there really is anyone able to hear him waiting in the shadows; witnessing them all like a permanent audience for his constant theatrics. Her senses may be perilously human but Jax doesn’t seem to notice anything off… hopefully he’s got a better grasp on their surroundings while their host holds Serafine captive with a gaze.

“Whereas you, my exquisite creature, look absolutely radiant. Perhaps even glowing as much as I am!”

The ‘Count’ is definitely younger than Serafine, which makes his comment more than a little suspect. About as suspect as the fact that he hasn’t moved from his place at the top of the steps… nor has she moved from her place here below.

They’re having a good old-fashioned stand off. Each one waiting for the other to yield their ground and move things along. But it’s different between the pair of them, that much is obvious.

Vlad shifts on the heels of his boots with an expectant lilt to his smile. He’s used to being greeted with respect and reverence — which Serafine isn’t not giving him — but it means he makes others come to him.

And everyone (Vlad included) knows quite well that Serafine only does what she wishes and nothing more. Hence the way she stands graceful, calm, and poised. Hands folded lightly over the bodice tight against her blouse.

She tilts her head to the side so gently her hair falls around her shoulder in a dark pillowing cloud.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she asks bemusedly, “aren’t you going to come give us a kiss?”

With his hand forced and no time to find a reasonable way to turn the tables Vlad has no choice but to acquiesce. “Of course, of course!” Then he’s skipping down the worn stone steps two at a time, the rhythm of his heels following him all the way down. “I just needed a moment to take all of you in, darling. Alive and well and vibrant as ever.”

He embraces his fellow survivor with open arms and a kiss to each of her cheeks.

Another good reason Adrian didn’t come with, Nadya finds herself thinking — the only distraction she can muster to keep from cringing at how he gets a little too friendly on her face with his lips, we need Vlad alive after all.

And after that display… that might have been something up in the air.

Vlad coaxes Serafine back to hold her at arms’ length; only he doesn’t actually let her go. Some small attempt to reconcile his failed power play, maybe.

It doesn’t matter. Just as she did before Serafine breezes her way through anything he might do to her — a simple gesture and roll of her shoulders to adjust her hair has Vlad all but staggering back like she’s thrown him backwards with all of her strength.

“You say such things as though they may have been in doubt.”

His recovery is a meager and tight-lipped smile. “My ears on the ground have a lot to say about changes abound on your side of the continent. Absolute chaos, from what I’m told.”

Tension ripples through Jax and has his hand drifting to the sword affixed to his belt. Nadya throws him a worried look; all wide eyes and silent pleas, but from the looks of it she didn’t need to bother.

They might as well be invisible for all the attention the famed vampire gives them. Not when he has whatever old grudge fuels the calculated exchange between himself and Serafine to put his energy into. But never in her life has Nadya been more glad to be considered chopped liver.

Serafine doesn’t immediately answer. The inaction makes Vlad’s eyes flicker in ruby shades of delight; makes his smile grow wider and a little more meaningful — he thinks he’s won somehow.

“Surely you know of what I speak,” hand over his heart and eyes downcast in cheap, tacky grief, “as I can’t begin to imagine why you wouldn’t have been in Paris during the Dark Solstice. A morbid affair, from what I’ve heard. Almost no survivors to speak of.

“Save yourself, of course.”

Tension crackles between the vampires like electricity. It amps up the long pause that lets his words settle in like a rot; one he’s content to let spread so long as he can’t see it, or as long as nothing of his is damaged by it. Though if he lets it fester everyone’s gonna succumb eventually… or some other metaphor like that.

“You’ve always given credence to such boisterous tales, Vlad.” The woman replies a mite too calmly.

“You deny the Order has reared its fearsome head on your side of the continent?”

“Did I say that?”

“You did not say otherwise.”

“No…” Her voice trails into something soft; hand coming up the brush the back of her knuckles over the high arch of Vlad’s almost alabaster cheekbone. He could bat her hand away, step out of her immediate reach; anything to abate the way he’s shaking very obviously now in his boots. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t move an inch.

He just takes it.

Topped with the cherry pink of Serafine’s angelic smile.

“No I did not.”

And just like that she’s restored some sort of hierarchy between them. One that existed long ago and that Vlad Tepes had apparently forgotten in the intermission that followed. There’s less fear in him when he finally relaxes, when she lowers her hand to clasp his with a gentle little squeeze. But there’s a difference between showing fear and being afraid.

Serafine continues with a newfound confidence. “But your concern warms my heart, old friend. Such as my heart warms to know that with our differences aside we can remember the one thing that binds us. That which is more important than anything else.

“By the Will of the Goddess.”

She takes their joined hands and twists them gently. The darkened copper of her skin in stark contrast to his as she coaxes his palm facing upwards.

Nadya watches intently. She wonders for a moment if Serafine intends to draw blood from the bright vein under her thumb… but it passes over like a kiss and nothing more.

“By the Will of the Goddess,” Vlad repeats — far more winded than he had been mere moments ago.

To Serafine’s left Jax shifts on his boots restlessly. Not that anybody asked but Nadya’s seriously impressed with him right now; given his track record with these kinds of things the fact that he can resist rolling his eyes and looking for all the world as though he’d rather take his way through this in favor of the bare minimum of neutrality is worthy of some serious accolades.

Not that he gets any. But Serafine can take a hint.

“Vlad, ma puce, let us move this inside, shall we? I’ve yet to introduce my delightfully stoic American friend here; and he’s been so patient with us hasn’t he?”

It isn’t hard for Jax to pretend to be utterly disinterested in Vlad as the man finally seems to acknowledge his presence — simply because he’s not even pretending. But Vlad had been; that much is obvious. As he looks the younger vampire over with a lazy enough eye.

One that makes it abundantly clear that he had noticed Serafine was not alone; but that he simply didn’t see why he ought to make the effort to care.

“American you say,” — oh of course he says it like that; snooty upper crusty and like he’s actively trying to get Jax to put him at the top of his hit list; maybe even higher up than Gaius at this point — “how… bold of you.”

But his attitude aside, it’s impossible to miss the shift in the way Vlad’s eyes rake over Jax to take him in fully and as a person, less like a piece of Serafine’s luggage left aside.

His eyelids lower a fraction, likes like smoldering embers as he drags his gaze up to finally take in Jax’s handsome features through thick lashes. If there was any doubt left as to what the man’s mind conjures up with the sight before him — there really isn’t though — that’s pretty much dashed the moment he swipes a hint of his tongue out to wet his lower lip.

“Yes, bold indeed…”

Before he can say anything else there’s a loud noise from just beyond the castle doors. A heavy thud that sounds an awful lot like heavy furniture or something else being dragged across a floor.

Jax’s shoulders sag in visible relief as the sound jostles Vlad out of his thoughts and back to the present. He turns back to Serafine.

“Yes yes, do come inside! The American too, I suppose… You can even bring your little snack.”

It takes Nadya entirely too long for her to realize she is the snack. That doesn’t sit well, to be honest.

But it’s the first time Vlad’s even acknowledged her existence and… it’s a little underwhelming if she’s being honest. Not that she wants to earn Vlad’s attention in any form — especially with how touchy-feely he’d been with Serafine — but maybe by this point she’s just gotten so used to strange reactions from vampires that being completely and utterly ignored is… a whole lot of strange for its own reasons? If that makes sense?

It does make sense, if Serafine’s face is anything to go by. How she darts a quick look between Vlad and Nadya and just barely manages to wipe the confusion from her face before it becomes something worth noting.

It could be worse… so she counts her blessings.

Without further pleasantries the man takes long strides back up the steps. He assumes they will follow right at his heels, and they do. Though if the looks shared between the three of them are any indication nobody is feeling as confident about this whole mess as they did before they exited the car.

And they can’t even mention it. What with the whole vampires having supersense-hearing and all.

Vlad doesn’t stop at the top of the stairs. He continues striding right on through the doorway and immediately he’s met by an attendant on either side. Each face is pretty in the way model runways are pretty; with a sharpness to their features that makes them look almost feline and, these two at least, with some kind of gold-colored highlighter that accentuates the sharpness of their umber skin in the distant candlelight.

One steps behind him to catch the suit jacket he shrugs off of his shoulders, while the other who places a fresh glass of a brown liquor in his waiting hand.

“I hope you can forgive the mess of the place,” Vlad pauses to sip his drink and thanks one of the pretty faces with a knuckle stroked along their long throat. They remain impassive to the act but the intimacy can’t be denied.

“You know how crazy things can get when planning the social event of the year and all that.”

Only it’s not a mess so much as it is just a bit… bustling. From the front walk Nadya’s human hearing hadn’t caught onto the noises coming from inside the place but seeing it all now she’s considering getting her hearing checked.

One would expect an estate that looks like that on the outside would be no less decorated within, but decorated is pretty much an understatement. Though if anyone were to make sure any place they lived was decorated to the nines regardless of the time of year it would be Vlad.

Despite knowing that, the hectic bustle of bodies between propped open grand doors and up and down a staircase that branches off on three of the castle’s main floors, though the staggering height of the place from afar tells her there are more levels than what she sees here.

Everything is decorated with the kind of taste that comes from old and inherited wealth and is topped off with a modern edge.

Banisters roped with thick twines of velvet in various shades of reds and golds and what look like real diamonds acting as little more than baubles dangling from the tassels at the hems; furniture scattered around the large foyer in plush cushions and couches that look at first like the genuine antique but on second glance are gold-inlaid replicas built with modern crafting techniques and with longevity in mind.

Another thud comes from a handful of attendants moving a large chaise from one side of the hall through another doorway.

On the ground floor there’s a giant ladder propped up against the far left wall and an attendant balancing atop it. They hold themselves perfectly still, almost delicate, while they secure dark nearly blood-red ribbons around the bottom rungs of a chandelier. They must be nearly done, judging by the same material already wrapped around the chain securing it to the ceiling, and the dark color of the fabric dulls the light and leaves the room hazy both from the continuous heat of the flames that don’t quite permeate the thick texturing.

By the time this place — or this space at the very least — is done being decorated it will certainly be beautiful. But it will be a dark kind of beauty — gothic in a way.

Exactly the kind of event decorations you would expect from Count Dracula; but there’s a respect to be had for the fact he leans into the aesthetic with gusto.

“You’ve outdone yourself, Tepes,” praises Serafine through a hitch in her throat. She’s looking around the foyer with a wistful kind of wanting; a small sparkle held in her eyes that has nothing to do with the lavish decor and everything to do with the invisible hand squeezing her heart up into her throat.

Given recent events especially, the vampiress is no stranger to grief and longing.

And Vlad beams like the way she speaks is more of a compliment than the words themselves.

“Only the best for the best of us, as I’m sure you remember.”

“All your earlier words about the Order, yet you insist on throwing your bal masqué.”

“It is specifically because of these troubling times that we must continue with our most important traditions, Serafine!” He feigns shock with a hand on his chest. The ice in his tumbler tinks together delicately in his grasp. “I thought you, of anyone, would agree.”

He’s goading her and getting more obvious in how he does it by the second. She’s taken it with grace up until now but there’s a tight edge to her tone starting to chip through her armor.

“Tradition, in times of war, can be put aside if that’s what ensures it has chance to be continued.”

“When are we not at war? The Order is no less vicious now than it was before…” He stops and sips his drink again. Casting a passive appraisal around the continued decorating.

“Unless,” with a click of his tongue, “there is a different war you speak of.”

Nadya doesn’t know what’s scaring her more right now; the fact that Serafine had let something that dangerous slip to begin with or the fact that Vlad had caught on so easily. She risks a look at him out of the corner of her eye… much to her relief his sights are still set on Serafine.

An easy grin curls his mouth. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment; let me make sure the parlor’s been made to greet us.” And when he takes his leave of them off to the right and around a set of double doors there’s a saunter to his gait that wasn’t there before. His smugness lingers in the air like a bad perfume.

The moment he’s out of earshot Jax rounds on Serafine with barely-restrained frustration.

“What the hell are we playing his games for? We don’t need to do any of this to find out what he knows.”

With pursed lips Serafine continues to watch the preparations taking place around them. Jax’s frown deepens.

“Serafine.”

“I heard you Jax, don’t worry.”

But that’s still not an answer. Before he ends up raising his voice even more, Nadya reaches out and lays her hand over Serafine’s where she wrings her fingers together at her waist.

“Serafine…” If only she didn’t sound as worried as she is; as the woman’s continued silence makes grow inside her. Serafine doesn’t push her away, but she doesn’t seem welcome to the touch either.

She finally lets her head hang with a weary sigh. “I had thought that given all that transpires around us, Vlad might have chosen to postpone this for the sake of his own safety.

“If not because of Gaius, then because of the Order.”

“Because they’ve been attacking more often, you mean.”

She nods. “But that’s assuming far too much of him. Cunning though Vlad may be, he isn’t very bright.”

“He’s certainly…” Jax’s growl drips with venom, “something.” Nothing good.

“So are we keeping with the plan?”

Squeezing the woman’s hand is enough to finally wrench Serafine’s attention back to Nadya. “No, we are not.”

Jax tenses. “Why the hell not?”

“Because this —” Nadya’s hand falls to let her offer a sweeping gesture to the foyer’s decorations, “— his bal masqué? It changes things. It changes everything.”

She says it in a way that has Nadya feeling like she’s missing a few key facts. She and Jax exchange equally confused glances, and make Serafine sigh heavily for it.

“There’s too much to be explained here. We must leave while we still are able.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that he knows who you are, Nadya.”

It’s like a large gust of wind blows out every candle in the room. Not literally — but the warmth of them is sucked from her bones easily enough. It leaves Nadya feeling hollow as much as she is cold; makes her wrap her arms around herself like that will somehow protect her. She shakes her head slowly… but the disbelief isn’t as intense as she would have hoped it to be.

“But he —”

“— is a performer before he is anything else,” interrupts Serafine; and she’s not wrong. “While he may not have guessed you would be at my side tonight, he has likely known your face and who you are for as long as Isseya and Antony have.”

“So Gaius has been in contact with him then.”

Serafine doesn’t even have to give Jax a verbal response.

“Then we need to go. We need to leave the city; regroup somewhere else.”

“We’ll take our leave of him tonight, yes… but—” —there shouldn’t be any ‘buts’— “—we will be back. We’ll be here for the bal masqué, with the others; and, Goddess-willing, better prepared.”

Uhm… what?

“Why the hell would we do that?” And Jax just barely manages to check his volume, though he’s no less angry. “It’s a party for fucks’ sakes. What’s the big deal?”

“Not here.”

The swordsman throws a look over his shoulder towards the doors Vlad should be coming back through any minute now. “He’s not just gonna let us leave. Especially if —”

Especially if he knows.

But Serafine seems to think otherwise.

“He will. He knows we’ll return; I would even hazard to say he is counting on it.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Unsurprising.”

Before he can try and push the issue Serafine wraps a strong arm around Nadya’s shoulders and all but shoves her towards Jax. “Take her and go. I will deal with Vlad and give you what time I can.”

He just barely manages to catch Nadya before she falls into him. Reaching out to steady her and make sure she has her feet before rounding on their companion. “What the he—”

But he’s too late. Serafine is already five long strides away — far enough that he’d need to raise his voice to catch her. And they both know he won’t take the risk in alerting Vlad’s house staff. They’ve all been dutifully working this entire time, but if the woman dusting picture frames or the couple laying down ornate Persian rugs are anywhere as deceptive as their boss they may be ready to strike at any time.

That thought does not sit well with Nadya’s meager dinner.

“We should try and leave.” While we still can.

His jaw visibly tenses, but already he’s starting to slowly nudge the pair of them back through the open doors. “Fine. But she and I aren’t done with this.”

They catch the distant sound of Serafine’s laugh just as they walk through the doorway. The cold bites Nadya’s hands and face harder than before but sheer panic is more than enough to keep her putting one foot in front of the other. When they’re out of the building and back in the darkness, Nadya and Jax don’t hesitate to pick up the pace. Any faster when they hit the gravel and they’ll be full-on running into the night.

Well… they are running into the night. That’s the point.

“What’s with all the vampires on this freaking continent and the fact they can’t give a straight answer to save their lives?”

“Well they can’t all be like you.”

At the glower he gives her Nadya just barely manages a smile through chattering teeth. It definitely helps her feel less panicky.

“And that means what exactly?”

“They can’t all be bold Americans, obviously.”

Jax groans, fully under-appreciating her brand of awkward humor, and takes Nadya’s hand to bring her along as he speeds away.

[mythicalsecretsanta]

A Very Special Trip (T)

This Gift is for: Cyrene (AKA @killthenaughtyboy) Summary: Rhett reflects on the past as he and Link travel and enjoy each other. Learning to be a couple is easy when you’re living the van life. Hi! I’m glad that I got to be your Secret Santa this year. I hope you enjoy this little gift fic that I wrote for you. I tried to incorporate several of the things on your Niceties list, including van life, fluff, a dash of angst, and a sprinkle of fancy panties. I tried really hard to write some smut for you because I know that that was at the top of your wishlist, but unfortunately, smut is not a strong spot for me, and it just didn’t work out in the end. Sorry for any tense errors. I usually write in past tense, but I decided to try something different for this fic. Wishing you a very happy holiday season and new year! From your Secret Santa, Kale (AKA @unsealingkale)

Link to AO3, or read below:

Link looks up into the early morning light, his chin tilted to the sky as he watches the fluffy white clouds drift by far overhead. Rhett has never seen anything quite so beautiful as the other man, and he makes a point to let himself focus on the thought and the feelings attached to it. There is no shame attached to those thoughts and feelings anymore. No guilt or fear. No need to immediately try to force the thought away. Instead, he lets the thought soak into his skin like the sun. Link is beautiful. He loves Link, and it’s okay. It’s more than okay. It’s good. It’s perfect. It’s right.

“Look, it’s a lemon,” Link says, pointing up. Rhett turns his gaze to the sky and quickly finds the cloud in question. It does indeed look like a lemon, round with slightly tapered sides.

“Pretty sure that’s a lime,” Rhett says, just to tease Link. He gets the expected displeased hum and frown in response. It makes him smile.

“It’s way too big to be a lime,” Link insists.

“When is the last time you saw a lemon as big as that cloud?” Rhett counters.

“Okay, fine. It could be either.” Link lies down on the picnic blanket and sighs dramatically, but Rhett knows that he’s not really mad. The shade tree nearby casts shadows on his face. He’s beautiful like that too.

“Nah, you’re right. It’s definitely a lemon,” Rhett agrees. He spreads himself out on the blanket beside Link, careful to avoid the sticky spot where Link had knocked over the bottle of maple syrup half an hour ago. Sharing a pancake breakfast under the dawn sky had been a new experience for both of them, but that was kind of the point. Living the van life has brought them a lot of new experiences. Good ones, mostly, as they learn how to be a couple instead of just best friends.

Rhett digs both of his heels into the grass, far too tall for the blanket. He takes Link’s hand in one of his own, entwining their fingers and settling their hands between their hips. Link turns his face to smile fondly at Rhett. “Love you,” he whispers, and squeezes Rhett’s hand.

“Love you too.” It still doesn’t feel weird to say it like that, without qualifiers. It didn’t even feel weird the first time. It just feels right. Like something they should have been saying all along. He leans over and kisses Link’s cheek, belly warmed by the happy sound he makes in response.

They watch the clouds for a while longer, until Barbara starts barking to let them know that she’s awake and ready for her own breakfast. They go feed her and Jade, and then take them for a walk beside the river. Link suggests that they go for a swim. He bends down to touch the water and shrieks at how cold it is. “Like liquid ice,” he swears, tucking his hand into his pocket. He shoos Rhett and the dogs away from the riverbank like a worried mother hen.

They spend the rest of the morning exploring the wooded park, playing tag and hide and seek along the jogging trail like they are children again. Rhett has never been happier. He’s thankful that Link talked him into going along on this trip. Sharing the tiny bed isn’t even so bad because now he can give into his desire to pull Link into his arms at night instead of trying to maintain some modicum of personal space. The first morning of their trip, he had woken to find Link stretched out halfway on top of him like some kind of living security blanket, still sound asleep. He had lied there in the semi-darkness and cried because he finally got to hold Link like he had always wanted to hold him. This trip was healing them both, replacing bad memories of trading heated kisses in their college dorm room and then pulling away, Link crying and begging while Rhett swore that it was all just a big mistake and he didn’t really mean it. It had never been a mistake. Now, at long last, he could erase those images of Link’s tear-stained face from his mind and replace them with ones of Link smiling with pink, kiss-swollen lips, his eyes soft with love and warmth.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Link asks, as they begin to walk back to the van around noon, both shivering as a gust of wind suddenly drops the air temperature. Rhett looks up at the sky. The clouds have grown dark and heavy. How hadn’t they noticed sooner? He shakes himself out of his thoughts as Link bends over and picks Jade up, tucking her securely under his arm. She nuzzles into his chest. He gestures for Rhett to do the same with Barbara. “It’s going to rain. We’d better hurry.” There’s a pause. “Rhett? You’re being awfully quiet.”

“I was just thinking,” Rhett finally answers, as he settles Barbara against his chest. He picks up his speed back down the trail. It’s not too far back to the van, but he wants to stay dry if at all possible. He stops in his tracks when he realizes that Link isn’t beside him. He looks over his shoulder and finds Link frozen a few feet back down the trail. “What’s wrong?” Rhett calls, jogging back to him.

“You’re not thinking that you regret this again, are you?” Link asks in a tiny voice. The look of betrayal in his eyes makes Rhett’s heart plummet down into his stomach. “I mean, us? What- what we are now?”

Rhett can’t bear to do anything other than engulf Link in a one-armed hug as soon as he reaches him, careful not to jostle the dogs too much. “No! I was just thinking about how much I love you, and how stupid I was not to be honest about it sooner. I will never, ever regret this, Link. I never did.” They’ve talked it out several times, but the doubt is still there. Rhett knows it will take time for it to fade completely, and he’s more than willing to give Link all of the time he needs. He pulls Link even closer and smooches his forehead loudly. He sighs when Link giggles, and then the clouds burst and they are standing in the pelting rain.

It’s freezing, but Rhett bends down and gives Link a kiss anyway, soft and gentle, full of promises that he will keep. Link leans up into it, tasting like pancake syrup and sunshine, and Rhett barely feels the rain. His heated lips melt against Link’s, and he wonders again why he let so many years pass between them when he could have been kissing these lips every day. Link’s shivers bring him back to reality. He breaks the kiss and grabs Link’s hand, tugging him along. And they’re off, jogging back to the van as the rain falls and the dark clouds swirl above them.

After they climb back inside the van and dry off a little, Jade runs to her bed and curls up for a warm nap, while Barbara snuffles around the mini-fridge and whines. Link snorts and pulls a dog treat out from the bag on top of the fridge, tossing it to Barbara. “Like daughter, like father. Bet you’re hungry too, huh?” He looks at Rhett, smirking. He’s still shivering a little, his thin t-shirt clinging to his chest, but his eyes are bright again.

Rhett pats his rumbling stomach. “I could eat,” he admits. What can he say? He’s a big man with a big appetite to match. It’s well after noon, anyway. Past time for lunch.

“Let’s get changed and then we’ll see what we can do about that,” Link says, with a soft smile. Getting dressed in the van isn’t always easy, but they manage to change into dry clothes without too much trouble. Link slips on one of Rhett’s oversized sweaters and turns on the heater so that they don’t catch a chill. They have a nice air conditioning system in the van that lets them stay warm or cool, and makes sure the dogs are safe and comfortable when they have to stay inside while Rhett and Link are out. It’s one of the best features of the van, along with the decent gas mileage.

They eventually settle on driving a little farther to reach the next town when the rain dies down, where there is a famous fried chicken restaurant that they have heard a lot about but never had the chance to try. There is no wait thanks to the fading storm. They slide into the booth side-by-side, like they always do, knees touching, and look over the small menu. Link rests his head on Rhett’s shoulder while they wait for their food, and Rhett lets more good feelings wash over him as he takes comfort in the touch. Link is his boyfriend now. His boyfriend is pressed up against his side, breathing softly. His boyfriend. That fact is still new, but the love he feels isn’t. He wraps his arm around Link’s shoulders and hopes that Link knows how proud he feels to be his boyfriend out in public.

Rhett eats his own meal, two pieces of fried chicken and a pile of mashed potatoes and biscuits, and then he starts working on what’s left of Link’s chicken sandwich and fries. Link shakes his head but pushes his plate closer to Rhett. “Go oo. I’m full,” he encourages. “You know, I’m going to have to buy a lot more groceries when you move in. You’ll eat me out of house and home if I’m not careful. It’ll be like our dorm all over again.”

Rhett knows that he’s teasing, but he blushes anyway. Then he realizes what Link said and looks up at him. Link’s own cheeks are pink, making his eyes seem even brighter than usual. “You want to live together?” Rhett asks. He had suggested sharing a home to save on bills when they had first moved out to California, but Link had quickly shut the idea down. Rhett had tried hard not to think about why, but his gut knew all along. Link didn’t want to go through the torture of living with Rhett and still being just friends, like they had done in college.

“Well, yeah. I mean, if you want to. I think it would be nice.” Link shrugs like it doesn’t really matter, but Rhett knows that the gesture is anything but casual. Link is nervous, asking something important and special.

He drops his voice low and leans to whisper in Link’s ear. “I want to. Want to be close to you all the time. Want to kiss you whenever I want.” He kisses the soft spot below Link’s ear. “We can figure it out as soon as our trip is over. I’ll break my lease for you.”

Link grins bright enough to light up the whole restaurant. “Good.”

“Good,” Rhett echoes, and tosses the last two greasy fries into his mouth.

The meal settles on his stomach like lead bricks, so he insists on stopping at the next rest area for a nap while Link takes the dogs out for another short walk. It feels good not to be bogged down with any obligations for the time being. To be able to lie down in the middle of the day and close his eyes while he digests if he wants to. He dozes off and then wakes, briefly, when the bed dips and Link joins him, curling up next to him on the tiny bed. Rhett wraps his arms around Link’s middle and spoons close. Touching Link casually like this still feels like a small miracle. It’s something that he had wanted for so long, but always denied himself. He slips one hand up inside Link’s shirt just enough to feel the soft, smooth skin of his stomach, and dozes back off to sleep, surrounded by comfort and warmth.

The rest of the day passes slowly, spent driving to the next big destination on their list. Link has always wanted to go to stay at this little campsite they had passed while traveling before, and now seems as good a time as ever. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s nice and well-kept, and is surrounded by thick woods.

They pay for a spot for two nights and settle in for the afternoon. They watch a silly movie on Rhett’s laptop and laugh at how it reminds them of some of their own childhood antics. Link insists on salad for dinner, tired of the day’s rich meals. They walk the dogs again, and then they each take a long, warm shower at the camp’s public bathroom. Link does a couple loads of laundry as well. They make it back to the van just as night finally settles over the campsite.

“Feels good to be clean and have clean sheets,” Link says, as he sits down on their bed and pulls his legs up, crossing them in front of himself. Rhett sits down beside him. “I was getting pretty tired of bath wipes.”

