#//But he doesn’t want to forget where he comes from; not when his memories; mementos & its remnants keep dwindling

[dutybcrne]

Kaeya for certain would never want to change his surname. It is one of his few remaining ties with his family and heritage, and thus is very precious to him. A significant other who is willing to take it as their own, esp someone who doesn’t have a surname as is, is genuinely so important to him.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 14 thoughts

(after having seen this episode, i can confidently announce that it is making the top 15!!! god it was just!! so incredible!!! the undying devotion to each other!! i want to frame the way he cups her cheeks!!! i'm crying! you're crying! everyone cried!!!!!!!!)

ah, this episode. i have seen this one mentioned before. i’m interested to see if it was for good reasons or for bad reasons. i can tell that it will be angsty and hurt my feelings, but whether that is written in a way i approve of or not is hard to predict after my intense fight with last episode! and how mean mulder was!

so. reading this description. he’s going to look for answers for her. oh my god. AGAIN. not a mere coworker thing. but i digress. i have a feeling i’ll need to forget that part about their whole power dynamic from the last episode in order to move forward. 

also a little confused as to what the title is going to mean... i know it refers to a reminder of mortality, but in my art history course we looked at a bunch of memento mori art where skeletons just. burst into rooms. and interrupted dances. and i don't really want to see that today.

entering my forgetting mode…. okay. okay. i think i’m here. memory is blank. i am neutral. let us begin.

OH MY GOD SCULLY OPENING MONOLOGUE. okay hold it together. HOLD IT TOGETHER.

wait she’s writing something. who is she writing to? damn, she is very poetic when she puts her mind to it.

“hope you will forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you” wait. wait hold on. wait hold on….. wait. (insert that sobbing cat image here)

she thinks she is going to DIE?????????

is she writing a letter to go with her will or something?!?!?? wah…. WAHHHHH 

she holds an x ray of her brain (i think that’s what it is, sorry to the stem girlies if it’s some sort of other genre of scan) that clearly shows a tumor………..

:( :( :(

mulder has flowers!!! he is asking where to go in the hospital instead of just looking for the sign directly in front of him. this shows that he is very worried.

he sees her through a window and stares a bit…… before he comes in the room

“i, uh, i stole these from some guy with a broken leg down the hall. he won’t be able to catch me” <- you absolute liar saying ANYTHING to make her smile. oh my god and it WORKED and she’s smiling and he’s smiling and i’m gonna cry already 

look at how he’s looking at her…….. i cannot reconcile this with the last episode at all. i’m sorry, i cannot. and for this reason i once again toss it out of my mind.

HE’S THE ONLY ONE SHE’S CALLED!!?!!?!?? their relationship. it's just. so.

oh my god, she says she has cancer, and he immediately assumes it has to be treatable. she has to tell him it doesn’t seem to be. his unwavering faith...

“i refuse to believe that” <- oh my GOD. oh my GOD. his face his eyes oh my god. he cannot lose her.

“for all the times that i have said that to you, i am as certain about this as you have ever been” SCULLY NOOoOoOOoo

(it must be so horrific to be a doctor and know exactly how you’re dying and that there is nothing you can do…)

he looks so utterly lost and she is trying to hold it together to tell him that if it progresses, she will have no chance of survival. 

“i don’t accept that”, he says, stuttering in disbelief; “there must be some people who’ve received treatment for this. we can….” he fails to finish that thought

(his unwavering belief for even a second that they could find a way needs to be studied in a lab. this man is so intrinsically loyal to the 3 people he holds close it actually makes my heart hurt. i feel aching in my chest)

oh my god he is the DEFINITION of “everything i let go of is covered in claw marks”. he cannot BEAR to lose anything else. he is grasping so firmly to the idea that there HAS to be a way. and she is trying to be resigned to her fate. how strong she is, i think, as she puts on her bravest face, telling him she is going to die.

oh my god, she has to tell SKINNER???? what the fuck. i never even CONSIDERED that. he says he is so sorry while mulder is twisting around in the background because he cannot stay still in moments of stress; i’m recalling how he bounced his basketball up and down, up and down when she was in her coma

they’re going to try and track down the women from allentown they met last year who they talked to about the abductions and the neck implants before she begins any treatment. skinner is reminding them both that they have access to the best treatments in the country. but scully must know that the best isn't enough.

scully says she wants to pursue this through the justice department whilst mulder nods enthusiastically. skinner seems confused but he acquiesces. what else can you do?

so they go to allentown, where they are informed that betsy (the main woman that scully had spoken with regarding the abduction experience) just passed away. and the realtor doesn’t want to let them in before her garage sale, but mulder POINTEDLY pulls out his badge AGAIN, and you know his ass is going in whether she likes it or not. 

(the angry way he pulled out that badge did something to my heart)

scully is having terrible flashbacks from the last time she was here. poor girl...

the realtor is watching mulder pick up the phone and scully points out someone is sending a fax! realtor is just standing there. with hate in her heart.

they go down to the basement and find…. a computer. that someone is copying all of the files from remotely!! some guy named kurt is allegedly copying all that information down. off to kurt’s place. who are, you kurt? a force for evil, i assume?

he is not answering the door and mulder is going to to check the back instead of just wait there because again, he cannot sit still for a minute. and bam! they find kurt. woah. mulder takes him down QUICK. 

NO NO NO. she’s bleeding from her nose….. she says she’s fine. “quit staring at me, i’m fine” <- oh she is so not fine. those are not the words said by someone who is fine.

(after having seen this episode, i still can't stop thinking about this interaction. how angry she seemed to be seen as someone worth pitying or worrying over. how she must have known that would keep happening in the future, how she wanted to hold onto her agency for however long she had left in this world. there was fury in there to cover up the terrible insecurity that comes from fate being out of your hands and the perceived, if not intended, condescension of needing to be cared for. because she is the one that does the caring, and not the other way around. and how she tried so hard to keep working despite knowing the time was ticking, to tell mulder to stop worrying about her, keep his eyes on the mission and off of her... there's so much to be said)

more blood is dripping into the sink in the bathroom. mulder is knocking on the door, asking if she is okay.

(oh my gooood, i’m not sure which angle of angst is worse here: mulder watching scully suffer, blaming himself for if he cannot find a cure OR scully having to carry on through her sickness and see how terrible it is for people around her to grieve her while she’s still living)

this kurt fellow claims he was in the same UFO network, and was copying the files as betsy had told him to. he ran because he thinks the government is trying to suppress that information. hmm. mulder seems to believe him. but they can’t cross check him….

she asks why not, and mulder won’t answer. 

kurt says that all of the women scully met last year died from brain cancer, except for one who is in the hospital named penny, and it doesn’t look good for her.

kurt is insisting that this is in fact a conspiracy, but mulder says he needs to talk to scully. and he walks her out of his view.

oh my GOD i need to copy this whole exchange down hold on….

“i want you to listen to me” “about what?” “about what you won’t admit to yourself- what you’re denying” “what am i denying?” “where your cancer came from” “mulder, it doesn’t matter” “it does matter. if what you have is a result of your abduction and that abduction is something the government knows about, then those are facts that should be brought to light” “i don’t know what happened to me. i have no clear recollection. and i don’t think these abductions are even abductions”

(and when she said that line, she was so furious, thinking the distinction didn't matter in the face of impossible odds, but he insists that it does, because justice ought to be brought to light- and it's not him circling back to UFOs like he always does out of his own self-interest, it's him trying every so gently to break to her that this could be something much bigger than them, a way that she was wronged that ought to happen to no one else- but she still cannot even begin to process it)

“all these women are dead” “no, they are not. one woman isn’t- this penny northern”

(and the desperation in that line as well; there was anger there, a need to pull on any and all threads, so needed that it blew her cool cover about how detached she seemed to her own mortality- she wants to live)

“mm-hmm. if you won’t listen to me, then i think you should go talk to her”

(the gentleness here, how he is trying to softly nudge her, how carefully he keeps his voice even despite the audience KNOWING that he just wants to shake her, beg her to do anything at all that could help her)

“about what? what it feels like to be dying of cancer? what it’s like to know that there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it?”

(oh my god the FURY in her voice here… how she was trying to fight back her voice cracking)

“if that’s too hard for you, then i think you should go as an investigator. you have one remaining witness, agent scully. i’d think you’d want to know what her story is”

oh my god the subtle “agent” in there… the way he’s trying to remind her that she is capable and can maybe find a way out of this, just maybe. the way he kept his voice so even the entire time like he was putting every effort he had into it.

i think that conversation will haunt me forever. 

(god those two were ACTING. i just KNOW that when they got that script they were excited as fuck)

scully goes to visit penny, who remembers her, saying she held and comforted scully “in the place”

scully carefully tells her that she doesn’t remember this, but penny assures her that’s okay. penny thinks she’s here to ask about dr. scanlon, who is treating the cancer, and treated betsy’s too. my money is bet on the fact that he is actually making them worse….

apparently dr. scanlon thinks he figured it out what causes this kind of cancer. and scully has tears in her eyes. oh my god. is she believing the scanlon propaganda...?

mulder is going through a bunch of files with kurt, then he's on the phone with her. “now call me an early bird, but i think i found something” <- oh my god he’s such a nerd, even when he’s fighting for scully’s life….

he thinks this whole thing is connected to a local fertility clinic, but she doesn't want to hear his theories- she’s asking him to please bring the overnight bag from the car, and call her mom to ask for some things so she can be admitted for treatment.

his breathless “is there anything i should know?” and her answer: “mulder, whatever you found, or whatever you might find, i think that we both know that right now the truth is in me… and that’s where i need to pursue it. as soon possible” 

AND HE SAYS HE WILL BE RIGHT THERE 😭😭

see, this is what i love about them. how they can say so much with so few words, how they would do anything for each other; if one of them needed the moon, the other would start researching how to tear it from the sky. this bond that is so… it’s back to the old question, are soulmates natural or are they formed? with them, they just seem to have that connection. and even when their differences might lead them to fight, it is just a underlying current, that togetherness. and it seems so natural.

(but i just know that the minute he leaves the place, all the files he’s going through are going to somehow get destroyed! i have seen too much of this show to expect otherwise)

mulder slams the file cabinet shut before he leaves and kurt is looking around. what is he planning, this devious kurt fellow?

someone else drives forward as he pulls away. girl is it gonna be CSM?!?!

someone is approaching. okay, it is not CSM. whoever it is has the needle you use to kill the aliens!!! is it the alien bounty hunter? i cannot tell… these white men blend together and also he can shape shift so who tf knows.

but kurt is DOWN and he is BLEEDING THE FIZZY GREEN BLOOD!! kurt was an alien?!?!?! why didn’t he heal those women??! is he involved with making them sick???! i have questions. many many questions.

the fizzy stuff is like dissolving him. not sure we have time to unpack that.

scully is laying in the hospital bed…. dr. scanlon is watching. okay, creepy, but maybe doctors have to do that sometimes. 

she says she doesn’t feel sick, and i typed sock at first, which would be far more lighthearted, wouldn’t it, if she didn’t feel like a sock? 

i don’t trust this guy. 

he straight up says that the radiation and chemo is going to make her feel like she is dying. and at that moment, mrs. scully walks in. she is… very unsettled. and the doctor says they want to start treatment this afternoon. 

despite telling mulder she knows she is going to die, she is trying to reassure her mother that everything is fine. that’s very interesting to me. that she feels she can be honest with him about the lack of hope, but needs to lie to her mother.

mrs. mulder is furious that scully didn’t tell her right away, but she says she wanted to get the answers first. she’s shaking as she says she doesn’t want to be kept in the dark. damn. she really has suffered so much.

oh my GOD... she kisses her cheek and hugs her, saying that she has always been the strong one… but she is her only daughter now. and they hold each other. pain. pain. and suffering.

they’re putting her in some stuff for radiation as scully narrates the evil of cancer, how it becomes one with the person it targets. she says it’s science's answer to an exorcism.

WAIT SHE’S ADDRESSING MULDER?? she must be continuing her letter from earlier……

“and if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this, you must never think there was the possibility of some secret intervention, something you might have done” STOP. the way she KNOWS he will always, always blame himself, and is trying to say something to stop him from doing so just this once.

he’s breaking into a place because he wants to find anything at all… hmm where is he doing some good old b&e today?

“and though we’ve traveled far together, this last distance must necessarily be traveled alone” no…. no :( no :( 

she knows that he will never stop searching for an answer… to the point where he won’t be able to lead his own life… and so she thinks she should go ahead alone… oh my god. oh my god. is she referring to the treatment process? or the inevitability of death?

he’s breaking into the fertility clinic that he mentioned before. gonna do some typing in the dark. but someone is here with him!!! who???

a guy in a sweater. “i’ve got a gun pointed at your head, turn around very slowly” mulder announces with PERFECT calm.

god i love him. have i mentioned that i love him? how he is willing to die and kill for the ones he loves? and how he is NOT just some bully or mean boss? yes. i’m bitter. 

IT’S KURT!! but we know it is NOT REALLY KURT. because we saw that kurt is dead. so it must be the alien bounty hunter in a new skin? WHAT DOES "KURT" WANT? 

“he” (whoever it is in the flesh suit that was once kurt’s) claims he is also trying to hack into the clinic's system, but can’t get the password right. i guess that he is going to hack and delete everything???

mulder picks up a snowglobe and guesses the password!!!!! yeahhh snowglobes.

woah. cutscene to something being drilled into scully’s head…. must be a flashback from the abduction.

penny is by scully’s side, telling her she’ll be okay as she wakes up from the nightmare. they grasp hands, scully says she feels sick, and that she had a dream where “someone was doing something bad to me”. apparently penny was allowed to tend to her during the procedures. but scully says she can’t hear this right now. 

penny says if she can make sense of it, it’ll help her through the pain, to understand why it is happening to her.

okay, cutscene to skinner’s office. where mulder is sitting before he even gets in there. “i need you to set up a meeting for me”. skinner says “hold all my calls” in that gruff voice of his. i like his serious voice. and i am tense, expecting a fight to go down, or tears to be shed, or something.

oh tea…. mulder found a file from the fertility clinic with scully’s name on it… but he says he’s sure, “pretty damn sure” that she’s never undergone treatment for infertility. this could be very awkward if he is wrong. he seems confident, though.... have they had further discussion about families like they did in home? but even if she WAS undergoing treatment, why would she do it in a random town in pennsylvania? so i guess that his confusion makes sense. 

so he wants a meeting with…. CIGARETTE MAN. “you’ve come to me like this before”, skinner points out, but mulder says he’s willing to DEAL NOW. he knows he’s behind all this. “you offer this man anything, and he will own you forever”, warns skinner. a real deal with the devil…

hold on. i just remembered that in canon CSM killed JFK and MLK jr and writes bad fiction. a wild fellow. and i’m also remembering how mulder broke into his house and asked “why her” with his gun pointing right to his head. i am remembering a lot of things.

mulder is yelling that CSM must have known what they did to agent scully. “but you can’t ask the truth of a man who trades in lies- i won’t let you” says skinner. oh damn…. oh damn. skinner just wants him to be safe but this isn’t going to go over well

they are staring at each other. and he insists that mulder find another way. damn, those two have been through a lot. all those times mulder should have been fired… skinner showing up covered in blood to track him down to some arctic alien base… that time mulder was experiencing psychosis and punched skinner in the face… skinner’s murder accusations… these two have such a fascinating dynamic. i love it. i really need to dive into that someday. i need fic of whatever the fuck it is that is going on between them.

so, what other way can mulder find? the lone gunmen, of course!!

they hack into her file from the clinic and see a gene code… it’s a DNA mutation.

“you guys ever been to the lombard research facility?” (everyone turns to frohike, who shakes his head) “well, pick out something black and sexy and prepare to do some funky poaching” <- LMAO i was surprised to get a genuine giggle during such a dark episode

(neeeeed to know how these dweebs met. all four of them. i know there’s a spin-off series so maybe someday i’ll learn the answers, but until then i’m concocting theories)

skinner is entering mulder’s office. but who is there…. NONE OTHER THAN CSM. “it’s funny,” he says, “i always thought of you as fox mulder’s patron” hey what does that mean. hey what does that mean. is skinner hiding something….?

ohhhh, skinner just accused him of being the devil. 

skinner says he needs a miracle… “what’ll it take?” he asks. OHHHH my god…. skinner loves those two so bad………. a deal with the devil for them….

CSM says that “he’ll have to get back to him on that” when it comes to what it will take for scully’s life…………. skinner what can you offer??????

lone gunmen are breaking into a storm drain. do you think the redhead and the long haired one with glasses are lovers? i think it might be more fun to imagine that they are. i never learned their names. perhaps i am a bad fan. 

mulder and the redhead set out!!! time to break into the facility!!!

okay i think the redhead is named byers? or else frohike’s making a reference i don’t understand. 50/50 odds on that.

they’re going in!!! they’re running!!! mulder has his leather jacket!!! byers (?) sees a keypad to enter a code.

(yes yes, his name is truly byers. we all learned something today. or at least i did)

OHHH, okay, the glasses one is langly. that name is familiar, actually. i appreciate how they are purposefully announcing the names for people like me. langly declares that this a toughie, and will take a moment to hack into. 

OMG!! the doctor treating scully’s cancer works at this research facility they're breaking into!!! I KNEW WE COULDN’T TRUST THAT MFER. i am innately suspicious of doctors. and langly gets them into the building. 

mulder tasks byers to GO TELL SCULLY TO STOP TREATMENT NOW because this scanlon fellow is a LIAR!!!!

(imagine how that went down...)

scully is writing to him again….. penny has taken downturn. “mulder, i feel you close, though i know you are now pursuing your own path” <-GIRL HE’S BREAKING AND ENTERING FOR YOU!!! THE PATHS YOU WALK ARE NOT SO FAR APART!!

“i need to know you’re out there if i am ever to see through this” oh my god….. he gives her hope to keep going…. something to fight for…

mulder is getting lost on the video feed while byers tries to make an escape…. but the cops are approaching!!!!!

he finds a door and slams on it… and who is inside but MULTIPLE KURT DUPES!!! the damn aliens!!!!!!

they welcome mulder in by name. he puts together that they are hybirds, and they beckon him in so they can explain in further detail.

there’s a creature in a tank i don’t much care for. okay. actually many many creatures in tanks. 

the kurts are saying they are trying to subvert the project that created “us”. OH! mulder sees into the tank and it’s the same shape of the boy he saw up in canada with his fake sister!!! so they are the end results… and they want the same thing he does??? i guess. 

he takes them to a room filled with “human ova”. including one from betsy. oh no… oh god… yes, they took it during her abduction, and from all the women they abducted, including scully. i don’t want to think about what “super ovulation” means. but mulder is shocked. imagine him having to explain to scully that he held her ova in his hands. and the procedure that leaves them barren (!!!) also gives them the cancer.

(frantically opens the wikipedia article for human ovaries before realizing i can figure out the details later)

this clearly has implications for their family planning chats. god, is he gonna be the one to tell her that she can't have children....?

but the kurts are trying to save them!!! because these women are their mothers!!!!

so, do we believe the kurts?? i'm not sure. if we know there are a bunch, does that mean the hacker kurt from earlier could actually be a good guy? or was he really the bounty hunter working on further nefarious actions?

bro straight up pocketed her ova. he’s a real one for that. do they have to be cold or something?? luckily, i have never had to ask these questions.

byers is currently dodging the cops, and the guy that killed OG kurt is now looking for some violence. 

NO…. mystery man is shooting at mulder!!!! the glass is bulletproof but it stopped being so after like 3 clips.

luckily the boys provide him an escape JUST IN TIME. shoutout to the lone gunmen fr.

he runs back to allentown and doesn’t find scully in her bed!!! but he finds her journal with the letters she had been writing to mulder. oh, he reads them....

where is scully?????? she’s with penny. penny is dying. she tells her that dr. scanlon isn’t coming back. and penny says that she’s been such a comfort, and to not give up hope. scully begins to cry.

mulder is sitting in a hospital chair at 5 am, falling asleep outside the room. finally, scully leaves penny’s room, crying. 

he confesses to reading some of what she wrote…. but she says he didn’t want her to read that. and that she has decided she’s not going to let this thing beat her. she looks so tired…. so sick…. 

was scalon killing these women in the name of the secret alien project? “that will be proven if we find him” “when we find him” OUGHHH 

she says she has things to finish, to prove to herself and her family. and he’s smiling at her. a real smile. telling her to come on back. 

ohhhh and they’re hugging. he’s tucking her head under his chin and rubbing her shoulder.

“the truth will save you, scully. i think it’ll save both of us” <-OHHHHHHHH MY GOD I AM GOING TO RIP AND TEAR AND YELL AND SCREAM AND HOLLER!!!

WAIT OH MY GOD I WAS SCREAMING BEFORE BUT THEN HE SO GENTLY TURNS HER AND KISSES HER FOREHEAD……. shut up. it’s so tender it’s so terribly tender. 

(a day later and i am still fixated on this. how terribly terribly gentle he is with her. it reminds me of how he held her face during beyond the sea, which, prior to this, was one of my favorite moments ever, and now i have TWO of them. he loves her so deeply in every sense of the word. and she loves him, deciding to keep fighting, to draw strength from him but also to honor herself, to achieve the things she has always meant to do, because she knows that she is worth fighting for)

finally they let go, and as she walks down the hall, he pulls out her ova from his pocket…. i’m so torn because my heart is still absolutely torn in half from how gentle that moment just was, but i’m also sitting here thinking… dude, do we need to get that into a freezer or something??

skinner answers the phone- at 5:30 AM! mulder says he was going to leave a voicemail and is shocked to hear him. mulder thanks him for his advice, and says it was wise to steer clear of CSM. they have to find out what he knows, but they need another way. skinner says there’s always another way, but as the camera moves, we see the room filled with smoke and a hand holding a cigarette…

he says “yes i believe there is, if you’re willing to pay the price” SKINNER BE CAREFUL I’M SCARED

do you think the writers purposefully associated cigarettes with the sleaziest and most awful character in order to get the children to stop smoking….?

end episode.

okay. i have so many thoughts. let’s start: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWAAAAAAAHHHHGGGGGGGGGGWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH

okay. that could have gone on for longer, but i’m going to compose myself. 

scully… my poor sweet scully, writing about her own death to mulder……… how helpless and resigned and furious she felt, yet still tried to be strong for her mother and for him…. how she decided to come back to work despite what she is going through…. the grief of mourning yourself and those around you mourning you… she looked so sick and exhausted, her terrible nightmares, being unable to accept what happened to her, holding penny close only to lose her too…. the incredible strength it takes her to decide to get back to work and keep fighting when everything hurts and the odds are so slim… god scully you really have suffered so terribly…. turning back from narrating her life in the past tense to the present tense…. it was very very very powerful

and mulder never for a single second ever stopping. how he completely refused to believe that anything was impossible. his smile when he brought the flowers to her in the hospital, the way his face fell when he realized what was going on, but refused to believe that anything could take her from him. the way he kept his voice even in the conversation in the hall. how he brought her the things from the car, how he barreled into her room when she wasn’t there, reading her journal in terror, how he smiled and held her, ran his fingers through her hair, gently kissed her forehead. how he took her ova, which sounds so crazy out of context, but in context it’s soul-crushing. he grabbed it for her. kept them in his pocket as she decided to keep fighting. a conversation for another day.

and skinner making deals with the devil, but only by himself, never even thinking to let mulder do it….

so where do we go from here?

if the treatment from dr. scanlon was making the patients worse, that immediate obstacle has now been removed. but that doesn’t fix the cancer itself. is skinner going to have to bargain with CSM? whatever CSM wants, it clearly isn’t money- so what could skinner even give him? my guess would be deactivating the x files in exchange for what will save scully, or maybe firing mulder entirely to keep him off of the trail of his nefarious alien deeds. or perhaps something even more evil, like access to one of those mars rocks with the oil aliens in them, or maybe someone important assassinated, maybe a coup in the syndicate (is that what their little UN alien groupchat is called? i saw it when i looked something up once).

man, skinner’s role in this was brief but substantial. what is he going to do? what sort of deal is he willing to make? i really really need to get into exploring the dynamic between the three of them more. it’s fascinating. how he won’t let mulder make the deal, but he’ll do it himself… he must really care for them a lot more than he lets on. 

oh my god. scully is gonna keep fighting…. <3

i really, really loved this episode. in fact, i’m positive that it will dethrone the blessing way and take that episode’s place in the top 15. this is an IMMENSE compliment. i still laughed a little despite the soul crushing sorrow, which i think is a sign of masterful writing.

i think this episode really really understood mulder and scully as characters. mulder with his need to chase to the ends of the earth to find the Truth, his need to put a smile on her face, his tenderness when it comes down to it, and scully with her bravery, attempting to keep herself strong for others while grappling with the metaphysical implications of dying, rejecting that conclusion after her own soul searching, and despite being busy with wrapping her head around this devastating news, she was still taking the time to bring comfort to penny. the complimentary needs to Protect and to Heal between them. it’s always going to get me.

you know that post i made about either jumping up and down or throwing my laptop in a river over their dynamic? THIS is jump up and down territory, baby.

i have a feeling that what comes next will not be easy, but i hope it brings great truth, and a delicate balance of love and angst. 

i’m curious to know what people think of how scully’s diagnosis is depicted. i’m sure we’re going to get more into it so i don’t want to jump the gun yet, but i’d be interested to know if her depiction gave a sense of visibility to people dealing with cancer, or if they think the episode/arc as a whole missed the mark. is it empowering to see someone make the conscious effort to keep fighting? is it offensive to think of cancer as something given to you by secret government plot? or was it such a relief to see someone going through the same thing as you no matter if it’s origins were more exotic than in life? where will they go from here in terms of how she handles it? 

i’d be really interested to read how people with cancer view her story. i’m sure someone out there has written on it; i’ll have to take a look someday when i’m not dodging spoilers.

the other thing i'm wondering about is the reaction to the alien breeding program reveal. it definitely speaks to the concerns over bodily autonomy and reproductive injustice that are increasingly relevant issues. i don't think it is supposed to make me feel comfortable, but it definitely succeeded at making me feel uncomfortable, if you catch my drift. something about those women being violated and losing all agency over themselves as a plot point rubs me the wrong way. and i think it is supposed to, but i'm not sure to what extent. idk, you just wouldn't see that happening to mulder's character, you know? it wouldn't be his bodily autonomy violated. it's as if we're so used to it happening to women in real life that it can easily become a plot point in science fiction, as if that just comes with the gendered baggage of being alive when you have ovaries-sometimes the aliens will harvest them. how does that speak on the way these writers see women as a whole? i'm unsure. but we have time to think it over.

my heart is a bit battered and bruised to see scully suffering so, but it is healing in knowing that they will have each other, and a renewed commitment to keep chasing the truth. and i am gonna go like idk claw at a pillow now to cope.

and then they all lived happily ever after. amen.

[nemainofthewater]

For the wip game: Shang Chi heart attack? What is it about?

Thanks for asking! If anyone else wants to ask, the list of my WIPs is here

omg shang chi fic!

Ok, so the premise for this one was Wenwu and Ying Nan reluctantly coparenting! I actually have like... 2k? Maybe more? for this, and it's been years since i did more than wistfully thing of it - let me put everything I have under a cut

(this was also before i knew that Ying Nan was the OLDER sister - I had headcanoned her as the younger and resentful that her older sister had abandoned her)

PROLOGUE

Xu Wenwu stands in front of the bamboo forest. The same wind that wends through the leaves and sets the stalks shaking also makes him shiver in the cold winter air.

He is alone.

His forearms are bare, the only ring the wedding band on his left hand.

After today he will remove it. Place it into a box to kept safe as a memento of a beautiful dream, a foolish ambition, a love that he never looked for and will never be able to forget. After today he will take the Ten Rings and he will lay waste to the Iron Gang.

He will remind them all why exactly he and his Ten Rings have been feared for over a millennium.

After today he will burn the world down.

But today he is nothing more than a grieving husband.

“Are you happy?” he asks the whispering bamboo. “She’s dead. My wife is dead. Is this what you wanted?”

His fists clench, nails digging into his palms.

“You would rather have a daughter of your village perish than have one such as I live there?” he demands, his voice getting louder and louder.

And still, there is nothing but the gentle sound of the wind.

Xu Wenwu yells; pouring out his anger, his pain, his look. He yells and screams and cries until it feels like the birds should flee before him, the forest should bow before the noise, the Heavens should look down on him and weep.

The last echoes fade and with it the remains of his emotions. The loving husband will be buried here, in front of his wife’s home.

All that remains is the warlord.

He turns to go.

The bamboo rustles.

“Wait!” comes a cry.

Xu Wenwu turns.

A figure is stepping her way out from between the bamboo, a bag slung over one shoulder.

“Yimei,” Xu Wenwu hisses. “Are you here to send me off? Don’t worry, I was just going; you won’t see me here again.”

“Jiefu,” Ying Nan says, inclining her head in turn. “I am coming with you.”

“What?”

“I am coming with you,” Ying Nan replies. “My sister may be gone from the world, but her children are not. I would not see them die before their time.”

Xu Wenwu bristles. “You think that I can’t protect them?” he demands.

Ying Nan doesn’t say anything, just stares steadily at him. They both know that there is at least one person that he couldn’t protect.

Xu Wenwu hates her more for her misplaced pity, spinning around and getting into his car with a slam of his door.

He doesn’t say anything when, without a word, Ying Nan gets in the other side .

#

Xu Wenwu – and his uninvited and unexpected guest – return to the compound. Not the house where they lived, that he and Ying Li built together, where Ying Li was killed. Not their home that contains so many memories that Xu Wenwu can hardly last a minute without being overwhelmed with memories.

Instead their family – what’s left of their family – has moved to one of the many strongholds that established when he was still leader of the Ten Rings, feared by all. The architecture reflects this: concrete walls and frigid courtyards, only slightly worn down by the years since its abandonment. There are still cracks in the stone walls from the training blows given by inexperienced students, drifts of snow slowly filling slashes in the cobblestones.

There are a few of Xu Wenwu’s most loyal lieutenants who have re-joined him since his wife’s death, but not enough. Not when he had once commanded thousands of men. Those lieutenants are therefore mostly out recruiting more soldiers for his army, searching for individuals with raw potential and a willingness to be strong. To never again be trodden upon by life, the world, fate.

“Well, this is depressing,” Ying Nan says as she gets out the car. “Not the place to raise children. Is there even any heating here?” She frowns, looking around. “And where is everyone? Don’t tell me that you left your children here, unguarded?”

“Of course not,” Xu Wenwu snaps, “I left them in a fully guarded keep, locked in a secure room. They won’t be harmed by anyone.”

Ying Nan stares at him. “You left your two traumatised children alone with strangers?” she says flatly. Then she moves forward, not waiting for an answer.

Annoyingly, she appears to know exactly where she is going, despite not having visited before, her eyes closed and her steps sure and steady. Xu Wenwu supposes that it would be unusual for a high-ranked and experienced guardian like Ying Nan not to have mastered the fundamentals of qi-sensing – especially since their children do feel remarkably like their mother.

Xu Wenwu can only bear it for a few seconds before he scowls and strides in front of Ying Nan. From the serene smile on her face as he passes her, this is exactly the reaction that she hoped to provoke from her baiting behaviour. He draws more of the warlord’s arrogant grace around himself and ignores her, but they both know that she’s won this round.

None of his men – too few, and he is going to have to concentrate on relocating and retraining more soldiers – say anything about the strange woman trailing their leader. Ying Nan ignores them, her eyes sweeping over them as though they were nothing but furniture. Xu Wenwu, for his part, glares at them and resolves to add an extra two hours of training to the daily regimes.

When they finally reach Shangqi’s room, Xu Wenwu knocks on the door and calls out, “Qi’er. Lingling. It’s father.”

There’s a brief pause, and then the door rattles as a series of locks are disengaged. It takes a few minutes – Qi’er is evidently nervous – but eventually the swings open to reveal his children. Lingling isn’t asleep despite the late hour, though she is tucked into her brother’s bed.

Ying Nan doesn’t hesitate; as soon as the door is open, she sweeps into the room, stopping only as the two children flinch at her abrupt entrance.

#

 Xu Dong was born into a family of farmers in what would later be known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period in China, a tumultuous time between the fall of the Tang Dynasty and the rise of the Song.

Not that it mattered to Xu Dong and his family. Not when there were crops to plant and food to cook and taxes (always more taxes) to pay. What was it to them when one man after another was proclaimed the Son of Heaven? What was it to them when rulers rose and fell?

If nothing had happened, Xu Dong would have been, not happy perhaps, but content to remain on the family farm, tending to the fields and looking after his nieces and nephews. As the third son, he even had aspirations of studying for the Imperial Examinations and joining the government as a scholar-official, and though his writing could be said to be functional rather than beautiful, his poetry was above-average and his painting acceptable. His skill in weiqi, however… he would look at the board and, stone by stone, create beautiful patterns that managed to steal vast swathes of territory from his opponent, often without them even noticing until the moment he placed his piece.

But the wars of kings and Emperors do not remain in their own elevated sphere; instead their conflicts spread outward, infecting everything in their path until there is nothing left but ruined crops and destroyed families.  

And so, on the cusp of adulthood and having lost everything dear to him to one careless so soldier’s torch, Xu Dong reinvented himself as the warlord Wenwu – Wen (文)for his accomplishments and Wu (武)for his martial force. 

Even then, his gasp of vengeance and fury might have failed, if he had not found ten strange rings buried in the centre of a strange temple in a hidden valley….

[demigoddessqueens]

CR all campaigns Reader gets hit with a spell that gives them major amnesia and they forget they are in a relationship. How does S/O react and what do they do to get reader’s memories back.

Percy x Reader

Vax x Reader

Caleb x Essek x Reader

Will x Orym x Reader

Dorian x Dariax x Reader

Scanlan x Reader

Ashton x Reader

Bittersweet and beautiful 🤩 ❤️ 💕 💗 this reminds me of that movie The Vow 🥹 💔❤️‍🩹

For starters, I’d imagine it’s a pretty upsetting revelation at first. When the acceptance starts to begrudgingly set in, it’s a stab to the heart

Percy de Rolo

You look at him with such a confused expression on his face, and flinch slightly when he comes near you.

It stings, it hurts, it tears at him. He makes small attempts to try and help, but feels himself

The day that has him the happiest again is when he sees you gently handling one of his contraptions, mulling it over. “I…think….I remember when you made this”

Vax’ildan

At first he thinks it’s a prank, but that idea gets shot down quickly when you look at him confused and even reach out to touch his ears (something he was slightly insecure about)

He wants to give you space but also can’t stay away at the same time. Vex walked in on him one time holding the dagger he gave you, and just hugged him close. “Oh brother..,I’m so sorry”

It clicks one day when he sees that Simon is missing and later finds him curled around your wrist, smiling fondly. “Vax….I think I remember…”

Refuses to leave your side for a good few days and you don’t tire of his excessive questioning to make sure. You know where he’s coming from, and you think it’s endearing

Will and Orym

When you come to, you look at your surroundings in confusion. You see the matching wedding bands, but are still confused

They both try to show mementos of the life built together, but it takes a toll on them both. Mostly Orym, despite Will trying to keep the faith alive but even he feels the sadness crushing him”

The day where there’s finally a breakthrough is when Will unconsciously calls you “sun”, and you smile back at him. “I was hoping to hear that name”

Caleb and Essek

It hurts Caleb more than it does Essek.

Essek throws himself into work to find a cure, but it’s so painfully frustrating for him. Caleb is hurt 😢 whenever you look at him like a stranger.

Your memories randomly come back one day when you notice something small about them both, like “oh hey I used to cut your hair”, “here’s your earring”. Then it clicks to them that you’re coming back

Dorian and Dariax

You’re kidding, right? Please be

Dorian tries to show you the music from before he wrote for you, about you. Dariax holds up belongings you owned that may click. When it still doesn’t work, they slowly, sadly give up for now

Until one day they see you in their room holding their own stuff as if it’s familiar. “I think I remember”

Ashton

He thinks you’re joking, but refuses to try and accept it…yet

Desperately tries anything to get you to remember, even asking Imogen to help

Is super clingy and refuses to leave your side for a good while, even asking you from time to time “do you really remember??”

Scanlan 🎸

Oh very funny, ok now joke’s over. Oh it’s not a joke?? 😳

Panicky and refuses to believe it. Tries to help you remember, especially through song since it was your favorite thing to do together

It hurts him, and is not as good at hiding it (as he thinks)

He’ll just be mindlessly strumming his instrument one day until he hears you humming the tune. You slowly look at him and smile as if saying “I remember”

[hoboal87]

You Broke Us, Part 5 (Fin)

Title: You Broke Us, Part 5

Characters: Reader, Sam, Dean, OFCs

Pairing: au!Lawyer!Sam x Reader, past Dean x Reader

Word Count:  3.1k+

Warnings: angst, past cheating, mentions of past non-con, non-graphic descriptions of past non-con, unrealistic recovery from past non-con, fearful reader, implied stalking, self-loathing, implied murder, America has a bad justice system. (To avoid spoilers, more warnings will be in the tags)

A/N: This got much darker in some parts than I had intended.

TW: mentions of past Non-con and the realization that the encounter was actually rape. "Rape" and "Sexual Assault" will be used to describe said past encounter throughout this part.

A/N 2: Again, to avoid certain spoilers, I didn’t warn for them, but they are in the tags. If you'd like to DM me about any of the possible warnings, please feel free.

As always, I’d like to blame/thank @superbadassnatural for requesting the first part that inspired me to write this mini-series. Love Ya, Julia!

Beta’ by @negans-lucille-tblr​

You Broke Us Masterlist

My Full Masterlist

Part Four

‘member sweetheart, this stays between us.

You wake in a cold sweat. Every night since you’d left Sam, Dean’s words haunted your dreams. You wanted to be back with Sam, back in your bed, curled up against him, feeling the warmth of his body against your own. Instead, you were in a motel two states away, making your way towards Seattle, where what little family you had left was settled. You thought getting distance would help; help ease your guilt, help you try to forget what Dean had done to you, but, if anything, it only seemed to make things worse.

You don’t tell anyone where you’re going, afraid that somehow Dean may track you down, make you sleep with him again, continuing to use your one-time mistake as a way to keep you quiet. You had to disappear, for Sam’s sake; he’d lost too much already, and you loved him enough to keep the secret that his brother was a predator — a monster — from him.

A few weeks after leaving Sam, you settle in Kenmore, and reconnect with your cousin, Thea, who you hadn’t seen since you and Sam had gotten married. Thea offers to let you stay with her until you’ve found a job and place to live, and you’re grateful that she doesn’t question why you’ve arrived in Kenmore alone. It takes nearly a month, but you find a small house to rent and are offered a position at a family law firm.

Once you’ve moved into your new home, Thea breaches the topic of Sam, and why you’ve arrived in Washington without him. You try to spin a tale of Sam growing ever more absent in your life, that you wanted different things, but your body and emotions betray you when she gently pushes for more information. You break down, and tell her everything; how you’d cheated unknowingly with Sam’s brother.

Thea doesn’t judge you, or if she does, she gracefully keeps it to herself. The dam breaks and you tell her how Dean blackmailed you into sleeping with him again, and how he insisted that Sam would never have believed you over him. Thea’s hand rests on yours as you continue your story through broken sobs, making you cry even harder when she says the words you’d been avoiding since the day you left.

“He raped you.”

6 months later

Imma fill up the perfect little pussy, isn’t that what you want, sweetheart?

You thought you were past the nightmares, past waking up in the middle of the night, unable to move because you could still feel the weight of Dean’s body on top of yours, holding you down as he came deep inside you. You focus on one of the only mementos you’d taken when you’d left Sam; your wedding photo. Your hand lightly traces the frame, studying the picture even though you’ve already committed it to memory, and a fluttering comes from your stomach.

You rub the swell of your belly, grounding yourself as your breathing evens out. You smile slightly at the faint kick from the baby growing inside you, calming yourself as the memory of Dean slowly fades away. Finding out you were pregnant scared the ever-living hell out of you, especially since you didn’t know who the father was; Sam or Dean.

Thea was with you when you found out you were pregnant, insisting on taking you to a doctor even though it had, at that point, been over a month since Dean assaulted you. You breathed a sigh of relief when the doctor told you that you were negative for STDs and HIV, before explaining that you had come back positive on one test– pregnancy.

You toiled with the idea of termination, unsure if you could continue carrying a baby that may be the result of Dean’s assault. You’d wanted to grow your family with Sam for years, but with how much he was working, you’d both decided to put it off for the time being. Thea promised to support whatever decision you made, and as much as the rational part of your brain told you it would be better, you couldn’t bring yourself to end your pregnancy.

As you relax, another kick comes from the baby, and you sigh loudly. Okay, I get it, you’re up now. You throw back the covers, and swing your legs over the bed, struggling for a moment to stand up. You can barely see your toes over your ever-growing stomach, and waddle towards the bathroom. You crawl back into bed, curling up with the pregnancy pillow that Thea had graciously gifted you a few months ago and letting yourself fall back to sleep.

Hours later, you’re sitting on a park bench humming a lullaby as you watch parents play with their children. This was your favorite thing to do nowadays; daydream about the family you could’ve had with Sam. Your phone chirps, taking your attention off of a toddler being pushed in a swing, laughing wildly and begging to go higher. You don't recognize the number, but you know all of your coworkers have access to your number, so you open it without a second thought.