“Yeah, me too,” Rhett agrees. The wipes were better than nothing, but it had been three days since they had last had access to a real shower, and they had both been feeling less than fresh.

“Hey, thanks for coming on this trip with me.” Link looks down and plays with a loose thread on his sweatpants. “I know you didn’t really like the idea. Especially with Christmas being so close and all. Can’t believe it’s tomorrow already.”

“I’m glad I came. You were right. We needed this time away to ourselves.” Rhett reaches over and squeezes Link’s shoulder. It’s hard to believe that their trip will be over in just a few days, after the weekend. “I wouldn’t have traded this time with you for anything. It’s been so much fun.”

“Yeah?” Link looks up, cheeks pink and eyes soft. Once again, Rhett thinks that he has never been more beautiful.

“Yeah. I’m so in love with you, and I’m going to tell you that every single day from now on. No more keeping secrets.” Rhett leans over and kisses Link’s cheek, feeling the flush of his skin through his lips. He nuzzles against Link’s cheek. “You’re so cute when you blush like that.”

“Hush.” Link shifts closer, his knee brushing against Rhett’s side. He brings one hand up to cup Rhett’s cheek. “I love you too. Never want you to doubt it.”

“I never have.” Rhett turns his head to press a kiss to Link’s hand.

Link smiles, showing his pointy bottom teeth. His blush grows even deeper, and he takes a deep breath before he speaks. Rhett waits patiently while he searches for the right words. “Hey, since it’s Christmas Eve, I have an idea,” he says, softly. “If you want.”

“What’s that?” Rhett asks. He’s up for anything, but the deepening blush on Link’s face makes him suspicious. He touches Link’s knee in support.

“I was thinking, maybe, we could do something a little special tonight. Since I’m dressed for the occasion and all.” Link looks away, down, anywhere but at Rhett’s face. He plays with the loose thread some more, twirling it around his finger.

“What special occasion needs a t-shirt and sweats?” Rhett teases.

“I don’t mean the sweats.” Link slowly unfolds himself and stands up, moving to face Rhett. He slips into the space between Rhett’s legs and takes his hands, guiding them to his narrow hips. He makes fleeting eye contact, nervous. “I mean what’s underneath. Go on. Look.”

Rhett slowly pulls down Link’s sweatpants, revealing a pair of red and white lacy underwear. He looks up at Link and smiles. “I see. This is very special indeed.” He tries to sound confident, but his voice almost breaks. They haven’t done anything beyond kissing yet, but here Link is, presenting himself, ready and willing, and Rhett will never turn him down. Not for anything.

“It can be an early Christmas present, if you want.” Link swirls his hips in a small circle between Rhett’s legs, showing off his fancy panties, as the sweatpants slip even lower down his thighs. It’s dangerously sexy, and Rhett finds himself growing aroused at the mere sight.

Rhett puts his hands on Link’s hips again, stilling him. “I want,” he breathes. “I definitely want.” He pulls Link closer, down into his lap. This present is very special, and he wants to savor it. “I’ve wanted this for so long. Can hardly believe this is real.”

“Me neither. Now go on. Aren’t you going to unwrap me?” Link giggles, and Rhett nods, and everything is perfect and as it should be.

They both enjoy the night, and the long life together that follows.

[xxx-cat-xxx]

A little broken

Over a year after defeating Thanos and almost losing Tony, Peter is still haunted by the final battle. In an attempt to outrun the memories, he starts college far from New York.

It takes a visit from his mentor and an ill-timed flu bug that brings them both to their knees until Peter realises that he doesn’t have to take on the whole world alone.

Some Irondad hurt/comfort for everyone who’s quarantining at home (and those of you who have to work. Stay safe!) This is my @marveltrumpshate​ fic for Heyriel. Great thanks to @whumphoarder​ for doing so much more than beta reading. I hope you enjoy.

______________________________

The first time they meet, Peter isn’t sure what to make of Tony Stark. 

The man shows up unannounced to Peter’s apartment, chewing on May’s date loaf and walking around Peter’s room as if he owns the place—talking as if he owns the whole world. Peter is both awed and appalled, May’s occasional comments about greedy billionaires ringing in his ears. But then Peter starts talking about his motivation for doing what he does, and for a moment something in the older man’s face seems to break. That’s when Peter knows that there’s more to him than what makes the tabloids. 

Germany is both a thrilling adventure and an unparalleled disaster. Peter watches the group of heroes he’s looked up to since childhood break apart before his very eyes. The fight is grueling, taking more out of Peter than he knew was possible. He is lying there on the ground, trying to catch his breath, when Tony bends over him. And for a moment, there it is again: the broken facade on his face—below it, pure panic. The way Tony looks at him with thinly masked worry reminds him of Ben’s expression whenever Peter was little and having an asthma attack, and it does something to his insides that he can’t really explain. 

Then, a few months later, Peter inevitably screws up and slices a ferry in half. The two of them are standing high above the city when Tony takes his suit away, and Peter feels tears pricking at his eyes. He cries later in his room, alone, because it’s so much more than just the suit; he feels that by disappointing Tony he’s lost his chance at something so much bigger. 

It’s a miracle he manages to fix this one.

After Siberia, Tony is darker and quieter and indisputably older—like he’s finally grown up. Peter is sad for him, but it’s not all bad either. This new Tony starts taking more of an interest in Peter’s training—starts acting like a real mentor to him. There are afternoons spent together in the lab, dinners at the tower with Tony and Mr. Rhodes, and even the occasional low-stakes mission. Slowly, Tony’s world starts to feel like a place where Peter might one day belong.

But then, the universe gets ripped in two and somewhere on a red and war-torn planet, Peter clings to Tony in desperation, feeling first his body, then his thoughts slip away from him. 

When he wakes again, there’s another battle to fight, but this time there’s no thrill to it. It’s his personal horror film come true.

He can hear the moment when Tony’s heart stops. Peter cries openly this time.  

*

In the end, Tony makes it through. He loses an arm and much of his physical strength, but he’s stubborn as hell and fights his way through recovery. But somehow the day of the battle never fades from Peter’s brain like memories should. 

When he finishes school, May proposes NYU, Tony naturally wants MIT, but Peter chooses Culver University. It might be good for him to get out of New York, is what he says. It might be good for him not to be in a place that has Tony’s legacy lurking around every corner, is what he thinks. And maybe moving away will make things easier when he returns. 

Three months into Peter’s first semester at Culver, Tony accepts a guest speaking gig at the university and decides to stay at a nearby hotel to spend the weekend with Peter.

And that’s when it all goes to hell. 

*

“Hello? Earth to Peter.” Tony waves a hand in his face. “Who are you daydreaming about?”

“Huh?” Peter looks up at Tony, then down at his half-finished iced tea. “Nothing,” he evades. “Nobody, I mean. Sorry, I’m just—just tired. And I have a lot of work left this weekend.”

“Mh-hmm.” Tony looks as if he isn’t quite believing it. “You want more spring rolls?” 

“Nah, I’m good. I’ll wait for the main dish.” 

Peter hasn’t eaten much today, but he’s not quite hungry either. He’s nursing a headache and the tiredness is not just an excuse. As happy as Peter is to see his mentor, Tony’s timing in showing up the week before midterms really could’ve been better. Peter feels like he might fall asleep right here at the restaurant table, but he already knows that he’s going to have to stay up until late to finish his readings. 

“You’re doing it again,” Tony points out. “You’re being awfully quiet, kid. What’s going on?” 

“Nothing, seriously.” Peter manages to hold eye contact for a few seconds and then takes another sip of his iced tea. “So, you said we could fix the suit while you’re here?”

Tony takes the bait (or maybe just lets it drop intentionally) and the talk quickly turns technical. 

After a few minutes, they’re interrupted by the waitress—a student Peter thinks he recognises from his Python lab—who stares at Tony for a moment, her gaze lingering on the scars decorating his right cheek and ear before dropping down to his bionic arm. Then she catches herself and asks for their order.

When their food arrives, Peter observes Tony take out a box of different coloured pills and swallow a couple of them dry. 

“I know, not sexy,” Tony remarks, noticing his look, “but sort of necessary if I want to keep this baby ticking.” He taps his hand over his chest with a wan smile. 

Peter grins half-heartedly in return, even while he can feel his insides clench. The comment reminds him of the time Tony’s heart actually did stop, of the battlefield with the dust of Thanos’ army still hanging in the air, of the utter helplessness he felt when Tony snapped, of― 

“Uhm, excuse me?” It’s the waitress again, her voice shy, cheeks blushing. She extends a piece of paper toward Tony. “Could I, uhm, could you, maybe give me an autograph for my sister? She’s a big fan. I mean, we all are, of course, but she’s got her room decorated with posters of you and all that…”

Tony looks her up and down with a raised eyebrow and a smirk playing around his lips. “What’s your sister’s name?” he asks finally, making a show of producing an integrated pen from his bionic arm. The waitress is visibly impressed, and Peter resists the temptation to roll his eyes―it’s far from the first time he’s seen this trick. If Tony was famous before, it’s nothing compared to the status he earned since dusting Thanos and saving the universe. 

Tony gives the waitress an easy smile along with the paper he passes back, and then turns back to Peter with a smirk. “Fangirls,” he whispers. “Gotta love ‘em. Did I tell you about the kid who offered me all of his allowance for a hoofprint from Gerald?”

*

Because Tony is Tony, it takes a long time before he has caught Peter up on anecdotes of Morgan, Happy, and Gerald’s newest misadventures, and by the time Peter gets back home, it is already late evening. His studio apartment is small and rather old, with walls that have turned grey over time and windows that don’t fully close anymore, but it’s got its own kitchen and bathroom, which is much better than a dorm room―especially since Peter wouldn’t know how to explain the odd hours he keeps or the regular blood stains in the shower to any of his fellow students. 

Peter’s head has been throbbing painfully for the better part of an hour, and the lights from the screen when he pulls out his laptop don’t make it any better. All his body seems to want is sleep, but if he’s going to spend the next two days upgrading his suit with Tony’s help, he really needs to get these chemistry readings finished. 

He tries for several hours, but the words don’t seem to want to stick in his mind and it takes longer than expected until he feels that he has understood the chapter. Peter drops into bed around 3:30 in the morning, too tired to even change out of his jeans, and falls asleep immediately.

*

Peter is woken up by someone knocking on his apartment door to the beat of “We Will Rock You”, and it’s all he can do to stifle a groan. He drags himself out of bed and over to the door.

“Finally,” Tony sighs when Peter lets him in, shoving a reusable thermal to-go cup in the kid’s face and causing him to flinch backwards. “I thought I’d have to actually start singing.” Then he gives Peter a once-over and his face falls. “What happened to you?”

“I think I’m sick,” Peter replies, realising it is true the same moment the words leave his mouth. His head is hurting even more than the night before and his throat feels raw and painful, but the worst is the utter weakness in his body and the chills running down his back that tell him he has a fever. 

“What kind of sick?” Tony asks suspiciously. To Peter’s surprise, instead of turning on his heel and leaving the surely germ-infested apartment, Tony steps over the threshold and raises a hand to cup to Peter’s forehead.

“Dunno.” Peter shrugs. “Just feel like garbage. Flu was going around the school last week―it’s probably that.”

“Aw, kid,” Tony sighs, something like compassion in his voice. “Yeah, you feel really warm.” 

“Sorry about the suit,” Peter says, moving back to sit down on his bed heavily. “I guess you can just go back to New York early then.” 

“What? You think I’m coldhearted enough to leave my former intern alone on his deathbed somewhere in the Virginian wilderness?” 

“Culver’s not that bad,” Peter defends. “And I’m not alone either.”

“So that means you have someone here to take care of you?” Tony raises a sceptical eyebrow.

Peter hesitates. “I… May’s a nurse,” he evades. “I can call her.” 

Truth is, there actually isn’t anybody. He hasn’t really made friends yet―at least certainly not the kind he would consider asking to take care of him while he’s down with the flu. He calls May twice a week, skypes with Ned—and occasionally still with MJ—on the weekends, and he’s friendly enough with his classmates when they’re working together in classes. But his downtime is mostly spent studying on his own and patrolling the city at night.

“Yeah, no, that’s not happening.” Tony looks him over appraisingly, then seems to make a decision and presses the cup of hot chocolate into Peter’s hand. “Guess I’ll stick around for a bit. Here, drink that.” 

“I don’t really feel like it.” Peter is definitely queasy, bordering on nauseous, and the thought of drinking something as rich as hot chocolate almost makes his stomach turn. He shifts on the bed so that he can lean against the headboard, feeling too tired to hold his body up without support.

“Well, you need to have something. Super metabolism and all that.” Tony strides over to the small, definitely not tidy kitchenette and starts opening cupboards, most of which are empty. He comes up with a few packets of shrimp-flavoured instant noodles and a box of Coco Puffs. “Really, kid?”

“I was gonna get groceries today,” Peter says defensively. 

“Yeah, I’m gonna do that now,” Tony states. “What do you say to buttered noodles? That’s all Morgan ever wants when she’s sick.” 

“Yeah, that’s...that’s fine,” Peter says, dumbfounded at the idea of Tony Stark going to the supermarket and making pasta for him. 

“Good. Glad that you agree, since that’s about as far as my cooking skills go.” He zips up his jacket and grabs Peter’s keys from the table. “Don’t do anything stupid till I’m back.” With that, he’s out of the door. 

Peter doesn’t feel like he’d be able to do anything stupid even if he wanted to. He can’t remember the last time he felt this bad, and with his Spider-Manning lifestyle, that really says something. He’s thirsty, but his throat hurts in a way that doesn’t make him want to swallow anything. There’s an ugly taste in his mouth and he really wants to brush his teeth, but the bathroom could just as well be a hundred miles away. 

If May were here, she would have set him up on the sofa with Star Trek: TOS playing on the TV while changing his sheets and airing out the room, he thinks. And suddenly the homesickness hits him like a train. He misses May. He misses New York and his friends and even the busy schedule that high school provided him with, but mostly he misses coming home to an apartment that’s not empty, having someone to eat breakfast with in the mornings and share his day with in the evenings over burnt teriyaki chicken. Just the thought of May’s disastrous cooking skills almost brings tears to his eyes. 

He stays like this for an indefinite amount of time, feeling miserable and blinking back tears, until Tony eventually returns. He sets down the shopping bag on the table and closes his eyes for a moment, rubbing the bridge between them with his fingers, the telltale sign that he has a headache. 

“You okay?” Peter asks hoarsely.

“Yeah. You live in a village, kid. Took forever to find a parking spot and then everyone and their mother wanted an autograph. Basically fought my way out of there. Might have to give my lawyer a heads up, actually.” 

Peter can’t even bring himself to force a laugh. A part of him wants to tell Tony to just go home already; the other part of him really, really doesn’t want to be alone right now. He sniffs hard and swallows to keep his nose from dripping.

“Hey,” Tony’s expression sobers as he sits down next to him on the mattress. “Did I miss something?”

“I just―” Peter rubs a sleeve over his watery eyes, feeling embarrassed. He thinks for an excuse and suddenly remembers the very real problems of college. “Ah, crap.” 

“Huh?” Tony asks.

“I have two tests next week,” Peter admits miserably. “I haven’t done anything for them yet―I was going to study this weekend in the evenings―”

“That’s fine, kid, we can deal with that. We saved the universe, remember? Schoolwork is nothing compared to Thanos, trust me.”

“I know,” Peter sniffs. Then, before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “I‘m just missing home.” 

“Ah,” Tony says. He lays his bionic hand on Peter’s shoulder and rubs it. “Yeah, that makes more sense.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter goes on, “I didn’t mean, I’m just―” 

“You’re just sick and tired and emotional,” Tony assesses, but there’s no judgement in his voice. “Come on.” He gestures for Peter to lie down and pulls the blanket up to his neck. “Go to sleep, kid.” His tone is almost soft. “I’ll be here.”

Peter falls into a feverish, exhausted sleep. He’s dimly aware of an icy cold gripping him and chills wracking his body, and then of Tony putting an extra blanket on him. At some point Tony offers food, but Peter’s too tired to even fully open his eyes. He mumbles something that he hopes Tony understands and turns over to the other side. 

The next time he fully surfaces, it’s from Tony gently shaking him awake. “Hey Pete, I know you’re tired, but you really need to eat something.” 

“Don’ wanna,” he mutters, pulling the covers up to his chin.

“Peter. Come on, kid.” 

He blinks himself awake. The apartment is dark now; it must be evening already. The faint smell of food lingers in the air. “D’ I sleep all day?” he asks, confused. 

“Almost. You can still catch Saturday Night Live.” 

“Hmm.” Peter sits up slowly. He feels woozy and weak and his head is still hurting, which is ridiculous considering how long he slept for. 

“Just let me check your temperature.” Tony takes off his smartwatch and presses it against Peter’s neck, just under his chin. The cold metal sends shivers down his spine. 

“102.6,” Tony reports. “Yeah, that’s not great. A pity that fever reducers don’t work on you.” Tony’s voice sounds rough. Peter squints up at him just as the man turns his head into his shoulder to cough. He looks tired—really tired—and, as far as Peter can make out in the dim light of the bedside lamp, his face is kind of flushed. 

“Are you okay?” Peter croaks. 

“Uhm...” For a moment it looks like Tony wants to lie, but then he falters. “Not really. Guess I caught the same bug you did.”

“Shit,” Peter says. This sucks big time. 

“I already texted May—she’ll probably be up here tomorrow. As soon as you’d had something to eat and drink, I’ll go back to the hotel and get out of your hair. You don’t need an old sick man around.”

“What? No!” Peter blurts before he can stop himself. He feels his breath speeding up, horrified at both the idea of Tony leaving him here alone, and of Tony being on his own in some hotel room feeling as miserable as Peter does now. “Please don’t go.”

Tony looks taken aback. “Pete, I don’t think I’m going to be much help soon.” 

“No, it’s not that, it’s just…” Peter feels himself blushing. “It’s nice not to be alone,” he admits in a small voice. 

Tony gives him a long look. “Okay, fine,” he agrees eventually. “But that means you have to listen to me. And the first rule is: eat your dinner, kid.”

They eat quietly. Tony is visibly making an effort not to let on just how bad he’s feeling, but Peter has learned to read the signs during his mentor’s long period of recovery from the snap. Tony is rubbing his shoulder whenever he thinks that Peter isn’t looking, which means that his prosthesis is hurting him. His shoulders are slumped, showing how tired he is, he’s nursing a headache, and then there is the fairly obvious sign of him hardly having eaten anything except for two spoons of pasta and his medication.

After dinner, Tony calls Pepper while Peter calls May. She gives him a run-down of the usual flu advice―“Stay hydrated, try and rest, and for god’s sake, don’t pile every blanket you own on yourself like that time you had strep, Peter—keep the curtains on the windows”—and promises to drive up tomorrow if she can get her shift covered. Then she asks to talk to Tony. Meanwhile, Peter uses the bathroom, brushes his teeth and changes into pyjamas. Observing himself in the mirror, he realises just how run-down he looks. He splashes some water on his face, which does nothing except make him shiver. 

“She asked whether you built that Lego ship she got you for your birthday,” Tony announces when Peter returns. 

“Oh.” Peter hasn’t, of course. He’s neither had the time nor the motivation to do so without Ned.

Tony makes a show of looking around the room. “This place is less personal than an airbnb. I told her there’s not even a poster on your wall.”

“So what?” Peter sighs. He feels the need to defend himself, but he’s too sick to come up with anything.  

Tony doesn’t press it, luckily. He borrows a pair of sweatpants, which end up being a bit short around his ankles and make it look like he’s outgrown them. It almost makes Peter smile. They pull out the sofa-sleeper that May insisted on him getting, but which he’s had no opportunity to use until now. When everything is set up, Peter is almost dizzy from being on his feet for so long. He’s both sweating and shivering and very glad to lie back down under the covers.

Tony turns on the TV, but neither of them is really paying attention. Peter is half asleep a few minutes into the news and Tony seems visibly uncomfortable, shifting around every few minutes on the couch. 

“Do you want to switch to the bed?” Peter asks him, secretly hoping for the answer to be no―he really doesn’t want to get up again. Tony shakes his head, lips pressed tightly together. Then he gets to his feet faster than Peter would have thought possible for someone in his condition and bolts to the bathroom. 

Peter hears nothing for a while. Then there’s a few weak coughs, followed by a retch and the sound of splashing. Peter cringes, his own stomach twisting in sympathy. The small size of the apartment and his enhanced hearing make it impossible to tune out the sounds as Tony continues to be sick into the toilet for the next ten minutes. When the retching tapers off, Peter shakily gets to his feet and fills a glass of water from the kitchenette. 

He knocks on the bathroom door, then leans heavily against the frame. “I got you some water,” he calls, hearing Tony’s ragged breathing inside. “Can I come in?”

“Just go to sleep, kid,” Tony croaks. 

“Yeah, sure,” Peter mumbles under his breath. After a few moments, he hears the sound of the flush and then the door opens. Tony is covered in sweat and looking about as bad as Peter feels, plus there’s a greenish tinge to his face. The smell of vomit wafts out and hits Peter’s nostrils, turning his own stomach. 

“Thanks, Pete,” Tony croaks says hoarsely and takes the water from his hand. His metal fingers feel cold against Peter’s burning skin when they brush the back of his hand. “Sorry you had to hear that.”

“‘S okay,” Peter mumbles. He suddenly has a hard time focusing on Tony. His head feels so heavy that he has to rest it against the doorframe as well. 

“Jeez, kid,” Tony comments. Then his face drains even more of colour and he presses his knuckles against his lips, swallowing thickly. “Go lie down, okay? I’ll be out in a bit.” With that, he turns and disappears back into the bathroom. 

For once, Peter listens to him, unsure whether he will be able to keep standing much longer anyway. After a moment of consideration, he curls up on the couch, leaving the softer bed for the older man. He drifts there for a while, trying to tune out the sounds of sickness coming from the bathroom. 

Eventually, he is dimly aware of someone entering the room and switching off the lights. There’s cold metal touching his neck as someone takes his temperature and tsks, then softly brushes back his hair and lays a cold washcloth on his forehead. It feels amazing against Peter’s burning skin.

“Thanks, May,” he mumbles.

*

Waking up feels like resurfacing after diving into a deep pool of water. Peter’s eyelids are sticky with sleep and his brain feels like it’s been through a potato masher. He’s disoriented, so it takes a bit until he realises that it was Tony’s voice that woke him. “Pete,” he hears him calling again weakly. Something about it shakes him out of his half-awake state. 

“Tony?” he asks, sitting up. There’s a rustling sound and a thump from the bathroom, confirming his worry. A quick glance at his phone on the bedside table tells him that it’s just after 4am. Definitely not the time to take a shower.

Peter’s head swims when he gets up from the couch. He takes a few unsteady steps towards the bathroom and then stops to lean against the wall until his vision clears and he can open the door.

Tony is on the ground next to the toilet, wrenched in between the bowl and the shower, looking about ten times worse than earlier. His face is almost grey except for the scars on his right cheek, which are flushed in an angry red. His dark eyes are glassy and deeply exhausted. Sweat sticks to his hair and t-shirt, the prosthesis off and one sleeve dangling empty. The smell of vomit hangs thickly in the air, much stronger than before.

Tony slowly lifts his head when Peter steps in. “Hey,” he croaks, attempting a smile and giving up somewhere halfway. “Sorry for waking you. ‘S just that I could use some help.”

“With what exactly?” 

“Getting up?” Tony asks sheepishly. “I tried and almost took down your shower curtain.”

Peter blinks. “Well, shit.”

“You said it, kid.” 

Peter extends a hand and Tony grabs it gratefully, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. Peter closes the toilet lid and Tony sits down on it with a heavy sigh. He shudders convulsively, then closes his eyes and swallows rapidly a few times, as if trying to stop himself from being sick again. 

“How long have you been in here?” Peter asks while checking Tony’s temperature on his smart watch. He finds it to be at a worrying 103.6.

“Uhm,” Tony makes a vague gesture with his hand. “Midnight, maybe? Kinda lost track of time.” Peter frowns. “Sorry for waking you up, kid,” Tony says again, taking his expression the wrong way. “That’s kind of why I didn’t want to stay.”

“You should have called me earlier.” Peter fills a glass of water from the tap. “And yeah, really reassuring to think of you spending the night on the bathroom floor of your hotel because you can’t get up on your own.”

Tony mumbles something that sounds a lot like, “Not like I haven’t done that before.” When Peter hands him the glass, the man’s hands are trembling so much that half of the water spills out onto his shirt. 

“Shit,” Tony mutters. “All my spares are at the hotel.” 

“I can give you one of mine,” Peter offers. 

“Yeah, that... that would be great,” Tony says earnestly. Peter wonders whether he’s maybe a bit delirious. “This shit didn’t use to happen before the snap, you know.”

“Don’t worry,” Peter says, surprised at the admission. He fetches a clean sweatshirt from the dresser and hands it to the older man. His mentor’s whole body is shaking violently with chills. While Tony changes, Peter notices that the scar pattern around his shoulder stump is an angry red. It looks painful, but Tony doesn’t seem to care too much. 

Something twists within Peter. It reminds him too much of the time just after the snap when he saw Tony in the hospital, weak with fever from the infected limb.

“Ready for bed?” Peter asks, shaking the thoughts from his head.

“Yeah,” Tony says, although he doesn’t look too sure. Peter pulls him upright and almost staggers under the man’s weight and his own weakness. Tony doesn’t comment, and when Peter turns towards him, he sees that he is biting his lips, eyes largely unfocused. 

“This really hit you hard, huh?” Peter asks when they have made it to the bed, sitting down next to Tony. His mentor is bending forward, head in his hands, panting and shaking like he just finished a mission in the suit. That’s not the only thing, though. With his advanced hearing, Peter can pick up Tony’s heartbeat, which is slightly arrhythmic. 

“Tony?” he asks suspiciously. “What’s wrong with your heart?”

“Yeah, about that…” The other man raises his head, but avoids Peter’s gaze.

“What?” Peter can feel his own heart rate speeding up in worry.

“I, uh...remember my heart medication?” Tony says casually. “I threw up the last dose. It’s not dangerous, don’t worry,” he adds when Peter stares at him, alarmed, “Or, well, at least not yet. Just sort of increases the nausea and dizziness.”

“Can’t you take another dose?” he asks. 

“I don’t think I can keep anything down right now,” Tony admits. “But I’ll try in the morning.”

“Hmm.” This doesn’t really do anything to make Peter feel better. 

“Don’ worry, kid” Tony adds with a tired slur to his words, which only achieves the opposite. With a lot of effort, he pulls his legs up to the bed and then lies down under the blankets. “Let’s both sleep for a bit and things will look brighter in the morning.”

Peter gets himself a glass of water and then curls back up on the couch. He hears Tony’s breaths turn heavy and even out before long, but although he feels exhausted, he has a hard time going back to sleep. The sofa feels like rocks under his achy body, and he keeps turning around, unable to find a comfortable position. His head doesn’t fare any better. With his brain cloudy from fever, it’s even harder than usual to stave off the memories from the battlefield. 