>>Pregnancy suits you, sweetheart.

Your heart falls into your stomach and you look around frantically. No, no, no, it can’t be Dean. You’d gotten rid of your old cell, cancelled all your credit cards that you shared with Sam, closed your checking account; only using cash until you arrived in Kenmore. You’d been careful; you hadn’t made contact with anyone in Kansas since you’d left. Another message pops up before you've barely had time to process the first one.

>>Didn’t think you could hide forever did ya, sweetheart?

Tears well in your eyes, it's been over six months, why would Dean choose now to track you down? You'd left Kansas for this very reason, to rid yourself of him. You try to take a calming breath, but another mother seems to notice your increasing panic.

"You alright there, hon?" She approaches you cautiously, and you nod slightly. "Are you sure?”

“Yeah, you know… hormones,” you try to laugh off your discomfort. “One minute laughing, the next crying.”

The woman sits with you for a few minutes, giving you a little extra time to calm down. Once you’ve convinced her that you’re okay, you carefully get off the bench, instinctively wrapping your arms around your stomach, and head for your car.

The drive back to your home seems to take longer than usual, your eyes falling on the mirrors constantly, as it would help you find Dean in the traffic. You pull into your driveway, almost expecting to see Dean there. Maybe he was just screwing with you, he’d made it obvious that it’s what he enjoyed doing. But how did he get your number. How did he even know you are pregnant?

You run inside, locking the door frantically behind you. You call the police and less than ten minutes later two armed officers are standing at your front door. The two officers listen silently as you explain that you believe that you’re being stalked, and show them the messages from Dean. The female is sympathetic, but explains that without proof, there’s nothing they can do. You ask about a restraining order, surely then you can keep Dean away.

“Ma’am, from what you’ve told us, this man doesn’t live in the area, or even the state,” the elder man states.

“That shouldn’t matter!” Thea comes to your defense, walking past the officers and taking a seat by your side. “He assaulted her, she’s pregnant, and afraid he’s going to do it again.”

“Did you file an order of protection in Kansas?” The woman asks gently, and you shake your head. “Is there any record of the alleged assault? Did you file a police report? Did you see a doctor?”

You listen carefully as the officers tell you to keep records of everything, and if you see Dean to notify them, but they also remind you that until it’s proven otherwise, Dean is a “law-abiding citizen.”

Two weeks later

“I think you should call Sam.” Thea sits a cup of tea in front of you. “You might be separated, but legally, he’s still your husband.”

“I– I can’t Thea. I broke his heart when I left. I told him that it was his fault that I cheated. I can’t tell him now that it was with his brother.”

“Y/N,” Thea sighs, “Sam needs to know. He needs to know what happened, why you left. I know you don’t want to take away the only family he has left, but he has a right to know that Dean didn’t just trick you into sleeping with him, he assaulted you.”

“What am I supposed to do?” you snap, letting your anger get the better of you. “Call him after being gone for the better part of a year, and say ‘your brother is a monster, and he’s the reason why I left?’”

“Yes!” Thea lets out an exasperated sigh, “and you also need to tell him about–” her eyes fall on your stomach. “They could be his, y’know? Call ‘im, Y/N.”

You hadn’t gotten any other texts since that first day. Maybe it was all in your head; a wrong number, a cruel prank. You know Thea’s right, you should reach out to Sam, but you’re afraid that with Sam comes Dean.

When Thea leaves you that night, you reluctantly dial Sam’s number, praying that he’ll give you the chance to explain yourself. Your heart beats rapidly in your chest as you wait for him to answer.

“Hello?”

Three Days Later

You didn’t explain much to Sam over the phone, how could you? You asked him to come to Kenmore, alone, and that once he was there you would explain everything. You take a calming breath, smoothing down your dress as you wait for Sam to arrive. Thea’s with you, promising that she will stay as long as you need her to. A faint knock comes from your front door, and you can hear Thea introducing herself to Sam. You take another long breath, before stepping out of your bedroom and making your way towards Sam.

Even from a distance, Sam looks worse than you imagined he would. You hide in the shadows of the hall, taking in his appearance. He looks as if he hasn’t slept in weeks, large bags are prominent under his eyes, hair longer than you’d seen it before, and his clothes are loose on his body. You watch as he makes polite conversation with Thea, his eyes shooting up when you make the slightest of noises, alerting him to your presence. His face lights up when his eyes meet yours as you step out of the shadows.

A wide grin forms as you lay eyes on each other for the first time in what feels like an eternity. The smile that you've missed quickly drops as Sam’s gaze falls on to your belly, a questioning look forms and he opens his mouth to speak but no words come. Tears brim in his eyes as he closes the distance between you, wrapping his arms around you as tightly as he can given your swollen center. You’ve missed this; you’ve ignored how much you’ve missed him, but now with him here you can’t deny it any more. Sam loosens his arms and pulls back slightly, placing a gentle kiss on your forehead.

“Is this why you left?” He asks as one of his hands hovers above your belly, and the implication of the question doesn’t go past either of you.

“No,” you shake your head and Sam guides you both to the nearby couch. “But I couldn’t stay, Sam. I left because I couldn’t stand what I’d done,” you half-lie, not knowing how to break the truth to him. “You deserve someone better than me; you deserve a wife who doesn’t cheat because she’s lonely.”

“Honey,” Sam sighs and caresses your arm. “Whatever made you say those things you said that day, it doesn’t matter. I meant what I said, I want us to start over, everything that happened before, all of it – it’s behind us now. You and me, the baby,” he rests his hand on your belly, “this is our chance.”

“Sam–” You want to cry. How are you lucky enough to have him be so understanding? But then again, he doesn’t know everything yet. “I have to tell you,” you take a deep breath, and look to Thea, who’s been listening silently. “The baby… I don’t– I don't know if it’s yours.”

Sam’s hand drops from your stomach, and his body tenses. He’s on his feet, pacing in front of you, face growing redder by the minute.

“So you didn’t stop seeing the bartender?” Sam accuses, anger laced in his voice. “Did you sleep with him the same day that we slept together?”

“I–”

“Did he move here with you? Is that why you called me out here, so you could follow through with a divorce? You made me think you wanted to reconcile, was it all a lie?”

“Let her explain,” Thea interjects.

Sam stops in his tracks and turns around to face you again.

“It was Dean,” you mumble, “he’s why I left.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Dean was blackmailing me.”

“Why?”

“Before Dean came over that night, I’d already met him, I just didn’t know it. He was the bartender, and when I realized who he was I didn’t know what to do. He said I had to agree to his conditions, or he’d tell you. We’d just got back together, and I didn’t want anything to ruin that. I didn’t know what he wanted from me, and then the next day, after you left, he told me that I had to sleep with him again.

“I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to hurt you again. So I did.” You choke back a sob. “He’d been watching us Sam, been keeping tabs on you, I know he’s your brother, but he’s a monster. When he wasn’t satisfied, he made me– Dean assaulted me. He would’ve kept doing it too, and I couldn’t live like that, Sam, I didn’t want to leave... but I had to. I had to protect myself, protect you, and this was the only way I knew how. And then a couple of weeks ago, I started getting these messages, and I can’t prove it but, I know they’re from him. He’d tracked me down, I don’t know what he wants, but I can’t let him come near me again.”

“Such a sob story, Y/N,” a voice tsks, sending shivers through your spine. “How ‘bout you tell Sammy about when you came to my place and begged like a whore for my cock?” What was he doing here, why was he here? “Oh, sweetheart,” Dean seems to read your mind. “You honestly think that I ever lost track of you?”

“Tell me she’s wrong, Dean.”

A wicked grin appears on Dean’s face. “The only thing she’s wrong about is me tracking her down. You could never hide from me, sweetheart, even if you wanted to. She did make the mistake of trying to get the cops involved, but I’ve kept enough distance that they’ll never be able to prove anything.”

Sam steps between you and Dean, and you’re not sure if it’s to protect you, or defend him.

“She was begging for it, Sammy, just like Jess. But she couldn’t live with herself afterwards, so I did what needed to be done.” You’d known Jess briefly, and the circumstances of her death always felt strange to you. “I thought you’d come crawling back, but no, you drowned your sorrows in Y/N’s sweet little pussy.”

Your eyes flick to Thea, who cautiously makes her way towards a discarded phone on a side table.

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” Dean turns around, as if he has eyes in the back of his head. It’s then that you notice it; a gun tucked into his jeans. Thea doesn’t stop until Dean aims the gun at her. “Not too bright, are you, sweetheart?”

“Dean…” Sam keeps his voice steady, and you watch in horror as Dean turns the gun away from Thea, and onto you. “You don’t have to do this. Hurting Y/N, it’s not going to help you. You want me to come back on the road with you again? Live life like we did before Stanford? I know what the police look for, and I can help you stay outta jail, but you have to let Y/N go. I won’t let what happened to Dad happen to you, man, I swear. Just put the gun away, and we’ll walk outta here, you and me, how it’s supposed to be.”

“There’s only one problem with that, Sammy,” Dean seems to be calmed by Sam’s offer, and while you don’t want Sam to go away, if it’ll keep your baby safe, you’ll resign to never seeing him again. “That kid’s mine, and I’m not gonna be some dead-beat dad.”

“Y/N will let you visit, won’t you, honey?” Sam pushes gently, and you nod your head in agreement, though you’re unsure why he would make you promise such a thing. “She’ll take back the statements she made to the police, tell them it was all a misunderstanding. You’re just a man concerned for the safety of his unborn child, isn’t that right?” You’d forgotten how good Sam was at this, getting someone to believe whatever he wanted them to. “But we can’t do any of that if you’re threatening to harm Y/N. So, please, just put the gun down.”

Dean complies, and you let out a breath you didn’t realize you had been holding. Dean moves towards you, and reaches out to touch your belly. You do your best to control your uncomfortableness, if Dean never touched you again it would be too soon. As soon as Dean has put some space between the two of you again, Sam has him on the ground, wrestling to get the gun out of his hand. You move as fast as your body will let you, slumping behind the couch as grunts and groans come from either of the brothers. Dean murmurs something you can’t quite make out, before a loud bang silences the brothers.

You keep your eyes closed as a large hand grips you by the arm and lifts you to your feet. You stumble over your feet, but another body appears beside you, swinging your arm around their shoulder.

“I gotcha, honey,” you open your eyes to see Sam by your side. “Dean can’t hurt you again, Y/N, he’s gone.”

This mini-series started with a request from @superbadassnatural​, if you’d like to request a drabble/blurb/one-shot you can send me an ask with a song, gif or prompt.

Epilogue

Please, please, tell me what you think! Feedback is what keeps me going!

[kitchenscene]

four chambers buck/eddie (minor), eddie centric, an analysis of the diaz house, (home is about the people, not the space), 1.6k ______________

Eddie holds his heart in physical spaces. Frames, photo albums, ticket stubs. It’s less about the sentiment and more about the proof, evidence of the better moments, and a tangible reminder that they won’t be the last. He carries an old photo of Chris in his wallet and a yellow sticky note from Buck in the back of his phone case, scratchy, all caps writing — “Had to leave early, didn’t want to wake you up. There’s coffee on the counter for you. See you tonight.” — with a heart scribbled at the bottom. He carries his love outside his chest, but hides it in his pockets, under his shirt, and around his neck.

It’s scattered throughout the living room, his heart is in a comfortable place. The warm brown coffee table and throw pillows on the couch. Soft lights, lamps in every corner. An ash filled fireplace and charred brick, as if to say, “yes, there is life here, believe me when I say there’s life.”

[ao3 link]

Out in the living room, his love is most evident on the bookshelf. Loved ones held not by the hand, but by mahogany frames and canvas wrapped photo albums. Two albums, to be exact. The first is from Texas, from his childhood. Family photos year by year, some members disappearing, new ones flooding in, staying whether they want to or not. Some people who only continue to exist in these four-by-six slots, neatly encased in plastic, notes and dates scribbled over the back.

There’s photos of young Eddie cradling a baby Sophia, photos of Sophia and Eddie with Adriana spread across their laps, and a particularly memorable one of Eddie spoon feeding baby Adri ice cream when a baby her age definitely should not have been eating ice cream. First days of school, weekend trips, and middle school phases he’d rather forget. Newspaper cutouts of his baseball stats, team photos with trophies in hand, and senior pictures of him in his jersey. Team captain. He never really wanted it, but he accepted the offer all the same.

Shannon starts to appear around this time, prom photos together, though she wasn’t his date, just a friend of a friend with some sort of connection. Selfies taken on an old film camera from her mother, candid shots of Eddie, smiling, laughing, free, a side of him kept hidden from everyone but her. A few more photos strangers were kind enough to take for them, some strangers proving to be better photographers than others.

Another family photo, this time with Shannon in frame. Off to the side, attached only by Eddie’s arm around her waist, but in frame all the same.

A sonogram of Christopher before they had a name, engagement photos because that’s what they were supposed to do, and a single wedding picture taken from a courthouse bench.

Shannon still makes herself known in the last few pages, though her and Eddie no longer exist in the same frame. Her and Chris. Him and Chris. Chris alone. He’s off to Afghanistan.

Blank pages, accidentally skipped. A photo of him accepting the Silver Star he never wanted, added to the album despite his better wishes, alongside a handful of army memories he’d rather not look back on.

It’s in his heart, all the same.

The last few pages are filled with the only pictures Eddie took himself. Every one, every single one is of Chris. The time lost in those skipped pages finding its way back into the album, one day at a time. First days of school, weekend trips, and all his childhood interests coming and going in phases.

The second photo album carries his second chances. It’s not a memento from Texas or a gift he’d rather not receive, no. This one he chose all on his own. He chose Los Angeles, he chose Chris, he chose the 118, and with them, he chose a fresh start, a blank page. Family photos of a different kind.

Second page, third slot down, Buck makes himself known. He first exists in Eddie’s heart somewhere along the bottom shelf. Three, four, five pages in, Buck never disappears. In the firehouse, after work, trips to the zoo, he never disappears. Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, he never disappears. The couch, dining room, and kitchen, Buck never disappears.

It always comes back to the kitchen. Before there was a home, there was a kitchen and dirty dishes. Eddie washes the dishes by hand, one by one. Buck sits on the countertop, stacking dried plates, sorting cutlery in the drawers. He leaves every cabinet open — “it’s way more efficient, Eddie,” — and carries three mugs in each hand.

His heart skips in the kitchen. Flinging soap bubbles while rinsing plates, stealing from simmering saucepans on the stove, his breath hitches when Buck swipes a thumb across Eddie’s cheek, brushing away the suds. His breathing stops altogether when his hand lingers a moment too long.

New beginnings are also found in the kitchen, heavy palpitations bleeding from the sink onto the dining table. Anticipation exists between the tiles, melting the glue he’s used to desperately hold himself together. Buck plays music while he cooks, varying from swing to classic rock. On the good days he sings, out of key, but he sings. He whistles along with the guitar or the saxophone or velvety voices he doesn’t dare to replicate. Buck dances too, waiting for songs to end and timers to ring.

Anticipation flooded the room when he asked Eddie to dance along, a soft blues tune playing over the speaker. Hand to the waist, to the shoulder, hand draped in gentle hand. It was an easy choice; Buck leaned in and he leaned back, holding Eddie like he would never have the chance to do it again, kissing him like there was no sweeter air in the world. The first, “I love you,” was breathed against the counter, just above a whisper. “I always have,” followed shortly behind.

The brightest piece of his heart is held in Christopher’s hands. Rainbow carpets and terrariums, posters plastered on every wall, solar systems and galaxies hanging above. Buck pinned the mobile to the ceiling, Earth, Venus, and Mars dancing around each other, glowing as the room fades to black. The planets spin and spin just above his bed. It makes sense, really, that Buck would hang the stars for Chris.

Eddie didn’t decorate his room, unlike the rest of the house. No, the color, the light, the books lining every shelf, all chosen by Chris, constantly shifting as his interest wean and wane. He’s more than willing to provide, because who is he to deny an action figure on the dresser or plant on the windowsill?

His heart is full with Chris. His heart is empty in his bedroom. Everything Eddie has he gives to Chris. (Where else would it go?)

Barren walls and flat sheets. Empty walls, empty frames. Clock on the nightstand, a lamp on either side, nothing more. A dresser, a closet, it’s a bedroom, nothing more. Most days the curtains are drawn. Most days the door is kept shut. It’s best to keep this hidden, best to leave it bare. He had a rug once. Never managed to unroll it.

It functions as a space, that’s all he needs. Eddie sleeps, and sometimes he dreams. Sometimes he wakes in a sweat, sometimes his hands shake until he’s too exhausted to shake anymore. He resorts to self soothing then; counting ceiling tiles that don’t exist and pacing about the room until holes bleed through his socks.

Buck moved from the apartment to the couch, and eventually made his way to the bedroom. They started out two feet apart but always woke together, somehow making contact and swearing it meant nothing. Even in his sleep, he finds his way to Buck. (Of course it means something).

He first kisses Buck in the kitchen. He kisses him again in the bed. His bed, their bed. He sleeps with his head against Buck’s chest, this time with intent, counting beats instead of ceiling tiles as he sleeps, no sweeter lullaby to be heard. He sleeps through the night, no dreams at all. Buck opens the curtain when he wakes up. Eddie leaves it that way.

The changes are subtle at first, and Buck plays it off like it’s all accidental. “Your room has the best sunlight,” he says, moving plants from the kitchen to the dresser. The ivy cascades down the sides and the cactuses bloom in the new light. In the silence, his heart begins to beat again.

Buck covers his own nightstand with receipts and chargers and photos and reminders. “Printed this for myself,” he claims, filling a picture frame with him and Eddie and Chris, “but I made an extra copy.” He leaves it on Eddie’s side of the bed. It’s less and less barren each day.

The rug under the bed is a welcomed addition. Soft and full, Eddie doesn’t question where it came from. A mirror makes its way to the wall. He can count his scars in the reflection; two in the shoulders, one on the hip. Wrist and thigh, hand and head. With each day the sight is more bearable.

Buck ripped off the sheets, the dark navy sheets, and swapped them out for something brighter. He claims they’re softer, claims they’re more breathable, though Eddie knows the truth, the truth being that they’re lighter on his chest and make his heart beat even. One, two, three, he can climb out of bed each morning a little easier.

“Good morning,” Buck whispers, and Eddie, half awake, half dreaming, feels his lips brush against his temple before moving to the kitchen. One beat, two beats, three, he can climb out of bed each morning a little easier.

[whoacanada]

‘Wishful Thinking‘

Summary: Every NHL champion gets a single brush with ice magic. When Jack takes his first cup with the Falconers, he accidentally undoes the wish that brought him back from the brink of death in 2009, and Bitty becomes hell-bent on lifting the cup himself for a chance to set things right.

A/N: Finally posting some concepts I’ve played around with that aren’t 100% complete massive fics, but still pretty solid, just little things that might be enjoyed. Yet another cup-wish-gone-wrong-au with monkey-paw components. Also inspired by discord convos about canon!Jack meeting an older, veteran NHL!Bitty and having a lot of feelings. Also mentor/father-in-law!Bob trying to help Bitty navigate the NHL. There’s more to this floating around but this is the meat of it

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Bob can sense when it happens. A shift of something monumental that he’s only felt on a handful of occasions his entire life. A quick glance across the ice finds a number of the celebrating Falconers looking around curiously, unsure of the sensation; for so many, it’s their first brush with ice magic. A pleasant novelty. The vets, though, they look to each other.

Bob turns and doesn’t have to look far to find his son, one hand clasped around the cup, the other around Eric Bittle’s waist, smiling from ear to ear. Something about the moment is wrong, but Bob can’t quite determine why as he’s overcome with a wave of nausea. The stadium lights are too bright and he blinks hard, face scrunching, trying to force whatever wrongness he’s feeling out of himself.

Someone’s made a wish.

The moment passes. Bob’s vision clears. There, veiled in a shower of blue and gold confetti, is Eric; alone at center ice, face twisted in confusion as he looks around for the man who only moments earlier had been in his arms.

“You take the cup, you get one real wish,” the decades old, bourbon-lacquered voice of his first coach reminds him. “But only the one. Can be something small, like an empty cab in the rain, or it can be something big. World changing, even. The one thing, the most important thing — ”

“No,” Bob breathes. “Please, no.”

“— You never use your wish on another player.”

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They don’t know exactly what Jack wished for, but the next time Bitty’s blades touch the ice, it’s as if he’s stepped into the body of a new man. No more slurs. No more targeted chirps. He’s just one of the boys.

He plays. He wins. Then, the offers start to come.