His eyes finally fall shut and back he goes, right into the middle of dust and blood and death looming around every corner. He knows that there should be screams and shouts everywhere, but it’s silent, dead silent, except for the underlying thump-thump-thump of Tony’s heartbeat, becoming ever quieter. 

Peter rounds a heap of rubble and almost stumbles over Tony, who is lying on the ground, half his body eaten away by the radiation. The beating gets weaker even as Peter falls onto his knees and tears stream down his cheeks. He’s been here a hundred times, unable to save the man who saved him, and he knows exactly how this is going to end. 

A beat, almost indiscernible. A breath leaves Tony’s lips for the last time. 

Silence. 

*

He wakes to the feeling that everything in the world that possibly could be wrong, is wrong. His whole body is hot and he feels nauseous, almost as if he will throw up. Sick, he remembers. He’s sick. Tony’s― 

Peter forces himself to take a deep breath that comes out more like a choked sob. He sits up dizzily, and is surprised by the light streaming through the windows. His eyes immediately wander to Tony’s still form on the bed, covered by blankets. Peter can make out his slightly ragged breathing, but he’s way past the point where he would feel calmed by this. 

Unsteadily, he makes his way over to the bed and sits down on the floor next to it, shivering uncontrollably from the coldness of the tile, but not wanting to wake Tony up. He tries to calm himself, but his heart won’t stop racing. Everything feels kind of surreal and he can’t shake the image of Tony’s body on the ground, so still and lifeless. There are tears burning in his eyes. He shoves his knuckles in his mouth to keep himself from sobbing loudly. 

“Kid?” Tony’s groggy voice asks. “What ‘appened?”

“S-Sorry,” Peter manages. “G-Go back to sleep.”

“Hey.” Tony rubs his eyes and tries to push himself up, only partially succeeding. Looking at Peter, his face takes on an alarmed expression. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Peter whispers, feeling infinitely stupid. “J-Just had a nightmare.” He bites his lip, but with the admission, a dam seems to break. He can feel his eyes overflowing. 

“Hey, kid, hey,” Tony says softly. “It’s alright.”

Peter just shakes his head, tears dripping down his cheeks onto the floor. Tony extends a trembling hand to wipe them away. “Do these nightmares happen often?” he asks.

“Sometimes,” Peter evades. He wonders why he doesn’t just tell the truth. That there’s rarely a night when he doesn’t go back to the battle against Thanos, or the dust on Titan, or even the Vulture in flames―an enemy that seems ridiculous now compared to the ones they’ve fought since, but sometimes still makes it into Peter’s dreams. 

“It’s gotten worse again, hasn’t it?” Tony asks. “Since you moved here.” His hand drops down to Peter’s shoulder and squeezes it lightly. 

“‘S okay,” he lies. “I’m fine. Jus’... just the fever.”

“Mmh-hmm, sure. Come here.” Tony nods his head towards himself, weakly lifting an arm, and Peter lets himself get pulled into the hug. “Woah, kid. You’re on fire.” 

“Hmm,” Peter mumbles. “You too.” 

It’s true; Tony’s body feels even hotter than his. The sweatshirt Peter had given him is already damp with sweat. And, most concerningly, his heart is still beating out of rhythm. It reminds Peter way too much of his dream for him to ignore it. 

“You need to have some water,” Tony says, ignorant to Peter’s thoughts. “And eat something. It’s been a while.”

Peter’s queasiness increases at the thought. “Stomach’s not feeling great,” he admits. “How are you doing?” he asks then, into the older man’s chest. “And don’t lie.” 

He feels Tony grimacing. “Like a clock someone forgot to wind up.” His remaining arm lets go of Peter as he brings it to his chest to massage the area around his heart. “But hey, don’t worry. I’m gonna try my pills and some water and then I’ll be back on my bullshit before you know it.” 

But he isn’t. Half an hour later, Peter has to support Tony to the toilet to once again throw up the medication and the few sips of water he’s just managed to get down. He stops trying to reassure Peter after the second bout of painful dry heaves wrack his body and doesn’t even resist when Peter wipes down his grey face with a wet cloth. On their way back, halfway across the bedroom, they almost lose balance when Tony’s legs suddenly give out. Peter just manages to stabilise him before they can faceplant all the way. 

“That’s it. You need to go to the ER,” Peter decides after all-but carrying Tony back to the bed and sitting him down. Peter’s own body feels heavy with exhaustion. Tony weakly shakes his head and opens his mouth to object. “Please, Tony.”

There must have been something in his voice that gave away his desperation because Tony shuts up mid-inhale. He gives Peter a deep look and then nods shakily. ”But only if you eat something first.”

“Okay.” He checks Tony’s temperature, which has climbed even higher, to 103.8. Peter’s own is hardly any better at 103.2, but at least he can still stand―kind of, he realises when he has to sit down to be able to concentrate on his phone screen long enough to call a cab. 

The walk to the kitchen feels like it’s a mile long. Peter surveys the meagre food choices and decides that cold pasta with salt looks like the best option. After the first few bites, his queasiness abides a bit and he manages to finish his small plate, suddenly realising how hungry he was. He drinks two glasses of water with it and finally feels a little less lightheaded. Then he goes to the bathroom and, on a whim, swallows a small handful of painkillers from the bottle of Advil Tony has sitting beside his pill box. They will hardly do anything for him, but hopefully they’ll keep him upright until they reach the hospital.

When Peter comes back, he expects Tony to be lying where he left him and is already wondering how he’s going to maneuver him down the stairs from the second floor with the man's balance shot and his own legs feeling like noodles. But Tony is sitting up and in the process of putting on his shoes. His determination, however, falters a bit when it comes to actually standing up. 

“Just go slow,” Peter directs, supporting Tony to the door and taking on most of the man’s weight. “One step at a time.”

They make it down the first staircase before Tony holds up a hand. “Just need a minute,” he exhales, sitting down with a sigh and leaning against the wall, his eyelids fluttering shut. His breathing is ragged. Peter looks at him worriedly, the unsteady thump of the man’s heartbeat loud in his ears. Tony, as if feeling the gaze, opens one eye to squint at him. “Not dead yet, kid. Come on, let’s get downstairs.” 

Maybe it’s the fact that the painkillers are wearing off faster than expected or that Peter’s anxiety is finally getting the better of him, but the cab ride is kind of a blur. He just remembers Tony sitting with his head tipped back and his eyes closed, looking deathly exhausted, and at some point grabbing the older man’s hand and holding on. 

Peter only lets go of it when he has to fill in the forms once they reach the hospital. The ER nurse takes one look at Tony’s scarred face and missing arm and then directs them to a private room. Peter’s hand is shaking so hard that Tony’s name on the form looks like a child’s scrawl. Behind him, his mentor is already being connected to a heart monitor, while another nurse is bringing an IV stand.

He hands the form to the elderly nurse and then has to steady himself against the wall when he stumbles a bit. 

Her brow furrows. “Are you alright?” she asks. 

“Y-Yes,” Peter answers quickly. 

“Bullshit. He’s got the flu too,” Tony mutters from the bed behind them. 

“I’m fine,” Peter insists, feeling his heart rate spike. They’ve done a great deal to keep his secret identity, well, secret while he’s at Culver, and he’s not about to let his powers be discovered just because of a flu bug. “Really, I’m okay. Not a big deal.”

“Honey, you can’t be here as a visitor if you’re sick,” the nurse says, her tone kind, but firm. “You’ll risk infecting the other patients.”

Peter looks up, taking a moment to understand the implications. “What? No, please don’t make me go!” 

The nurse eyes him critically, then sighs and relents. “If you’re going to stay, you’ll have to be inside this room at all times. I can’t have you walking around spreading germs.”

“That’s okay,” Peter agrees immediately. It’s not like he was planning to walk the halls anyway; his legs feel like they might go on strike any moment. When the nurse turns around to start working on Tony, Peter wobbles over to an uncomfortable chair in the corner and collapses into it.

He feels like the next time he takes an actual breath is once Tony is hooked up to painkillers, antiemetics, and something for his heart, the fluids dripping steadily into his arm through an IV and the heart monitor finally—finally—reverts back to a steady rhythm of beeps. Tony isn’t conscious anymore to notice; after spending the better part of the last 24 hours on Peter’s bathroom floor, his exhaustion has finally gotten the upper hand. He drifts off as soon as the meds start kicking in. 

Once the nurses leave, Peter drags his chair over next to the bed. Tony looks—there is no other way to describe it—frail. Like he might fall apart any minute if Peter stops watching. His fever is still much too high at 103.3 and he is sleeping fitfully, as if the dreams are haunting him as well. Peter can still see images from the nightmare in his mind. Not clear, but looming, like he might find himself on the battlefield any time he turns around. 

He doesn’t want to fall asleep, but he’s dead tired. Now with the adrenaline fading, it feels like his body weighs a thousand pounds. He suddenly doesn’t even feel able to keep his head up, and instead lets himself slump forward, crossing his arms and resting his head on top. His cold hands are a sharp contrast to his burning face. 

His mind feels oddly detached from his body, like he’s floating, and he has no idea how much time has passed when suddenly the nurse shakes him awake from where he’s slidden down onto the edge of Tony’s mattress. “Can you just move for a second, hon?” she asks gently. “I need to hook up some more fluids."

"Oh yeah, sure, of course..." Peter nods groggily and goes to stand up a little too quickly. The moment he is on his feet, he can practically feel the blood rushing away from his head, and a wave of darkness rolls over him. Peter grabs for something to hold on to but comes up empty. He feels himself sway into the nurse, who grabs his shoulders and just about manages to keep him from face planting on the hospital floor.

“You’re really warm, dear,” she observes after helping him sit back down on the chair. "You really can't be here if you're not a patient. Let me call someone to get you a bed."

“But I—” Peter feels panic swelling in his chest. He doesn’t want to leave Tony alone, especially when he can’t be sure that the man’s heart won’t stop again, but he can’t let anyone find out about Spider-Man either―

"Peter, it's fine,” he hears a thin voice. Tony, just woken up, is shifting wearily under the blanket, turning his head towards them. “They'll sign NDAs and no one will know. Just do what she says and get in the bed, alright?"

So Peter does. The nurse calls her colleague, who sets up a bed next to Tony’s and takes Peter’s vitals. After Peter groggily explains that fever reducers won’t do anything to bring down his 103.5 degree temperature, the nurse hooks him up to fluids to counteract the dehydration.

The world goes blurry again and he is half asleep when he sees Tony slip something into the elderly nurse’s hand on her way out the door.  

When she’s gone, Peter gives Tony a confused look. “You bribed her to let me stay in the room?” 

“What are you talking about?” Tony scoffs lightly. “I just asked nicely and told her you took part in saving the world―that was more than enough.” He shrugs a bit. “And I might’ve signed an autograph for her son.” 

Peter would have rolled his eyes if his head wasn’t hurting so much. “Still a bribe,” he mumbles.

“Go to sleep, kid,” Tony says warmly.

He closes his eyes but then opens them again to see Tony watching him. “You’ll be okay, right?” Peter asks. 

“Of course,” Tony replies. “I’m always okay.”

*

When Peter wakes up again in the early evening, it’s to May lightly stroking his curls out of his face. A tension he didn’t even know he was holding seems to fall off his shoulders.

“Hey, baby,” she says softly when he hugs her. “Rough weekend, huh?” 

It is decided that neither of them has to spend the night at the hospital―Tony has to fight to be discharged, but they eventually let him go after making him promise to rest, take his medicine, and tell May if his heart acts up again. In turn, Tony collects each of the staff members’ contact details to have his lawyers send NDAs later. 

The drive back to the flat is quiet. Tony attempts small talk for the first five minutes, but is still too out of it from the combined force of illness and drugs, and quickly gives up again. Peter is just relieved that May is there. 

Once they’re home, May makes both of them eat some toast and then ushers them off to bed. Peter feels like he hasn’t slept since he moved to Virginia, and maybe that’s true in a way. But now with Tony and May both there, he finally feels like it’s safe to let himself go. 

*

He wakes up to May opening the windows to let in the chilly morning air.

“C’n I have some water?” he mumbles. 

May hands him the glass. “Your fever has come down a bit overnight. Feeling any better?” she asks. 

“Hmm.” He’s still weary and headachey, but the chills are gone and the world seems much less frightening now. “How’s Tony?” he asks.

“Still asleep. We talked a little last night—he didn’t get much rest, I’m afraid. But you should wake him up and tell him it’s time for food and medicine.”

Peter sits up and is rewarded with a lack of dizziness. He goes to the toilet and washes his face before trudging over to the bed and sitting down carefully on the mattress next to his mentor’s sleeping form. Tony’s eyes are moving rapidly behind his closed eyelids as if he’s in the middle of a dream. His hair is a greasy mess, the scars as red and angry as before and his cheeks still flushed with fever, but the rest of his face isn’t as pale as it was the previous day, and, when he listens carefully, Peter can make out his regular heartbeat.

“Tony?” Peter whispers, gently touching his flesh shoulder. 

Tony grunts and rolls himself over. “Pep?” he asks in a muffled voice. 

“Not exactly.” Tony blinks awake and squints up at Peter. “How are you feeling?”

“Ugh…I want my hospital drugs back,” Tony half-jokes. “But not on the verge of cardiac failure anymore, so that’s a plus.”

“Hmm.” Peter reaches for his hand to check the smart watch. “Your temperature’s down.” Tony’s is at 101.5, whereas Peter’s is at 100.7. Tony gives first the numbers and then Peter a critical once-over before closing his eyes again. 

“Don’t go back to sleep,” Peter warns. “May said you need to take your medicine and eat something.”

Tony groans audibly. “Nurses never let you have any fun...” 

*

The first time they met, Peter wasn’t sure what to make of Tony Stark. 

Times have changed, Peter thinks, as he surveys the scene in his apartment. 

After a painfully slow shuffle to the bathroom and back, Tony decides that he doesn’t feel up to walking around just yet, so they all eat breakfast in bed, assembled on various pillows and blankets, while Star Trek plays on the TV in the background. With his appetite returning and worries temporarily lifted, Peter devours two pieces of toast with chocolate spread and a glass of orange juice while Tony sticks to saltines, tea, and the pills he swallows under May’s watchful eye. 

When they’re done, May announces that she’s heading out for groceries. “No crime-fighting until I’m back,” she orders with a smile. “And I want each of you to finish the water bottles on the table.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Tony salutes sarcastically. The moment May shuts the door, he sets down his half-finished cup of tea and slumps visibly into his pillows. 

“You alright?” Peter asks immediately. 

“Jeez, kid, you’re worse than Morgan,” Tony comments, not without affection. “I know last night was scary for you, but honestly, this is not even in my top 20 for life-threatening events I’ve experienced in the last few decades.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Peter retorts. “Because it really doesn’t.”

He must have come across less playful than intended, because Tony’s expression sobers. He regards Peter with the deep look that always gives him the feeling of being x-rayed. 

“I know,” Tony says. “But that’s kind of the point. I’ve been through so much shit in my life that I know pretty much exactly how you feel.” 

He drags himself a bit more upright and lays a warm hand on Peter’s forearm. “I know how it is when your thoughts circle back to the same moment over and over again and the nightmares won’t let you rest. I know how easy it is to isolate yourself because the memories are eating you up and you feel like nobody can help you.”

He pauses for a moment and rubs a hand over his forehead. Peter remembers the darkness on Tony’s face the first time they met and wonders whether that’s what Tony sees on his now. 

“What I’m trying to say is,” Tony continues, “you don’t have to pretend to be fine if you’re not. At least not in front of me or May.” 

The irony of it almost makes Peter smile, despite the lump forming in his throat. Tony just spent the last 36 hours trying to downplay the pain he was in. “You are one to talk,” he remarks.

Tony chuckles quietly. “Still learning, kid.” He picks up his tea cup and takes another sip before continuing in a softer voice. “Just trust me, it‘s okay to be a little broken, even when you’re not sick. And you don’t have to hide it. I know what loneliness looks like. I’ve been through all of it and it took me years to understand that the only thing that can help is to let other people in―the right kind of people.”

The thoughts are running a marathon in Peter’s head and he’s dimly aware that he’s trembling. He swallows hard before speaking. “It’s just… sometimes I don’t even want to remember. It’s just so hard to start talking. About”―he takes a deep breath―“the battle. And the dreams. And everything else.”

“Yeah, it is. I never said it would be easy.” Tony seems to hesitate for a moment, but then he pulls Peter toward him one-handedly so that they can lie side by side. He covers both of them with his blanket. Peter turns his head into Tony’s shoulder and closes his eyes, taking deep breaths. “And we don’t have to start today. But I’ll be there whenever you’re ready.”

________________

If you liked this, you might also enjoy my other post-Endgame fic (in which Tony is obviously still alive): What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood

All my fics

Taglist: @toomuchtoread33  @yepokokfine

[leiascully]

Fic: Sláinte

13600 words | slightly AU season 4 Scully/Pendrell relationship, Scully/Mulder UST | R for canon-typical violence/swearing/some sexual situations

Without the divine intervention of @mashnotesofthemythopoeic, this story wouldn’t exist.  Thank you.  

He approaches her on the oblique, scuffing his sole on the floor on purpose.  A proximity alert.  Early warning that he's about to cross her boundaries again.  She startles easier since her sister was murdered, drawn into herself.  He knows, if anyone does, the way grief rises and ebbs, an irregular tide leaving behind unexpected pools. 

Weeks ago, there were miracles.  Jeremiah Smith laid on hands and healed a man and then got Mulder lost in Canada.  Somewhere in the endless plains, he met his sister again, or some facsimiles of her, like the articles in his files that have been copied so many times that their print is smudged and nearly illegible.  The clones had lost their voices but still had her eyes.  Meanwhile, Scully had to see X's blood on the floor in his building, the smear down the hallway where X had tried to drag himself elsewhere, as if anywhere could be safe.  His apartment and hers have been haunted since the beginning.  Her father's spirit in her armchair, speaking to her.  Her sister's blood soaked into the pad under her carpet.  She is mourning all of these things: the miracles, the silent toiling children in their hives and fields, the sanctity of their quiet spaces.  

He wades into her waters like a penitent waiting for baptism.  Silence billows around him, proof of a current in the stillness between them.

She looks up and her eyes are bleak.  He can see her surfacing slowly from the dimly-lit depths of her mind.  A measured ascent is necessary; grief, permeating the blood, can overwhelm a body that tries to come up too fast.  It's a variety of decompression sickness the medical journals rarely cover, but he's been incapacitated before.  He knows the symptoms.  He felt himself sinking when his mother was in the hospital; despite everything between them, his mother is all he has left, even if somewhere, a hundred sisters with brown braids toil in strange fields with bees sketching paths in the air above them.  Scully buoyed him then.  He hitches his hip onto the corner of the desk and folds his hands.  He waits, letting her breathe.  He bows his head.  

"Mm?" she says after a moment.  It's a weary little noise, a question mark struggling to unfurl at the end.  

"The boys in the lab invited us out for drinks after work," he says, his tone light.  He's the sound of the ocean, a shell held to her ear.  The only call she'll always take.  She tips her head to listen.  "They have some kind of Thursday night drink specials at their favorite bar.  What do you say, partner?"

She starts to shake her head.  "I don't think so, Mulder."

"You said that last time," he reminds her.  He rounds the words off, offering them to her rather than accusing.  A  handful of sea glass to pique her curiosity.  "And the time before.  Danny said he was going to start taking it personally, just in case he ever meets you."

"I haven't met Danny?"  Another question uncoiling as deliberately as a fern.  She turns toward him just a little, bright head heavy on the stem of her neck.  

"I can't believe it either," he says, and shrugs.  "But it's been years now, Scully.  Nobody can spend that much time cleaning their gun."  

"Maybe it's always been a euphemism," Scully says, a glint of humor in her eye flickering and fading.   

He huffs, a fragment of a laugh.  "Not even I could euphemism that much."

"Hmm," she says.  "Maybe you're not open enough to extreme possibilities."

"I'm going to ignore that obvious attempt to distract me and ask you again," he says.  He rarely gets to see this side of her, the little sister who must have traded quips in kind with her older, worldly-wiser siblings.  With Melissa.  Their own banter usually feels rarified, precise, an academic exercise played out in cinderblock halls, all their humor cloaked in some esoteric code.  "Come out with us.  I'll buy you a drink.  You can finish half of it and make your excuses.  I'll even hail a cab for you if you need one."

"One drink," she says.  He can see her weighing the offer against whatever she's got planned to fill the hours of her Thursday evening.  He imagines a stack of books or back issues of medical journals.  Maybe she really will clean her gun, or her bathroom, or maybe she'll turn on the tv and gaze mindlessly at it until she falls asleep on the couch.

"I know it's not easy," he says quickly.  "When Sam...I didn't go to a baseball game for the next two seasons.  And you're not exactly a social butterfly to begin with."

"No," she says.  "Not exactly."  There's a tiny thoughtful crease between her eyes.  He lets the idea sink between them like a penny flipped into a fountain.  Despite the occasional passing interest in dating, she passes the majority of her time with him.  He's aware that he likes it that way, has been engineering Scully-traps since the slides he showed her the day they met.  He baits her with conundrums and impossible questions and then sits smugly, luxuriating in her company.  He has let her leave or lose anyone else who mattered to her.   Maybe he can offer her the boys from the lab as a stopgap, a seawall built against her loneliness.

"Just come for an hour or so," he says.  "Say hello to the boys.  Spend a little time outside the morgue and the basement."

"In the land of the living?" she says wryly.  

He lifts his shoulders.  "If that's what you call it."

She sighs like the sound of sand shifting.  "Then I suppose it's time I met Danny."

She drives.  "I won't need a cab," she tells him, changing lanes carefully.  "I'm only having one drink.  I can bring you back to your car afterwards."

He gives her directions to the place.  He would have thought that the crew from the lab would have had a local watering hole, something walkable, but apparently it's a place one of them knows from college: cheaper drinks and fewer government types, the right kind of music on the jukebox.  It's for the best.  Nobody knows better than Mulder how insufferable the field agents can be.  He had, at one point, the password to the boys' club.  He could again.  It's something in his rich boy's grin, or in the lithe way he still moves.  Most of them grew up wanting to be him; he could waltz back into the clubhouse and shotgun a Budweiser and they'd worship him again.  But Scully is worth more to him than cigar smoke or golden idols to his glory forged of stories refined again and again each time they're told, until he is a god among men.  He's tasted that world and choked on it.  He'd rather drink with the techies with their minds full of gears, and Scully, wading through the shallows of her grief.

The bar is better than he expected: less sports paraphernalia and more beers.  It's dimly lit, but not so dimly that he can't see Scully's eyes, wide and luminous.  They are hailed joyously by the boys from the lab, who, judging by the collection of glassware, are at least one round ahead of them.  "Everybody, this is Scully," Mulder says, sweeping his arm through the air, unrolling an imaginary red carpet at her feet.  He pulls a chair out for her, enthroning her among the jovial crowd.  She gazes beatifically at the crowd as they greet her.  A queen among her adoring subjects, limned by the glow of the neon in the window.  

He leans down to murmur in her ear, boxing off a space with the square of their shoulders, his stubble striking brief sparks off her cheekbone.  There's tinder between them, no matter how sodden the atmosphere.  He can feel her interest catch.  "What's the lady's pleasure?" 

"Surprise me," she says.  Her voice smolders like a peat fire.  

They don't have his favorite Irish whiskey from his Oxford days at this bar, but they have something a little better than Jameson, so he orders that.  The bartender has to hunt for it, slipping through a door into a storeroom behind the mirror.  Mulder waits, tracing sigils through the dregs on the bartop.  He has this idea of how to honor the step that Scully's taken, how to honor the memory of Melissa, taken too soon.  An Irish wake of sorts, the two of them united by their purposeful sorrow.  He taps the bartop, syncopated impatience.  It would be the perfect transposition of their peculiar solitude from their basement to a less isolated locale, if only the bartender would come back with his whiskey.  

The bartender emerges finally.  "Sorry, man," he says, brushing a hand over his hair.  "I found it, but it's on the top shelf in the back.  Must have gotten pushed around.  I gotta get the stepladder."

"Sure," Mulder says agreeably, because that's all he can do.  Scully promised him one drink.  She won't leave before they sip this whiskey together, each knowing the other is feeling that slow burn spreading like a fire in a coal mine: lips, tongue, throat, heart, and belly, and the heat of it reflected in their eyes as they watch each other ignite.  Whiskey comes the closest to making him feel like Scully does.  He returns to his tracing, composing arcane texts with the rings of condensation and drips of the various potions the bar serves.  A codex of Cosmopolitans.  A grimoire of gin.  The bartender shuffles back into the closet, a stepladder slung over his shoulder, and returns after a moment with Mulder's whiskey.  He pours two generous measures, the amber liquid clinging to the sides of the glass, and Mulder slides his credit card over the bartop.

"Start a tab," he says, reaching for the glasses.  He's feeling optimistic.  Maybe the tide is turning for them, after what feels like a dark age.  

A laugh rings out like a bell and Mulder jerks around.  He knows that sound better than he knows his own name, for all that he's heard it so rarely.  Scully is laughing.  Her head is tipped back, her hair a russet cloak sliding over her shoulders.  There are two empty shot glasses in front of her and Pendrell and Danny are laughing too.  

"You never told us Dana was so much fun," Danny says, leaning over the table.  His blond hair is ruffled.  He's loosened his tie.  

"I haven't tasted a Buttery Nipple since college," Scully says, smirking and patting her lips with the back of her index finger.  Mulder can see the faintest breath of pink on her knuckle, transferred pigment from her lipstick.  Pendrell's cheeks are painted with the same palette, a study in rose.  It would mean something, if they were a piece of art: the two of them lily-pale, blush rippling past half-hidden freckles, and Mulder the shadowy figure hovering at her elbow.  He didn't imagine this tableau littered with shot glasses filmed with cream.

"The shot?" Danny asks with a wink, and Scully just laughs and shrugs delicately.  

"Isn't there some kind of injunction against kissing and telling?" she asks, ducking her head coquettishly.  

"You can trust me," Danny teases, leaning forward on his elbows.  "I work for the government."

Scully shakes her head, biting her lip.  "I told you," Pendrell says.  "She's too smart for you.  She'll never crack."

"It might take a few more Nipples," Danny says, "but she'll confess."  He slides out of his chair.  "I'm going to get another round.  Don't do anything fun without me."

Mulder sets the whiskeys on the table with deliberate movements.  Now he's the one drowning, but it isn't the cold waters of grief that are closing over his head.  This sea is hot; it's salty and bitter and filled with clinging green tendrils that wind around him and drag him deeper.  He strains against the net of his own jealousy.  He brought her here to share a blatantly solitary moment framed by their friends.  Instead, she is giggling into Pendrell's shoulder, their ruddy heads together.  She is gasping for the air he exhales, supporting herself with a hand on his arm, and he is holding her up.  