NHL teams looking for fast wingers, team players, leadership material; not one of them mentions diversity, or Eric’s status as the first out NCAA hockey captain. No one cares. No one remembers Jack, and no one cares about Eric.

The best and worst case scenarios rolled into one. If this is the reality Jack unknowingly traded his existence for, Bitty has no choice but to walk through the door his partner opened.

Bitty swallows, trying to force the words out on one of his now nightly calls with the man who would have been his father-in-law in another world, if the shared connection between them hadn’t been interred in a Montréal cemetery almost a decade prior.

“I think . . . I think he wished for acceptance.”

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“No one remembers anymore.”

Eric scuffs his skate against this ice, building up a small pile of shavings before scattering them again, focusing on the soft white as if somehow he’ll be able to transport himself bodily to somewhere cool and quiet. Jackson Hole. Banff. Tremblant. Anywhere but here. Anywhen but now.

“Saw Tater last week at a press junket. Blank stares all around. Some days, most days, I wake up and I don’t know how I got here. I can go without thinking of him.”

Weeks. Eric doesn’t say aloud. Months. Those hideous mornings when he wakes up beside a warm body and forgets they aren’t him. They aren’t supposed to be him. Was there ever even a him.

Jack. Eric mouths silently, just to remind himself. His name is Jack.

The details always slip. The universe constantly trying to correct the fallacy of Eric Bittle remembering a man who died before they technically ever met. Faded photographs and corrupted memory cards. Selfies that used to have two people in frame. Vlog posts with cosmic ADR, swapping Jack’s name for someone else’s like a hastily rewritten script. Eventually, even Eric’s memories turn traitor. First times lost to reshoots and post-production magic. Blue eyes are brown. Black hair is blonde. Jack becomes Phillip. Eric’s first love recast. In desperation, he pulls a page from Memento, finds a tattoo parlor and has ‘Jack Laurent Zimmermann’ inked in dark, unmistakable letters on his inner thigh. Adds a cup, the Falconers’ crest, and the date they lost everything. It works well enough until the name fades; there are still days where a hook up will ask why Eric has a championship tattoo for a team he never played with.

Now, all he has is Bob.

“That’s why I’m here.” Bob reminds. “That’s why we talk.”

“But what happens if we don’t.”

Bob’s familiar assurances rumble through the phone. Constant. Refusing to acknowledge the harsh realities of the passing of time. The ever-present doomsday clock moving them both toward disaster — Bob aging, Eric aging out. He’s good, but he isn’t great, and the only offers coming his way are single-season contracts with teams that haven’t sniffed a championship in years. One day very soon, there will be no more chances for Eric to undo what’s been done. No more favors to ask of teammates that have long since forgotten a world where Jack Zimmermann was a college graduate and a rookie MVP. Not just an addict. Not just dead at nineteen.

Eric listens to Bob ramble, asks him to tell him a story, to tell him about the Jack that Eric never really got to know. The Jack he can barely remember. A man that Eric has dedicated his entire life to honoring, to bringing back — from where he cannot fathom — and Bob obliges in a soft tone Eric imagines is not dissimilar from how he must have spoken to his son as a child.

Eric ignores his teammates rushing around him — tossing chirps and gentle insults about his ‘Sugar Daddy’ — and focuses on the accented voice in his ear; grasping desperately at the memory of a man who doesn’t exist. Pretending. Hoping.

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Across the ice, Eric sees Kent Parson watching him. When they lock eyes, the aging star glides toward him, under a guise of one amicable captain greeting another. He’s pushing 37, and while the years of competitive play are starting to show, he’s just as viciously handsome as the day they first met. At least, Eric thinks he is. He can’t imagine a life where Kent Parson strolled onto a college campus and played beer pong at a frat party, but there’s a folder of old photos on Eric’s computer. Jack is in none of them, but there’s one of himself and Kent. Smiling.

Eric can’t recall why the image bothers him so much.

Parson used his wish years ago on something that he’s never bothered to share — and Eric’s far too much a gentleman to ask a man who was once a rival what he wasted his golden ticket on — but now, he’s slowing down, and this is supposed to be his farewell season. Going out with a bang, riding the high of his fifth cup win. He’s worked hard, and he deserves to shove the Penguins back down into obscurity for another season. Deserves it far more than Eric, with his selfish, single-mindedness that’s ruined god knows how many careers in the last decade between his own ruthlessness and Bob’s meddling.

Except. . . this is also likely Eric’s last season. His last chance to undo the great tragedy of his life, and Parson knows it.

“How you feeling, Peaches? You ready?”

Eric hates the nickname in the same way he hates when his father calls him ‘Champ’.

Eric fights his own shame because he wants to be honest, say, ‘No, I’m not ready, I’ll never be ready,’ but Eric can’t ask for what he wants, anymore. He wants the Aces to balk on a power play. He wants Parson to flub a pass and throw the game —  he even knows the man would probably do it, too — but Eric needs to come by a win honestly. They learned the hard way in 2022 when Eric hands were wrapped around the cup, wishing, praying, crying, pleading . . .

Clear eyes, full hearts, or some such bullshit.

Cheaters don’t get wishes.

“I can’t remember, anymore,” Eric admits as they square up across the face-off circle, the resigned terror of an inescapable end creeping upon him like the burn of an old injury ignored for far too long. “Kent. Please.” Parson leans down, rests his stick against the ice, and holds Eric’s gaze as if to say, I’m here. Trust me. Just play.

The puck drops.

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There’s someone watching him, young, handsome with dark hair and the kind of bright blue eyes that scream ‘notice me’ with all of the biological bluntness of neon plumage and a mating dance. The man weaves through the crowd, unnoticed by Eric’s teammates, and comes close enough that Eric can’t help but assume familiarity. He must be a fan, the way he’s flushed and excitable.

Eric’s drunk enough on the moment that he’s happy to indulge his baser instincts. He also literally can’t remember the last time he brought company home and if there’s ever been a night to get laid, it’s this one.

“Crisse, look at you, Bits.”

The man is caught between being awestruck and simply struck, reaching out to touch Eric’s arm but not quite making contact, like his depth perception is the tiniest bit off. He drops Eric’s old nickname so easily, so earnestly, that for a moment Eric thinks they might already know each other — but that’s impossible. Eric would remember someone so handsome, so very much his type.

“Only my friends call me ‘Bitty’.” Eric cautions, raising his half-empty champagne bottle in a mock toast and flashing his best ‘you’re coming home with me tonight’ smile. “But I’m more than happy to to get acquainted with you, Sugar.”

Eric isn’t usually this forward, this unrestrained. Tonight, it doesn’t matter, he’s celebrating: another championship, the end of a career, a life well lived. It’s to be expected. What isn’t expected is how the man’s relieved smile falters; as if Eric’s unbridled joy is somehow misplaced.

“Bitty? It’s me.”

“And ‘me’ is called . . . ?”

On very few occasions in Eric’s life has he been able to witness true devastation first-hand; and those instances were related to deaths, hockey losses, or blackout morning afters.

“Jack.” The man says softly, face slack with surprise. “It’s. . . Jack. Bitty, you know me.”

“If we’ve met before, I’m sorry,” Eric apologizes, hating to see the kid look so defeated. “I meet so many people — ”

Over Jack’s shoulder, Eric catches sight of Bob Zimmermann and waves, delighting in the way Bob’s face lights up when he catches sight of Eric, practically going supernova when he notices Jack as well, crossing the ice like a man possessed; Bob moves to pull them both into a hug but Eric’s new friend holds up a defensive hand and Bob stops mid-gesture.

It’s extremely apparent something is off, and between the reporters, the confetti, the champagne, and the fans, Eric is missing all of the context clues.

“Just won my last cup,” Eric singsongs, gesturing with the bottle between his mentor and the man Eric would very much like to fuck — who look very similar now that Eric can see them side by side. “Everyone’s super excited, right? Yeah? So, what’s going on. Did someone die?”

“No.” Bob says quickly, eyes flicking between Jack and Eric warily. “No. Not . . . that.”

“Severely injured?”

“. . . Non.”

“Okay, then, we should be celebrating!” Eric throws his arms wide and nearly clocks a passing teammate. “No more party pooping, Bobbert. Speaking, this is my new friend, Jack. Jack, Bob, Bob, Jack. Though, I’m getting the feeling you two might know each other. Or might be . . . related.” Eric gasps and smacks his free palm against his forehead. “Oh my god, the Tremblant retreat? Is that where I know you from? Listen, I was fucked up on pain meds that whole weekend, I am so sorry if we’ve already met.”

Despite Eric’s continued attempts at clarifying their shared mystery past, Jack keeps looking at Bob with that same wounded expression and it’s really killing Eric’s buzz.

“Bob.” Eric redirects. “Help me, here. Cutie’s nervous.”

“Eric, this is my, ah, well,” Bob’s smile is so forced, so tense, it looks more like a grimace. “Well, this is my son, Jack.”

There is only one ‘Jack’ Eric has ever known in relation to Bob Zimmermann, and he is not someone to be mentioned in polite conversation.

“Your son?” Eric echoes slowly. “Your son, Jack.”

Bob realizes what Eric’s tiptoeing around and casts a furtive glance toward the younger man, lifting two fingers to his cheek conspiratorially to imply ‘it’s a long story, not meant for public ears’. Eric knows how to play along.

“Wow, okay, did not expect that, but now that you’re saying it, I can one-hundred-percent tell. You have the same, well, everything.”

Eric takes Jack’s hand for an obligatory shake, not missing the way Jack’s features twist up into something caught between flattery and misery, before staring down his pseudo-mentor.

“My question is this, where have you’ve been hiding him — because how long have I know you, Bobby? Shame.”

“I’ve been . . . away.”

Jack’s tone is weighted with context Eric absolutely does not possess, but can definitely read into. Given the age difference and Alicia’s conspicuous lack of attendance this evening, Jack’s definitely a love child from some 90s Zimmergroupie. Or, original Jack didn’t actually OD and Bob spirited away his kid to keep away the prying eyes of the public; but that wouldn’t explain the age difference or the shared name.

Oh, Bobbert.

“Couldn’t wheel him out too soon,” Bob jokes, but Eric can tell the man’s heart isn’t in it, reinforcing Eric’s suspicion.

“Well, I’m happy you did,” Eric says graciously, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. “He’s very handsome, when he isn’t doing this Eeyore impression.”

“Just like his father,” Bob says reflexively —  defensively —  as Jack goes pink. “Eric, will you excuse us for a moment? Back in five minutes, tops.”

Eric offers a gracious wave, gaze lingering on Jack’s retreating back — and backside, bless — watching Bob rest a firm hand on his son’s neck, gripping tightly to lean in and furiously whisper something. As Eric watches, Jack looks back over his shoulder; it’s not the fond glance of a potential paramour. Regret, maybe? Grief, definitely.

He must be as disappointed to be cock-blocked by his father as Eric is.

Across the ice, Kent Parson has rushed Jack, gathering him into a crushing embrace that the younger man returns easily —  burying his face against Parson’s pads; pulling back only when Parson grabs Jack’s shoulders to push him away, taking a long look at him, holding his face between his hands briefly before pulling Jack back into his arms.

They don’t just look like old friends, it’s a reunion of desperation, like the videos his mother sends of soldiers coming home from war, but before Eric can think better of it, a teammate fists a hand in the collar of Eric’s sweater and pulls — away from Bob’s forlorn love child and forgotten first meetings — and the night goes on.  

Bob doesn’t return. Neither does Jack.

Eric doesn’t even notice.

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[dreamscapesin1582]

In Return

@kenshinlover​ 

heyooooo! sorry but i could do one suitor per fic, so i chose only one from the five you mentioned with the help of spin the wheel lol. i tried to add everyone else tho!!! 

also sorry it took so long! i had trouble accessing my account :<

tw: mention of death and childbirth

The warlords of the Oda forces had finally arrived.

With a solemn glance towards the door, Kenshin heaved a deep breath before forcing himself to stand and see that the visitors were attended. 

“It seems they are here. Just a moment, my love.”

“You may stay where you are.” An authoritative voice still, but it was the most sympathetic tone one can get from Nobunaga. The will of the war god was buried so deep that Kenshin could only nod and turn back to his post, just beside the funeral arrangement.

Following Nobunaga were Mitsuhide, Masamune, and Ieyasu. They all looked at the most ornate urn enshrined at the arrangement, surrounded by the prettiest of flora. The look in their eyes told him a lot of things, like how they reminisced how she would place the same flowers in the castle during her days as chatelaine. Even the mementos of her that were displayed, they had a memory or two about it. Kenshin watched silently as they paid their respects in their own ways, a voice in his mind whispering: “It’s what she would have wanted.”

 “It is an unfortunate turn of events.” Mitsuhide commented, as he stood at the side with Kenshin. “Although, curiosity demands… Where is the child?”

Kenshin closed his eyes. “In another room, with the caretakers. He… does not seem to be able to take in his mother’s death.”

“Oh?”

“He wails whenever someone brings him here.” He said. “As if he knows.”

With that, a memory came to mind. Fresh with its tears and whispers.

“Ken...shin…”

“What is wrong? Do you feel unwell? Should I call for—”

“Is… our child… alright?”

His instinct was roaring with nothing but growing dread, but when he turned to the small, quiet bundle he cradled in his arms…

“O-Of course. You made sure he was well.” With only a sliver of control, he uttered. “He… He has your eyes.”

“Does he...?” A breathless laugh; for all her joy, that was the only thing she managed. “That’s... great. You… loved my eyes... didn’t you?”

“Yes. I love everything about you.”

Something was screaming inside him, but he sat still. His hand held hers tightly, perhaps to make up for the lack of strength she had just to hold his hand back. He kept the child closer to his chest, just to be able to feel even the faintest of breaths as he doesn’t seem to feel his anymore. But it was quiet. Too quiet.

In that room, everything was still. No one moved. 

Her face did not lose its serene smile despite all the energy she lost. 

“I… love… you… too…”

The child finally had its first cry, after his mother uttered her last words. The midwife and her assistants immediately entered the room, and only then did Kenshin find himself back to reality. Or perhaps even then, he was still floating in the sea of denial, and his body was only being moved by the comings and goings of the castle in response to the death of their lord’s wife.

“Life truly works in mysterious and utterly dastardly ways.” Mitsuhide wore a depreciating smile as he observed the widower. “For all her kindness, I assume she would choose to offer herself for another… and this world allowed it.”

“...Yes. She is warmhearted… like that…”

Her eyes always told him what was in her heart. Kenshin could stare into her eyes and find warmth, even in the coldest of winters. He could still see her soft gaze towards him, filled with the purest of love. And with that love, he could go on.

To receive is to give something back in return.

And for the remainder of his days, he will pour her love towards the one she had given her life to. 

“Well, we won’t overstay our welcome.” Masamune approached, with the other two behind. “Thank you for allowing us to visit. Azuchi and the Oda are truly grateful for her.”

“It will be dishonoring her if I reject you, and that is the last thing I wish to do.” 

“May she find peace… wherever she is.”

After the visitors left, Kenshin pondered on a lot of things while he stared at the altar erected in her memory. “You… You will not forgive me if I abandon our child, no?” 

He just had to have the same eyes. The same face. Whenever he looked at their baby, he always felt like he was losing her all over again. 

But…

“Perhaps… it is so that I will not forget you…?” At that realization, a laugh escaped him. “As if I would ever forget you.”

He closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them, there was hope for acceptance.

“I swear this to you,” Laying down his beloved sword before her altar, Kenshin went down to one knee, “I will look after him, come hell or high water. He will grow up to be as strong and kind as you.”

“In return… Give me the courage to continue.”

[ready-to-obeyme]

[OM!] Hanahaki Disease + Flowers for Demon Brothers (Part 1)

Scenario: Which flowers would the demon brothers be inflicted with when they develop Hanahaki Disease falling in love with you? +  Headcanons to how they would deal with it. 

(includes pictures of flowers 🌻🌺)

PART 1 INCLUDES: Lucifer, Mammon, Leviathan, Satan

[PART 2] INCLUDES: Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Belphegor + Diavolo

Note: BIG PINING ENERGY + Unrequited Love aka ANGST; I love hanahaki so i wrote our local demon boys coughing up an a e s t h e t i c bouquet 

--

Lucifer

(White) Sweet Pea = gratitude; departure; also common to give to brides

You have always been a little special to Lucifer, and he has always had a soft spot for you. It wasn’t something big-- he knew he had favorites. Though you were troublesome, you were just as loving and patient as you helped him and his family again and again. Gratitude on its own cannot inflict the hanahaki disease onto a demon, but it is the overwhelming love that comes with his overflowing thanks that has him coughing into his black gloves white petals that contrasts beautifully. It is alarming, but he tells no one, especially not you. (Looking back at it later, the purity of color that his lungs have produced makes him a little wry, because it does make sense that the purest thing about him is his love for you.) 

(Blue) Forget-Me-Nots = true love; memories

He is a man who yearns. He wishes for your affection but can never find it in him to ask for it, so he keeps the memories of his time with you together in his heart-- counting them like fragile, little flowers in his palm. And he continues to fall for you as he gets to know you better. Forget-me-nots begin to litter his desk, reminding him how much you dominate his everyday thoughts, in the little things you do. 

(Lilac) Azalea = temperance (self-control), passion, fragility; “take care”

At the peak of his love for you, Lucifer has grown so much from who he was before. He finds it fitting when he coughs out petals of lilac azaleas, a memento of how much he has changed and how much he has fallen so deeply in love. There is no turning back-- he is in love with you, with your passion and your strength, and the way he can feel fragile whenever you hold him. “Take care,” the petals say when he coughs out enough to cover the floor of his room the moment you leave the Devildom at the end of the year. He knows already he will miss your presence by his side. He has said nothing to you about his feelings-- doesn’t dare to: there is no happiness in a union between a mortal and immortal. 

As much as he wanted to continue loving you, there’s too much to lose and he has too much that must be accomplished

Doesn’t entertain the idea of confessing and having you return those feelings and has them removed 

Mammon

Ivy with a sprig of white tendrils = anxious to please, affection

It is a known fact that Mammon falls for you hard and fast. It’s a little jarring, when he thinks back on it, to pull out a vine of ivy with white tendrils from his mouth only when you have only been in the Devildom for a month. But he doesn’t think much about it. It’s obvious he cares for you, yearns for your affection when you’re the first to show him such unconditional kindness, tries his best to please you so you will always look at him favorably. 

Sunflower = adoration 

Mammon’s feelings for you only grow, but he doesn’t like the fact that the flowers have gotten bigger. It’s easier to dump ivy because they’re found outside, but where in the hell would you find sunflowers in a place without a sun? When he coughs out an entire flower, he saves them and-- upon observing its quality and cleanliness-- gifts them to you. He adores the smile on your face and doesn’t want to let you know that every time the flowers grow in his lungs, they choke and suffocate him.

(Yellow) Primrose = “I can’t live without you.”

Time is running out. You are only authorized to stay in the Devildom for so long, as much as he wants and begs you to stay. Would you stay if you knew that I loved you, he thinks. Do you even love me back? He looks back upon the days before he knew you and doesn’t need to reflect long to know that his world is better with you in it. He doesn’t tell you though, not when you’re awake at least. He had hoped that telling you when you couldn’t hear him would clear his lungs, but the primroses that he coughs up the morning after tells him otherwise and forebodes his decisions in the coming months. 

In the scenario he confesses and MC doesn’t return his feelings, he would rather much die than forget he loved you

He knows his love for you has been ingrained into his heart and soul-- and to remove it means removing a part of himself, and he doesn’t know if he wants to do it; it might be foolish but… well, he’s a fool in love.

Leviathan

Hydrangea = gratitude for being understood 

Never once have you looked at Levi with disdain when he talked about his interest. Never once has he felt so listened to, having your complete attention when he talks about something that he loves. The hydrangea petals come out in droves, covering the bottom of the tub with gentle violets and blues. It’s the first he’s felt understood, he thinks, of course his body would react so violently to something as novel as that. And besides, being understood is not the same as being loved. Levi keeps the flowers to himself, brushing off any questions and preferring to talk with you instead, spending any time he can get from you that you have not already given to his brothers.

(Yellow) Acacia = true friendship and indicates secret love

You’re his Player 2, his Henry. He can be content with just the notion that the two of you share an unbreakable bond of friendship where you’re there for him and he’s there for you whenever the two of you need it. The acacias, however, tell him he’s in love-- with your smiles, with your affectionate touches, with your laughter. Levi ignores them; he shouldn’t ask for more than he already has. 

Daisy = loyal love; “I’ll never tell”

When daisies show up in his bouquet of hanahaki flowers, Levi thinks it’s a little ironic, but for once, he doesn’t argue. He will take his feelings to his grave, if he can help it-- pushing daisies as the humans would say. He’s convinced himself he wasn’t in love with you before, and he could probably do it again when you’re not in the Devildom anymore-- or so he hopes. His heart feels like it’ll never love anyone else when he watches you fall asleep on his shoulders. 