"I never knew you were so funny," Scully says in a tone touched with wonder. 

"You don't stick around long enough after the lab results come in," Pendrell says, and Mulder wishes he could believe that bashful tone was put on, but Pendrell really is that guy around Scully.  "I only get funny when the lab door closes."

There's still an empty seat next to Scully.  It isn't really empty; when Mulder settles into it, whatever fragment of his soul that's permanently attaches to hers clicks into place.  It was his place whether he was there or not.  He nudges Scully's whiskey closer to her.

"Here," he says, trying to keep himself from sounding sulky.  "One drink."

"Now the party can start," she says.  Her body shifts toward his; the fact that her shoulder is nearly touching Pendrell's should mean nothing.  She turns her brilliant smile on him, but the part of him that melts is plunged back into the well of jealousy by the fact that the crinkle in her nose was conjured by Pendrell.  It sizzles inside him.  She picks up her whiskey and touches the lip of her glass to his.  They lift in tandem.  

"For Melissa," he says quietly, and she echoes, "For Missy."  Pendrell picks up one of the shot glasses that has a sip left in it and clinks it against Scully's glass, mumbling something about how sorry he was to hear about her sister, but Mulder doesn't care.  Scully's eyes are on his as they taste the amber liquor: sunshine and grain, a breath of peat and oak, the taste of time and history distilled.  

She winces as she swallows.  "Ah," she says.  "I can't argue with you this time, Mulder.  This is definitely a one-drink drink."

Mulder huffs at the irony, almost chuckling.  "You're Irish and you don't like Irish whiskey?"  

"Missy did, but I've never...it's been a few generations," Scully mumbles, the spark in her dimming, and he hates and relishes the sight simultaneously, and then hates himself.  Mulder takes another mouthful.  He holds the liquor in his mouth until the roof of his mouth stings and a wash of saliva obscures the bitter honeyed flavor of it.  His body's defense mechanism against a sophisticated poison.  He wishes he had more ways to conquer the toxins his own mind secretes.  He swallows at last and doesn't flinch as it burns down his esophagus.  There's no more candlelight in his heart tonight.  There's only a profound well the whiskey can't fill.

"Can I smell it?"  Pendrell reaches over without waiting for permission and wafts the glass under his nose, swirling the whiskey.  He tips the glass to his mouth and Mulder bristles.  Scully, for all her knowledge of pathogens and every careful inch she's carved out as her personal space over the last few years, seems unfazed.  She's smiling at Pendrell, her shoulders loose, the line of her neck soft as she tilts her head towards him.  But they worked together, didn't they, unraveling the mystery of the Jeremiahs Smith while he was evading the brutish outlander in the apiary in Alberta and losing his sister all over again.  He knows what it's like to work next to Scully, to see close up the sophisticated analytical engine of her mind.  Pendrell smacks his lips.   "Mm, that's the good stuff.  I didn't know they had anything like this here."

"They almost didn't," Mulder says.  "I sent the bartender on a treasure hunt.  It's literally top-shelf."

"Didn't mean to commandeer your drink," Pendrell says, setting it down in front of Scully, but she waves her hand over it, dismissing it with her blessing.   Saint Scully, who doesn't even need touch to impart her holy influence.    

"Cheers," she says, and Pendrell reclaims the whiskey.  Mulder leans back and toys with his glass.  Every time he looks at Scully foregrounded against Pendrell, jealousy heaves in him.

"Sláinte," Pendrell tells her.  

"Semester in Dublin?" Mulder snarks.  "Let me guess, Temple Bar with the tourists?"

"Summers with my cousins in Galway," Pendrell says easily.  "Hey, I guess you're not the only one with an international reputation."

"Jesus," Danny says, coming back with his hands full of shots.  "I've never known this place to be so slow.  Who's ready for fun?"  He offers his handful to Scully and Pendrell.  They each take one.  Scully is smiling again, the full-on unguarded grin that shows her pink gums.  Mulder narrows his eyes and plucks a shot from Danny's palm.  He's fun.  He's a barrel full of fucking monkeys.  He spent fifteen minutes waiting for the bartender to unearth his close-to-perfect whiskey while Pendrell plied Scully with cheap shots, and now he's about to throw a Buttery Nipple down his throat after it.  

The rational part of his brain understands the pressure of expectation.  He coaxed Scully to come here, so that he could help her dilute her weary sadness with spirits.  They are so often alone he forgot that there are other purveyors of leisure.  They are not a lion tamer and her half-domesticated beast, united but solitary in the middle of the spectacle.  The rational part of his brain is glad that she is enjoying Danny's company, and Pendrell's, and that the rest of the lab techs seem to be having a good time on the side of the table that isn't taking part in this tableau.  But the rational part of his brain can't shout over the roar of the forge inside him.  

"Let's do this," Danny says, and the four of them toss back the shots.  They're sweet and easy, not at all what Mulder wanted.  The Irish Cream coats his palate, oleaginous, the flavor enduring.  He licks at the top of his mouth and throws back the rest of his whiskey to scour it away.  Scully sets her glass down and giggles, tipping against Pendrell.  Pendrell smiles down at her, his mouth half open.  He clearly can't believe his luck.  Scully's the unexpected gold at the end of the rainbow.  Mulder wants to snarl.  He stands up.

"Mulder?" Scully says, as if she feels the tug of his leaving, though she's still leaning against Pendrell.

"Bathroom," Mulder says shortly.  He shoves his way to the restroom even though there's no one he has to push past.  It's just the atmosphere of the place that crowds at him.  He pisses into the urinal, aiming at a fleck of paint, wishing he could urinate with enough force to scour the porcelain.  He washes his hands and dabs at his face with the damp backs of his hands.  He needs to cool off.  He should have eaten before they started drinking.  He should have taken her somewhere they could be alone.  Maybe then he wouldn't resent her for taking comfort in the company of others exactly the way a reasonable person would hope that she would.  He offered her camaraderie; she accepted.

He steps out of the restroom and into the hall.  Over the shoulder of one of the other patrons, he glimpses their table.  Pendrell is rubbing Scully's back as she gazes up at him.  Something quakes inside him.  He feels the drag like the drain in the harbor before a tsunami.  It isn't her fault that this experience doesn't align with his vision of it, and goddammit, he knows that, but he resents her all the same.

"I was just telling Sean about my sister," she says.  Her eyes are glossy, but she's smiling.

"Sean?" Mulder says.

Pendrell holds out the hand that isn't between Scully's shoulder blades.  "Sean Pendrell.  Nice to finally meet you.  Sometimes it feels like nobody in the Hoover Building has a first name."

"We'll stick to that," Mulder says, grinning in a way he can feel shows his canines.  "Just Mulder."

"Just Mulder," Scully giggles.  "Short for Justice Mulder."  She puts her hand on his lapel.  He would swear he feels his heart lurch toward her touch.  For a moment, the jealousy within him stops roiling, a gentle simmer of longing.  

"Are you sure it isn't short for 'just partners'?" Pendrell jokes, and Mulder grits his teeth.  Acid washes through his stomach.

"Just partners?"  Danny snorts.  "I saw her when somebody tried to meddle with Mister Spooky over there.  I've never done field work, but I can guarantee I wouldn't stand up to the big guns for anybody the way that she does."  He nods at Scully.  "Dana, you're basically Wonder Woman as far as I can tell."

"I left my Lasso of Truth at the office," she says, and winks at Danny.  

He should be relieved to see her so happy and relaxed when she's been so steeped in misery he's almost caught her hand to check her fingertips for pruning.  It's a remarkable transformation and most other days he'd be glad of it.  But he wanted to be the catalyst of her sea change.  

"You know what we need?" Danny says.  "Nachos."

"Yes," Scully says decisively.   

"You're a genius," Pendrell tells Danny.  "Beers on me."  

He goes to the bar and Mulder leans over to Scully.  "You ready to get out of here?"

"Mulder, nachos," she says, pouting a little.  

"I thought you only wanted one drink," he reminds her.  

"I changed my mind," she says, turning away a little.  Her hair brushes his lips. "I thought this was what you wanted." 

It was.  It wasn't.  He says nothing to the back of her shoulder.

Nachos arrive in due time, preceded by Pendrell with IPAs all around.  Mulder passes on the beer and takes a chip, but the sour cream curdles in his stomach.  Scully sips at her beer, claims the one that was intended for him, and eats more nachos than he thinks he's ever seen her eat before.  Her lips gleam with grease from the cheese.  She licks at them and desire jolts in Mulder's belly, sloshing through the jealousy.  Pendrell is watching her lips too.  She's all rosy cheeks and blue blue eyes, her head tipping back as she laughs to show the pale slope of her throat.  She has rarely looked so lovely.  

When the nachos are gone and the IPAs have been drained to the dregs, Scully leans against her chair.  She checks her watch with a deliberate gesture that lets Mulder know how tipsy she is.  Three shots, two beers, and a swallow of good whiskey on an empty stomach: of course she's headed towards drunk.  He goes to the bar and retrieves his credit card.  Two expensive imported whiskeys and a proportionally large tip for the bartender who retrieved the bottle.  It isn't his fault that the evening exceeded Mulder's expectations.  He strides back to the table and stands behind Scully's chair.

"I hate to break up this party," Mulder says, "but we've got an early appointment.  Scully?"

"We do," she says, her face lolling toward his.  He could bend down and kiss her.  He's close enough to catch the piney scent of beer on her breath.  

"Too bad," Pendrell says, and then Scully's looking at him instead, listing toward him like she's in the trough of a wave.  

"Give me your keys," Mulder says to her.  "You're not driving."

She digs in her pocket, swaying gently.  The keys clink into Mulder's waiting palm.  

"Oh," Pendrell says, fumbling with his wallet.  "What do I owe you?"

Mulder waves him off.  "When I buy a lady a drink, it's her business what she does with it."

"Thanks," Pendrell says.  His smile is genuine.  Mulder flinches.  "My round next time."

"Good night, Danny," Scully says, sliding out of her chair; the booze has limbered her and she's taken the shape of her container.  She braces her hand on Pendrell's shoulder for balance.  "Good night, Sean."

"Good night," Pendrell says in a soft voice that has Mulder gritting his teeth.  He puts his arm around Scully's shoulders and steers her out of the bar.  He has to slide the driver's seat of Scully's car all the way back on its runners.  Her fingers fumble with the passenger side seat belt as he starts her car.  

"Are you okay to drive?" she mumbles.

"One drink and a shot over two hours is not going to get me drunk," he says, adjusting her mirrors.  Angles of refraction.  He catches a glimpse of her face in the rearview mirror, washed blue in the underwater light of the street.

"I had...a few more than that," she says, her head sinking into the cup of her hand as she props her elbow against the window.  

"You did," he agrees.  

"Can we stop and get food?" she asks.

"Nachos weren't enough?" he retorts, but he's already scanning for options.  She settles on burgers and orders a meal.  The bag emerges from the window, a grease-spotted modern miracle that she's ripping open before he puts the car back in drive.  Even drunk, she takes precise little bites of her burger, licking ketchup out of the corners of her mouth after each swallow.  He picks at her fries as he navigates the road.  It's all he can manage.  He should be hungry, but jealousy still fills him up.  The taste is bitter in his mouth.

"Thank you," she says when she's finished.  She touches the tip of her tongue to the crystals of salt on her fingers.

"It's not hard to find a burger place," he tells her.

"For making me go out," she says, her face patched with wan gold from the streetlights.  "I find grieving very difficult.  I'm not dealing well with losing my sister.  I didn't - I'm not dealing well with losing my father.  In this job, sometimes it feels like we just keep losing people.  Mister X.  Deep Throat.  Your father.  The clones.  You nearly lost your mother."

"She's recovering," he says, staring into the night.  

"Maybe I've grown too sensitive," she sighs.  "Every life we don't save feels personal.  It's like the grief is still there, under my skin, and the slightest scratch has me bleeding.  I feel some closure when it comes to the loss of my father, but Missy - she met a violent end in my home and some part of me is still lost without her."

"I didn't know her well," Mulder says, "Or your father.  But she seemed like the kind of person who would want you to celebrate instead of mourn."  

"You did know her," Scully tells him.  "And Ahab - he wouldn't want this to founder me."

She leans against him as they walk into her apartment.  He reaches into her cabinet for the ibuprofen and gets her a glass of water as she brushes her teeth.  She winces, baring her teeth at the bitterness as she swallows the pills.  She's already squinting in the light of the kitchen, ducking her head so that her hair glints.  Mulder takes the glass from her again and puts it in the sink.  

"Are you staying?" she asks.

"It would be a hell of a cab ride," he says, canting his body in submissive inquisition.  "I wasn't expecting to have to drive you home."  

She glances at her bedroom door.  The look in her half-glazed eyes is either dubious or a drunk person's blurry version of calculating.  Carry the one, into her bed.  Divide the covers.  

"I'll take the couch," he says quickly.  "Although I wouldn't say no to an extra pillow."  

"Your clothes," she says, narrowing her eyes as if she can conjure them out of whatever drawer or shelf she's assigned him, his corner of her world.  "You have clothes."

"I'll be all right," he says.  A pillow is not within her capacity at the moment, unless he retrieves it himself, and venturing into her bedroom is beyond the scope of what his mind is currently able to process.  There be not monsters, but some edge of the world he can't chance tonight.  Charted territory is safe: her living room, her couch, the cozy plane of her kitchen table.  She let Frohike drink coffee there, not so long ago, when he himself was a ghost hovering in cedar-scented smoke.  She proved him wrong there, peering at a photograph with a magnifying glass like a detective in a film.  

She's still looking at him, tipping her head as if he'll get less out-of-focus if only she finds the right angle.  Even intoxicated, she sees through him.  He puts his hands on her shoulders and guides her to her bedroom door.  

"Good night, Scully," he murmurs, putting his face unnecessarily close to her ear.   The rising acid of his malaise is diluted in her presence.  Scully, his universal solvent, washing away all his sins. She hums in response and goes into her bedroom.  He kicks off his shoes and pants and stretches out on her couch, covering himself with the afghan she keeps there.  Wherever she's tucked his things away, he has a fresh shirt and boxers.  He thinks she might have some of his sweatpants too, a relic of the time his water was dosed with LSD and she had to put a bullet through his shoulder.  As long as his suit doesn't smell like cigarettes and hops, he can get another day out of it.  It won't be the first time he's shown up to the office in yesterday's suit, trailing an aura of poor decisions.  

Scully's couch is comfortable, but he hasn't worn hollows into it yet.  He turns over, tucking the afghan more securely around him.  He wonders if she's tossing in her sleep.  He hasn't seen her drunk before.  The potential outcomes of his crossing her threshold flip through his mind, a slide show his unconscious mind prepared for him: waking twined together with her, beached on the gritty shore of wakefulness; her fingers working under the hem of his t-shirt in the middle of the night; the two of them on separate edges of the mattress pressed apart by their own magnetism; Scully waking suddenly, startled, her hair messy and her face creased by regret and her pillow.  

Tonight isn't the night that will happen.  He's too angry at her.  He turns over again, onto his face, breathing into her pillows.  Angry isn't the right word.  He casts about for more precise nomenclature.  There isn't a word to encompass the Celtic knot snarl inside him: frustration, envy, disappointment, longing.  Tonight was supposed to be something else.  Mulder and Scully huddled together, distinct from the others with their squat glasses of liquor, the calm in the eye of the crowd.  He's aware that he should be pleased that she had fun instead of resenting that he wasn't the catalyst for it.  It doesn't take a psychologist to realize he's gotten himself tangled up in her in a way he can't undo.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep.  Insomnia is a circle of hell.  Like Tantalus, what he wants is just out of reach.  Like Sisyphus, he rolls the memories of the night over and over in his head.  Like Prometheus, something vital is clawed out of him.  In the daylight, loving her is generally a minor inconvenience, a jab in his heart or a catch in his breath.  In the dark, time expands to encompass every sin of omission and commission he's ever even considered when it comes to her.  No wonder he has bruisy circles under his eyes.  He beats the hell out of himself every night.  But her couch is soft as an embrace.  It smells like her.  Eventually, he drifts off.  

+ + + + 

Scully crawls into her bed, some part of her mind noting how clumsy and childish her movements are.  Well, she's drunk, and she's allowed to shed all her poise in her own bedroom.  No one can see her except the secret cameras someone has probably installed in her alarm clock or whatever.  She clutches the duvet around her and lets the room wash gently back and forth.  She used to be able to let her guard down with Mulder.  Mulder, who's on her couch, not so far away.  Only a door between them, and what's a door?  Doors open.  She knocked on his door in Bellefleur, didn't she?  And showed herself to him: her sensible undergarments, her body.  Her fears.  He took care of her then.  He's taking care of her now, from arms' length.  Maybe if she opened the door, he'd come in and settle next to her and steady the mattress that bobs under her.

Sometimes she wakes up on one side of the bed, her arm flung over the space where she tucked him in after she shot him, a pillow bolstered against her.  Her body has a hell of an imagination.

Mulder thinks she's too fragile now.  Since her abduction.  Since Missy.  She has to be impenetrable, untouchably fine to avoid him overriding her better judgment in the name of protecting her.  Nevermind that sometimes she'd really, really fucking like to be penetrated, or at least caressed.  Nevermind that he's spent close to four goddamn years making eyes at her and all he offers her is a couple of ibuprofen.  Fucking Mulder and his fucking knight in shining armor act, like she's in some kind of tower and he's carrying her favor into battle instead of her trotting along right behind him (when he hasn't left her rocking in his wake as he jets ahead to face the peril alone, as if sacrificing himself wouldn't mean taking the greatest part of her too).

Pendrell, though.  Sean.  He was right there with her all night, his mind and his body attuned to her.  He made her smile, just to see her smile, not because he was trying to reestablish the parameters of their quarantine from the rest of the human race (ahem, Mulder).  Sean puts her on a pedestal, maybe, but she could climb down and she's pretty sure he'd hold up his arms to help her descend.  She wonders, idly, what's underneath the lab coat.  If she unbuttoned his shirt, would she find chest hair?  Mulder doesn't have much.  Sean's should be auburn, a heathery thicket coordinated to his ruddy hair.  She could run her fingertips through it, if it exists.  She wonders if he's heard as many upholstery comments as she has.    

She falls asleep all at once, sinking like a stone under the ballast of grief, of relief.

+ + + +

Scully has a hangover in the morning.  He has to knock on her door to rouse her and retrieve his spare clothing.  He showers quickly while she's still wallowing in her bed, trying to find her land legs.  He drives them through a fast food place for a greasy egg sandwich and bad coffee, which restores her spirits somewhat.  There are hash browns too.  He pushes his toward her and she eats it with the eager reticence of the nauseated, smearing ketchup over it from the little foil packet.  She moans.

"Mulder, you've saved my life," she says.

"I'll add it to the tally," he tells her.  "TGIF, huh?"

"Thank you," she says.  "As awful as I feel this morning, I think I needed that, or something like it."

"It wasn't exactly what I had planned," he says, eyes fixed on the traffic.  

"I can't believe I didn't know Sean's first name," she says to herself.  "I can't believe I'd never met Danny."  

"We're busy," he offers.

"We're insular," she counters.  "Maybe it's time we stopped isolating ourselves like we're rare specimens trapped under a bell jar."

"Next time you want to go to one of the Gunmen's parties, just let me know," he says.

"Maybe I will," she says, and stares out the window.

In the office, she nurses a cup of coffee and sorts through years of newspaper clippings.  He leaves her alone.  There were times he preferred the dull thud of a headache and the predictable churning of nausea to grief, an unsteady pier built of half-rotten timbers that still provided a few inches of clearance from his emotions.  At lunch, she disappears and then returns with a slip of paper.

"What's that?" he asks.

"Sean's number," she says casually.

"Hmm," he says, staring into his screen.  At least the light will reflect off the lenses of his glasses so she won't see the creases gathering at the corners of his eyes as he frowns.  Silence tightens between them.

"Hmm?" she echoes, when the weft of wordlessness is stretched thin.  "Were you going to say something, Mulder?"

He waves his hand in dismissal, brushing her question out of the air.  "Just reading this article about crop circles in Kansas," he tells her.

Three years and he can count on one hand the number of occasions she's voluntarily spent time with FBI personnel who aren't him.  One was the lunch with Colton that she came back from so irritated that she organized his desk drawers.

"Good night," she says at 4:59, picking up her things.  

"Big weekend plans?" he says casually.

She pauses with her hand on the doorknob.  "Danny and Sean invited me to try a new cocktail bar with them.  I was promised something better than nachos."

"Enjoy," he says, turning back to his computer.   It isn't what he means.  He's certain that she knows that.   He takes off his glasses and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"Cheers," he says to the empty office.  It sounds muffled, any sentiment soaked out of the word by the layered files and clippings.  He's no better than Tooms, lining a nest to hide away in.  

+ + + +

The cocktail bar is much more her style, but somehow, that's less enjoyable.  She'd rather be out of her element.  Easier to be swept off her feet that way.  But it's nice all the same to sip from some elegant coupe scented with elderflower and to let Sean try to win a laugh from her.  She makes it easy for him, but God, how sweet it is to do something easy.  How nice to pretend for a few hours that she isn't perpetually embroiled in some kind of Kafkaesque imbroglio complete with extraterrestrial interlopers and a steady undercurrent of never-realized erotic tension with her leading actor.  

She indulges herself in an idle fantasy of taking Sean home and letting him put all that starry-eyed reverence to practical use, but settles, this time, for kissing him on the cheek as they leave.  Danny cheerfully presents his own cheek and she kisses him too, pleased that he's playing along.   Danny is deliberate in showing that he's not interested in her, but in a friendly way.  She appreciates that, after years of being ignored or leered at by most of the rest of the Bureau's male employees.  He's a good wingman, a non-reactive catalyst encouraging and tempering Sean's eagerness.  She tells Sean she'll call him.  Danny whistles, glancing away.  

In her empty apartment, she makes herself a salad and ignores the specter of Mulder stretched out on her couch.  Of all the people who haunt her, he's the most accusatory.  She eats in the living room, plopping down right in the middle of Mulder's insubstantial torso and turning on the ten o'clock news.  She'll be damned if she lets him kill her buzz.  She's lost too much already.

Missy would be proud of her.

+ + + +

A group of kids playing pickup baseball discover a newborn in the oozing mud under home plate.  They go to Pennsylvania.  

He imagines the two of them in a place like this forever: Mulder and Scully, gentled into quaintness, ordering pizza every Friday from the same place for the next ten years.  Mulder and Scully, leaving the doors of their hundred-year-old farmhouse unlocked, tending a garden in the sun, greeting the grocer and the mailman by name, watching the fireworks in a field just outside of town on the Fourth of July.  Mulder and Scully, brutally dismembered.  He knocks the pig shit off his shoes and remembers that pigs will eat anything, including human remains.  But then again, so did Queequeg.  The anonymity of the city seems preferable; to be known and still lost is beyond his capacity to bear.  

He had forgotten that the price of living close to the land is confronting the barely-latent savagery of humankind, the instinct to protect one's clan at all costs.  The Peacocks might be an extreme example, but he isn't immune to the territorial instinct.  Deep down, he knows that if he could rub his jaw on Scully's shoulder to mark her with his scent, he would.  They have found subtler ways to demarcate themselves as separate from the others: his palm at her back, her fingertips pressed to his chest, the protective coloring of their dark suits.  He's seen her eyes narrow to viper slits as she defends him.  They've pledged their troth to each other in a thousand wordless ways, keeping vigil in a world that their watchfire can't illuminate.

He had thought that extended to all areas of their life together.  At least, he'd never imagined she could be wooed with Buttery Nipples.

She calls Sean as they collect their luggage from the baggage claim.  "I could use a drink," she sighs into the phone.  "This case we just wrapped up.  I'll tell you about it when we get there."

He would let himself be taken to pieces if it would save her.  He wouldn't do the same for himself.  For one illicit moment, he allows himself to imagine their clannishness extending to children.  Scully, soft and round with the next Mulder scion.  Home brought out the nesting urge in both of them, despite or because of the dark secrets stashed in the Peacock house.  Something about the horror of it plants the seed of the idea of doing better, of passing genetic muster and passing on something more.

"Mulder?" she says, his name a gentle interrogative.  "I'm going to get a drink with Sean and the lab techs.  Coming with?"

"I'm tired," he says.  A non-answer.  He can't imagine her carrying his child and watch her smile at Pendrell.  Even a masochist finds his limits.

She lifts one shoulder.  "Suit yourself."

+ + + +

There's so much about this job that she loves, and so much more that she wishes she could forget.  And she can, for a little while, at the bar with a beer in her hand.  Enough booze in her belly and the froth of carbonation creates sufficient pressure in her system to push her concerns away like a pot bubbling over.  Maybe she overindulges, but the burdens she carries are heavy.  It takes a substantial heave to heft them overboard.  She's been too tired lately to do it on her own.   She needs the chemical crutch, just for now.

Sean, meanwhile, is openly flirting with her tonight, leaning closer and closer.  He uses the noise of the bar as an excuse.  She won't tell him he doesn't need one.  Not yet, anyway - it's fun to watch him work to woo her.  The thrill of being pursued by someone whose purposes are so transparent and benign is something she doesn't want to give up.  Sean sees her as a woman, not just as a female body, a trauma site marked off with crime tape.  There's no DO NOT ENTER when he looks at her.  

She presses her knee against his under the table.  For a moment, he gapes at her, astonishment overriding his composure.  The next time he goes to the bathroom, she saunters into the hallway and flattens him against the wall with a kiss.  She feels powerful; after having been flung around by so many unsubs and cryptids, it doesn't even take all her weight to sway Sean.  He nearly swoons at her touch, putting his arms around her to steady himself.  

"Wow," he says, dazed.  She smirks at him and pushes open the door of the women's room.  

She kisses him again when he walks her to her car, dragging him carefully down by his tie.  It's something she's often been tempted to do to Mulder, some impulse driven by the electricity between them and the urge to shut him the hell up once in a while, but they resist each other at the most inopportune moments, their unwelcome better angels delivering them from whatever comfort they might take in each other.  Sean doesn't resist at all.  She arches up against the bulwark of his body and anchors herself to him.  Her fist is clutched between their chests, still wrapped in his tie.  The cautious way he holds her gets bolder; her pulse quickens.  She's grateful, on some level, to know that people who aren't Mulder can still have this effect on her.  It's been more than a while.

Sean kisses her fairly chastely, but the way he gathers her into him suggests he's got more to offer.  She smirks against his lips and pulls away a fraction of an inch.  He drifts after her, mesmerized, and then steps back.  Mannerly.  She appreciates that.  Mulder likes to step into her space and she likes that even better, but that's strictly situational.  She opens the door and gets into her car, rolling down her window.

"Maybe next time, you could invite me up to see your etchings," she says, and instantly regrets it.  It's the kind of comment that's calibrated to Mulder's tastes, his love for the eccentric and the out-of-fashion.  Mulder's a cabinet of curiosities; he probably does have etchings stashed away somewhere, and he'd explain them to her in excruciating detail, his face a breath away from hers, before finally, finally tearing all her clothes off.

"My...oh," Sean says.  "Um, yes, definitely.  Uh, any time you want to look at them."

She smiles at him and drives away.  She's sober enough to drive, barely, navigating the streets in a dreamy invincible drift.  She's really got to start taking taxis.  There's already a headache pounding just behind her eyes.  

When she gets back to her apartment, she runs a bath even though it's late, and slides into the hot water, letting herself dissolve.  This too too solid flesh, she thinks.  Her body already tells too many stories: scars and stretchmarks, earned and unearned.  The knot at the nape of her neck where someone put a computer chip of unknown provenance.  There's grief etched into her bones.  It wouldn't show in the results of an autopsy, but it's there.  Maybe it's the additional invisible weight of it that's made her so tired lately.  The smell of witch hazel makes her want to cry.  Missy used to use it on her face, especially in the summer.  Scully bought some and she can't bear to use it. Where is that recorded in her body? 

When she gets out of the bath, she's lightheaded from the heat.  She drinks two glasses of water rattling with ice, her chest constricting painfully as the chill trickles down her throat.  It won't help.  Anything more than one drink leaves her with a sense of mal de mer the next day.  She drinks the water anyway, rinsing down a multivitamin with it, and topples into bed.  She has faith in science, or at least in the placebo effect.  She wants to believe that this capsule will make up for the deficiencies in her life, and that gives it a stronger chance of doing so.  Maybe that's Mulder's secret.  He needs to live in a world where the shadows hold something besides horrors.  The secret of the deep woods is Bigfoot instead of a grave full of the corpses of young women, culled while they were hiking and camping.  The dead become benevolent spirits.  Tape an X on the window and a messenger arrives with some part of an answer.

She's still afraid of the dark, but she takes her vitamins.  

She puts on her old-fashioned, unsexy pajamas (another reason to avoid having sex at her own apartment) and watches the clock count up until the red numbers blur into black.

+ + + +

It happens again after Philadelphia.  The bleached corpses of young black men rattled them both.  Mulder goes with her this time.  He was, during the case, acutely aware of his relative whiteness and the safety that came with it, but imagining what it was like to be hunted for some essential characteristic rattles him all the same.  Aboah's need seems more personal than Tooms' or the lipophage poet; everyone has a liver and some proportion of body fat.  Scully's quiet too on their way home, touching his neck with fingers as cool and brief as raindrops, checking the puncture in his skin.  He's half-convinced that she's a haruspex, reading his entrails through the veil of his skin.   

"This time I could use a drink," he murmurs to her.

"I'll call Sean," she says and he surrenders to the inevitable.  The crowd is a comfort that night.  He nearly feels unruffled watching Scully's shoulders settle as she curls into the corner of the booth.  They're safe.  He sips at his beer, wondering if it's contraindicated by the toxin on the dart, but Scully would have told him.  He rolls up his shirt cuffs and she slouches against him, her hand on Pendrell's arm as she imparts some morsel of Scully wisdom.  His jealousy stays sheathed, its edges blunted by her touch.   

After that, it becomes a regular thing.  It's only on Thursdays at first - the drink specials are irresistible tradition.  He goes with them, usually at Danny's invitation.  But he feels like a chaperone, scowling while Scully and Pendrell giggle into their glasses.  The way they interact seems so simple; meanwhile he's doing calculus to determine whether he can bring Scully a cup of coffee without it having seventeen layers of indecipherable nuance.  Pendrell likes Scully.  Even a person who didn't make a career out of profiling human behavior could tell that.  His gaze follows her like he's magnetized and she's true north.  It's equally clear that she enjoys his company, though the exact parameters of that enjoyment have yet to be determined.  And Mulder sulks in the corner of the booth, trying not to resent the hell out of both of them and their blithe joie de vivre.  

He stops going after a few weeks.  "Polishing your gun?" Scully says, the irony in her voice thick enough to spread on toast.

"Might be," he says with a wink, just to watch her roll her eyes.  "I'm a man of mystery, Scully.  I could be doing anything."

"Basketball, 1-900 numbers, and videos that aren't yours," she says, studying their latest casefile.  "I think that about covers it."

After the Gerry Schnauz case, she comes in squinting with circles under her eyes and a brown paper bag in her hand, the cheery logo splotched with grease.  She's replaced one kind of unruhe with another, but at least it isn't because Schnauz managed to slip the ice pick behind her eye.  He wonders if the hangover is as painful as the raw edges on her wrists from the adhesive of the duct tape.  He lifts his eyebrows at her, but she just mumbles and bends her head to her work.  

+ + + + 

She wonders if Mulder can tell that she went home with Sean.  She had enough time to dash home for a shower and a change of clothes, but not enough time for breakfast.  Eating fast food makes her feel like she's on the road.  Maybe it's a way to distance herself from last night.  Out of town in her own life.

Not that last night was bad.  Sean does, as it turns out, have somewhere between a dusting and a pelt of rust-colored curls on his chest.  He's extremely willing to take direction, and she's willing, at this point, to give it.  He lit a fire for her and they sat in front of it, letting the heat bathe each new section of bare skin.  He offered her wine, he offered her water, he had a ready stash of in-date condoms and a bottle of quality lube.  He kissed her on the forehead afterward and didn't tell her he loved her.  He didn't ask her to talk about the marks where Schnauz's bonds stripped off her skin.  She appreciated all of it.  

Mulder looks at her, a question in his eyes, and she schools her face into careful indifference.  It's her default expression these days.  She hopes it hides the ache behind her eyes.  NSAIDs don't put a dent in it anymore, but the back of her neck is rebar-rigid.  She'd schedule a massage if she thought she could keep an appointment.  The job has gotten in the way of the dentist, the optometrist, and the gynecologist, to say nothing of the rest of her life.  It isn't a surprise that her body is manifesting signs of being under stress.    

Maybe the sex will drain some of the tension out of her.  She can fuck her way back to health.  It sounds more appealing than running.

+ + + + 

After their failure with the Ephesians, Mulder expects it: the fast food, the squint of her eyes against the sifted light of the basement and the fluorescence of the tiled hallways.  Through the ages, he thinks, wondering if they've gone through this before.  But he can't talk to her about it, despite her assertion that she'd go through the motions all over again, ever moment except the Flukeman.  He saw the look in her eyes as she watched him with Melissa.  She mentions nothing about his weakness for brunettes with tragic pasts, offers no analysis.  It's more than he deserves, but he feels the distance between them increase incrementally.  More than his sergeant, less than his lover.  She builds a wall of pint glasses between them, transparent and impenetrable.  

From then on she wanders in just the wrong side of on time with bullpen coffee steaming in her hand once a week, when they're in town, usually on Thursdays.  There's a trivia night on Wednesdays that's apparently superior to even the drink specials.  He didn't even know she was interested in trivia.  He tries not to interrogate her, but any question is beyond her capacity to tolerate, apparently.  

"You can't give me a curfew, Mulder," she snaps when he asks if she had fun (in fairness, he heard the judgment in his voice even as the words left his lips, the astringent edge to them).  "Yes, I had fun.  I have fun when I'm with Sean.  It's something of a novel experience for me after the last few years, as you might imagine.  And let the record state that that you" - she stabs at his chest with one accusatory finger - "were the one who tried to get me to go out in the first place."

He holds up his hands. You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, would you, copper?  He isn't innocent, but he isn't culpable.  

They barely speak for the rest of the day.  He feels loss wash in, frothing around his feet, although she's sitting fifteen feet away.

+ + + + 

Sean is very sweet.  He fills a vase with flowers at his place, fresh every time she comes over, but doesn't offer them to her.  He pulls out his records.   "La Vie En Rose" plays, Piaf's voice raspy and poignant, while his lips work his way down her throat.  Once a week seems to be enough for him.  If it isn't, he doesn't tell her.  He lets her wordlessly work through her frustrations, exhausting herself against his body reaching for the moments of relief that release brings.  

She isn't in love with him, but she could be.  Though she can sense the longing in him, he offers her only as much as she can bear.  They can talk about things that aren't work.  He's interested in art and music for their own sakes.  Mulder's seen the Mona Lisa, but he's more interested in the conspiracy theories that frame it.  Bach fascinates him most when it's scrawled in binary by a child watching tv static.  Sean listens to her without focusing his entire existence on the conversation.  

Sean is fun.  He makes her laugh.  He makes her come.  He makes her breakfast, when she stays.  He understands when she slips away in the morning or in the middle of the night, seeking her own bed.  Sean doesn't make her confront the mysteries of the universe or her own heart.  Oh yes, she could fall in love.  She holds onto the idea, mulling it over, a grain of a thought lacquered with potential.  If it were a pearl, she would rub it against her teeth, testing its authenticity.  Instead, she tucks it away without examining it.  Some gifts are worth more than their value. 

+ + + +

They're on an out-of-town case.  Illinois.  Witchcraft in a hospital.  Pentagrams drawn in blood.  She doesn't outright accuse him of picking it to drag her away from her standing hangover (he doesn't think she has a drinking problem yet, but exhaustion is intoxicating in its own right), but she does settle herself in the window seat of the plane and pretend to sleep so she doesn't have to talk to him.  He sighs.

They follow the thread.  The culprit slips through their fingers, but they save a life.  They file the appropriate reports.  Mulder wonders, on the plane home, how much of the labyrinth they build for themselves.

"Daedalus," he says out loud as the name rises to the tip of his tongue.

"This plane better not have wax wings," Scully mumbles, her face turned into the side of the plane.  

"I was just thinking of how we ensnare ourselves," Mulder says cautiously.  "Our habits.  Our ways of thinking.  Who has the patience to navigate our mazes.  Who has a magic thread that marks the path we take trying to find the hearts of ourselves and how we get back out again, if we even want to."

She sighs.  Her breath puffs white against the plastic window.  "Do you know why I go out, Mulder?"

He lets the thin recycled airplane air fill his cheeks.  "Your competitive side craves the victory you can only find in pub trivia?"

"It's easy," she says, her eyes closed.  "Danny and Sean and their friends, they're easy.  They're smart and they respect me and I don't have to know about the goddamn hero's journey to have a conversation with them."

He bites his lip.  "I hope you know that I respect you."

She snorts.  "Another masterful misinterpretation."  

"Scully, I..." he begins and lapses into silence.  Don't know where this is coming from?  A lie.  Don't deserve this?  Another.  Don't understand why this is happening right now in this enclosed space surrounded by strangers?  Technically accurate, but not what she wants to hear.

"He likes me," she says softly.  "Sean.  I know that.  But it's easy, Mulder, and it hasn't been easy in a long time.  When you mention Melissa, I remember talking to her about you.  I remember hoping the two of you would hit it off, and Mom had her half-convinced you should come for the holidays.  But there's no history with Sean.  He never met Missy.  When he says he's sorry, it doesn't mean the same thing as it does when you say it.  You knew her.  I don't have any memories of waking up in a hospital bed having lost months of my life and seeing his face next to hers.  She never told me that Sean wouldn't give up on me or the stupid things Sean almost did to protect me.  I can just tell him the easy parts.  I can tell him about the peasant skirt we shared until it ripped down the back or the cake we tried to bake for Ahab one Father's Day or the summer she decided she was a witch and mistook poison ivy for a rare and magical herb.  I don't get an hour long lecture on herblore or have to see that face you make when you think something is your fault.  It's simple, Mulder, and I like that."  She lets the space between them hollow into silence.  He tries not to make the face, even though this, and most things wrong in her life, are almost entirely his fault.  She sighs.  He drops his eyes, acknowledging his failure.  

"Nothing between us has ever been simple," she says, and every word resonates.

Hundreds of years of complications, he thinks, if Melissa Riedal-Ephesian and his own deep memories are to be trusted.  There's a snarl of wire in his chest, cutting through his ribs.  It pulls tighter every time he glances sidelong at her, her profile stark against the backdrop of sky. 

They don't speak again until the airport.  He pulls her suitcase off the conveyor belt.  She thanks him.  He tells her she's welcome.  They go their separate ways.

Mulder is reminded of how impossible it is to see the depth of the water until it swallows you.  He drives home and lays on his couch staring blindly at his fish tank.  The diver rises and falls, never out of his depth.  Mulder, sinking, can't breathe.  

+ + + + 

She goes home after the airport and putters around her empty apartment for an hour picking things up and putting them down in almost the exact same place before she calls Sean.  

"Of course you can come over," he says, his voice puzzled.  

She's never gone home with him except after the bar.  Keeping things simple has meant having certain rules outlined in her own mind, but her argument with Mulder prickles along every familiar circuit in her brain.  She can't get out of her head on her own.  

Sean is as tender as ever but she's not in the mood for sweets.  She rakes her nails down his back and he gasps.  There are livid marks on his pale skin after they're finished.  

"Sorry," she says as she's getting dressed.  "I don't know what got into me."  

"It's okay," he says, propping himself up on one elbow.  "It was kind of hot."

She smiles, but it feels lopsided and heavy.  She kisses him to make up for it.  He strokes her arm as she leans over him.  There are stars in his eyes.

"You don't have to go," he says, quiet hope warming his words.

"I have some things to take care of," she says, and it's not exactly a lie.  "I just missed you."  That's not exactly a lie either, but it isn't exactly the truth.  What she wants is to sink her teeth into Mulder's skin, to scratch him until he's branded with her mark.  He's the bull and she's the china shop and once, just once, she wants to be the one crashing through his barriers.  Sean doesn't deserve to be a proxy fuck.  

She wishes she could just stop, smile, let her clothes fall to the floor, and climb back into bed.  Sean is a ready harbor, if only she could drop anchor.  Maybe there's something wrong with her.  Maybe she came back different.  She and Mulder have been holding themselves apart from the rest of humanity for so long that it's a habit now, to exclude herself from narratives like love and family.  They're the matador's cape, flaunting themselves at a horned monster made of shadows.  Falling in love doesn't make any sense when she's silhouetted against the ridgeline, a victim and a target of the Syndicate's schemes.  Oh,  yes, she could fall in love with Sean, but one way or another, he'd lose her, and she knows what that's like.  Some strange wind is always howling through the empty places in her life.  She will spare him that, if she can.

She's just so goddamn tired.  The headache, so much a presence in her life that she considers naming it, throbs a gentle warning.  Maybe she should call it Mulder.  She kisses Sean again and goes home and falls asleep with her clothes on.

+ + + +

The next time she comes in with bloodshot eyes, he says nothing.  Instead, he goes to Russia, dragging Krycek.  The gulag is preferable to Scully's bad graces.  At least she's relieved to see him when he strides into the courtroom, still astounded that he's in one piece.  He has to go out after that.  Danny insists.  

"What are you drinking?" Danny asks.  Mulder has to lean close to listen.  His ears are still ringing from the explosion.

"Anything but vodka," Mulder tells him.  

Scully and Pendrell are talking in low voices, laughing quietly.  There's a knowing quality to the geometry of their bodies, the angles and curves between them.  Tinnitus screeches in his brain, a death metal thrash.  A premonition of the worst hangover of his life, maybe, or the newest symptom of his particular allergy to Scully's friendship with Pendrell.  But she catches his eye and just the corner of her mouth quirks, just the slant of her eyebrow changes, and the howl inside him subsides.  

The bartender delivers a glass of scotch, the scent of peat rising off it like mist.  Scully's nose wrinkles delicately as he sits down.  She's tipsy, just loose enough to be luminous.  Pendrell basks in the glow of her; Mulder sees it reflected in his eyes.  Scully has always underestimated her effect on people, some syndrome of middle-child-hood.  He can't tell her that without situating her in a lineup that will always have an empty space now, but he can appreciate the nimbus of her attention as it brushes over him.   

"I'm so fucking glad you didn't die in Russia," she tells him and he blinks, startled and a little intrigued by her expletive.  She keeps herself under such tight rein normally, aside from the occasional blasphemy, as if swearing is too imprecise to encompass her thoughts.  Good to know he can still bring it out in her: the mess, the yearning, the humanity.

"I'm glad too," he says, clinking his scotch against her daiquiri.  She looks at him askance.  Simple isn't always what works.  Both of them know that.  Pendrell leans in to ask her something.  She gives him nearly all of her attention, but Mulder can still feel the last of her focus knotted around him, a filament like a spider's web that will twang if he tugs at it.  He relaxes fractionally and feels her tension ease in proportion.  He sips at his scotch.  Pendrell may liberate some instinct toward giddiness tucked deep inside her, but Pendrell hasn't woven himself deliberately into her life.   He and Scully are twined together as surely as if Clotho's bony fingers had done the work, no matter how much distance spins and strains out between them.  

The rift between them can be bridged.  Maybe the black oil, seeping out of his system, took some other poison with it.  Even later, when she laughs at something Pendrell says, it only sets off a tintinnabulation inside him, where the warmth of the whiskey has opened him up like a cathedral and turned the snarl of wires into a nest of scaffolding.  

It helps, too, that she doesn't go out that week, or he missed it, the days blurring in the air as he sat in the jets that ferried him across the curve of the sky from one land to another.  He outpaced Apollo's chariot; his sense of time has never been reliable.  He keeps losing it, minutes or months at a time.  There's still a hollow in his memories from the span that Scullly was gone, an uncovered grave with nothing in it.  But when he looks up, she's there, and that's what matters.  Scully is the meridian, perfectly calibrated.  Scully always knows what day it is.  She winds him back to Eastern Standard and he feels the mechanism inside him click back into place.  

But then there's Roche, and oh, he's always been susceptible, and everyone around him knows it.  Sometimes he thinks the wound in him goes all the way through, and everyone can see the red throb of his pulse as light lances through his ribs.  Scully leaves him in the office and he spends hours staring at the hearts.  When she comes in the next morning, he's dozing in his chair.  He startles awake at the touch of her hand, her fingers raking softly through his hair.  She offers him a half-smile full of rue and ruth.  

"I slept," he says muzzily.

"You didn't rest," she says.  Reproach filtered through concern, aged in the oaky barrel of her chest: her voice is a rare elixir.   

He shrugs, struggling up in the chair.  "You know what they say about the wicked."

"Mulder."  

"I'm fine," he insists, and she subsides, withdrawing by inches like the tide.  He drags himself to the bathroom, misting himself with deodorant and dabbing at his face with a wet paper towel that leaves brown fibers in his stubble.  He isn't even close to presentable.  He's barely human.  In the old mirror, he's phantasmal, his edges blurred.  But he sits at his desk and he lets his mind sieve morsels of interest from the files he reads.  A sandwich appears on his desk.  Obediently, he eats it without tasting it.  When he's finished, he doesn't even remember what it was.  A Reuben?  Turkey on wheat?  His body grumbles appreciatively, turning the food into so many more potential mistakes.  At the end of the day, there she is again, sidling slantwise into his field of vision.  He recognizes the approach.  What fragile creatures they are in each other's hands.

"Come on," she says, tipping her head.

"Where."  The word comes out flat, a fragment of a thought.

"Out," she says.  "One drink."

"I don't think..." he mumbles, and trails off.

She smooths his hair.  "Come on," she repeats.  "I'll drive."

At the bar, he's a promontory the conversation breaks around.  Single words drift past, so much spume on the wind.  He takes bitter breaths of a beer.  Not even sips, just vapor that ghosts over his tongue.  Scully doesn't take her hand off his knee, though she's talking animatedly with Pendrell.  She has been buffered from the misery of the case, he thinks, her friendship with them like electrolytes in her system, cushioning the blow.  Scully's always been smarter than he is.  Mulder lets his hand drift under the table to find Scully's where it still rests on his knee.  A featherweight anchor, her spread fingers a net to hold him in place.  She turns her palm up under his, not weaving their fingers together, but he can feel the delicate pressure, the whorls of her fingertips catching on his.  

"Tough week?" Danny asks, sympathy in his tone.

Mulder closes his eyes and opens them again, red light still etched in his vision.  "Yeah."  

"Sorry to hear it," Danny says.

"Yeah."

Scully takes him home.  His beer is still half-full when they leave, but the rime of foam has dried, trapped bubbles prickling open.  She sits and waits while he takes a shower and microwaves chicken soup in a mug, the noodles slipping unchewed down his throat.  He lies down on the couch in the warmth she has bequeathed him and she tugs the blanket over his hip as she leaves.

"Scully," he says.  

She waits.  The negative space of his doorway frames her: she is the focus of everything, the vanishing point of his universe.  All roads lead to Scully.  All lines pass through her.  

"Sorry," he says at last.

She comes back in, closing the door.  She kneels beside the couch, her skin phosphorescing neon in the light from the fishtank.  

"Mulder," she says, "it wasn't your fault.  Roche was a monster.  He was a fiend.  The fact that he played on your sympathies, your fears and memories, says more about how kind you are than anything else.  You did your best.  You laid their memories to rest, as many as you could."

He cries anyway, and she cradles his head in her strong small arms and lets him.

+ + + +

The next case they take is a tangle of barbed wire: immigrants, alien fungus, racist bureaucracy, love triangles.  They're two steps behind, stumbling through the mud.  It's almost a relief to investigate something they have so little personal investment in.  There are no sisters here.  Mulder can unleash the frustration of the past months in service of a righteous cause.  The subaltern in their rickety slum, simultaneously rejected and demanded by society, transformed by an unknown force into an unknown form.  Shunned and doubly shunned, a monstrosity among the invisible.  It would make a hell of a metaphor if it wasn't reality.

Scully drags into the office the morning they head to Pittsburgh to find a locomotory corpse.  There are hollows under her eyes, a sepulchral cast to her skin.  

"I didn't go out last night," she says without prelude.  Her voice rasps lightly.

"And good morning to you, Agent Scully," he tells her.

She presses her fingertips to the exquisite camber of her eyebrows.  "Just don't, Mulder.  It's not a hangover."

"Is it my business if it were?" he asks evenly.

"You make it your business," she says with a sigh.  "You make everything your business."

"You're my partner," he reminds her.  

"When it's convenient, I am," she says.

"What does that mean?" he asks, although he could recite a litany of his sins.  Bless me, Scully; it's been more than four years since my last confession.  Even as recently as Roche, he has forsaken her, haring off into the wilds alone.

"Nothing," she says, her eyes sliding to the door.  "Let's go."

She's disquieted on the way home too, the timbre of her silence dull, dampening the air between them.  He opens his mouth to say something and the cottony hush swallows the words unsaid.  She had to kill a man - a murderer, a parasite, another fluke of evolution feeding on his own parent species - with an AED.  It was up close and brutal; Mulder still has the slightly rancid cooked-meat reek of Betts' corpse in his scent memory when he breathes too deeply.  But Scully was the one canting her body to absorb the shock of the paddles' jolt, the one keeping Betts at arms' length as she stressed his unlikely body beyond the point of no return.  She takes her vows seriously, his partner, but the honor demanded by Asclepius and Hippocrates is frequently at odds with her mandate to serve and protect and her basic instinct to survive.

Everything that rises must converge.  He touches his knee to hers and feels the pressure inside her, the eggshell of her composure fractured but intact.

She goes to the bar that night, and he goes with her, and watches from across the table as she picks up the thread of some ongoing conversation with Pendrell, her shoulders lowering as she relaxes.  Simple, he thinks, while covetousness rises in him like bile.  He loves her more than he has ever loved anything in this world, including the memory of his sister; his envy battles with a genuine contentment that there is some comfort for her here, in this place he disdains, with this man he resents.  He has spent decades analyzing the complex entanglements that support people, most often to understand the load-bearing beam he can use to dismantle them, the fulcrum from which he can shift their world.  It isn't healthy or wise to lean entirely on one person; support works best distributed more evenly, a burden shared and divided according to the strength of each part.  Gestalt.  They aren't two vast and trunkless legs of stone, braced apart, the desert sand scouring them down to nothingness.  Something should be easy for her.  Something should ease her burdens.  Despite all they share, it isn't him.  He might, at the outside, through some miracle, be everything she wants, but he will never be everything she needs.

He loathes that, against all logic, and loathes Pendrell gently by association despite his best efforts.  Well.  He never claimed to be a good man or a well-adjusted one.

He sits and dissects sports with Danny.  A show of normalcy, for her.  A pretty mask of social graces, the one he used to wear before Diana left, before he met Scully.  Once, she glances across the table and catches his eye, and the smile she offers him is so radiant, and so sad.

+ + + + 

She goes to Philadelphia without him while he is in exile in some approximation of paradise.  Mulder, riding the elevator at the hospital, reflects on her instincts: she solved the case, but fucked a person of interest.  She turns away when he comes into the hospital room.  The desire to comfort her, to wrap her in his arms and shield her from regret, tussles with his envy, his desire for her, the instinct to punish her for touching someone else, to remind her how unprofessional her conduct was.  Every word he says is a lit cigarette pressing into her skin.  He's no better than Jerse, trying to singe her clean.  He wants to shake her until her teeth rattle.  He wants to kiss her until she forgets her own name, to pass his hands and mouth over her body until he's rubbed away any trace of any other man.  He wants to take the nape of her neck between his teeth, the agitated heat of her tattoo against his bare skin.  He wants to examine her in minute detail until he is certain that she is whole and hale.

They leave Pennsylvania.  They've spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania lately.  He hasn't enjoyed any of it.  He wants to take her somewhere else, with wild wide open spaces and room for the kind of mysteries that leave them awestruck and wondering.  Somewhere with mountains as jagged and lofty as his love for her.  Somewhere the wind can blow through them and scour their souls clean.  

This time the silence between them crackles.  Neither of them says a word.

Something is altered in her.  

She goes out the night she comes back to work.  That's what he assumes.  At 5:00, she evaporates like so much mist, vanishing from the office before he can even look for her, and calls in sick the next day.  When he stops by her place to check on her, her face is wan under the bruises.  There's a delicate crust of blood under one nostril.  She smells stale, a hint of acid on her breath.

"Go home," she tells him. 

"I just wanted to see if you were all right," he says.  His hands open and close on nothing.

"I'm fine," she says, and shuts the door.  

+ + + + 

She hasn't slept with Sean in a few weeks.  Not since Betts.  She hasn't confirmed Betts' diagnosis, but she can't offer herself to Sean when her life is on a short fuse.  She won't detonate anybody else's happiness.  Mulder, she knows, is a lost cause, but he's lost her before.  He understands how to grieve her loss.  The way they're intertwined is inextricable.  In Sean's life, she'll be an empty space.  She can't stomach that, not when she's already nauseous from the ache in her head, so she's stayed away: from the bar, from his apartment, from the lab.  She flung herself into a dangerous case alone and fucked Jerse instead; he felt more like someone she could rasp herself against, all rough edges.  She got an ill-advised tattoo and a collection of bruises.

But she isn't dead.  Yet.  

+ + + +

But she isn't fine.  When he hangs up, he's numb all over, queasy.  The world shifts under him, a following sea, and he's never found his sea legs.  