Not unlike Mammon, he doesn’t tell his brothers about his illness and tries to fight it off himself-- but feelings are hard to get rid of

Ultimately chooses to have his feelings removed if he can’t do it himself, putting him right where he feels like he belongs as your best friend

He feels like he’s lost something, but soon enough he forgets the time he loved you (for his sake)

Satan

(Blue) Petunia = can be anger/resentment or “Your presence soothes me”; deep trust, peacefulness, intimacy

When Satan coughs out petals of petunia as dark as night, he stares at the bunch of them on the palm of his hand. He tries coughing them up again, but he doesn’t get to decide when the illness acts up. He searches furiously through his library for what he has, quickly coming to the conclusion that he had feelings for you. Of course he did-- considering what you’ve done for him, giving him a chance to make sense of his identity and looking beyond his anger. He knows without a doubt that these petunias do not represent his anger; in fact, they denote the opposite. “Your presence soothes me,” he reads in the language of flowers, wondering if the flowers will change the more he trusts in you and gets closer to you.

(White) Jasmine = Sweet love, amiability

He picks out the white jasmine off his tongue and quietly dumps them into the trash, the sweet scent stuck in his mouth. When you ask him if he’s alright, he turns around and smiles at you-- a sweet, genuine smile that no one can doubt to be sincere. He returns to where he was by your side as he reads the latest novel at your insistence, glancing at you once every other sentence to gauge your reactions. He feels his cheeks flush underneath your gaze, but he doesn’t persuade you to do otherwise. He loves your attention, and sometimes in these quiet moments he can pretend that you’re just as in love with him as he was with you. 

White roses = “I’m worthy of you”; loyalty

As the year passes, Satan grows more and more confident of who he is as a person, and where he stands with you. These feelings may have been new, but when the white rose petals tumbles from his mouth, he knows that there is only one thing he must do before you leave. He yearns-- he isn’t different from those with this illness-- but he knows better than to pine after someone who doesn’t feel the same as him after all this time. And regardless of whether you can stay with him, he wants you to know how you make him feel: worthy-- and worthy to be loved by you.

In the chance you don’t feel the same, he’s disappointed. When yellow carnations come from his lips as if to commemorate his rejection, he destroys his room, not in resentment but in the fact that he will have to forget some of the parts you made him feel. 

He wishes he could keep these feelings, but knows that it’s unfair to both of you to keep hoping. When you leave the Devildom, he lets himself mourn for what he will lose and removes the flowers. 

[heartofwritiing]

Times up..

Paring(s): Unus & Annus x fem!reader 

A/N: So this is a really quick thing I wrote last night to deal with my grief of Unus Annus ending and there’s not much backstory with the characters. all you need to know is the reader became friends with the boys at the beginning of their year and this is an Au of some sorts where unus and annus are separate entities to Mark and Eef. Also I totally cried while I wrote this... I'm not ready for this channel to end. it means so much to me and has been such a great thing in my life and I don't want it to end. but i hope you enjoy this little fic before the end! 

Warning(s): Death, crying, this does not have a happy end guys... 

(this gif doesn't even go with this story but it made me laugh so im using it lmao) 

Her legs were numb from running for so long. Her lungs ached as she breathed and she wanted to rest so badly, but she couldn't. Not until she found them. Before it was too late. when she arrived at the abandoned building she wasted no time stepping over the threshold and into the darkness. She reached into her back pocket for her cell phone and touched the screen to activate the flashlight. Light filled the corners of the area that she was standing in, pointing it up she could see a staircase leading to the second floor and an old chandelier that was covered in cobwebs. 

She quickly decided to scour the first floor and found nothing after several minutes of searching each room and continued up the ascending curved staircase. If it was even possible the upstairs was even more engulfed in darkness then down. Despite her tired body she moved down the hallway of doors and she noticed the very last door had a purple glow coming through the cracks. She sprinted over and quickly took hold of the brass handle and pushed the door open. To her relief the two entities stood over a black and white coffin that was laying atop a table, the purple light was coming from the inside of the casket. Her eyebrows frowned as they both turned to each other with mournful looks as they in sync reached for the top of the coffin and pulled it closed with a soft thud. The room was now completely dark asid from the light coming from her smartphone. She pointed it straight at the two and their heads whipped up in surprise. Confused looks spread across their faces as they stepped towards the woman. 

“Y/N?” the one in black questioned. 

“How did you find us?” the one in white finished. 

She met them both halfway in the middle of the creaky room as she smiled at them. 

“It doesn't matter, what matters is I found you before I was too late,” she laughs. 

The entities look at one another in sadness and pity for her. Annus inhales before he speaks the words he thought he would never have to say out loud. 

“dearest, our time is up,” Annus says tearfully. 

A gasp is caught in her throat as tears well up in her eyes. She shakes her head in disbelief.

“No..” she whispers. “We haven't had enough time… we..” but Unus has pulled her into a hug. Her breaths are shallow as she returns his embrace and tucks her face into his shoulder. 

“It's been an amazing year with you, thank you for the memories.” he says into her h/c hair. Hearing his words she then releases all the emotions kept inside, all the anger, sadness and grief coming out in choked sobs. Unus then released her to cup her face in his hands and press a long kiss to her forehead. Then, she turns to Annus who is already waiting with open arms for his goodbye. She launches forward into his chest to wrap her arms around his neck, he pulls her off the ground into a tight bear hug. 

“We'll never forget you,” he whispers in her ear. “And we'll always be with you,” he adds. She nods into his neck, to shaky to reply. after a few moments he sets her back on her feet and pulls back. He reaches up his right hand to cup her cheek with his palm to wipe her tears flowing down off. 

“No more tears now,” he tells her. 

“It's almost time.” Unus breaks the moment from beside them. She looks at them with a sad smile and takes both of their hands. 

“I'll miss you both. So much.”  She then tugs them both to her and she's sandwiched between the two. They tell her the same and It's quiet for a couple minutes nothing but the sounds of sniffling before a bell chimes in the air breaks the silence. The arms around her have disappeared, a chill settles in the air as she no longer feels the forms of the two beings. She opens her eyes and she's alone. nothing but specks of dust settles around her as it sinks slowly to the floor in piles. She slowly falls to the floor with it, her knees press into the ashes of her friends. She finally lets out a cry of anguish and it echoes through the empty house. her heart ached and longed to see them again, she wished they just had more time. With a shaky breath she sunk to the floor completely and let the darkness take over her form. Not caring her phone was dead and the light had turned off, she laid there until the sunrise and brought light. From that day forward she made a promise to live like each day was her last, to try new things and take risks because you'll never know when your time will be up. And she did, for Unus and Annus. 

Memento Mori. 

[yashimolala]

⎡ where are you now? ⎦fushiguro t. & m.

★ part two of ⎡ can you hear me now? ⎦ ☆  

❀ pairing: fushiguro megumi & fushiguro toji (familial)

❀ word count: 1,494 words

❀ genre: fluff/angst 

❀ author’s notes: this is not incestuous in any manner. 

❀ tags: character study, fushiguro toji-centric, introspection, purple prose, somewhat canon-compliant (?) 

❀ description: the moments that were left at the back of the father and son’s minds, and the places where they could’ve been.

。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆　　 。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆

Sunflowers.

Megumi’s eyes flutter to the sight of a delightful scar.

He knows this is a dream, but it was a real memory flashing in his eyes, one that he’s never been able to recall before.

The scar was graceful, stretching to its’ full beauty on a smile. It was straight,  adorning the left side of the person’s mouth.

Slightly-chapped lips, rosy hues on glowing cheeks, and large, rough hands reaching out for him. And his safety in a delicate body is entrusted to their palms as he’s wrapped in strong, built arms.

He could not see the upper half of their face. It was a rather blurry vision he had.

But he could tell… they were joyous. Delighted. Glad. Genuinely happy. They smiled like it was the most beautiful moment of their life. Like his very existence was a miracle.

Tenderly cradling his small, fragile body; gently rocking him to a soft tune. He doesn’t know the song itself, but he loves the comfort it brings. The small humming is imprinted in his memory, a precious memento to cross at his heart.

Megumi then closes his eyes, drifting to a deep slumber, all the while listening to the serene sound.

He lets the darkness wash him over to a new dream.

Interlude.

Your smile rivals the vibrance of a sunflower, Ever brilliant and happy, Blooming with a vivid yellow power, That I can never exude.

Shining brighter than the glaring star in a summer night. Fiery blooms of beauty captivating me in its splendor, Always facing the direction of its Creator Like a lost sailor in search for a ray of light.

- Yashi

Aloë.

Megumi remembers getting ice cream in the mall when he was a child.

He was observing the strange tubs of bizarre flavors illustrated in posters; he seemed like he wanted to try them out.

His father was watching him from afar, hands shoved into his pants’ pockets. The man then sighs, “Stay in the bench over there.”

Megumi nods, sitting himself on the vacant furniture, unknowing of what he was planning.

The older male disappears from Megumi’s sight into the flood of crowds, not even uttering another word before leaving.

Minutes of swinging his legs back and forth were spent as he waited. Person after person passed by him, never sparing a glance but he felt like the eyes lurking from the shadows are on him, but at the same time, he feels like he’s within a void of empty crowds.

Just as he was to hop off and set out to search for his father, the man was right before him, handing down a triangular-looking biscuit with a building swirl of soft white.

The child looked astonished, wrapping his small hands around the cone, green eyes sparkling with the smooth, glistening frozen treat.

Toji just sits beside him, seemingly uninterested with legs spread wide, in comparison to the kid’s knees that were almost closed in a timid manner.

Megumi blinks once, before glancing down the ice cream, bringing the pointed tip of coldness to his lips, taking a small bite.

Chilled velvety mush melted into sweetness as he savors the flavor.

It’s a classic vanilla that his father could only afford.

The father glances to his side at once, watching a small smile stretch on the kid’s usually stoic expression.

“Is it good?”

“Anything that father gets me is the best.”

Toji then closes his eyes with a contented smile, clearing out the chatter of the crowds in the mall and etched Megumi’s smiling face into the back of his head.

Aster.

Toji sees the color of the skies on Megumi.

He could never forget the beady gaze of his child, often glimmering with curiosity that he could never unravel.

They glow with a glint of excitement and interest, with every thing it explores, may it be the old bookstore down the street, the trashed alleyways in their neighborhood, or the stray puppy that he saw in the park.

Toji sees the only blessing in his life.

Toji sees Megumi making his own blessings out of the world.

A small smile pulls on his lips as the child’s hand holds onto his larger one for reassurance, relishing in the sound of his laughter.

Megumi has his mother’s eyes, but he also has his own soul in those pair of sapphires. It was somewhat funny because everyday when Toji looked into the mirror, all he can see are soulless orbs of dread.

But now that he can see the life in his blessing’s eyes, he’s more than satisfied.

Azalea.

The first time Toji went out with Megumi’s mother, they eloped to the beach, where the color of their eyes can be found, symbolic of their persona as well.

When he takes the boy to the ocean, his eyes gleamed with excitement as he starts talking about the sea creatures he’s read about, like the starfish, the crabs, the seahorse and more.

His blue gaze was a living memory of his mother, reminding him of the calm ocean waves that came crashing on the grains of gold and the clear skies that rolled across the earth.

He notices his mussed hair that was disheveled by the salt water that soaked into their skin and takes a photo of the footsteps they’ve left on the shore before it’s washed away by the sweep of shallow water.  

When he feels delicate fingers graze on his knuckles, his chest surges with euphoria upon seeing Megumi who held onto his hand with his small digits, lips stretching with a smile and wet lashes framing his face.

He wants to wake up every day to this shade of blue, the voice of his son filling his ears, to live in a moment that will last until the end of his time.

Interlude.

‘You look just like your mother.’

The man remarks as he glances at the shape of his hair — same black, same spike, same curl that framed over his features that was a tad softer than Toji’s.

‘I guess I do carry her tenderness well.’ Megumi brings up a hand to the expanse of his neck, averting his focus away, refusing to make eye contact with his father.

This does not go unnoticed by Toji, as his emerald gaze catches on Megumi’s ocean ones. They were a deep shade of blue, drowning in the abysmal depths of the sea, accompanied by the shadows.

He speaks again. You both have the same eyes.

‘Cause we are both exhausted.’ The younger male responds almost immediately, but it never came out in an exasperated manner. It escaped his lips as a gentle sigh.

Toji’s eyes travel down to explore more what he shared with his mother, halting by the slim phalanges that he wore.

‘And the hands.’ He adds.

‘We share the same wilting fingers.’ Megumi wearily says, demonstrating by shifting his digits into a hand gesture that he does not recognize, only familiar with the lines and curves that shaped his wrist.

‘But that rage, your mother doesn’t wear that anger.’

‘You’re right.’ His expression that was once serene contorts into one of madness, bathed in blood and the laughter that cascades from his lips is almost maniacal. ‘This rage is the one thing I get from my father.’

Sweet Pea.

Fushiguro Toji was not expecting to have the latter half of his plans ruined by the Gojo kid who went berserk after rising from death.

All he felt was unease, unease, utter unease.

Just when he thought he had thrown his feelings away, it all comes back to him with an excruciating ache to his chest, tugging painfully on his heartstrings.

All he remembers is clinging onto his wife’s back like a helpless beast, the joy he had when Megumi was born, raising him up until he was five and fuck, he wishes he could have seen him grow up more — deal with his teenage phase, watch him graduate, have a peaceful story of his own.

He longs for a life where he could hear about Megumi’s dreams, where they talk about what happens in his everyday life over dinner, where they could live as a small and happy family with Tsumiki.

But he can’t go back to that life, can’t return to where he left off, can’t have what he want anymore so what’s the point?

He looks into the long path that was stretched out on the other way, disappearing into forever. He’s afraid to say this is the end he’s reached, but deep inside, he knows that he’s already lost, deep in the restraint of his own pride, in the choice of path that he chose and in this battle.

So when he chooses his last words, he tells them to the white-haired teen in hopes that his child will at least be able to live a better life than he did.

He just hopes that his only blessing is okay.

。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆　　 。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆

The language of flowers: 

❀ Sunflower = “The sunshine in your smile”/Radiance ❀ Aloe = Affection and grief ❀ Aster = Love and daintiness/Remembrance ❀ Azalea = Family ❀ Sweet Pea = Goodbye

Oh and please do keep in mind that, in the second interlude, the dialogues that are in italics belong to Rupi Kaur’s ‘Milk and Honey’.

additional notes: i said i’d write more of this so i did. 

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Eccentricity [Chapter 11: You Don’t Come Around No More]

A/N: I apologize profusely for the long wait. Thank you all so, so, so much for your support. Every single reblog, message, comment, emotional rant, and/or screech of despair makes my day, and I couldn’t do this without you. 💜 Only THREE more chapters left!!!

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “More To Life Than Baseball” by Petey. 

Chapter Warnings: Language, angsttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

Word Count: 7.5k. 

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​​​​ @bramblesforbreakfast​​​​​​​ @maggieroseevans​​​​​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​​​​​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​​​​​ @escabell​​​​​ @im-an-adult-ish​​​​​​ @queenlover05​​​​​ @someforeigntragedy​​​​​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​​​​​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee​​​​​ @deacyblues​​​​​ ​ @tensecondvacation​​​​ @brianssixpence​​​​​ @some-major-ishues​​​​ @haileymorelikestupid​​​​ @youngpastafanmug​​​​ @simonedk​

The Rain

I wish I felt empty.

I’m supposed to feel empty, right? I’m supposed to feel steeped in grey, oceanic misery; I’m supposed to dip in and out of depressive naps all day and sob delicately over creased photos and fading, wistful memories. I always envisioned heartbreak as a soft and inherently feminine sort of affliction: the hems of nightgowns and bathrobes sweeping along hardwood floors, Kleenex boxes and concave couch cushions, weepy phone calls to friends and aunts and mothers, Queen Victoria wearing black for the rest of her life after Prince Albert’s death, Mary Todd Lincoln sinking into dark and hushed obscurity. Women, hollowed out by despair, cross the history of the earth like lines of latitude.

I don’t feel empty at all. I don’t even feel sad. I feel razored by sharp, red, ceaseless anxiety. I am consumed by thoughts of what I did wrong, what I said that started the wheels of doubt spinning in his mind, if he had known how it would end from the start. I dream of white, clawed hands dragging me down through cold waves. I hear words scream to me as I toss at night in my suddenly too-spacious bed, words that now hit me like knuckles to the gut: Shhh, hey, it’s just me, don’t get up, as Joe slipped beneath the Arizonan blankets, wrapped an arm around my waist, kissed my collarbone as I tumbled back into sleep; I love you to death, as his Subaru idled in Charlie’s driveway; Baby Swan, listen to me, nothing is supposed to hurt, okay, so if anything hurts, ever, at all, you tell me and we stop, deal? as we stood in the doorway of our hotel room at the Four Seasons in Chicago. And now...and now...

And now everything fucking hurts.

It doesn’t make any sense; and yet it does. Look at him. Look at me.

The Polaroid photo from Homecoming was still taped to the top of my full-length mirror. I peeled it free like a layer of translucent, friable reptilian skin, tore it straight down the center, burned both halves over a brand new three-wicked, lemon-scented Bath And Body Works candle—a gift from Renee and Paul—and closed my eyes like a child casting a wish over her birthday cake like a spell. I wished for my memories to vanish with the photograph. I wished to get hit by a truck and wake up in the hospital with no recollection of the past two and a half months. I wanted the Lees to dissolve into distant, enigmatic mystery; I wanted to join the rest of Forks in believing that they were nothing more than bewildering and yet harmless freaks, barely worth noticing, one of those glitches of the matrix that were better off ignored like liminal seconds of déjà vu. I wished to carve out every part of myself that they had ever touched.

And Joe’s voice came rushing back from where we stood by that star-lit fountain outside the Church of Saint Lawrence, accompanied by falling raindrops and a crooked grin: I can make wishes come true.

The three tiny flames flickered in the breeze that sighed through my open window. The bright, citrusy scent of the candle reminded me of Lucy. I couldn’t fucking win. What else is new?

I turned back to the mirror. I flinched when my gaze snagged on my reflection: bloodshot-eyed, swollen-faced, utterly unbeautiful, restless like a caged animal. Look at him. Look at me.

I ripped the last memento off the mirror—Official Citation!! No More Sad Spaghetti!!—and watched the yellow square of paper catch fire, curl up around the edges, become unrecognizable, turn to ash. And I wished over and over again, like a poem, like a prayer: Let me forget, oh god please let me forget.

Charlie keeps asking if I’m okay. The answer, of course, is no; but I can’t tell him that. So I wear a serene smile like clip-on fangs, a cheap polyester cloak, crimson smudges of lipstick like trails of spilled blood down the side of my neck. Every day is Halloween for me now. I dress up as someone who isn’t haunted, who hasn’t become a ghost.

And when Charlie turns up the World Series or I’d Do Anything For Love on his geriatric, staticky kitchen radio—the same radio he’s had since my mother was the one joining him for daybreak coffee and Pop-Tarts—I choke back tears like dragonfire.

Missing In Action (Revisited)

Joe wasn’t here. Neither was Ben.

Lucy, Rami, and Scarlett were sipping cups of tea at the Lees’ usual table, their eyes downcast, their voices low and murmuring, their pristine lunches neglected. Lucy and Rami were dressed in matching charcoal grey turtleneck sweaters; Scarlett had come from Fencing Club and was wearing royal purple yoga pants and a black tank top, her duffle bag of gear on the floor by her sneakered feet. Her hair was in a long fishtail braid. Archer hadn’t mentioned her since Joe broke up with me. That either meant that it was going blissfully and he didn’t want to injure me further, or that Scarlett had ended things as well.

Since Joe broke up with me. That sounds so fucking pedestrian.

I stared at the three present Lees, almost leered, commanding them to see me, to acknowledge me, to admit that I had once meant something to them, that this hadn’t all been some transitory delusion to fill the cavernous void of losing my home, my life as I knew it in Arizona. They took no notice whatsoever.

Jess kicked me beneath the lunch table. My attention snapped back to her.

“Sorry, what?”

“You want to go shopping with me and Angela tonight?” Jessica’s hands were folded just beneath her chin, her voice gentle, her eyes large and sympathetic and watery. This was her version of being supportive. I appreciated it...in a perpetually tormented and preoccupied sort of way.

“No thanks.” I forked my cold, sauceless spaghetti listlessly. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch. I didn’t have an appetite anyway. I had deleted the GrubHub app from my iPhone and had no intention of using it ever again in my comparatively short and calamitous human life.