All these months in and out of the bar and he never thought to question the change in her.  Exhaustion has always been a consequence of their work.  So has grief.  So has death.  Did she know, on some molecular level?  Did discontent seed itself in her blood as the cancer grew?  Maybe the Syndicate did this to her somehow, orchestrating the slow-motion denouement to her abduction.  Sowing disease on a time delay.  Removing the evidence.  

Does she blame him?  

He stops to buy flowers.  He has to buy flowers; ritual is his only recourse, a ward to set between her and the susurration of fear in her breath over the phone as she gathered her words.  A sacrifice in her name.  The clerk beams at him.  "That's a popular arrangement. We do a lot of them for weddings, actually.  Are they for your wife?  Do you want a card to go with them?"

All these months in and out of the bar, trying to help her say goodbye to her sister, letting go of her by inches: he's only been preparing to mourn her.   His heart clutches.  He braces his knee against the front of the counter to keep from sagging to the floor.  

"No," he says.  There's a hollow finality in his refusal.  The clerk glances at him.  He clears his throat.  "No card.  She, uh, she knows."

+ + + 

He walks down the bleak hall, grim in his dark coat, carrying a wedding bouquet to the prelude to her funeral.  

[theshieldjanitor]

So what would Ted do if Emma was lost in the snap?

[This got way out of hand and way off topic, but I was inspired and wrote a thing instead of just answering]

“You gotta get up.” Ted nudged Emma softly, pulling the covers back. A few mumbles escaped the semi-conscious woman as he brushed some of her hair back with his fingers. “I know. Getting out of bed is the worst. But--” He took her by the hands, gently lifting her up to a seated position. “The sooner you get in and out of the shower, the sooner we can have breakfast.”

Another mumble later, Ted was slowly leading Emma down the hall towards the bathroom. “We can have whatever you want. Pancakes, waffles, large amounts of sugar.” He opened the door and guided Emma inside, letting go of her hands to turn on the water. “But first, shower.”

“You could join me...” Emma smiled sleepily. Smiling back, Ted leaned down to kiss her.

“I could. But then who would make breakfast?” He bent down to give her butt a quick pat before walking out. “Shower. It’ll wake you up.”

Ted kept the news on as he cooked, barely listening to what the anchors were saying. New York being trashed (again) was normally a horrible thing, but Ted knew it also opened up opportunities for work. He hated thinking like that and allowed the guilt to eat him for a minute as he stared at his skillet, but in the end, he had to take whatever he could get. Work wasn’t coming as easy as before. Plus, if he could help clean up and rebuild, maybe it’d be his way of helping people again. He hadn’t really felt like his work mattered since the fall of SHIELD. Maybe he could find himself again doing...well, basically the same thing as before, minus all the benefits.

He was too caught up in his own thoughts to notice how quiet the television had gotten. “Em!” he called over his shoulder. “Breakfast is ready!” When he didn’t hear her answer, Ted turned off the stove top, tossing his apron over a chair. “Emma!” He walked back to the bathroom, knocking twice before cracking open the door. The water for the shower was still running.

“Hon? Breakfast is ready.” He paused, frowning when she once again said nothing. “Em?” He pushed the door fully open and stepped inside. Concern crossed his features when he didn’t see a figure in the shower. With two large steps, he made it to the shower door, pulling it open to find it empty. Ted switched the water off, turning towards the bedroom.

“All right, ha ha.” He mocked, stepping into the room. “Very funny. Let’s pull a prank for waking you up. You shouldn’t waste water though.” He stood in the eerily quiet room, waiting for Emma to jump out at him. It didn’t happen. “Em.” Still nothing. “Emma. This isn’t funny anymore.”

Hearing a commotion outside, Ted turned to exit the room, calling out, “Emma, I’m not kidding. I’ll eat your breakfast if you’re not done by the time I come back.”

The hallway outside his apartment was full of dashing feet and panicked voices. Ted reached out to stop a kid running out, asking what was wrong.

“They’re gone!” she screeched, clinging to Ted’s arm. “They just..they vanished! Blew away like dust!”

“Dust?” Ted raised an eyebrow. This kid was crazy.

“I watched it happen!” One of Ted’s neighbors yanked him aside. “My husband. We were watching the news and the anchors...they started flaking away. I thought it was some technical difficulty, but...but...” The man teared up. “Then he flaked away too.”

Ted took a step away from the chaos, backing into his apartment. “Emma?” There was still no answer. He started back to the bathroom, his pace quickening as the panic set in. “Em, I’m not fucking around right now. Something serious is happening and...” His heart stopped as he noticed grey flakes stuck to the wet parts of the shower.

He didn’t remember calling out her name again. He didn’t remember running outside, yelling for her while maneuvering through other people searching for their loved ones. It wasn’t until he started choking on thick air that he even noticed he was outside. Covering his mouth so he wouldn’t inhale the...dust...he yanked out his phone and pounded in the number.

It didn’t surprise him when Emma’s father didn’t pick up. “I get it--you don’t like me and are probably screening my calls.” Great way to earn brownie points, you idiot. “But this is important. I need you to tell me if you’ve heard from Emma. She was here this morning and now she’s not and I...I just...” Ted was trying his best not to cry on the phone, but he couldn’t help his voice cracking. “I need to know she’s okay.”

Six months passed before the missing were declared deceased. It seemed too early for him, but Ted also wasn’t in charge of having to locate half the population. Countries were still counting, but that was the assumption made by the people. Half the world was gone.

It was no different for Ted’s world. His apartment, once full of laughter and life, was dark and cold. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. There was no point. Everyone he had loved, with the exception of his sister, had vanished in a matter of seconds. And no one could tell him why. That’s all he wanted. To know why the universe seemed to have it out for decent people.

He barely ate. He barely slept. His hair was too long and his beard itched, but he couldn’t bother to do anything about it. Today, every person he held out hope for finding again was dead--according to the government at least. No futures for them. Why should he get one either?

Two years went by before he started to feel even somewhat like himself. Ted started playing the piano again. He helped his remaining neighbors load groceries and take them to orphanages. He’d take time to play board games with the quiet kids and read to the younger ones. Every day, he was reminded of what he couldn’t have. Yet every day, he felt closer to her.

A community college reopened its doors. Despite being absolutely terrible at it, he attended every single linguistics class he could. Each professor wondered why a man who couldn’t seem to grasp the basic concepts would keep putting himself through this, but none of them noticed how he relaxed in the room.

It was baby steps for Ted. He still wasn’t ready to sleep in their bed again. He wasn’t going to touch her clothes. But he wanted to feel her spirit again.

Five years since the incident, the wounds still hurt. He was still too skinny. His hair still a mess. The beard still showing he didn’t understand how to grow one properly. But the sparkle in his eye was starting to come back. When asked by friends, both new and old, how he managed, he had a very simple answer for them:

“I don’t.” He’d smile and look off in the distance. “But I know I’ll see her again.”

Granted, Ted left out the fact that his idea of seeing her again would be when he was dead. But he had come to grips with that. If he died tomorrow, well at least he got to see her soon. If he died seventy years from now, then he’d have plenty of stories to share with her.

Emma was the love of his life. If he kept carrying that love, she wouldn’t be gone. So he did. And he shared her love. He’d tell stories of her to anyone who’d listen. He started doing little drawings of her to keep her memory fresh. He still attended those classes, and was still terrible. He played sad love songs at night, before smiling sadly and telling the patrons at the restaurant to hold their loved ones close.

He’d never get over her. He’d never move on or have children of his own. But when he’d look around at all the lives he helped in her name, it felt like she was there beside him. So he’d keep living. He had to, so that she’d keep living too.

[spnimpalaimagines]

Not A Day Goes By - Part 2

Hey guys, here’s part two. I hope you enjoy :) 

Warnings - none i think 

Part 1

Your eyes searches his face, it was bloody and beaten. But it was his lips that broke you most of all, they had been sewn shut.

“Cas his mouth….” Your voice cracked as you spoke

“He wouldn’t let me touch it Y/n” you nodded and took a step towards the man you loved, but when he flinched you stopped dead.

“Gabriel what happened to you?” you whispered more to yourself than to him, you’d never seen him so broken.

“He was in hell Y/n, that’s where he was found” Sam spoke softly from behind you.

Hell? Had he been there all this time? Dean had been in hell for four months and to him it had been forty years….if Gabriel had been in hell this entire time…that must be almost one thousand years. Your heart shattered, what had they done to him?

Did he think he was still in Hell? Did he think this was all a trick? Did he even know who you were? The very though that he didn’t remember you or that he had no memory of the life you shared, your love for one another caused you very soul to ache.

“Gabriel?” his eyes that were unfocused and empty settled on yours, their usual rich amber colour seemed lifeless and cold

“Gabriel do you remember me?” you asked sweetly shrugging off your thick, bulky jacket, trying to make yourself seem smaller and less of a threat. Showing him that you had no weapons and you weren’t going to hurt him.

He couldn’t speak but he made no indication that he understood you or that he did recognize you in anyway.

“I’m Y/n remember?” you say breathlessly, you swallow the lump that had formed in your throat and continue.

“Remember the first time we met?” your lip twitching with a smirk at the memory that fills your mind “at the college?” you take a cautions step forward and this time he didn’t flinch

“Remember when the boys tricked you with that fake argument and Sam, Bobby and I snuck into the theatre?” another small step with no reaction.

“Remember you made that guy with the chainsaw appear and attack Sam and Bobby?”

Step.

“Remember when I ran down the stairs to help Dean fight those two women you dreamed up, that were kicking the shit out of him?” you could almost feel the bitchface that Dean was throwing behind you.

Step.

“Remember when you froze me on the spot next to you and when the blonde went to attack me you stopped her?”

Step. You were getting close now and he suddenly noticed, panic grew over his face.

“Hey it’s ok, I’m not going to hurt you Gabriel, I’d never hurt you” you promise trying to calm him, letting him settle back down before continuing.

“Remember after Dean stabbed you? How I came back early the next morning? I made up some bullshit excuse that I needed to go see a friend near by and I took Bobby’s car and drove to the college and I walked those halls again, because I knew it was too easy”

You didn’t move again, you were close enough to see him clearly now. The damage they had done to him. The fear on his face.

“Remember when I found you? Or rather when you found me?” you smiled “you said ‘I knew you were the smart one’” you laughed as a tear fell from you eye and trail its way down you cheek.

“Remember when you told me your name?” you all but whispered, but you knew he heard you. “You’d basically told me who you were and I never realised till all that time later, so much for smart huh?” you watch as he releases his hold on his legs, his demeanour changing.

“Remember when I didn’t tell the boys you were still alive?” you could feel the disapproval radiating off the Winchester’s but that would be a conversation for another day. “Because even back then, when I barely knew you I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone hurting you”

Gabriel looked at you but you could see him processing your words, trying to figure out if this was some kind of trick.

“I’d never hurt you Gabe” his eyes snapped up….Gabe….does no one else called him that? Was that just you? You tried again, this time added another thing you’d only ever said to him

“Gabe, it’s me. It’s really me, I swear. With all my heart” your voice broke as you recalled the time you’d sworn to him with all of your heart, something you’d learnt from your parents. Something you only ever shared with him.

Gabe frowned slightly eyeing you cautiously as he raised his hand. You heard the brothers’ shift behind you fearing he’d lash out, but you raised your hand over your shoulder telling them to stop.

Once he was happy that the brothers had stopped Gabe reached further until his hand was reaching for yours. You took a breath and steadied your nerves, you’d be touching him for the first time in eight years, and your heart could barely contain itself. You raised your own hand slowly; you stopped just shy of making contact leaving that to him when he was comfortable.

You could see his chest pant as if he had to psych himself up to the seemingly small, simple task. You closed your eyes and let the tears fall as you waited. Time passed so slowly you thought he’d pulled away, when suddenly you felt the warmth of skin grab you hand and everything in the world seemed to have meaning again.

You opened your eyes to see Gabriel’s go wide with shock, you were real; all it took was one touch and he knew. You watched as he shifted slowly onto his knees, he pulled you closer using your hand before releasing it and embracing you. He was still kneeling on the floor; his head buried itself into your stomach and his arms clinging around your hips as though you’d disappear if he let you go.

You slowly let your arms wrap around him, your breath stuttered as you ran your finger through his hair; scraping your finger over his scalp soothingly.  He was back. He was back with you. He was home.

Part 3,

[yourknightingale]

Late Night Talk (Sleep Deprivation)

Summary: Set after PP1 and before PP2 - One random night, Beca and Chloe found themselves chatting about flirting, feelings, and friendship. This might be how it began for them. 

"Beale, you know your eyes are blue."

Chloe looked up from the book she was trying to read as she conveniently laid herself atop Fat Amy's bed. She furrowed her brows towards the brunette's direction. "Is that- what is- thanks, Becs! I guess?"

When the quiet didn't break, she continued, "Your eyes are blue, too, Beca. It's not a competition." She followed this up with one of those infamous Chloe winks.

The small girl sighed and closed her laptop. She was supposed to be working on a new mix but eventually, she gave in. She took off her headphones and put them aside. The four-beat loop she was listening to for almost an hour now still lingered. She could still hear it. Her hands ruffled her hair as she tried to brush the track away.

It was already 1:30 in the morning but neither one of them could really sleep.

Beca was somehow grateful that her roommate was out with not-Bumper (totally Bumper) on this night where she just needed a break from everything else. She had been captain for two years, a junior in college, and a Bella housemate for 26 months. The other girls saw her as this very reserved person who couldn't be broken but they all witnessed the change when she became fast friends with the one and only Chloe Beale. She herself noticed the change and honestly, she didn't seem to mind.

"You know, that's not what I meant. I just feel like I should let you know my favourite colour is blue. And your eyes are blue. So, my point is, I like them." The DJ wasn't quite aware of how a blush started to show in her cheeks. She'd like to blame it on a sleep-deprived state she was currently in and the hour where most people say things they usually don't.

"Aww, Beca! Your inner sweetness is showing," the redhead settled on a sitting position and smiled at the younger girl, "and just so you know, I also like blue. But definitely, strictly, just Beca-Mitchell's-eyes blue."

Innocent flirting was the word they used. Chloe Beale was known for being touchy-feely and very forward (especially towards Beca). She would say whatever that comes to her mind (especially towards Beca). She herself couldn't tell if she had crossed the line with her relationship with Beca. Or if there was even a line to begin with. She was very fond of the little alt girl ever since the fair and everybody knew that. Beca knew that. That made it easy for this to become a flirting game of two.

"Alright, Chlo. Tone it down." She faced the other woman and mirrored her sitting position. "I'm just being sincere and trying to compliment you but if this is what I get, expect no sugar from me, Red. You've been warned."

Chloe just grinned but as soon as she noticed Beca with her head down, looking at her fingers, she had to ask, "Okay. What's going on?"

"Uhm, well – it's uh, I realized how you grew on me, I guess. I'm having one of those nights where I do a reality-check self-examination kind of thing and I am not one to talk about feelings and stuff but you're here right now and that helps, kinda, so I'm being deep maybe but I can't help it." Beca drew a long breath and exhaled after releasing those strings of words. She arranged her pillows and propped herself up with her back on the wall, changing her position. "I told my Dad I wanted to leave Barden as soon as I can and before I knew it, I'm a junior and currently handling a group of girls I never thought I'd ever even be friends with. I think – and I don't want to sound like a terrible friend here – I'm a little glad you stayed behind. I never would have lasted this long if it weren't for you, Chlo." She dared to see what Chloe was up to and was rewarded with two blue orbs intently staring at her with a little hint of something playing on her lips. Not that she was looking at her mouth or anything. "Trust me, Beale. You have this effect on me."

Chloe took this as a chance to also open up to her best friend. If there was a word the Bellas would use to describe her, it would be confident. Somehow though, she would hold back around Beca. Now that Beca learned how to open up to her, she also managed to freely let go and be true to herself and respond to the DJ.

"I saw you first at the activities fair. I just had that sudden feeling of wanting to get to know you, Becs. I was very fond of you –"

"- so I've heard."

"Shut up, Mitchell! It's my turn to be sappy."

Beca raised both her arms in the air, indicating for the other girl to carry on.

"Seriously though, I meant it when I told you that I think we're gonna be fast friends. True, I failed my Russian Lit twice now but I don't regret it one bit. Maybe a little. But being a Bella makes it worth it. Being here with you, too, if I'm being completely honest. I'm rubbing on you so well, look at you talking about how much I mean to you."

Beca rolled her eyes but found herself nodding in agreement to Chloe's last statement. "Okay, Chloe. I haven't even started yet on how much you mean to me so keep it in your pants, maybe."

"Mitchell, no one's talking about pants here! But I won't say no to you, just so you know." Chloe let out a small giggle and winked which made the brunette throw a little pillow in her direction. "Ow! I didn't think you'd be an aggressive partner," she said, feigning hurt as she rubbed the area in her thigh where the pillow landed.

Beca chuckled to herself and thought, "I can play this game, too." She sat up and faced the older girl.

"I have to learn how to be aggressive in case I get ambushed again in my shower."

"So you're expecting another shower moment, huh? That's good to know." Chloe wriggled her eyebrows which didn't escape Beca's attention.

"Man, Chloe! How are you so good at this?" She let out a pretend frustrated grunt. "Just when I thought I was winning."

They were both silent for a few minutes with the occasional glances they shared with each other. Chloe was back to lying down and reading her book while Beca was just quietly humming to herself, staring at the ceiling. The dead air between them was comfortable, much like how they grew to be with one another's presence.

"Do you think it's weird? Us, I mean. Whatever this is." The brunette's voice was softer than usual as if she didn't mean to say that out loud.

Unfortunately, Chloe heard every word and replied, "You've got to be more specific than that, Beca. As far as I'm concerned, we're both weird in our own way. You're broody most of the time and I'm just here hugging everybody which confuses me because hugging isn't a quirky quality. I've been told I cling a lot though."

"No way," Beca gasped sarcastically. "I wouldn't have known."

Chloe ignored that reply with a shy smile and pressed on, "What is this about?"

The brunette took her time and carefully threaded her words. "Your eyes are blue," she could literally hear Chloe's eye-rolling, "and the reason I'm saying this is because I don't usually look people in the eye. I can't even hold a stare for five seconds! Yet, when we sang Titanium together, remember that? I found myself drowning in your eyes. Was that cheesy? Ew! I mean, I was drawn to you somehow and what could've been an awkward situation suddenly wasn't that awkward at all. You know, until pizza guy showed up."

"Tom."

"Irrelevant." Beca sat up crossed-legged in the middle of her bed. "I like you, Chloe. I don't mean that in a weird way. I just, uhm, you saw me at my worst moments before ICCAs – you know, leaving you guys – during parties when I have too much to drink, after a call with my dad which usually ends up with me being in a bad mood, and other examples which I don't have the time to bring up now. You stick to me though. Knowing that you want to get to know me, as you said so earlier, makes me, I don't know, happy. Happy, yes, is the word I'm looking for. So, thanks."

"Alright, I've been trying to read the same page over and over again. I give up. You have my full attention now." Chloe found a comfortable space between two huge pillows and turned to the other girl. "Beca, I'm sure you know I like you a lot but nothing is weird between us, okay? Remember that one Treble party we went to last year? You drank a little more than you should and practically released your inner beast."

"Oh, no! The one where I said I could walk a tightrope across their pool? In my defence, I made it halfway through before the rope started swaying and I fell."

"Exactly that. I have to leave that party early to help you get home."

"Sorry?"

"No, not really. You were actually funny."

"I'm glad I amuse you, Beale."

"You were also bold at that time. I don't know if you remember but I was helping you get out of your wet clothes and you stopped me. I told you it's nothing I haven't seen before but you just kinda stared back at me."

"Yes, now the memories are flooding back. Thank you so much."

"Do you remember what happened next?"

"I uh," Beca was fumbling with her words, unsure on how to phrase it, "I held your face with both my hands and uhm, I kissed you, uh, on your cheek and said, well I said, maybe next time?"

"That kiss was dangerously close to my mouth. I thought you were gonna go for it."

"Dude, I was drunk! That would have been awful for our first kiss."

"I wouldn't care."

"Dude, just no. Besides, at that time you were with pizza guy. I don't do cheating. My parents divorced because my dad met another woman. I'm so against cheating, just so you know."

"Tom and I were just a thing for like a semester. We weren't together anymore before our ICCA performance."

Beca scratched her temple and flopped back down on her bed. "Oh! I didn't know that."

"Oh is right. Well, maybe you were just thinking of Jesse? Such a loyal girlfriend you are." Chloe tried to be as nonchalant about it as possible but deep inside, she felt that bee sting.

"Jesse? Jesse and I –", she trailed off. She and Jesse shared that kiss after the Bellas performance and she thought they would work out for a while. They tried for 6 months but both of them eventually just accepted the fact that they could only be best friends and not lovers. They have an understanding but sometimes, Beca would forget and still kiss Jesse platonically on the mouth. She got that under control now but she didn't really tell anyone about her status quo with Jesse. She was a free agent but a busy one, with her mixes and her girls. That treble party helped her loosen up a bit.

It would be a great idea to not just tell anyone, including Chloe, that she wasn't seeing anyone at the moment. Right?

Beca was brought out of her reverie when she heard Chloe snap her fingers in front of her. "Whatever. It's not Jesse. Wait, wait a minute. Let me backtrack. You said you wouldn't care."

"Uh-huh." Chloe jumped up and placed herself next to Beca, attacking her gently on the double bed. She leant in and whispered in the DJ's ear, "It's just a kiss, Beca. I wouldn't hold that against you. What if we graduate and be on our separate ways and you realize you regret not having a taste of this?" The redhead puckered her lips and made a smacking sound with her lips. "That's a lot of years bottling up your emotions. We could just start now."

Beca rolled over and faced Chloe. She squinted her eyes towards the older girl and knitted her brows. "You're so weird."

"Thanks." Chloe pushed herself closer to the smaller girl and placed a quick kiss on her forehead. "Goodnight, Beca."

The brunette buried her face under Chloe's chin and smiled. She was really content with how this night turned out to be. It was just a talk between the two of them but a lot has been said. She didn't think she could say those words again when she wakes up but being sleep-deprived was better than being drunk. Albeit, they seemed to have similar symptoms such as saying things you don't usually say and doing things you usually don't do.

Before she drifted off, she heard Chloe say, "I'm glad we had this conversation."

"Me, too."

[leelaayluu]

Strangulation

The moment I opened the car door, the cicadas started calling so intensely that I was willing to cover my ears. I squint at the direct sunlight that is so bright that it burns my skin. While coming to the weight of the mind to left the comfortable space where the cooler worked, I stepped on the ground of the stone with sneakers that crushed the heel, and a voice came from the driver's seat. 

 "I think you'll be out of school at six, but if you need to pick me up early, call me whenever you need me, Hyou."

When I was too troubled to reply and said nothing, I heard my brother responding instead. If you get out of the car and get up, you'll be in too much heat. It snowed later.

Akinari lowered the window of the driver's seat, put his elbow on the frame there, and looked up at us with a familiar smile. “Watch out for heat."

"Thank you for the ride." Setsu bowed my head in a thankful manner.

"No, no, I just had business in this direction, and pick-up and drop-off is cheap! And I want to visit Haruka-sensei's grave. I'm going to let you do it when I pick you up." 

"Please buy your own flowers." Akinari smiled wryly, with the meaning that I would not pay. As the conversation began to climb the stone stairs, I heard the sound of Akinari's leaving car and the sound of snow coming up the stairs.

Sweat flows through the back of my neck. Sweat seems to err on a bunch of chrysanthemum flowers held in one hand. Ice rolled up the sleeves of his uniform's short-sleeved shirt. This year's Bon festival seems to have hit a very hot day.

Surrounded by tall trees, the strange cemetery welcomed my brothers in a way that was no different from last summer. There are people who look around, and each ancestor is worshiped to the thought.

"Y. Ice."

I heard a small voice from behind my legs, but I didn't get any particular reaction.

After Setsu waits for this answer for a while, it continues to say.

"Akinari-san game me for a drink, so if I get thirsty, this is the ice..."

I put my hand out backwards with my front facing, and a calm plastic bottle was placed there.

I was annoyed if it was carbonated water, but I turned the cap as it was because it was just tea that I wanted to drink. When the cold tea passed through my throat, I felt a life back.

Get to the place you want and stop. When the character of the line type body named the gravestone seen for the first time in one year and Tsubaki family's grave carved there was looked at, it felt a little sick when it had passed ah again for one year.

When Setsu caught up with the early foot of Hyou, stopped next to it, it stared at the gravestone, and breathed.

It’s been three years since my mother had passed away. And, this is the third time I visit her grave.

It’s true, they would like to come here more often, but this cemetery is by their parents' house far from the apartment where the brothers live, so they couldn't come as often as they’d like.

Besides, the father who is separated lives in the parents' house.

For Hyou, the presence of that father, who had damaged his mother and brother in violence and destroyed his family, was above all hateful. They don't want to see each other again, They don't want to be as close as possible.

On the other hand, he could only remember that his mother was a really nice person. She used to always smile calmly. She was intelligent, humble and warm, but he gets angry when he gets angry. While working as a high school teacher, she was also really enthusiastic about raising children. It is said that people first forget from their voices when they lose someone's memory, but if they want to remember their mother's voice, they have always been brought back to their ears. Is it so easy to forget?

born from her belly and grew up on her hands.

As long as I'm myself, I'm the one and only one who can't take anyone's place.

"Hyou...?"

It returned to me when it was called together. It seems to have been absent-brained while standing in front of the grave. Looking next to my voice, I was a little surprised at the sight of my mother-look looking up at me.

"What's wrong?" Are you okay......?”

He asked him if he thought he was going to the heat, but he was really worried about Setsu.

In the sunlight, the gauze stuck to the cheek stands out disgustingly.

The wounds that are a little out of the bottom are never old. In 痣, the skin remains so white that it looks sickly. I could see painful scars on my his arms with plastic bottles and incense, and on my neck peeking through the collar of my shirt. It's all left behind by Hyou’s beatings.

"Going to the sun shadow...?" The bench over there is just a shadow."

"Erse. I'm indebted to you."

"I'm sorry."

Setsu shrinks my shoulders.

I ignored it, crouched in front of the tombstone, and when I finished offering flowers, water, and fruit, Setsu offered me incense without saying anything in response, light a short candle, raise a incense beam, and put my hands together.

When he got up and went down one step, Setsu raised an incense and put his hands together as well.

Sestu was crouching in front of their mother's grave. Hyou looked down at his small back with his hands together. How small. If you kick him now, he’s going to stop in front of you, hit his head against the tombstone, bleed from his forehead, and start crying. It was a peep when I imagined such a thing.

Hyou turned his eyes off his brother's back with a bitter expression.

It's not something to think about in front of your mother's grave. Drink chilled green tea in a complex mood. I wish I could pour this in my stomach with this heart-watering feeling that I can't say anything about. And I want to digest it and get it out of my body.

Setsu had been keeping his hands together for a long time than what he thought he had, but eventually he stood up quietly and lined up next to Hyou.

I hear the cry of the cicadas. A cool breeze passed through the many tombstones that lined up, informing us of the arrival of the evening. If you look at the clock on your cell phone, it's about 6:00 pm.

"At what time is Akinari-san going to pick us up?”

I said it out loud with the intention of talking to myself, but Setsu answered immediately.

"Oh, he's getting out of college at six."

"At six?" It' takes about 30 minutes to get here..."

"But he said call him if you want to go early."

"It's too troublesome. It's long when he calls me once."

Sighing, he looked up at the sky as the sun began to set.

Then I saw a person walking towards me from the side of my eyes. For some reason, I felt chills, so I turned my face and saw Natsuki. Chills ran down his spine.

"Oh?" He grinned, his eyes as if he had witnessed a rare animal.

"If you think of someone, it's you."

“...... It's not good." The color of Hyou’s eyes changed in an instant. He takes one or two steps back and almost unconsciously, signaled at Setsu to hid behind his back.

When he saw the situation, he put his fist on his mouth and laughed happily at his throat for some reason. "It's been a while, haven't is?" Hyou, Setsu."

It's the worst. I've met the person that I don't want to see the most.

His father, who had not seen him in a while, was dressed in a black suit with no wrinkles and was wearing an expensive tie. His blond hair is styled to the right as when Hyou had last met him. His left and right ears have small earrings. It is covered with the intimidation which does not at bay against those who are somehow taller than Hyou.

It was obvious that he had come to visit Haruka’s grave, like ourselves, because he was holding in one hand  a bouquet of chrysanthemum and therindo. However, it did not expect it to match it at all. It's not true.

Natsuki approached the gravestone without worrying about his sons who were wary of him, crouched there, rubbed the cigarette fire that was holding at the end of his mouth against the ground, put it out, and reach for an incense.

"Well, you even offer fruit?" That's great."

As usual, the way he said and did things was light, and everything was stinky. It is unavoidable to touch the 穥 to speak cheerfully. Hyou squeaked.

"Which side did you lower?" I don't believe it."

"Haruka, we're going to visit the grave this year."

「...... you.

"Oh, I'm afraid of Hyou."

Summer students crouched down to look up at Hyou standing in front of Sestu to hide him from Natsuki's eyes. Natsuki laughed fearlessly.

"Are you so afraid of me, Hyou?”"

"Haha. Afraid? What are you saying, bastard?."

"Hey, can I talk to my biological father like that?" 」

"I don't think I'm a father at all, but I'm not taking anything out of it."

Natsuki suddenly stood up and reached out with his nose as he laughed at the attitude of Hyou’s disgust. The neck of Hyou is against the straight line. Hyou was almost reflective and I was able to get rid of it, but at the same time, I shook my shoulder so big that I couldn't make a mistake. My eyes swim upset.

Natsuki laughed at it with a keen eye.

The fear of those days, when he was being abused by this father, is creepy and revives and binds his body. Vomit comes up my throat. Even if nothing is being made, the breath is raised, and cold sweat flows through the kome. I want to stop it, but my teeth are ticking and I can't help it.

Then, it was understood that the back side of the shirt was gripped tightly.

Setsu’s hands were also trembling.

I noticed it, or Natsuki suddenly stretched his neck as if he remembered another existence, peering into Setsu clinging to the back of Hyou.

"Oh, Setsu."

"Don't get close!" Hyou raised his voice while hiding Setsu on his back, but the resistance of such Hyou was empty, and Natsuki approached him, Setsu was looking at him with an expression like a frightened small animal. He laughed.

"You look just like Haruka, don't you?

"Don’t get any closer! I'm gonna kill you!” I yelled, but at the end, the air froze. One hand of Natsuki really captured the neck of Hyou which desperately tried to pull away Setsu this time.

「...... tsu! 

I was a breather. I could see that the snow took my breath away behind me. He shook his arm and tried to hit Natsuki's side, but he was easily dodged.

"I'm sorry, Hyou."

Natsuki, who looks like a relentless child, looks down at Hyou.

It was not until the flimsy smile disappeared that I strongly felt that this man was a quite dangerous person. I should have understood it very well.

"The threat of words is the same as child cheating, isn't it?" Nothing's interesting."

Tears oozed faintly at the pain of not be able to breathe.

However, Natsuki immediately let go of the Hyou’s neck and put a thin smile on his face. He it kneels down in front of the grave again like nothing had happened, an incense stick is given, and he puts his hands together.

The hand of Setsu stroked the back of Hyou which put my neck and adjusted the breath. I couldn't help it because my heart was still unnecessarily pulsating.

It is known that breathing difficulties are not the only cause.

This fear of seering into the body probably won't go away until death.

"Hey, Hyou, are you okay...?"

For some reason, I looked into my eyes while listening in a small voice to see if the snow, which had tearsy eyes rather than the ice itself, was bothered to sound summer.

But his eyes still stare at his father.

"Well."

When he stood up and glanced at his wife's sleeping grave with a clean expression, Natsuki walked out as if he had forgotten the existence of his sons, and left the place leisurely.

He couldn't read what he had been thinking for a long time. That part seems to have not changed at all either.

This person in question is not interested in my son at all, and take the attitude which comes from only when the mind is turned to it even if this resents that man so much, is terrified, and wants to kill it. It was more exasperasing than anything else. He's probably not really interested. In words, I'm not sure what my father is, but I'm doubtful that he even recognizes Hyou and Setsu as his sons.

"Hyou..." Setsu called out to Hyou, who had remained silent while keeping eyes closed. Even after his father leaves, he holds Hyou’s trembling tightly and clasps it to his chest in relief. Even my hands are shaking. The summer evening sky, completely stained with orange, was painfully dazzling to my eyes, and I was somehow suddenly tired and closed my eyelids. The cry of the cicadas are already quite far away. The shadow of his brother, standing stunned in front of his mother's grave, stretched flatly on the stone ground. Eventually, with the noisy sound of foot, the call of his cousin was heard, so Hyou opened his eyes and moved on to clearing the grave.

[katherineaq]

Biography of Katherine A. Quidato

Katherine Alterado Quidato was born March 12,2000, in Sasa, Davao City. She is the eldest of the family. Her mother, Jeniffer Alterado, has a small sari-sari store. Her father, Sidney Quidato, was a laborer. She has 2 brothers namely, Clarence Dave and Christian Mark, CM is her half brother because his father had another girl. As a child, she is emotional, empathic and strongly intuitive. However, she is commonly found clinging to her grandparents and requires extra special cuddle attention as her emotional sense of well-being demands to be frequently nurtured. As a person she is a dreamer, imaginative and has big, deep and old-soul eyes that appear to see directly into your soul. She doesn't waste her time defining herself on the basis of the things she own, she’s more interested in long-term fulfillment, personal development and meaningful relationships that withstand the test of time. She is not interested in rumors, petty gossip and fake news that does not have long term outcomes for how human beings are developed. She believes her intuition and trusts it as a reliable guide to what is right. 

She grew up with her grandparents Isidro Quidato and Aurora Quidato. She is attached to them because they are the people who've been there throughout her childhood until growing up. They sustained her needs and supported her to what she really wants. Her grandparents always bring her to their province, Governor Generoso. Mati City.  She experienced most of her childhood there. She loves that place because she always wakes up with the sea in front of their house. At 5 am, Kath and her grandmother always take a walk every morning on the shore and feel the air brought by the sea, and the sound brought by the waves is overwhelming and makes her calm. She always makes time to go there even in her teenage life, it helps her to relieve her stress because of academics and toxic people. She experienced different heartbreaks, cried at night, hated herself, questioned her worth and asked God why she had to exist in this chaotic world. As time went by, she still realized that everything happens for a reason. The trials, failures, heartbreaks will make her stronger in the end. 

She loves nature as she loves herself,she always makes sure that regular time outdoors is part of her schedule. For her, nature recharges, refreshes and helps her to let go of stress and sadness. She dreamed of living closer to nature and building her own house in a country side. She wants to have a simple yet peaceful life, seeing every creation of God everyday and helping other people who are in psychological needs. When she was young she dreamed of becoming a teacher to help students not just in academics but also those who felt isolated with their peers. As time went by she met one of the guidance counselors in Assumption College of Davao and having conversation with the guidance counselor made her realize that psychology is what fits to what she wants in the future. She also joined the Peer Facilitators at ACD, even though she doesn't have any friends with her joining that club. Senior high school was one of the best moments of her life, Assumption College of Davao has been a part of her life. She met new colleagues and spent time with them, the people there were true to her and never stabbed her back that’s why even time has passed by she still spends time with those people and frees her time for them. As she entered college, she became the Peer Facilitator secretary and it was a good experience for her. College has been difficult for her, she failed in quizzes and examinations, she lost people she valued the most because they cannot understand what she really wanted in life but there are still people who stayed for her.She believed that “You don’t need too many friends to be happy, just a few real ones who appreciate you for who you are.” She believes that people should not stay in the circle of toxic people, find a new circle for you to grow. She’s not scared of losing anyone if it is for her own growth. Life might be hard for her but she has a strong and positive personality that made her where she is now. She also experienced being a promo girl in Banana boat Sunscreen brand, loader and reselling perfumes and foods. 

She joined the Psychological Association of the Philippines (PAPJA) with her selected fellow classmates, held in Manila. She met psychology students from different schools and became friends with them. During the year 2020, her batch experienced a pandemic called COVID-19.  This pandemic made their life hard during the Enhanced Community Quarantine, they cannot go to school to study that’s why it’s hard for them to understand the topics  , especially the major subjects. In the year 2023, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. She took the board exam and passed. She worked hard and earned money, she became a volunteer in Leading Mental Health Charities and Organization. She experienced being a guidance counselor, teacher, and HR. 

She experienced different tragedies before achieving her goals, she failed in her research, lost her job but it does not become a barrier to achieve her goals. She became the most known psychologist in the Philippines. During those downfalls she met again her college friends and it really made her happy because it brought back the best memories of her past. In her 40’s she was awarded, “The American Psychologgical Association International Humanitarian Award”, “The Troland Research Awards”, “Olivia Espin Award for Social Justice Concerns in Feminist Psychology.” 

  She has crossed different paths, some are easy, some are hard. Sometimes she does not know where to go but she likes it anyway, she loves challenging herself, exploring things because she believes that this may lead her to unexpected things that will help her to grow. 

She became the person she wanted to be during her early years, there are changes in life but at the end she is still happy with all the achievement she had. She travelled in different places like Paris, Rome, New zealand, London, Maui, Barcelona, New york City, Maldives, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Santorini, St. Lucia, Dubai and many more. 

 Kath and the person she loves build a house in America where they could stay whenever they want. She is now happy spending her days with the person she loves since the beginning. She also has a house in the Philippines,she lived in a small cabin surrounded by nature. She wants to live a simple life, seeing animals, especially butterflies, and the flowers on her garden. She is always happy as long as she knows that the people that are important to her are always there. She continued living the life she wanted and lived peacefully until the end of her life.

[auroraphilealis]

Heaven Scent Chapter 3

Heaven Scent | Dan Howell rarely leaves the house unless he has too, too socially awkward to function normally around other people, and generally making his only friends through Louise, a sweet beta who took him under her wing a few years back when they were both still in college. It’s no surprise, then, that the omega has yet to find a mate, despite craving one rather a lot. It’s not until he attends Louise’s birthday party and gets accidentally-on-purpose set up with an attractive alpha named Phil Lester who smells absolutely heavenly that Dan starts to fall into a proper romance, complete with courting and scenting and the like. | Phan | Mature | A/B/O dynamics (Omegaverse fic), Fluff, Getting Together, Eventual Smut, Courting | 5,949 Words this chapter

So I’ve been writing this so fast I’ve just decided to post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, yikes LOL so I hope you guys enjoy their first date! <3

Disclaimer: In no way do I pretend that this is real or cast aspersions on Dan or Phil.

(Ao3) (Previous)

Chapter Three

By the time Saturday arrived, Dan wasn’t even sure if Phil felt like a stranger anymore. They’d been texting on and off for three days, practically non stop except for work (Phil had strange hours, it seemed, but they hadn’t got around to talking about careers just yet), sleep, and sometimes meals, though Dan had become an expert at texting with one hand while he spooned cereal into his mouth with the other at three o’clock in the afternoon.

They hadn’t gotten around to talking about the more practical sides of each other that came from a first date, but it didn’t seem to matter. Dan already knew so much about Phil Lester that when he started getting ready for his date that night, it didn’t feel like the first.

In fact, it felt more like getting ready to go out with a friend, and if Dan was being honest, he much preferred that to almost any other date he’d ever been on.

Don’t get him wrong, the alpha didn’t feel like just a friend, though. He was someone Dan was quickly finding himself really rather interested in, and he just wanted to know more, and more, and more about him until he’d learned every last thing about Phil Lester there was to know, and while Dan very much so wanted this date to go well… he was quickly finding that he’d be just as okay with it if things never progressed passed “just friends.”

Phil was just… amazing. Dan had learned that the man was incredibly passionate and heartfelt when he wanted to be, ready to defend his opinions against even some of Dan’s more terrifying rants, without ever once backing down. His thoughts were well thought out as well, as emotive as they were backed with reason, a fact that intrigued Dan almost beyond any other; he was used to being the more impartial person in an argument, after all.

On top of all that, though, Phil just had a strange… charm to him when he spoke.

Even through text Dan could feel that same sense of comfort he’d gotten when Phil had talked in person at Louise’s party. He had a way of making you laugh with him when he was being socially awkward, rather than being awkward in return, and it seemed to be the main reason Dan was able to talk to him so easily. He was glad for that, because Dan was used to being the awkward one, but even now when he made strange blunders, Phil didn’t seem to mind.

Phil didn’t seem to mind anything, really. He was more receptive to Dan than almost anyone else had ever been to him, except for Louise and maybe even Wirrow. PJ still gave Dan funny looks from time to time, and while Hazel was endlessly sweet and unassuming, even she didn’t get along with Dan quite as well as the others.

But Phil… Phil was something else, like a puzzle piece slotting into Dan’s life where he hadn’t known it was missing. It sounded cheesy and romantic, something Dan wished he could chalk up to his omega tendencies, but he knew was just part of him. Phil just fit with him, and Dan so, so badly hoped that Phil felt the same way as him.

If he didn’t, well then, so be it. Dan would be just as happy to have Phil in his life in any capacity, even if he was kind of hoping for something more after all the flirting of the last few days.

That was the other thing. They didn’t just share a lot of the same tastes, and Phil didn’t just ignore Dan’s blunders when he spoke and said things that either didn’t make any sense, or would scare anyone else away. No, they also got on exceptionally well. There was a never a dull moment when they were chatting, never a second where Dan didn’t itch to respond, never a message that went unanswered because neither male knew what to say anymore.

No, conversation seemed to flow naturally between them, and they talked like they were old friends, rather than two strangers who’d met at a party just once.

Even without the sexual tension between them, Dan knew they’d made the best of friends, and… that excited him.

Dan had never had a best friend before.

Phil was due to pick Dan up for their date in about an hour, which meant that Dan had just finished a shower and was currently drying his hair, doing his best to contain his urge to reach for a straightner and force it into some semblance of tame. He’d come to terms with his curls months ago, but the nerves of going on a first date made it incredibly tempting to return to a flat iron.

Phil had already seen Dan with unruly curls, though, so the point seemed moot. Dan sighed, somewhat distressed, as he pulled out a hair dryer instead.

Hopefully he could at least attempt to shape it into a form he actually liked, then. The last thing he needed was to show up to his date looking like a rat when Dan wanted nothing more than to make a good first impression on Phil.

First impression… Dan couldn’t help but laugh at the thought, the sound soft as he grinned at his reflection in the mirror. He wore nothing but a towel slung around his waist, hair dripping onto pale shoulders, and he looked a right mess, but he still couldn’t help smiling at himself. After all, this might be a first date, but it wasn’t a first impression. No, somehow, Dan had already won the alphas attentions.

They’d flown straight past first impressions into a collision course with courting.

Proper courting, for the first time in Dan’s life.

The thought still made him giddy, which in turn made it difficult for Dan to wipe the grin off of his face. Omega or no omega, scent or no scent, Dan had still somehow managed to interest Phil, someone who his biology seemed to think was a very, very good match for him, if Phil’s overwhelming scent were anything to go by.

Dan could still smell it, sort of. It had clung to his nose for days, and the memory of it was enough to bring it straight back to him -

Dan’s phone vibrated in the middle of him drying his hair, and he didn’t waste a second in turning off the blow dryer and setting it down.

Phil’s name had just flashed across his screen.

From: Phil Lester <3

surprise! i uhm… might be early

The words sent a zing of surprise up Dan’s spine, and he suddenly spun in the middle of his bathroom to sniff at the air. He had thought he was taking in Phil’s scent a little too strongly to be a memory, but he hadn’t thought that Phil would already have arrived.

As Dan sniffed the air, however, it became more than a little bit clear that Phil was, in fact, already at his door.

Interested heat curled in Dan’s belly at the thought of the alpha being so eager to see him again, and he laughed in delighted surprise as he picked up his phone again.

To: Phil Lester <3

impatient much?

From: Phil Lester <3

… maybe. im sorry! if your not ready i can just wait outside D’;

Dan found himself laughing again despite himself, feeling warmth spread to his cheeks at Phil’s easy response.

Despite being overwhelmingly aware of the fact that Phil was most definitely interested in him, little moments like these still took him by surprise. Anytime Phil had mentioned anything about being anxious to see Dan again this week, Dan had felt something nervous and shy explode in his insides, and now was no different. The idea that the alpha could be so eager, and unafraid to show it, as well as be so soft and kind? That was… novel, to Dan.

He’d had so many guys in his life in the past, and not one of them, alpha or otherwise, had ever been quite like Phil.

To: Phil Lester <3

unfortunately im not but feel free to make yourself comfortable. im sure my house plants’ll appreciate the comapny >:D

From: Phil Lester <3

have i mentioned how much i love house plants?

hurry up, im lonely :’(

The randomly blurted fact didn’t even surprise Dan at this point, and he merely snorted as he dropped his phone back down onto his bathroom counter, and picked up his hairdryer again. He could still smell Phil outside, the alpha’s musk permeating Dan’s flat without him ever having even been inside. Dan inhaled sharply, closing his eyes and enjoying it as he dried his hair.

He honestly wouldn’t mind that scent clinging to his entire life, if he was being honest. It was just so warm and homey, sharp in some ways, but mostly just… nice. Phil smelt nice, and Dan was glad to have the scent near once again.

He just hoped the future would see even more of it.

With Phil waiting ever so patiently outside - by which Dan meant, not patiently at all, considering he wouldn’t stop texting him little thoughts and anxious smiley faces that honestly just made Dan’s stomach flip over - Dan felt even more rushed to get ready, but he did his best to make himself appear presentable.

Once he’d gotten his hair just the way he wanted it, he put away his hair dryer and headed back into his bedroom to get dressed. He’d laid out a nice pair of black skinny jeans in preparation for his date, along with a soft bluey-green v-neck that hugged his neck and chest really nicely. It was meant to be a cold night, so he’d planned to accompany the outfit with his black jacket with the zips all over it to make for a kind of casual, fashiony appearance, considering Phil hadn’t told Dan where they were going yet.

The skinny jeans were… possibly a mistake. Dan had done his best to dry off after his shower, but they were still a nightmare to pull on, and once he’d managed it, he felt kind of winded, sat on his bed with his forehead a little sweaty already. He felt kind of ridiculous when he pulled on his shirt immediately after, and then, after checking his appearance one more time in the mirror, he shrugged on his jacket, grabbed his keys, wallet, and cell phone, and finally ventured out into the living room.

Phil’s scent was even stronger here. Dan could sense him sat just outside his door, and while he’d been nervous before, suddenly he was terrified. What if Phil decided he hated Dan after all? He’d only seen him in person one other time, and Dan was ten times more awkward when you had to deal with him face to face. Surely, this was a bad idea?

Biting his lip, Dan hesitated next to his shoe rack, and stared at the plaster of his door.

Phil wouldn’t be able to scent him. Dan was covered in neutralizing soaps, as he always was.

But he kind of wished Phil could.

From: Phil Lester <3

dan? you ready yet? :’D

To: Phil Lester <3

almost.

are you ready for a bumpy ride? cause im an emotional rollercoaster

From: Phil Lester <3

are you trying to scare me away? cause its not going to work :’P im way too invested now!

i like you dan… please come out?

Dan’s hands were legitimately shaking as he read Phil’s message, unable to believe the words written there were real. It really wasn’t that Dan didn’t have any self confidence, it was just that… it had taken a real hit over the years. He was attractive, sure, but he wasn’t mate worthy, and that… well, that had always bothered him to a certain extent.

He really was socially awkward, and he’d never quite fit in. Being friends with Louise and the others was a miracle. But Phil?

Taking in a deep breath, Dan finally moved to shove his shoes on - black high tops with zips on both sides - and opened his front door.

Instantly, Dan was swamped with the overpowering scent of Phil all over again. Dan hadn’t even caught sight of the man yet, and he could already smell him as if he were pressed right up against Dan. His scent filled Dan’s nostrils in a way that caused him to close his eyes in bliss and inhale.

The sound of a low chuckle had his eyes snapping back open and his cheeks turning red.

Phil Lester was standing up from where he’d been sat next to Dan’s door, wiping away invisible dust stains from his black jeans, and smirking at Dan like he knew exactly what he was doing to the omega. Embarrassed to have been caught so obviously enjoying the alpha’s scent, Dan ducked his head away.

He couldn’t keep his gaze downcast for very long, however, shy smile curving over his features as he peered up at Phil.

The alpha was wearing skinny jeans as well, legs so thin that the dark fabric wasn’t nearly as skin tight as Dan’s were. Somehow, he still looked freaking amazing anyway. His shirt was a red button up, plaid, and long sleeved. Something about it brought out the black of the man’s hair, and - he seemed to be wearing contacts, as the last time Dan had seen Phil, he remembered quite distinctly the thick, black-rimmed glasses he’d been wearing. The sight of Phil without the glasses though was… well, intoxicating, to a certain degree.

Phil’s eyes were so blue, and yet there was green and yellow in his eyes that just made them appear even more beautiful than Dan had previously thought. They were electrifying, and sent a thrill down Dan’s spine as he stared.

“I guess I don’t have to ask whether or not my scent is appealing to you,” Phil chuckled, finally breaking the silence with the line.

Unwilling to back down a second time, Dan merely grinned in return.

“I guess I don’t have to ask either,” he shot back, laughing as Phil’s jaw dropped open in shock at him, before the other male began to laugh as well. “Get it,” Dan joked, “Because I don’t have a scent?”

Phil shook his head, eyes scrunched up in that way Dan had only seen a few times before back at Louise’s birthday party, but which made him look even younger than he already did. His grin was loose and adorable, the tip of his tongue poking out from between his teeth on one side, and he just looked so carefree that Dan wanted to tug him in and kiss him.

He didn’t, wanting to save that moment for some time down the line. Dan wasn’t quite ready for that just yet. He was excited for the chance to be courted.

“You’re an idiot,” Phil joked, poking Dan in the arm fondly once he’d calmed down a little bit, and jerking like he wanted to do more. Dan remembered how tactile Phil had seemed at the party, and wondered if he was in for a treat tonight. He bit his lip, kind of hoping Phil would take his hand, or, better yet, wrap his arm around Dan’s shoulders and pull him in tight against his side.

Phil cleared his throat, dropping his hand instead and licking his lips as he tossed his head a little to readjust his fringe. He looked nervous, which was ridiculous considering he’d only just been teasing Dan a few seconds ago. His sharp eyes caught Dan’s gaze, then, and held.

“So - you’re okay with me being an alpha, right? Because I know that’s kind of a deal breaker for some people, and I don’t hide my scent because of it, but I just wanted to make sure. I know you already knew I was an alpha when you, like, accepted my courting gift a few weeks ago, I just. Things change, you know, when you’re not in the heat of the moment, and I just wanted to make sure,” Phil babbled, the words breezing from his lips as if he’d been holding onto them for a good week straight or something.

If Dan was behind honest, they also shocked him. He hadn’t been anticipating Phil to be worried about his secondary gender when Phil didn’t even know what Dan’s was yet.

The shock was so real, that Dan forgot to respond.

Phil’s cheeks went red.

“I mean, I figured that might be why it took you so long to text me in the first place, is all. I just - I just wanted to make sure, because I didn’t want to make you feel pressured to go on a date with me or anything, and I -” he rushed to add, beginning to look more and more upset the longer that he spoke.

Gently, Dan reached out and grasped tight to Phil’s shoulders in an attempt to still his now agitated shaking, eyes wide as he stared at Phil. His jaw was a little unhinged, he was sure, it was, just - well, this had been the last thing he’d been expecting.

“Phil. It’s - it’s fine, I promise. I’m more than okay with you being an alpha, I swear,” Dan rushed to reassure him, still attempting to blink back his own surprise at Phil’s admittance. “I’m not like, into stereotypes or anything. I uh… honestly, the reason it took me so long to text you was because I was… kind of scared of something similar,” Dan admitted.

It was better late than never, and Dan had meant to apologize for keeping Phil hanging for so long. He sighed, dropping his hands from Phil’s shoulders, and reached up to push his fringe out of his face instead. It dropped right back into place, but it wasn’t actually getting it out of the way that mattered, just the distracting movement of his hands.

Dan looked away.

“I’m not really used to being courted, especially not since I don’t - I don’t exactly broadcast my secondary gender. I was afraid that would be a deal breaker for you, because I don’t…”

Dan trailed off, biting his bottom lip, and then sighed. What had happened to the ease of conversation that usually flowed between the two of them? Sure, they hadn’t really talked about any of the serious stuff yet, but Dan had really been hoping it would transition to the harder stuff too.

Deciding he wasn’t going to be shy about his feelings, Dan finally looked up and matched Phil’s gaze again.

“I prefer for someone to get to know me for me, before they learn to love my - instincts, so to speak,” he explained.

Phil, for a moment, still looked a little unsure, studying Dan like he wasn’t quite certain if the other was telling the truth. Dan could hardly blame him when it was still completely insane to him that Phil could be worried Phil being an alpha was an issue to him, so he let Phil have his moment to digest what Dan had said before he responded.

After another moment, the worry lines smoothed from Phil’s forehead, and the unease left his eyes until he was back to smiling softly at Dan. He looked a little more enamoured than Dan thought he had any right to be, but he wasn’t going to complain when having that look aimed at him was causing him heart palpitations the way it currently was.

“Okay,” Phil finally responded. “Great! So you don’t mind that I’m an alpha, and I don’t mind that your - just you. Now that that’s settled. You look really nice, today.”

A surprised smile bloomed over Dan’s face, and he coughed out a shocked laugh at the ease with which Phil had not only wrapped up their musings, but changed the subject, as if it hardly mattered at all anymore.

Dan supposed it didn’t, when it came right down to it, and merely rolled his eyes at the alpha stood before him.