“You could come to temple this weekend,” Jessica pressed.

“Uh.” Mingling with a churchful of sociable, wholesome, marriage-obsessed adolescent Mormons sounded like the absolute last thing I’d want to spend my evening doing. “That’s a really generous offer, but I’ll pass.”

“Well you have to do something,” Angela said. “You can’t just sit in your bedroom alone all weekend and stare at the wall and wallow in self-pity.”

We’ll see about that. I turned to Jess. “How’s Vodka Boy from your Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class? Did he ever reappear? What’s his name again, Elmo? Ellington? El Chapo?”

“Ellsworth.” She frowned as she slurped her patron-drink-of-Mormons Sprite. “And no, he definitely failed out or overdosed or something, because he never came back.”

“Tragic,” I noted.

“But I’m pretty sure Mike’s coming over this weekend, so we’ll see if I can get some Netflix and chill action going.”

“Jess,” Angela chastised, widening her eyes and nodding to me subtly (but not quite subtly enough). No talking about getting lucky in front of the heartbroken single loser, that look said.

“I think I can be emotionally supportive without taking a goddamn vow of chastity, Angela!” Jessica hurled back.

“I gotta go.” I stood, threw on my backpack, discarded my nearly untouched lunch.

“You’ve barely eaten anything!” Angela protested. “You’ve barely eaten for a week!”

“I’ll live.” I picked my umbrella up off the slippery tile floor—peppered with muddy shoeprints and pearlescent drops of water fallen from coats and limp, sopping locks of hair—and headed out into the pouring rain. I hated the rain. I hated it. Maybe I had forgotten that for a while, but it all came hurtling back now like a hurricane, like a hand cracking across my face. I ached for the desert, for blatant and unapologetic heat, for palm trees and cacti and naked stars in the night sky. I had been researching marine biology graduate programs in the Southwest. There were good ones at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, Texas A&M, the University of Southern California, UCLA. I would miss Charlie and Archer—and maybe Jessica and Angela on occasion—and absolutely nothing else about Forks. At least, that’s what I promised myself.

This is a no-giving-a-fuck-about-Lee-boys zone, I thought morosely.

Ben was brooding at our table in Professor Belvin’s classroom. It was the first time he’d shown up to Chemistry since that day Joe met me on the beach at La Push, since the place I’d once occupied in his universe had closed like a wound. I took my seat beside Ben. The window was shut today, the downpour outside torrential. Ben recoiled, just enough for me to notice; he was wearing his oversized black hoodie and practicing his Welsh, his handwriting messy and unbalanced.

“You could have warned me,” I said.

Ben didn’t glance up from his notebook. “Would that have made it any easier?”

“No,” I realized in defeat. I guess it wouldn’t have. I pulled my own notebook, my favorite pen, and a can of Diet Coke out of my backpack.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ben said. “You really need to know that. It had nothing to do with you. And none of us are happy with the current situation. None of us.”

None of them. That included Joe. “Interestingly, that didn’t stop him from creating it.”

Ben was thoughtful, debating his next words. “We’re probably going to be moving soon.”

“What?” I startled; my turquoise blue pen dropped out of my grasp and rolled across the table. Ben snatched it up and returned it to me. “Really?”    

“Yeah.”

“And what, just redo this whole college thing?”

Ben shrugged. “We’ll probably start our junior years over again. Gwil will say there was some horrible family tragedy and we needed a few semesters off. I could use the extra time to figure out Calc anyway. Parametric equations make me want to kill myself.”

I just stared at him. It didn’t make any sense. “But...why would the whole family leave Forks? Because of me? One pathetic, aggrieved human? Do you all pack up and relocate every time Joe fucks and dumps someone? That must be exhausting.”

“It’s better for everyone if we get some distance. Put more space between our world and yours.”

“But...” I tried to imagine never seeing any of them again: no Mercy humming merrily as she tossed handfuls of homegrown carrots to the alpacas, no Dr. Lee dabbing away my blood with an ageless sort of patience, no Scarlett or Lucy or Rami, no brief glimpses of Joe as he avoided me in the campus library. It’s exactly what I wanted; and yet it wasn’t. It so, so, so, so wasn’t. It keeps getting worse. How is that possible? My voice was flimsy and quivering, absolutely pitiful. Disgustingly pitiful. “Who will be my lab partner?”

Ben peered over at me with wide, confused green eyes. And then—gingerly, awkwardly, like holding an acquaintance’s baby for the first time—he laid his hand over mine. “I’ll miss you too.”

Professor Belvin lectured about coordinate covalent bonds. I didn’t absorb a word. I conjugated Italian verbs with my turquoise blue pen, sketched disordered whirlpools of ink, tried not to think about whether this was my last-ever Chemistry class with Ben, whether it was my last-ever weekend sharing Forks with the Lees. Those rageful, frantic thoughts were back. What did I do wrong? What didn’t I do right? Why did he have to leave?

My nomadic gaze caught on a flier on the wall next to our misted window. I had assumed it was a leaflet for some club or protest or seasonal dance that I would definitely not attend, but it wasn’t. It was a missing poster.

Have you seen this student? the flier asked in bold, businesslike black font. It was urgent, but not quite despairing; not yet, anyway. I could hear a Dean of Student Affairs cajoling some affluent, strings-of-pearls-adorned mother over the phone: Yes ma’am, you have my full attention and I can assure you that we’re very concerned, but I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding...he’s probably gone backpacking or sailing with some friends and forgotten to call home. You know how college students can be. Beneath a large photo of a grinning blond kid—pink polo, flushed cheeks, clever crop job to nix a can of Natty Light clutched in one fist—was a name: Ellsworth Jonathan Griffin.

Ellsworth, I thought, my stomach plummeting. The guy from Jessica’s Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class. He hadn’t failed out. He was missing. Missing like a 20/20 episode or a true crime podcast, missing like the pregnant stillness before a murder is confessed in some glaringly florescent-lit interrogation room, before a distended and bloodless corpse washes up on shore.

I turned to Ben. He noticed me eventually, crinkled his brow, shrugged in that way that seemed so petulant if you didn’t know him well enough to not be offended.

I pointed to the flier and raised my eyebrows. Ben twisted around in his chair to look. Then he sighed, scribbled a sentence in the corner of a piece of notebook paper, tore it free, and slid it across the table.

Ben’s note read, in atrocious penmanship: Are you seriously asking me if I ate that guy?

Maybe, I wrote back after a moment’s hesitation. Maybe that wasn’t exactly what I was asking; maybe I just wondered if he knew anything about it.

In either case, Ben’s reply was swift and resounding, and underlined three times: No.

Sorry, I wrote, abruptly remorseful. I am a jerk. And I added a frowny face for good measure. Ben chuckled when he saw it, shook his head, gave me a drawn little smirk. His words tiptoed around in my skull, leaving searing imprints like footprints in the sand. I’ll miss you too.

I have to forget about them. I drummed my turquoise blue pen against my notebook as Professor Belvin drew families of molecules on the whiteboard with squealing dry erase markers. I have to find a way to make myself forget.

Jessica was waiting for me in the hallway after class. It was part of her convince-Baby-Swan-not-to-jump-off-a-cliff initiative. “Hey.”

“Okay,” I told her with steely resolve. “I’m ready for you to set me up with one of those guys from your church or temple or whatever. I’m ready to be a nice wholesome wife, pop out like six kids, learn how to scrapbook, give up caffeine and horror movies, do the whole white picket fence thing. Sign me up.”

Jessica blinked at me. There were flecks of fallen mascara on her cheekbones like ashes. “What?”

“You’re a Mormon, right?”

“Girl, I’m not a Mormon,” Jessica said, puzzled. “I’m a witch.”

Lucille

I found Joe where he usually was these days: sprawled on the sofa, engulfed in the same blue Snuggie he’d been wearing for thirty-six uninterrupted hours, gazing catatonically at the big-screen tv. A 90 Day Fiancé marathon was on. Some rodentish guy named Colt was apologizing to his gorgeous, aspiring-green-card-holding Brazilian love interest for calling the cops on her during their last screaming match. He was also apologizing for the fact that they lived in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother. I didn’t need clairvoyance to see where their future was headed.

“Hey,” Ben said when he spotted me. He was sitting next to Joe and occasionally tried to shove pieces of popcorn into his mouth, which Joe accepted passively like coins plinked into a gumball machine. Ben had been his shadow for the past week; he was perhaps the best equipped of us to understand this degree of melancholy, of hopelessness.  

“Ciao.” And then, to Joe: “How are you?”

“Terrible,” he replied, not tearing his eyes from the tv.

“I figured.” I squeezed between them on the couch, curled up next to Joe, rested my chin on his shoulder. He ignored me completely. I could hear Mercy tapping at her laptop keyboard out in the dining room; she was browsing through Zillow listings in Portland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland. Dear god, please don’t let us end up in fucking Cleveland. “Guess what.”

Joe stared at the tv for a long time before he answered. “What.”

“I had a vision of you. Just now, as I was doing laundry. Crystal clear and very scenic too, I might add.”

“Fascinating,” Joe said flatly.

“What happened in this vision?” Ben asked, far more invested, which I was thankful for.

“It was pretty far away, maybe a year from now. I saw you in the desert at night, under a full moon. There were cacti everywhere. The shadow of the Milky Way was threaded through the sky, and the stars were very bright. I could make out the constellations Pegasus and Cassiopeia. You were filling up a tiny glass bottle with dirt.”

“That’s remarkably helpful,” Joe said.

“It is, a little bit,” I insisted. “It means you get through this. That you have a future. I get nervous when I go too long without a vision of someone in the family. But now I know you’re going to be okay.”

The reflections of the feuding 90 Day Fiancé couples danced in his glassy eyes. “Being alive doesn’t mean you’re okay.”

“That’s dark,” Ben said. “Even I think that’s too dark.” He pushed a handful of popcorn into Joe’s mouth. “Are you gonna hunt at some point or what?”

“No.”

“You’re just gonna sit on this couch and waste away?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to bring you anything? Grizzly bear? Brown bear? Fuck it, I’ll get you a polar bear if that’s what you want. There’s probably some on the black market. Rami would know.”

“He what?” Mercy called from the kitchen. Her typing had stopped.

“Nothing, Mom!” I shot back.

“I don’t want anything,” Joe said. That was a lie, of course. We all knew what he wanted. Rami couldn’t stand to be around him; the thoughts were relentless, smothering.

I linked my arms around Joe’s neck, laid my head against his chest, sighed deeply and mournfully. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I know that doesn’t fix anything. But I’m so, so sorry. And I’ll help however I can. We all will.”

And I had accepted that Joe wasn’t going to respond at all when he finally whispered: “I just wish I could forget.”

Cato

My rolling suitcase snagged on the cobblestone driveway. The tiny spinning wheels bashed against concrete as I scaled the front steps. As the taxi pulled away, I dug around in my suit pocket for my keys, found them, unlocked the enormous front door, stepped inside the palace as my suitcase trolled along the marble floor.

“Cato’s back!” Charity announced as she breezed down the nearest staircase, beaming and embracing me. She was a lovely, innately warm woman from Pointe-Noire, Congo; she still wore the silver cross necklace her mother had once given her around her neck. “Did you have a nice flight? Wait, let me check.” She pressed the fingertips of her right hand to my cheek. I felt the memories rush up like blood to a flushed face: the bite of sipped champagne against my tongue, the thin semi-transparent newspaper pages gliding between my fingers, the husky voice of the bearded, bearish naval officer who sat in the seat beside me, the misted silhouette of Vladivostok as it rose up out of the Pacific Ocean. “Uneventful, but pleasant enough. You flew commercial?”

“The jets were otherwise occupied, apparently.” Charity could see things with the predictability and precision that Lucy so often lacked, but only the past. I pushed her hand away. “Was that really necessary?”

“You’re not mad,” Charity declared, confident, impish, helping me shed my suit jacket and draping it over her arm. “You’re never mad.”

She was very nearly correct. “Where are the rest of the kids?”

“In the kitchen. Go say hello, they’ve missed you dreadfully.”

“I know the feeling.” I kicked off my Berlutis, ran a palm over the wiry fur of the Irish Wolfhounds that appeared to greet me before they resumed padding watchfully around the palace, and went to the kitchen, my black socks slipping a bit on the marble floors.

I could hear their voices before I reached the door: laughter, teasing, complaints, requests. The scents of pancakes and cold butter and maple syrup were thick in the air. Charity was one of our four newest recruits, and they all still had that energetic lightness of being human, a youthful enthusiasm, a relative normalness. I spent quite a lot of time with them. It was my job—to help with the transition, to keep them happy, to facilitate the welding of their individual parts into the beastly machine that was the Draghi—but oftentimes it felt more like a reprieve. Some would stay close to me as they matured, others would grow in different directions, like ambitious vines climbing the skeleton of a garden trellis. I usually missed them when they ‘grew up,’ so to speak...although there were exceptions. I had never liked Liesl. I had always liked Ben. I opened the door.

“Ah, you are home!” Ksenia cried from where she stood over the stove, a spatula in her right hand, bouncing excitedly in place on her small bare feet.

“Hey!” Max and Austin called together. They were both sitting with their shoes propped up on the unglamorous kitchen table. There was a massive formal dining room that could accommodate up to twenty-five guests, but we rarely used it.

“Good morning,” I said, aware that I was smiling for the first time in days.

Max groaned as he scrolled through his Google search results on a burner phone. “What the fuck. My name is one of the top five dog names again. I think I’m gonna have to change it.”

I ruffled his long blond hair, stealing a piece of bacon from his plate. Max had grown up a trust fund kid in Perth, Australia. His mother was old money; his father was a professional surfer. “Your name is fine.”

“Really, Kato Kaelin? Is it really? How am I supposed to intimidate people when I have a fucking dog name?”

“So make them call you Maximilian,” offered Ksenia in a heavy Ukrainian accent. She’d only been with us for eight months, but her English was coming along swimmingly. She flipped a massive A-shaped pancake on the sizzling griddle. That one was for Austin.

“Seriously?” Max said. “That is just way too many syllables. They’ll be halfway down the block by the time I’m done introducing myself. ‘Hey, come back mate, I haven’t killed ya yet.’”

“At least you aren’t stuck with a basic-white-boy-circa-1992 name for all of eternity,” said Austin Tyler McInerny, originally of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He was chomping on a multicolored Fruit Roll-Up, which swung from his mouth like a lizard’s tongue. He’d been working at an ailing skatepark when Larkin found him. He still enjoyed showing off his kickflips, and kept insisting that he was going to teach me how to ollie. I didn’t have the faintest idea what an ollie was.

“Do you want a pancake, Cato?” Ksenia asked, passing Austin his plate and wiping her hands on her pink apron. Her black hair was tied in a high ponytail with a matching rose-colored ribbon. She looked so young. She was so young, actually. Nineteen. And she would be forever.

“No, thank you dear. I’m alright.”

“I like Alaric,” Max decided. “First king of the Visigoths. Alaric is a name fit for a vampire. Creepy, yet dignified. Or maybe Silas. Or Draco.”

Austin shook his head as he swirled a river of viscous maple syrup over his A-shaped pancake. “Definitely not Draco.”

“Why not?”

“Well, the Harry Potter connection is unfortunate. People will hear Draco and think of that obnoxious white-haired kid from the evil snake-people house or whatever.”

“Oh, right,” Max sighed. “Like I said. Alaric would work.”

“So many A-shaped pancakes!” Ksenia poured a K on the griddle for herself.

“It’s good for you,” Austin replied, pointing at her with his fork. “We’re practicing English.”

“Alaric Luther,” Max mused, scrolling through his phone. I didn’t think he’d find that on any list of trendy dog names. “Alaric Lothaire...Alaric Lucian...”

“I like your name, Max,” Larkin said from the doorway. None of us had heard him arrive. He was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, wearing a deep maroon suit and a ring on every finger, grinning hugely. He was exactly as I remembered him: stunning, captivating, terrifying. The kitchen fell quiet. I could smell Ksenia’s pancake beginning to burn.

At last Max chuckled nervously, pushing soggy pancake hunks around on his plate with his fork, averting his gaze. “Guess I’ll keep it then.”

“I thought I heard you come in,” Larkin told me.

“It’s always a pleasure to be home.”

He nodded out towards the hallway. “Come. Regale me with the stories of your travels.” Then his eyes flicked down to my socks, and he grimaced—slightly, briefly—before turning away. “And find your shoes.”

I followed him through the hallway, the living room, the grand front foyer with the crystal chandelier, into the elevator. Larkin did not speak, but he hummed as we ascended: House Of The Rising Sun.

It hadn’t always been like this. It was difficult for me to pick out the details of what had changed—the tone of his voice, the proportion of wonder and gratitude I associated with him versus fear, the way this palace (or the one in Reykjavik, or Juneau, or Ivalo, or Murmansk, or any of the others) felt when I stepped inside it—but I knew something had. It had begun before Ben left. It was much worse now. Older vampires, in my fairly learned opinion, are something like the stars. They mellow as they age, temper their character flaws, grow wise and patient like Nikolai or Honora or Gwilym Lee; or they rage until they burn away every last atom of humanity, until they destroy themselves and take entire solar systems down with them. Increasingly, I harbored fears that Larkin was a vampire of the latter variety. And we were all his planets.

In his study, Larkin dropped into the chair behind his desk, brought a hand to his forehead, surveyed a disarrayed flurry of papers: letters, notices, deeds and titles, meticulously managed accounts of finances and disciplinary actions. Larkin had a laptop and burner phone, of course, as we all did; but he liked to work in paper as much as possible. That’s how he’d done things for centuries, since long before the name of the inventor of the internet (or harnessed electricity, for that matter) was a whisper on his parents’ lips. The sky outside was clouded and seeping soft rain.

“Things have been busy?” I ventured.

He frowned, gesturing to the cluttered desk. “I’m in purgatory.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that. Can I help?”

“The Lancaster coven says they’ll need an extension for their dues. That’s the second year in a row, now it’s not just an exception, it’s a precedent. If you let one coven bend the rules, others will follow. So something will have to be done. Then there’s Stockholm. Anders’ coven has eaten a few too many locals—including the mayor’s favorite niece—and now the city is launching an investigation. Fucking idiots. They’ll probably all have to relocate. There’s some new territory dispute in Lima between Alejandro’s coven and a group of strangers that just came out of the Andes. We’ll have to make their acquaintance, of course. And as if all that weren’t enough, Rigel accidentally fed on a heroin addict and he’s currently detoxing in a cell in the basement. Would you check on him for me? I’m sure your presence will be a...” He waved his hand distractedly, almost dismissively, searching for the words. “A comfort to him.”

“Of course.”

“How are the Lees?”

“Fine. Typical. Gwil’s putting in a lot of hours at the hospital. Rami’s planning to get another law degree. Ben is, uh, adjusting. Slowly, very slowly. He’s not particularly content. But he hasn’t murdered anyone that I’m aware of.”

“How nice.” Now his eyes darted up to catch mine: focused, luminous, unreadable. “Nothing new at all?”

And instantly, I wanted to tell him everything. I forgot why I had ever planned to blunt the girl’s existence, to conceal her talent entirely; I felt her name rising in my throat. And then I remembered again. I’m doing this for Gwil, for Ben.

I pretended to ponder Larkin’s question, as if it was so difficult to remember, as if there was nothing left to sift through but a trunkful of mundane details from the trip like a grandfather’s tattered correspondence and tarnished war relics. That was something an average family might have squirreled away in their attic, I assumed; I’d never met my own grandfather, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have had anything to leave me if I had. “Joe’s got some new girlfriend, but I don’t think it’s serious. I doubt she’ll be around long. You know how Joe is. Scarlett’s seeing someone too, actually. A Quileute kid.”

“Poor boy.” And Larkin grinned like a shark beneath burning eyes. “He’s in for a lifetime of disappointment. Who will ever be able to hold a candle to those memories?”

Larkin had a moderate preoccupation with Scarlett’s beauty, her...tenacity. Her lack of talent was a great disappointment to him, a somehow more egregious fault than Joe or Gwil or Mercy’s. What a shame, Larkin often said. And I believed I knew what came after in his mind, although never aloud: What a partner she could have been.

He was still grinning at me. His expression was hollow, vacuous. A shiver clawed down my spine. He was waiting for something. No, he was searching. I stared back, and I willed for that intangible, contagious harmony I carried around like a wedding ring to hit him like carbon monoxide or bromine: undetected and yet inexorable, knocking him off his path of inquisition.

What does he suspect? What does he already know?

“Anyway,” Larkin continued abruptly, turning his attention back to his paperwork. “I’m glad there’s nothing to worry about in Forks. Liesl will be back in the next few days, Rigel will be ready to work again, I’ll come up with a plan to handle all this and my mood will improve tremendously.”

And where has Liesl been? I almost asked; and then I didn’t. It was a good sign that she was coming home. I had looked for her once while I was in Forks. When I made up my mind to find someone—when that switch flipped in my skull or in the tangle of nerves of my solar plexus or wherever it lived—it wasn’t like poking around on Google Earth: zooming in here, scrolling over there. A goldish trail lit up on the floor, a ‘Yellow Brick Road’ Honora and I sometimes joked, and I followed it. And I had no way of knowing how far that trail might lead. A route heading dead east from the palace might stop in the next town over or continue across the Pacific Ocean; my search might last one day or a hundred. In Forks—as I perched in a soaring western hemlock tree in the forest outside the Lee residence on a cool October evening—Liesl’s trail had led north. North to Vancouver, to Victoria, to Dawson, to Alaska? Who the fuck knew. I was just relieved it hadn’t led to the tree next to mine.

“Well, as always, I’m happy to assist however I can,” I told Larkin. “Just let me know and I’ll be on the next flight out of Vladivostok.”

“I appreciate that, Cato.” He smiled, paternally this time. And then he spun his chair around to peer out the window into the episodic flares of lightning that illuminated great dark clouds like neurons in a celestial brain. I hate thunderstorms. They remind me of South Carolina. “But I think you’ve earned a rest.”

After checking in on Rigel—irritable, frenetic, pacing, and yet predictably pacified somewhat by my visit—I trotted up the main staircase to the second floor of the palace. I found her in our bedroom: sitting at her easel, a paintbrush held in one graceful hand, an image like a photograph on the canvas. I promptly pried off my Berlutis for the second time today and tossed them into the closet.

“Ciao, amore,” I said.

“Ciao!” Honora replied, beaming. Her curly brunette hair was pinned up and away from her face; wayward tendrils spiraled down to brush her bare shoulder blades, the back of her neck. “Just give me five minutes...I have to finish the shadow of this tree...”

There weren’t many in the Draghi who survived the transition from Nikolai’s leadership to Larkin’s, but Honora had. She was gentle to a fault, a hopeless warrior, turned into an immortal on her forty-fourth birthday when Rome was still an empire; and she was without any talents whatsoever, except for one which was useless in combat. Her paintings, drawings, and sculptures adorned every palace the Draghi owned. Each year, Larkin would ask her to paint all of us together, incorporating any new faces, erasing the memories of those who had proven themselves unworthy. One such portrait, I knew, hung in Gwilym Lee’s home office.

I went to the woman I called my wife, laid my palms on her shoulders, leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “Take your time, love.”

“Everything’s alright?” Honora asked, looking hopefully up at me with large, wide-set jade eyes. No, not just hopefully. Trustingly.

“Everything’s alright,” I agreed, not knowing if I believed it.

Shadows And Spells

“He just...just...disappeared?!” Jessica sputtered, scandalized, gaping at me as she held a Styrofoam cup of spiked apple cider in her clasped hands.

We were on a quilt near the outskirts of the sea of beach towels and blankets that circled the bonfire. Women—wearing flowing dresses or robes or tunics or not very much at all—flounced around the flames banging tambourines and reciting chants that I didn’t know the words to. Some carried torches, beacons of heat and light in the darkness. Jessica was wearing a short black shirt, fishnet tights, and a black crop-top turtleneck sweater; I had opted for a bohemian blue dress patterned with stars, an old thrift shop find and the closest thing I owned to Wiccan festivities apparel. I had a cup of hot apple cider as well, enhanced with a generous splash of Captain Morgan, but hadn’t quite conjured up the rebelliousness to drink it yet.

I suddenly recalled Mercy bringing me an endless supply of virgin autumnal sangrias as Joe and I swam in the hot tub on the Lees’ back porch. As soon as you turn twenty-one, you can have the real thing. I frowned, shuddered, took a bitter and burning sip.

“Yeah,” I replied. “He told his roommate he was going to a frat party or something and never showed up and never made it back home either. The parents are blaming the university, the university is insisting he must be off with a girlfriend or on some hipster soul-searching nature adventure or whatever, it’s a mess.”

“Jesus,” she murmured. “What does your dad say?”

“He’s been helping the state police with the investigation. There’s really no evidence of anything. No witnesses, no footprints, no surveillance footage, no handy anonymous tips...”

“No body,” Jessica finished.

“That’s morbid.” I downed the rest of my cider. Was the world already beginning to list like a ship on choppy waves, or was that just my imagination? I guess it would be possible. I’d barely eaten all day.

“You were thinking it.”

“Well, one’s mind does tend to wander towards homicide under such circumstances.”

“It is the season of the dead.” She grinned wickedly, then took my empty cup. “He’s probably fine. I bet he wants to drop out to become a weed farmer and hasn’t worked up the guts to tell his parents yet. You want another?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. I’ll be right back.” Jess rose to balance on black boots with five-inch heels and staggered off to the foldable table piled high with cans and bottles and snacks. I was getting the impression that her Wiccanism was more of a novelty than a spiritual commitment.

The season of the dead. Now that’s VERY morbid.

There were some guys laughing, smoking home-rolled cigarettes, and toasting glasses of red wine on a nearby mandala blanket, bespectacled intellectual types who were probably getting PhDs in Anthropology or Medieval Studies at the University of Washington. One of them—curly-haired, pale-eyed, wearing a sweater vest and a cautious smile—raised his wine glass in my direction. I waved back without much enthusiasm.

“He’s cute, right?” Jessica asked, plopping back down onto our quilt and shoving a full cup of spiked cider into my grasp. She motioned for me to drink. I did. “That’s Sebastian, but he likes to be called Bash. He’s twenty-three and speaks fluent German.”

“Charming.”

“He’s very...uh...gifted. I’m not saying I know from personal experience, but I’ve heard it from a very reliable source. And his parents own a beach house in Monterey. You could go skinny-dipping.”  

“In the ocean?” The world was definitely wobbling now. I was warm all over, numbed, fuzzy; it was becoming difficult to picture Joe’s face, to hear his voice. This was good. I kept drinking. “No thanks. Too many sharks. They have great whites down there.”

Jess tossed her long, loose hair and sighed impatiently. “I’m just saying that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. So you should pursue that.”

“I’ll totally consider it.” I lied. I would not consider it.

She smiled, sympathetically, fondly. “I can’t believe you thought I was a Mormon.”

“I can’t believe I’m out in the Washington wilderness commemorating the Gaelic festival of Samhain, but here we all are.”

Jess glanced over my shoulder. “Oh my god. He’s coming over here.”

“Ugh.” I craned my neck to see. Sebastian—whoops, my mistake, Bash—was approaching. “Please distract him. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Also I’m pretty sure I’m getting drunk and I don’t want to do anything humiliating, like sob uncontrollably about how much I miss my ex-boyfriend.”

“Don’t worry. I gotchu, Baby Swan.”

“Hey Jess,” Bash said, but he was looking at me. He pitched his cigarette off into the trees. What the fuck, who does that?

“Only you can prevent forest fires,” I told him in a woozy, mock-Smokey Bear voice.

“What?” he asked, baffled.

“Ignore her, she’s drunk,” Jess said quickly. “So what’s up? Come on, sit with me. Keep me toasty. Teach me some German...”

As they chatted and giggled and snuggled closer together—I’m starting to think that Jessica might have been her own reliable source—I studied the forest, watching to make sure the cigarette didn’t begin to smolder in the damp brush. The voices and crackling of the bonfire and sharp ringing of the tambourines faded into one muted, uniform drone. The trees reeled in the haze of the spiked cider; the cool wind moaned through them. And then, for only a second: a glimpse of something impossibly quick, something silvery and reedy and sunless.

What was that?

I blinked. It was gone. I blinked again, staring penetratingly. The swarming heat from the cider evaporated from my skin, my blood. There were goosebumps rising all over me.

What the hell was that?

I remembered how Calawah University students sometimes reacted to Ben: flinching, withdrawing, autonomically fearing him on some primal, evolutionary level. They knew he was a predator. They knew they were prey. It was chillingly similar to what I was feeling now.

I have to get out of here. I have to go home.

I shot to my feet. Oh, wrong move, that was too quick. I swayed, and Jessica reached up to steady me. “Are you—?!”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I gotta go home now.”

“What?! We just got here! Look, chill out, let me get you some vegan samosas or something—”

“No, seriously, I have to go.”

“Okay, okay,” Jessica conceded. “I’ll finish my drink and we’ll call an Uber, alright?”

“Really?” Bash asked, crestfallen.

“I’ll call an Uber,” I told Jess. “You stay, I’ll go.” Maybe she shouldn’t stay, I thought foggily, irrationally. Maybe it’s not safe.

“I can’t let you go alone. I got you drunk and now you’re a mess and if you end up murdered it would be my fault. There are unsolved mysteries going around, you know.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Girl, there’s no way I’m gonna—”

“I’ll call you as soon as I get in the Uber and I’ll stay on until I’m physically inside my house, okay?”

Jessica considered this. Bash leaned in to nibble her ear. I could smell the red wine and nicotine and animalistic lust sweating out of his pores. And unexpectedly, agonizingly: a biting flare, a muscle memory, Joe’s fingertips skimming down the small of my back and his scent like winter nights saturating the capillary beds of my lungs. Stop, stop, stop. “Okay,” Jess agreed at last.

“Awesome.” I was already opening the Uber app on my iPhone.

My driver was a Pacific Northwestern version of Santa Claus: wild grey beard, red flannel, L.L.Bean boots, rambling about his upcoming trip to hunt caribou in British Columbia. I honored my promise to Jessica and kept her on speakerphone for the duration of the twenty-minute drive. I rested my whirling head against the seat, let my eyes dip closed, watched the intermittent streetlights appear and disappear through my eyelids. I let myself into Charlie’s house when I arrived, wished Jessica goodnight (and reminded her not to get pregnant), and meandered clumsily into the kitchen for a glass of water and a cookie dough Pop-Tart to ward off a possible hangover. Charlie was snoring quietly on the living room couch. I watched him for a while, smiling and achingly grateful, before heading upstairs to my bedroom.

My window was wide open; that’s the first thing I noticed. I didn’t remember leaving it that way. I was always neglecting to lock the window, sure—I kept forgetting that there was no one to leave it unlocked for anymore—but I hadn’t left it open when I went to meet Jessica this evening. Icy night air flooded in. The stars were bright and furious in an uncommonly clear sky.

“You trying to give me pneumonia, old man?” I muttered, thinking of Charlie. I tossed my iPhone down onto my bed and crossed the room to close the window. And as it creaked and collided with the sill, I heard my closet door open behind me.

Someone’s here. Someone’s in this room with me.

I turned, very slowly; it felt like it took a lifetime. She was standing in the doorway of my closet, sinuous and white-haired, wearing black leather pants and stiletto heels and a long-sleeved lace blouse the color of blood, the color of her eyes. And she was harrowingly beautiful; not like Lucy or Mercy, not like Scarlett. She was beautiful like a prehistoric jawbone, like a serrated crescent moon, like a blade.

The owl. The goddamn albino owl.

I recognized her immediately. I heard Joe’s words as he introduced each vampire in the immense painting hanging in Dr. Lee’s upstairs office to me, though I desperately didn’t want to: She’s literally Satan, only blonder.

Her name tumbled from my trembling lips. “Liesl.”

“Wonderful, we can skip the introductions.” Her voice was like windchimes, cutting and brisk, with a hint of an Austrian accent like a shadow. Now she was at my bedside and picking up my phone, scrolling through it with lightning-quick and dexterous thumbs. “Hm. No texts from any of the Lees in the past week. So we don’t have to worry about them dropping by, I suppose. Joe got bored with you already, huh?”

“Evidently.” My own voice was brittle, anemic, weak; just like my ineffectual human body.

“That’s quick, even for him. How sad.” She sighed, tucking my iPhone into her red Chanel purse. “There’s a private jet waiting at the Forks Airport. Pack a bag. You have five minutes.”

“Please don’t hurt my dad,” I whispered, scalding tears brimming in my eyes.

“Of course not,” Liesl replied with a savage, saccharine smile. “Not yet, anyway.”

[imgoingtohellsofuckit]

Hope Can’t Fix Everything pt 2

Jasper x Human! Reader

Warnings - angsty 

Summary - Jasper tries to make it right

part one 

Jasper had royally fucked up. And he knew it. He knew that he ruined his chance with his mate. One mistake would destroy the entire lifetime they were supposed to have together. Carlisle made Jasper skip the next week of school. Mostly to get him to calm down. But also to make sure nothing else happened. Progress into vegetarianism for vampires isn't exactly linear mistakes are bound to happen. Carlisle honestly was expecting for a slip up- if not from Jasper then from one of the others. However the slip up wasn't what was crushing Jasper. Sure he felt absolutely terrible for snapping on his mate but- seeing that his mate was terrified of him, disgusted by him. He was crushed. And with having to stay home and away from everyone else was just causing him to spiral.

Finally after a week Jasper went back to school. But he didn't feel any comfort. He learned from Alice and Bella that Y/n didn't tell anyone anything that happened. They kept their near death a secret. However he also learned that they were avoiding the Cullen clan as much as she can. He didn't know if them not telling was a good thing. If it meant that maybe they could talk about it- or if they just didn't know how to explain it to anyone else with out sounding crazy.

"You freak!"

"Mr. Hale," The teacher calls snapping him from replaying the memory for the millionth time. "Are you okay?"

Jasper wanted to laugh. Okay? No. He's never been okay. Not in his 100 plus years of being a vampire has he once been okay. No that is a lie. He was okay with Y/n. He finally felt like he had something in his life that made his eternal life worth something. And he scared that meaning away.

"Yes sir," Jasper says softly, "just tired."

He could feel the eyes of a couple of his classmates on him. Watching him curiously.

"I heard he and Y/n broke up," The girl behind him whispers to her friend, "apparently it was messy."

"Where did you hear that?" The friend asks.

"Everyone is talking about it," The girl says, "Mary Spencer said she saw then go up to the Lake Frisky then saw Y/n flying out of there a hour later. Apparently in such a hurry she almost hit Mary. And I haven't seen the two as much as look at each other since he got back."

"Wow," The friend says, "what do you think happened?"

"Who knows," The girl says, "Tracey Catcher thinks that Jasper is hooking up with one of his adopted sisters. The little one Alice. Maybe Y/n found out."

Jasper scoffs lightly. This is stupid. Listening to everyone talk like they know what's happening. Feeling the emotions of everyone in the room as they pry and poke into his failed attempt of a love life. He feels his own anger bubble up. Getting more and more intense as he catches more of the harsh whispers. Before he can snap the bell rings loudly. Bringing him back to his senses. He sighs slipping from the classroom to the lunchroom. He meets the others at their lunch table. However the complete lack of you in your spot at the table makes his heart ache.

"Jasper," Alice says softly as he sits down, "how are you holding up?"

He doesn't say anything. Instead his eyes search the cafeteria for his mate. Looking over the mess of kids at tables. Finally he sees them across the lunchroom. Sitting with a couple of their friends. They don't seem interested in whatever their friends are talking about. He watches them as they pick at their lunch. He wishes he could read minds and figure out what he needs to say to make this all better. But then he thinks about all things that could be on their mind. Things he couldn't handle. Your perspective of the memory.

"Jasper get out of your head," Edward says carefully.

"How about you get out of my head," Jasper says firmly.

"Jasper you need to calm down," Rose says, "getting mad at Edward while amusing, isn't going to fix your problems."

"I just- how do I even begin to fix this?" Jasper says softly, "I almost killed them. They begged me to stop to back away and I ignored them. I'm a monster."

"You sound like Edward," Emmet says laughing lightly.

"This is serious," Jasper says, "what do I even say? What do I do?"

"You need to talk to them," Alice says simply, "try to explain. Try to make them understand. Promise it won't happen again."

"And what if it does?" Jasper asks softly, "what if it happens again but you guys don't get there fast enough huh? What if I killed them?"

"Jasper you aren't thinking-" Bella says softly.

"He is," Edward says, "he thinks we all should leave."

"Oh come on we saw how that worked out with Bella," Rose says.

"It was different then," Jasper says, "Bella wanted to hang on. Y/n doesn't want to. They want normal. A average life with kids and a big house in a sunny place. I can't give that to them."

"Jas," Alice says softly.

"This is your mate," Rose says, "and you'd leave them?"

"I'd rather them be happy and alive then be with me and regret everything," Jasper says, "it's the best decision. And after what happened. I don't need to put their laugh at risk. It was stupid of me."

"You can't leave your mate," Bella says, "you love them."

"I do love them and that's why I'm making this choice," Jasper says, "I can't trust myself not to hurt them. It's not your decision it's mine. And I've made my mind up. We're leaving. Carlisle is already preparing for us to leave."

"You're making a mistake-"

"Maybe I am," Jas says, "but if it saves their life... I don't really care."

No one else could argue. Because at the end of the day... They believed he was right. None of them think he'd ever hurt his mate on purpose but... on accident. Another incident like the last one. It's possible and sure leaving his mate hurts but watching them die. Know he caused it. That would be a whole other level of pain. He wouldn't be able to live like that. So the Cullens decided to move again. As they were preparing the move Jasper was sneaking every last glance at you. Trying to memorize their body, their scent. Everything about them. If he has to leave he wants to prepare to severe the ties. Not that it was hard. Y/n wanted nothing to do with him. Swapping seats, ignoring his texts. Not sparing him even so much as a passing glance.

'It's for the better' Jasper reminds himself. If he disappears like this- when they already clearly doesn't want him around them then it won't hurt them. It won't break them like leaving broke Bella. They won't try to do anything to bring Jasper back. They'll let the relationship fade into nothing but memories. Just like it needs to.

After a couple days they had everything packed. Loaded up and ready to go. Esme and Carlisle had went ahead to get everything ready at the newest house. Everyone else was getting ready to leave. However they remained with Jasper as he stalls. His focus on a box full of things.

"Are you ready?" Alice asks Jasper. The blond looks down at the picture of him and his mate. He bites his lip lightly. No. He doesn't want to leave. He wants to pull his mate into his arms and hold them until the end. He doesn't want to run away.

"I want a minute," He says softly, "ya know to collect my thoughts."

"Okay," Alice says, "we'll be on our way then. Come on guys." Rose and Emmet leave with her. However Bella stays back for a second.

"Jasper," She says softly, "you know they deserve closure for all this."

"The closure is me leaving," Jasper says, "I can't hurt them if I'm not here."

"Whatever," Bella says, "I can't make you do this right. Come on Edward."

The two join the other vampires starting to pack into their cars. The go, leaving Jasper alone in the empty house. He sighs as he stares into the box of his things from his relationship. Pictures, mementos from dates, things she'd give him. He felt guilty. He felt like the world was punishing him for his past sins. As if Y/n being his mate was a cruel joke fate was playing on him. Give him the most amazing soulmate then just- make him not able to be with them. Not trust himself to protect them. To save them from himself. Hw wants to trust his hope. That maybe somehow someway he'd see them again. And they'd be able to be happy. He wants to hope for that future. But fate would never let him have it.

"So the rumors are true?" He hears a soft voice asks. He looks away from the box and turns to see his mate. His eyes widen. This can't be real. There is no way they are actually here. But it looks so real. His mate. His love. Right there. So close he could touch them. He wants to. He wants to take their hand and pull them into a soft kiss. But he knows that will only make it more painful. "You're really moving away and you aren't even saying goodbye."

"Carlisle got a new job," He lies, "a town needing doctors..."

"Bella told me you were leaving because of me," They say softly making whatever his lie was going to be pointless, "said that I should come down here and talk to you before you leave."

"You didn't have to," He says, "it was a bad idea. You should go home."

"I think I deserve an explanation," They say, "I mean- I wanna know what happened at the lake."

He tenses. He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to go over it. He wanted to just move on. Just leave. Run away from his problems.

"It's only fair to me," They say softly, "if you get to just leave- then I get to know."

"I'm leaving so you don't need an explanation," Jas says, "I'm leaving so you can forget what happened and me."

"I don't want to forget you Jas," They say.

"Well you should," Jasper says, "I'm not good for you."

"You don't get to decide that," They say firmly, "you don't know if you're too good for me."

"Y/n I am a monster!" Jasper snaps, "I almost killed you at the lake. If my family was any later you'd be dead. If I'm around you won't be safe."

"But I'll have you," They mumble.

"That's stupid," Jasper says, "you'd risk your life to be around a monster-"

"You're not a monster," They say, "I know you Jasper you are a great guy-"

"I'm a beast," He says, "you know that. I could kill you. I can tell how you feel. And you're scared. You're afraid of me."

"I'm afraid of losing you," They say tearing up, "Jasper I love you! I want you to stay here with me. Whatever you're going through- whatever is happening to you. I want to be there for you. To support you- to ease the pain. Because I am in love with you Jasper."