“So do you,” he agreed, and reached up to straighten Phil’s lopsided shirt collar. A greedy sense of affection and rightness filled Dan at the simple act of cleaning up after the alpha, and he threw the accompanying grin at Phil without a care in the world.

If their texting relationship was anything to go by, let alone the completely smitten look on Phil’s face, Dan had a feeling he didn’t have anything left to be afraid of.

 Their date ended up being a nice walk around the park, something unprecedented and surprising to Dan who’d been expecting - well, just about anything else, really.

Though Phil had encouraged Dan to dress casually, he’d anticipated something more cliche, like a movie date where Phil could make the excuse to make out with Dan in the back corner, or a dine-in where they ate in their car and had the excuse to practically sit in each others laps. When Dan really thought about it, though, not only did he prefer this, but he realized he should have been expecting it.

Phil seemed like an old fashioned kind of guy who wanted to treat his partner right, and didn’t give off the whole, jumping into things too quickly kind of vibe. Dan usually went along with it when his dates got kind of frisky, unable to help it considering for a long time, he’d been an affection starved teenager, but he kind of appreciated the fact that Phil wasn’t really putting the moves onto him.

Not to say that Phil wasn’t particularly touchy, because he was, just not in the usual grabby kind of way that Dan was used to. No, instead, Phil walked just close enough to Dan at all times that their shoulders constantly rubbed, and their hands brushed from time to time. Phil’s scent was a constant, surrounding Dan like a cloud, and yet even that was comforting. It wasn’t overly cloying or aroused, merely that same nice scent that Phil had been exuding since Dan had first met him.

When Dan said something particularly silly, something that usually earned him a funny look, Phil reached over and shoved his shoulder in a joking manner, constantly laughing at the dumb things that came out of Dan’s mouth. When he wanted to make a point of something he was saying, he gently rubbed his hand down Dan’s shoulder to make sure he had the others man’s attention, and used his hands to create shapes in the air. Sometimes, Phil even seemed tempted to catch Dan;s hand in his to hold onto, or wrap his arm around Dan’s waist, and while Dan did his best to make it clear that he’d be okay with that, Phil always seemed to pull back at the last minute.

So Dan decided he was going to have to be the brave one here, and as they approached what Phil said was their primary destination, a large something at the far end of the park from where the two had entered, Dan took the initiative to grasp Phil’s hand in his the next time their fingers brushed, and twined them together.

Phil was cold, impossibly so. He wasn’t what Dan had been expecting, not exactly, but as Phil let out a low, pleased grumble, seemingly instinctively in reaction to Dan’s touch, Dan realized that he didn’t care. He quite liked the way Phil’s long fingers felt against his, the fact that Dan’s palm was clearly just a size bigger, and that Phil’s cool touch matched Dan’s warm one.

He offered the alpha a smile as they continued to walk, and enjoyed the way Phil smiled goofily back at him.

“Okay, so I know it’s nothing special, but uh - here we are!” Phil announced as the two finally approached the shiny object Phil had pointed out to Dan some time ago. Finally turning to properly take it in, and no longer too busy staring at the side of Phil’s face while his own heart raced at the feeling of their fingers being pressed together, Dan felt himself begin to grin all over again.

Phil had brought them to a little gazebo Dan hadn’t even known existed, all lit up with fairy lights and gorgeous in its beauty. It was white, with wicker sides and a solid roof that would surely keep out the weather. Up the small steps where Dan and Phil now stood was a little landing with a long, swinging loveseat, creaking lightly in the cold night air.

There were fairy lights on the inside too, lighting the whole place up in a bright, romantic glow that made Dan’s heart sing.

“How do you know about this place?” Dan asked, already moving towards the gazebo and dragging Phil along with him by his grap on his hands. His foot shook a little as he tentatively placed his weight on the first step, but the gazebo didn’t so much as creak in response, and Dan grinned as he gained the confidence to move up the rest of the steps. For all the time’s he’d been to this exact park, Dan had never actually seen this gazebo before. “Is it new?”

Phil chuckled at Dan’s clear excitement, and followed behind him eagerly enough.

“It’s not new. It’s actually been here for a while, but it was recently renovated. You probably never noticed it before because it used to be a really dull grey color, and it didn’t have the fairy lights,” Phil explained as Dan ran his hands over the silken wood, mesmerized by how beautiful the place looked.

Tugging on Phil’s hand again, Dan moved to settle down on the love seat, and grinned as Phil nervously joined him. Their fingers slipped from each other, but Dan didn’t mind. Phil’s thigh was pressed up against his, their shoulders touching, and Dan’s heart was racing in his chest.

He wished that Phil would reach up and properly wind his arm over Dan’s shoulders, but one quick glance at Phil’s face showed Dan just how nervous the alpha actually was just then. It was pretty comical to Dan, because Phil usually seemed so confident over text, easily swapping from conversation to conversation before any single one could peter out and leave the two with no more excuses to speak.

He’d even so easily flirted with Dan a few times, and yet here they were, in person, on their first date, and Phil’s cheeks were tinted a bright pink. He seemed too afraid to reach out and touch Dan the way he wanted too, and maybe it should have come as no surprise to Dan, and yet it did.

He went to reach for Phil’s hands again, only for Phil to interrupt the movement and start speaking.

“I, uhm. I’m really glad you said yes to a date tonight,” he started, looking nervous all over again as he avoided Dan’s gaze.

They’d spoken so easily on their walk over here. Why was Phil all of a sudden so nervous now?

“Me too. I’ve had a good night,” Dan agreed easily enough, trying to smile at Phil and calm him down, but Phil merely shook his head at Dan.

“No - I mean, yes, me too. I just. The gazebo isn’t the only thing I wanted to show you tonight, and it kind of really had to be tonight, so I’m really glad you weren’t busy or anything,” Phil explained, fingers tangling together awkwardly in his lap as he glanced up and out at the night sky like he was waiting for something. “What I was really hoping for was to share something else with you,” he added, and sighed as he finally looked back at Dan.

“I didn’t want to just take you out to dinner like anyone else might have. I wanted to do something special. So… well, just wait,” Phil trailed off, and offered Dan a gentle smile, “And look.”

Suddenly, Phil was pointing out at the night sky, and Dan turned his head just in time for something loud and bright to explode into the night sky. A huge explosion of red and orange and blue appeared against the dark backtrack, alerting Dan to the sudden Fireworks display as it rather abruptly started from the other side of the park.

Dan gasped at the display, and then suddenly, it seemed like the entire park was being lit up in a show he hadn’t known was coming. Blue’s and red’s, pink’s and orange’s, green’s and purple’s were suddenly lighting up the night sky with no end in sight while Dan stared on in obvious glee. He couldn’t stop grinning, watching as firework after firework went off, even the sound not enough to bother Dan, and he reached for Phil’s leg only to grasp onto it tightly as he leaned forward to stare.

“Holy shit,” he muttered at the same time as Phil’s arm very carefully and very casually found it’s place around his shoulders. Finally.

Phil laughed at the words.

“Does that mean it was a good surprise?”

Dan’s eyes were glued to the fireworks.

“Definitely,” he agreed.

 They ended up watching the show together in absolute silence, Phil’s arm a comforting weight on Dan’s shoulder as he held him close. Dan kept his hand solidly on Phil’s thigh, enjoying the way it seemed to tremble under his hold, but also the fact that it kept him steady as he stared into the night sky. The colors were just so brilliant, and Dan so rarely got to see a show like this, unwilling to go alone.

He’d never had someone to take with him before, so for Phil to take him… well, it was the perfect gift, and Phil hadn’t even known.

From time to time, Dan snuck looks at Phil out of the corner of his eye, fascinated by the brilliant, happy little smile that had seemed to replace his nerves since they’d first sat down. He’d completely lit up since the fireworks display had begun, and it was absolutely brilliant to watch.

It didn’t help that Dan was completely and utterly enamoured with the man already, but the way bright blues and greens and pinks flashed across his face as the show went on only made Dan want him more. Phil was just so beautiful that it was impossible not to keep sneaking looks.

Phil giggled the few times he caught Dan, but Dan didn’t mind because it meant that Phil was sneaking looks at him too. A few times, they even caught each other’s gaze and held it there, unashamed of the way they smiled at each other with giddy looks on their faces.

By the time the show had ended, Dan felt perfectly content, chuckling to himself and almost unwilling to look away from where the fireworks had been only moments before. Eventually, however, he had to, if only to share his glee with Phil.

The little swing they were on was swaying, something Dan hadn’t noticed before now, and he settled back against the seat, Phil’s arm following with him.

Dan finally moved his hand from Phil’s thigh to rest it on his own instead, slightly embarrassed by the proximity with with he’d nearly touched something far more intimate. Even just Phil’s inner thigh felt like a place Dan was not meant to touch so early on in their courtship.

“That was amazing,” he admitted. “How did you know…?” Dan asked Phil, trailing off as he nodded in the direction of where the fireworks had come from. After all, Dan had had no idea any kind of festival was going on.

“My co-workers were talking about. Said he wanted to take his wife to see the fireworks show. London decided to have the summer festival early this year, and I figured, if Dan texts me maybe I could… invite him?”

Phil’s voice sounded so unsure as he explained, his smile a little shy, now, and his hair dipping to hide his brilliant blue eyes. Dan wished he wouldn’t do so, and ended up reaching up to push Phil’s fringe out of his face, if only to see his expression more clearly and make it clear to Phil that Dan wanted to see all of him.

The motion made his heart speed up, especially with the way Phil looked at him right after. He licked his lips, and pulled his hand away.

“And this place?” Dan asked. “How did you know we’d be able to see it from here?”

At this question, Phil really did blush and duck his face, covering his mouth as he laughed at himself. Confused, Dan could only stare, a little nervous, though he didn’t move away.

He quite liked the way Phil was holding him, after all, not to mention the way their thighs pressed so neatly together.

“Well… see, I usually watch the fireworks alone,” Phil admitted after a minute, turning an embarrassed expression back to Dan. “I - I don’t really like crowds, you see, so I kind of just… found this place on my own,” he added. “I used to stand in front of it when it was really run down, but they just re-did it this year and I was really looking forward to being able to sit under it for once. I’m, uhm. Glad I could share it with you.”

Phil lowered his gaze, until he was looking up at Dan from under dark lashes, the small, familiar, confident smirk he’d worn at Louise’s birthday party finally starting to lift the corners of his mouth again as he seemed to begin to posture. The sight was an attractive one, something that caused desire to broil in Dan’s belly. It wasn’t arousal, no. It was want, but not of the physical kind; the emotional kind.

Phil was well and truly winning Dan’s attention, now.

He couldn’t keep his eyes off the alpha as he scented the air a little in front of them, arching his body in a distinct way to show himself off, chest puffed out slightly. Pheromones were starting to fill the air as Phil tried to make himself appear as desirable as possible, all while Dan watched on and felt his own body began to react of it’s own accord.

If it weren’t for his scent blocking soaps… Dan was certain Phil would know he was an omega by now.

As it was, Dan was preening a little, neck arched slightly in submission as he accepted Phil’s vague advances and flirting. It wasn’t submissive enough to give away that Dan was an omega specifically, but submissive enough to show Phil his interest.

“Not bad for a first gift, right?” Phil asked, as it became clear to both of them that Dan was beginning to accept him. His posturing evened out, and he relaxed, beaming as he stared at Dan, arm tightening around his shoulders.

Dan snorted, and rolled his eyes, but leaned in close to Phil anyway.

“Definitely not bad,” he said again, just managing to keep himself from laying his head on Phil’s shoulder. “But I don’t know how you plan to top it next time.”

Phil laughed then, the sound light and airy as it carried through the night air, exuberant. Dan could practically feel it rumble from his chest, and there was a breathless edge to it that made Dan’s stomach curl in the best of ways.

“Neither do I, but I’m hoping you’ll accept it anyway.”

Dan had a feeling he would.

(Next)

[damester13]

Entry #11 - (Early Life pt. 5) 08/29/19

3rd Year of College. I personally think these were the times when I managed to have things to look forward to in life. I may have have been in a rocky situation with dealing with my academic journey and my future, I also may have ended up in a worse state after all of these, but I am truly grateful to have gone through these last 2 years, for better or for worse. I can't just be 100% happy all the time, I guess.

So... out of some personal frustrations at that time, I decided to apply for another org, UP Tomo-Kai. To basically define the org, it's geared towards Japanese culture, language, and its people. As for an actual reason for joining, I really just joined to meet new people, new friends. Of course, I do have interests in whatever Japanese, but it never crossed my mind to join an organization just for that. With all that said, this choice was extremely pivotal for me to experience many things in my college journey. 

Firstly, the application was surprisingly enjoyable for me. Thankfully some of my co-applicants stepped up to lead, so I really felt at ease as we breeze through the process. I was ablw to perform much better than I expected. Added to that, my fellow co-apps were simply a bunch of awesome people in many ways. They were weirdos and I ended up becoming one as well. We worked hard and drank hard together. I even celebrated my birthday with some of them in a bar and slept over at someone's house. It was all fun. If I could relive all the moments of our time together, I would. I definitely would. Stay awesome, Kuwago.

The org itself was amazing too. Even if we weren't at our best shape due to internal issues, it never failed to make itself a home, to me at least. I value every work, event, and even simple talks we had together. As I've said earlier, the org was pivotal to my growth as a person because of every experience and encounter the org has lead me into. Words can't express how thankful I am for everything, but I will still say a simple "Thank you" to everyone of TK. May the org continue to make people like me feel the enjoyment of being part of the family.

The impact of me joining this org doesn't stop there. As I was applying for the org, I decided to hit the books and self-study Japanese which definitely was something I didn't expect to do. It wasn't required of us or anything, but it helped me in my goal of meeting new people and it was also fun as a hobby. Monthly, we visit a group of Japanese adults in Makati who teach us various things about Japan. They were my first enounter with the Japanese people. Every semester, there are Japanese exchange students who study in UP for some period of time. There are also Nihongo Partners who help teach the language in UP's Linguistics Dept. And finally, every 2nd sem, groups of Japanese students from certain uni's stay in UP for 2-4 weeks to brush up their English and/or learn about PH. In one of those group of students, I met one of the biggest encounters of my life. 

Despite being nowhere near proficient with my Japanese speaking ability, I suddenly got close with one of the female student halfway through their 1 month stay in UP. I guess we just kinda got along easily. After some ups and downs and crazy stuff happened, she ended up becoming my girlfriend for quite some time.  That's how my last year in college started.

4th year of College. She went here for a one week stay and flew back to Japan as my girlfriend. The journey towards that relationship was no easy ride, and so was our LDR. Regardless, it gave me hope and ambition. Our relationship didn't just distract me from the ugly state of my life. Instead, I tried to use it in order to motivate myself into something that can help me be better. I dreamed big dreams. I tried finding a direction that leads towards her. But as soon as I found it, I realized the long and excruciating road I have to pave in order to reach her. All those time I was conflicted whether I can still go for it or not given my state as a person. Of course the retarded guy that I am had to be extremely positive of all things, but my actions or my lack of thereof weren't reflective of that. Before I knew it, it was her who initiated to let things go between us. I was at the peak of my struggles with my life at that time and surely the breakup did make things worse. But deep inside me, I felt relief and freedom from the promises and ambitions that I was in no way capable of keeping. After the breakup, I actually tried to cling onto the hope that she gave me, but it didn't last long within me. I failed to take care of our relationship maybe because I was young. But I also failed to make myself a person deserving enough to be committed to despite the physical distance and language barrier. I can't blame her for not seeing anything ahead of our relationship. 

After that, I only went to UP again once more for a exam in my Japanese class which was a day after the breakup, but not anymore for the rest of my exams. I also emailed my professors that I won't be able to meet the remaining requirements in their respective classes. I was nothing but a dissappointment. The next time I went to UP was to file for a LoA status.

Earlier that sem, I also dropped a very important major subject after breaking down at 3am of the deadline day. I was unable to come up with anything for my research in a research class of all things. To be honest, this struggle is expected to happen when you don't have a strong intent and motivation to pursue your course. The further I go through our curriculum, the harder it gets until I reach the point where I just can't overcome it anymore. Surely, anyone like my coursemates and professors could've helped me have it easier, but the lack of a driving force within me had no intention of pulling back its punches. If anything, the "helping" has to start in me.

I decided to be on a LoA status the following semester. I hid under the facade objective of getting a much-needed rest and trying to figure out where I should go from there. And well, see where I am right now. I ran away from every single thing I've had and found solitary confinement to be my sole source of comfort in the mess that I am in. Humans are intelligent because we're capable of learning. But we are also stupid for the exact opposite reason on certain instances of our lives. 

I just never learn.

With all that said and done, this marks the end of my College journey. I did not really finish the journey, but at this point I think it's over for me.

PS: I entitled this entry series "Early Life", but that's pretty much my whole life as it is right now. Any future entries from here will likely be about my present and some bits of my past.

Also, I think I can write about the LoA period in another entry. It's the freshest memory I have after all. It would be a waste if I won't talk about the struggle I had during that alone time I've had.

[the-record-columns]

May 29, 2019: Columns

Amazing talent, missing tables...

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

With our 14th Annual ChickenFest behind us I do want to take just a moment to mention two especially talented young people who were kind enough to play for us this past weekend. 

First is 13-year-old Libby Harbour, a fiddle player who just gets better and better. At our opening ceremonies, after the VFW Post 1142 Honor Guard had placed the flag at half mast and played Taps, Libby stepped up and played the National Anthem on her fiddle.  It still gives me goose bumps to think about it today.  Later she played on the Tut Taylor Spotlight Stage to the delight of everyone.

Another of the many wonderful people who played was a young lady of 16 named Cali Johnson. I first heard Cali play guitar and sing during a couple of the Open Mic events at the 1915 Artisan Center in Wilkesboro.  One evening she began with a CCR tune, played a couple of originals she had written, and ended by singing the Coat of Many Colors song by Dolly Parton - and nailed them all.  She also performed at ChickenFest on the Spotlight stage and had folks mesmerized.

Speaking of ChickenFest, it is always something of a ritual to put our hands on all of our tables and chairs-what with them being periodically loaned out.  This year it was easy, but it still reminded me about the "table" story for the ages.

It involved my dear friend Max Joines

Not too long after we built The Record Park, Max, and his wonderful wife Jane, were planning some kind of soiree for one of their sons who had graduated from college.  Max called me to see about renting my tables for the event-note I said rent-he doesn't know how to accept a favor-yet he will do anything for anyone-anytime.

He finally agreed to borrow them and picked them up on the appointed day-12 of them which he securely strapped to a trailer and was on his way.

The event was a great success, and I can personally attest to the food being amazing. The next week Max called to set up a time to return the tables and I went to the park to meet him.

I waited.  And waited.  Then I got worried-Max is always early, not late.  I was about to call Jane to check on him when he finally drove up-looking like his last friend had deserted him. It seems as though while loading up the tables, he only had 11, not 12.  He drove the route he had taken with the tables hoping to find the one that had somehow blown off.  He made that trip about three times before deciding to give up and come on.

Nothing would do but he wanted to buy me another table.  I tried to assure him it wasn't that big of a deal, but he kept insisting.  After a bit we unloaded the tables with Max apologizing all the way.

Then I saw it.  The 12th table.  It had never left the building because it was so covered up in junk that we both missed it.  I thought about trying to get Max out of the building without telling him, but soon thought better of it.  The simple fact that he never had 12 tables to begin with took a bit to sink in, but relief took over aggravation and he was soon smiling  as only Max Joines can.

We decided to end the day by agreeing that "...sometimes you simply cannot see the forest for the trees."

Words to live by, eh Max?

Truth is on Israel's side

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

Israelis are very good at many things but public relations is not one of them.  It seems they are always defending themselves rather than pointing out their positives and this is largely due to the way mainstream media reports any and all news about Israel. 

One of the major charges of the anti-Israel media is that Israelis are hate-filled, evil people who live in a perpetual state of animosity and fear. Of course, if these critics were to visit Israel, they would see that the people of this special little nation go about their daily tasks with great freedom, purpose and enthusiasm. Public places are bustling with active and smiling people, none of whom seem intimidated or fearful. Ben Yehuda Street in downtown Jerusalem is alive with people from around the world visiting the many shops and restaurants, enjoying the music of street musicians and engaging in activities which underline Israel’s freedom and sense of safety and security.  

The young nation of Israel enjoys great freedom of speech and movement which cannot be found in any Arab or Muslim nation in the Middle East. In Israel there is also less crime — whether robberies, rapes or killings — than in any other country of the world.

The international media consistently attempt to paint Israel as undemocratic, discriminatory and racist — even going so far as to accuse Israel of being an apartheid state. Of course, everyone in the country knows that they have a well functioning democratic government, quite different from all the surrounding, authoritarian Arab and Muslim governments of the Middle East. Every Israeli adult, including women, has the right to vote; and what many do not know is that there are more than a million Arabs who are Israeli citizens with the same rights and privileges as all other Israeli citizens — including representation in the Knesset. 

Furthermore, most Israel bashers do not realize that more than a million Arabs live in the Jewish cities of Jaffa, Haifa, Nazareth and others without fear of being harmed or discriminated against. And they don’t realize that in the Galilee, dozens of Arab villages are mingled among Jewish villages, with the Arabs free to come and go and do as they please. Half of the Old City of Jerusalem is inhabited by Arabs, and all Arabs have free access to the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount however the same is not true for Jews and Christians.  The Temple Mount is controlled by the Jordan-based Waqf which is an Islamic trust that governs the Temple Mount compound.  Jews and Christians are forbidden even to pray on the Temple Mount.

 Now, like any other nation on earth, Israel is not perfect; but its critics will have to look long and hard to find discrimination or apartheid. Yet they report such untruths without blinking. Another charge on the list of the anti-Semitic media is that Israelis are hateful and violent people who react with disproportionate force to any small Arab or Muslim provocation. If these critics would honestly compare the actions of the Arabs to the reactions of the Israelis, they would see a great difference.

Palestinian Arab terrorist groups have regularly attacked innocent Israeli civilians ever since Israel was restored as a nation. They have fired explosive rockets into civilian villages, and they have sent suicide bombers on to Israeli buses and into Israeli gathering places. Their leaders have urged people in their mosques and children in their schools to hate and kill Jews.

In response, Israelis have refused to descend to the same level of depravity as their enemies. Only when their patience has been exhausted have they reluctantly retaliated in self defense; and even then, they have been extremely careful to avoid harming innocent civilians — especially women and children.

Through it all, the Jewish people have proved beyond any doubt that God has miraculously brought them back to their ancient homeland, He has justifiably restored their nation, and He has divinely preserved and prospered it. Israel has fulfilled the Torah promise that it would be a good land, “a land flowing with milk and honey.”

The God-given innovation of the Jewish people, along with their indomitable spirit and high ethical values, has made modern Israel a great wonder of the world … in spite of what the anti-Semitic international media think or say.

·              

Stop. Just stop…

By HEATHER DEAN

Record Reporter

"Happy Memorial Day!"

Does anyone besides me want to rip down the signs with that phrase off of business windows, and give a good tongue lashing to anyone who says it? 

 Discussing plans to sit by the water and barbecue, because "you're so stressed out from of life in general and need a break" isn't showing respect for the Fallen. Let’s discuss their “day at the beach” on June 6, 1944, compared to your lovely long weekend, shall we? 

Yes you have a first amendment right, but please don’t be thoughtless- no one says “HAPPY anniversary on the day your momma died” so why would you make the appellation to Memorial Day?  

Let me put this into perspective:Just last year hundreds of us in several counties lined the highways, standing in silent respect for local State Trooper Samuel Bullard, who gave his life to fulfill his oath "protect and serve." 

The summer before that, thousands of us lined the highways from Wilkes County Airport all the way to Ashe County for Dillon Baldridge, who gave his life trying to protect his friends and comrades, and the freedom we hold so dear. 

Putting up American flag window clings, lining your yard/business with tiny flags (that are made in CHINA) that have gotten rained on and knocked over and are lying in the grass, is NOT showing respect for those that gave all. Not to mention against flag code, but that’s another column.  

What this is, is a long weekend to reflect on those who are no longer with us. Our Veteran parents and grandparents who fought perhaps; and especially Chris Thompson, Larry Bauguess, Sam Bullard and Dillon Baldridge.I am never happy about the loss of life, but I am eternally grateful, and hold a space at my table on such days to the fallen, and the families left to grieve their absence.

The local VFW Post is holding a traditional ceremony, on actual Memorial Day, May 30, (this Thursday) starting at 10 a.m. I encourage you all to be there, to give thanks to the men and women who gave everything for you.               

·              

A Dipper Full for Everyone

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas 

I’ve been spending more time in the garden lately. 

It all started at Kindred Gallery at Rosemary House Bed and Breakfast in Pittsboro. It was during an interview with noted folk artist Cher Shaffer. 

We were coming to the close of our second on camera visit when I asked her what she would recommend as a good thing for all of us to do in order to have greater peace and happiness in our lives. That’s easy she replied, “Play in the dirt and do it often. It will help you connect with the earth and life.”

 I listened as she explained on her thoughts. It seemed reasonable but it would be on my drive home that my mind would give it a good thinking over.I had already done a bit of planting in the garden. However, I had not thought of it as playing in the dirt.

 At the same time, I could tell that Cher was serious with her words. So, I committed to the idea. I knew it would be a challenge because it had been many years since I had done anything resembling playing in the dirt. So much so that I honestly could not remember ever playing in the dirt. 

While it has been a busy time for the show, I decided that working time in for dirt play was now on my must do list, even though I had no idea how it was going to work out. We had already planted some tomato and cucumber plants; however, I knew we needed more plants.

 I decided to visit some new greenhouses in hopes of inspiration for new plants and to question plant people on how they play in the dirt. I soon found out that I was not alone in how I thought about gardening. To some it’s a lot of work and not playful at all. That however was not the case with most of the people I spoke with. As it turns out the smell and feel of dirt brings happiness to many people.

 With this idea in mind I purchased a wide variety of tomato, pepper, okra, and other plants. I like dill so I decide that an herb garden might also be a good idea. I may have gone a bit overboard.

 As I drove home I though about all those plants and the task ahead and the more I thought about it the less playful I become.

 Unloading the car, I realized that I had almost 150 new plants. The first day I planted and watered one flat, the next day I did the same and within a week I had them all planted. 

It was on the third day of this process that as I was bending over planting pepper that I become a bit dizzy, so I took a knee in the dirt. For the first time during this process I was feeling the dirt. The smell was sweet, and the dirt was becoming playful.

 At that very moment I was flooded with memories of childhood times in the garden with my grandmother. It was as if I was there again walking with her as she was giving each plant a dipper full of water.

 I could hear her say, “A dipper full for everyone.” I could see my Dad picking green beans in the summer. I was flooded with warm comforting memories of family now gone but still in the garden. Every morning I get up early and go play in the dirt. I water the plants; everyone gets a hello and full dipper of water. 

They are all doing well, and I have learned how to play in the dirt.

And I can tell you one thing for sure, it’s a good thing.