He wants to pull them in his arms and never let go. But he knows that it's dangerous. That he shouldn't be allowed to be this close to them after what happened. He backs away.

"Jasper please just talk to me," They say, "what's happening?"

"I am not normal," He says, "I'm a vampire- I'm a monster. I kill people." They stay silent. "I've killed so many people. Sometimes I don't mean it. And I tried to stop. But its so strong- the hunger.  The bloodlust- When I look at you it's so painful because I won't to protect you but I also want to devour you."

"You wouldn't hurt me," They say boldly.

"I almost killed you."

"You hesitated," They point out, "and when they knocked you away you stopped."

"That means nothing," Jasper says, "who is to say that they could do that again?"

"I say they won't have to," Y/n says, "because you won't hurt me. Because I know you love me as well."

"Y/n I'm leaving tonight," He says, "there is no changing my mind."

"So you leave," They say, "fine- I wanna come with you."

"No you have a life here- you have family here," He says, "you'll get the life you want if you stay away from me-"

"The life I want is with you," They say, "Jasper don't walk away from us."

"I'm doing this for you," He says, "I doing this to keep you alive. I'm doing this because i love you so much and I want you to have everything you've always wanted." They move closer taking his hands into theirs.

"Jas-"

"I need to be stronger if I want to be with you," he says, "I need to have more control. And I will make sure I have that control and maybe if you'll still have me- then we can get together. But now? I can't risk hurting you- or losing you. So please. Please understand I'm not doing this without thinking. Because I've thought of every alternative and this is the only solution that will work."

"Jas," They whimper.

"I promise this won't be the end of us," He says, "one day- we'll find each other again."

Y/n moves pulling Jasper into a soft kiss. He moves deepening it. Making the one kiss last for all the years they won't have each other. After a while he finally breaks the kiss so his partner can breath.

"I'm sorry," He says softly.

"I love you Jasper," They say.

"I love you Y/n," He says, "we'll meet again."

He hugs them tightly. Then steps from the house climbing into his car. He'll see them again. He has hope that he'll see them again.

@whattheheckisevengoingon @treestarrrrrrrr​ @thequeendesi​

[ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes]

Roguish Women Part 49

Summary: Kate is an American who fled to Paris to escape her past life. Now she's dancing and  playing the part of a courtesan at the Moulin Rouge. There she meets Tommy Shelby who thinks she can be useful in expanding his empire. But has he been blinded?

Part 49: Neither Kate nor Tommy can remain idle for very long. 

//Sorry for such a delay. School has been so tough this semester but this week is finals so I'll be back to writing in no time. I think Helen's death really took the wind out of my sails too. I still haven't really gotten over it. I take celebrity deaths so badly. 

            But by the time Tommy had returned, however, his own bride had gone missing. Alice pointed him outside again, this time on the back patio. Grateful for some time alone with her, Tommy left the rowdy party inside.

            Kate was sitting on a garden wall; her back was to the party as she overlooked Arrow House’s great lawns. Tommy shrugged off his coat and draped it over her arms.

            The soft-touch of the fabric knocked her out of her own thoughts. “Did you find Alfie?”

            “Yeah, he was out on the steps.” Tommy sat down next to her.

            “Oh good. Mabel was sure he had gotten cold feet and ran.”

            “He’s not going anywhere. Never thought I’d see that man in love. Guess I’ve seen it all now.”

            Kate laughed softly and leaned into his side. Her eyes were still lingering over the grassy hills where grasshoppers chirped and a few owls surveyed hidden in their trees. “This place is bigger than the block I grew up on in Boston.” She remarked. “I’d always grown up wondering where those great outdoors were. Where there was almost nothing for miles and miles. You couldn’t see the end of it. I thought someday I’d go out west and maybe just disappear out there.”

            “I would’ve joined you.” Tommy agreed. “I wanted to a cowboy when I was growing up.”

            Kate smiled and tried to picture young Tommy Shelby pretending to be an outlaw. In a way, he had become one. They both had. “I guess the city isn’t so bad when you’ve got people you care about there. Still, it’s nice to know that there are places where city stuff doesn’t matter.”

            Tommy knew there were things they could never escape. But there was no use destroying the illusion.

            “I was thinking if we had a boy, we could name him after John.” Kate glanced over at her husband. “Arthur and I were talking about it. I guess we could nickname him Jack to make things easier. But I thought it would be a nice honor.”

            Tommy nodded. “I think that’s a nice idea.” There was a hole in his heart that his younger brother had left. So many times, he was tempted to pick up the phone and call him. But then the realization trickled over him like cold water. Esme had taken many things but there were items Tommy still had. Letters and an old schoolbook that John had written all over. The binding was coming loose and the pages were yellowing, but Tommy would never throw it away. He had learned early on to keep little mementos of people before they were gone. He had nothing from his mother. No one did. It was almost like she never existed because there was no trace of her left. It was something he regretted and a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

            He took Kate’s hand in his, squeezing it gently. “What we have girls?”

            “Then one of them will be Jacquelyn.”

            He chuckled. “You always have a plan for everything, don’t you?”

            “Well, I learned from the best.” She murmured and pulled him close for a deep kiss.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

            The day was warm as Kate stepped outside. But there were clouds coming in from the horizon. She took her time walking across the patio to the lawns. She went to stand on top of the hill that overlooked the rest of the fields on Arrow House’s land.

            There, she could spot Tommy coming from the forest trails on Blue. He had the horse on a loose rein, letting him lope across the grass. May had told Kate it was a miracle the gelding responded so well to Tommy. According to May, the horse had a fiery temper but that didn’t seem to bother Tommy in the slightest. Kate had a feeling he enjoyed the challenge. She knew he’d been itching for something to do. Between being on holiday and waiting for the due date, Tommy was getting stir-crazy. Having a young horse to focus on training was good enough of a distraction. At least for the time being.

            Blue’s hooves were heavy against the ground as he trotted up the gradual hill to Kate.

            “I thought I’d find a cowboy out here.”

            Tommy chuckled and dismounted. “Were you waiting for me long?”

            “No, I just came out. I was worried you were going to get caught in that storm coming.”

            Tommy took Blue’s reins in hand and began walking with Kate back to the stables. “A little rain doesn’t bother me.”

            “Well, I didn’t want Blue to be spooked. I think it might thunder.”

            He patted the gelding’s shoulder. “He’ll learn to get used to the noises. Warhorses always get used to the noises.”

            Kate noticed the faraway look in his eyes. “I hardly think Blue would be a warhorse. Deserves a better life than that, don’t you think?”            

            “Hm.” He nodded but didn’t seem to really hear her.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~

            The sky had gone completely dark by the time they reached the stables. Tommy got Blue untacked while Kate combed out his mane. But the horse was starting to pick up on the storm brewing. His nostrils flared and he tossed his head.

            “Sh, sh, easy.” Kate soothed and stroked his neck. “It’s alright.”

            Tommy took Blue off the cross ties. “He’ll settle in his stall.”

            Kate put the mane comb away and wandered to the stable doors. In an instant, it began to pour. Heavy raindrops smattered against the gravel walkway back to the house. The wind picked up and rushed through the budding trees.

            Every time it rained; Kate felt washed over with memories. She didn’t know why the weather had such an impact on her. But there was only so much she could do when the sky was putting on such a violent display.

            Tommy wrapped an arm around her waist. “Guess we’ll be stuck here for a bit.”

            “It’ll go as soon as it came.” She said quietly.

            “Want to sit?”

            “Oh, yes, that would be a good idea.” Sometimes when she was lost in her thoughts, she forgot the burden of carrying twins.

            Tommy grabbed a stool from the tack room to let her sit. Kate sighed and watched some of the rainwater trickling into the stable aisle.

            As if reading her mind, Tommy slid the doors shut. The rain was muffled and mixed with the sound of the horses stirring in their stalls. Blue poked his head out, snorting uneasily.

            “Y’know, it rained one of the last few days I was at the Moulin Rouge,” Kate said. If they were going to be stuck in the stables until the rain ebbed, she figured it would be a good idea to talk. “And I realized that sometimes the worst comes before the good.”

            Tommy sat down on a bale of hay next to her. “I’ve found that too.”

            She smiled. “So maybe with all we’ve been through so far, it opens us up for happiness the rest of our lives.”

            “Kate, I want nothing more than for you to be happy.”  

            “I know, so I guess I…” She chewed on her lip. “I don’t want to sound like an awful person saying this, but I don’t want to lie to you either.”

            Tommy reached over to lift her chin. “Tell me.”

            “I hope that during this holiday you’re taking, you’ll realize there’s more to life than clawing your way to the top.” Kate took his hand in hers. “I hope you’ll see that maybe you were destined for better things. You said how you wanted to work with horses. You have plenty of money to just do that. To retire and-” Her voice faded when she realized she was losing him.

            His blue eyes were steady on their entwined hands. “I can’t stay still, Kate.” He whispered. “Not since the war. If I stay still, if I stop moving forward…everything catches up to me.”

            Kate understood completely. When she was running from Santo all those years, she never felt safe in one spot. Physically or psychologically. If she kept moving, she felt she was steps ahead of her opponents. Steps ahead of the turmoil she’d left behind. If she kept moving, she could forget about her mother’s death. She couldn’t ask Tommy to stand still and let it all catch up to him.

            “I understand.”

            Tommy brought her hand to his lips, gently kissing her knuckles. “It’ll be alright.” He promised. “The holiday will be fine. We’ll be busy soon enough.”

            Kate smiled but felt a little deflated. If only there was something she could do to help her husband. But it felt impossible.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~

            The rain let up just enough for Tommy and Kate to hurry back to the house. Thunder rumbled across the sky and the wind tore across the countryside with a vengeance. Kate didn’t like to think she was superstitious, but she was getting an ominous feeling that she couldn’t shake.

            The windowpanes rattled after dinner from the thunder that was still getting closer. Kate retired to bed before Tommy but she couldn’t sleep. Instead, she paced by the windows. There wasn’t much to see outside. It was too dark and raining too hard. But Kate she could see shadows on the lawns. A chill ran up her spine when a crack of lightning flashed across the sky.

            She gasped when she swore that she could see a menacing figure standing outside. In her panic and fear, her brain conjured up an image of Santo. The floorboards behind her creaked and she couldn’t help but let out a scream.

            “Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Tommy turned on the light and rushed over to her.

            So startled, Kate began to cry.

            “What’s wrong?” He pulled her close.

            “I’m just s-so scared, Tom.”

            “There’s nothing to be afraid of, love, I would never let anything bad happen to you.” Tommy kissed her temple and rubbed her back. “What spooked you?”

            But Kate was too petrified to answer. Every roll of thunder and every flash of lightning made her shake. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. “I-I’m just scared.”  It was scarce, the number of times Kate admitted to being afraid of anything. No one needed to know her fears. If they did, she was certain they would just use those fears against her. Some sort of manipulative tool. But there were times, like in that moment, she couldn’t contain her anxiety. There was no telling why, but so many things were coming up to the surface that night. Perhaps she had remained idle for too long as well.

Permanent Tag: @papa-geralt-of-cirilla @biba3434 @kimmietea @enrapturedbythemoon @vampgirl1997 @tarafaithe @evelynshelby

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[danwhobrowses]

One Piece 1000 - 10 Confessions as a One Piece Fan

Although we did the Initial Thoughts a week ago (a long week ago, damn) which you can read here I wanted to do something for the official release of One Piece’s 1000th Chapter At first it started out to be ‘10 things I wanna ask Oda that I don’t think we’ll ever know’ but I couldn’t think of 10, then I was gonna do a General opinion post about it, but didn’t want it to come off too negative. So I am settling on a confessions post, which will have elements of these anyway.

So as we have a happy 1000, let’s talk about some stuff I usually don’t get to talk about in One Piece

Note: There will probably be spoilers so make sure you’re up to date

10. Late Beginnings I think the first confession I have to have is that despite being older than One Piece I am unfortunately not a ‘Day One’ fan. In fact I think I mainly got into One Piece around mid-Whole Cake Island arc, before I had of course known about One Piece, it was a ‘Big Three’ anime after all but the most I knew about it was that they had a guy named Luff-y and another called Zorro, and it was about ‘Pirates who can’t swim’. My curiosity only developed when in a youtube deep-dive of anime clips I kept being recommended One Piece clips, and decided to give a couple a go. Most of them were Paradise arc stuff from the anime, the dub voices were mostly atrocious so I stuck to sub. I was happily surprised about the amount of fun and emotional weight these clips gave me, which led me to check where One Piece was as of current and backtrack from there (Ironically I did the same with Beastars). I did eventually get caught up around the time of the Mafia Meeting and I’ve kept up with each chapter since.

9. I mostly still prefer the Pre-Timeskip looks When I first felt this I thought it to be pretty controversial, nowadays not so much. I understand that Oda wanted to change the look for many characters but some of them did feel like a downgrade. I think the ones who got it worst was Franky, I think it’s the bulbous shoulders, Franky was no stranger to body horror from Enies Lobby to Sabaody but I kinda preferred that he still had a lot of his humanity rather than looking like an action figure. Otherwise I think Robin, Nami and Chopper had it bad, maybe Brook too but his was more fashion than design; the women in general took heavy hits by Oda’s proportion design - I mean I get it boobs are nice but proportions are what make them better - but Robin also underwent a skin color change in the anime, who pre-timeskip shaded her skin darker than in the manga and corrected it to match the manga, I think most of us would’ve preferred Robin to have kept the darker skin tone and possibly even the fringe, Robin’s hairstyle (and her fashion in general) can be hit and miss. I go to and fro about Nami, other than the general waist and bust adjustments I think it fits her character to use her sexuality a bit, she was no stranger to that pre-Timeskip, sometimes though I can’t tell whether I preferred her with short or long hair (Short was definitely better on Nojiko), I do think though that Oda could have her show less skin, she is still very pretty in outfits such as Water 7, Thriller Bark and even her fake pirate disguise in the early chapters/episodes. Finally with Chopper I think it was a bad move to alter the hat, that was a memento from his father figure Hiriluk, it’d be like if Luffy altered his straw hat or Zoro replacing Wado Ichimonji, I do also feel that the design for Chopper’s points while easier to draw don’t look as good, I think a lot of it is the scruff, or lack thereof in favour of smoothness, Walk Point is fine but Heavy Point, Guard Point and Horn Point seem less threatening, Monster Point especially too, in Enies Lobby he looked like a cave painting of menace and destruction, now he’s smoother and his scruff lighter so it’s not as good. The rest of the designs I’m quite fine with though.

8. I wish some markings stuck as well Tattoos and Scars seem to be optional in the One Piece world sometimes, unless it’s branded in molten heat like the Dragon’s hoof, Sun Pirates logo or an attack from Sakazuki. While Nami’s redesigned tattoo has stuck around and Luffy and Zoro’s scars persist, they are mainly character reminders/mysteries for huge moments in the story, and I kinda wish that some of the Straw Hats had littler markings, not just scars either. For instance, the Alabasta X on the arm, I really wish that stayed on each of the Alabasta characters’ arms since it was a symbol of friendship with Vivi, I also wish that Luffy kept the 3D2Y mark on his arm. In terms of scars though it would’ve been nice to see the characters a bit more battle-worn; Zoro’s ankle scars from Mr. 3 have faded and frankly he should be covered in little and long scratches given his fights with Mr. 1 and 2 years of Mihawk Training, Nami’s shoulder scar is hidden completely by her tattoo and she has no scars on her hand (from fake stabbing Usopp) or foot (from blocking Miss Doublefinger), Usopp himself could’ve used some small scratches because lord knows how there’s even still bones in his nose plus he was in murder island for 2 years, Chopper could at least have a small bald patch from when his shoulder was impaled and burned by Shura’s fire lance too, other than that there’s just Jimbei’s potentially missing shoulder scar from Marineford, though Oda has kept it obscured a lot so maybe that is still there. I understand why Oda doesn’t or forgets to, but it would’ve been nice if we lived in a vacuum of no time limits and whatnot.

7. Dead End Adventure is my favourite One Piece film I don’t know what it is, but Dead End Adventure just gives me the most fun out of the One Piece films. It has a good side plot and the side character Shuraiya was a blast of a character. Granted, Gaspard wasn’t too good of a villain side for actually harming the straw hat and his defeat was a bit underwhelming but the race, the settings it was all fun. It is not to say I don’t enjoy any other One Piece movies, I delight in the horror fuel of Baron Omatsuri - and that killer final punch - and Z’s tragic tale of a fallen marine, Strong World has that epic entrance to the party and Stampede also had some great team up moments and fantastic writing for Usopp and Smoker but Dead End Adventure always feels like the movie I could watch in any mood.

6. Skypeia and Fishman Island are some of my favourite arcs While I can understand the criticism of the Long Ring Long Land arc (especially since the anime dragged out the Davy Back Fight) it surprised me that people found Skypeia and Fishman Island arcs to be boring or less entertaining than previous arcs. Everyone has their preferences of course but I felt that Skypeia and Fishman Island were very powerful arcs especially with the theme of racism. Both had glorious setting design different to the common customs of the world we had seen, Oda made both Skypeia and Fishman Island feel very much lived in with its own budding culture and prejudices, with a villain who was dead set on destroying everything just to have their way. With Enel and his priests we were able to push several characters to newer limits, with Robin showing her fighting capabilities, Zoro learning his projectile slashes, Chopper having to endure fighting 3 priests and even Usopp growing all the more braver in the face of seemingly indestructible opponents and later gaining access to the dials. With Fishman Island it was different because it was basically a ‘flex arc’: where the main villain is meant to be a stepping stone rather than a threat but even then the symbolism of the enemy is what’s significant with them, the inherited hatred of humans. But at the same time we do learn new strengths from the crew; Red Hawk, the use of armament Haki, Skywalk, Hell Memories, Franky Shogun, Usopp’s pop greens, Nami’s weather eggs, Brook’s Soul Solid and his new DF power (which is possibly an awakening), as well as the first true steps of Jimbei joining the crew. The biggest strength of both arcs is the flashback as well, like Wano would in present time both arcs demonstrated that Oda can carry a story without his main characters and still keep it as captivating as ever, be it the friendship of Noland and Calgara, the tragedies of Otohime and Fisher Tiger or the life of Kozuki Oden and the man who would be Pirate King. And the impact of Fishman Island and Skypeia’s flashbacks both come back around in Dressrosa with the dwarves and Koala, and Fishman Island really does kick off the whole Yonko saga with Luffy challenging Big Mom, these arcs were definitely significant as they were entertaining with silly faces, strong fights, challenging themes, lorebuilding, good side characters and unique twists. And the overall message of healing from the past is still significant to this day. Through Wyper’s sacrifice and the Bell ringing to Jimbei giving blood and the Ryugu royals wanting to attend the Reverie, it is all very powerful stuff and while the arcs are similar in nature its their similarities that make me love them. Also the cover stories with Enel and Gedatsu on their own mini adventures are fun

5. I really want to know where Ghin is Ghin/Gin was such an interesting character in Baratie. Given that this was right before Arlong Park too so we had not seen a character conflict with different loyalties in One Piece until then, his gratitude to Sanji against his loyalty to Krieg created a fantastically complex character, but then he left and we didn’t hear about him ever since. Did he survive Krieg’s poison gas? Is he still with Krieg? One reactor of the episode said “maybe he’ll become the next Don” which was a concept I kinda really liked. The guy was pretty strong given that he had bested Sanji at that time, and since he didn’t appear in a cover story my mind does wonder. It’s not just Ghin either, a lot of the early East Blue characters kinda fell off the map; where is Morgan? Last we saw he was sleeping as he sailed past Jango, where is Kuro? For someone wanting to resume piracy after some years off he has been very quiet, where is Krieg? Only Arlong and Morgan were arrested and the latter escaped so the rest of these characters are a mystery. Recently in Wano I am still wondering where Law’s crew that he brought to Onigashima went, as well as Caribou - where is that slippery bugger?

4. Basil Hawkins is probably one of my Top 5 Supernova There’s something about that dude I gravitate towards, which makes it quite frustrating when the anime decides to add extra malice and creepy faces to him. Hawkins in Wano is still a victim, if anything he is simply a prisoner with better working conditions, if he thought he could survive escaping Kaido he would but he doesn’t so he won’t, he’s also gonna feel sore about Drake betraying him and letting Law cut him up, so it annoys me that Hawkins is seen like a villain. Not only does he have an extremely interesting Devil Fruit and creativity with it but he’s also audaciously confident in his fortunetelling, even Luffy ran from Kizaru at Sabaody while Hawkins looked at his cards while Kizaru was about to boot him to holy hell and said ‘nah I’m not dying today’, you gotta respect that moxie. At the same time though as a pirate he has that shades of grey element, he’s okay with letting some of his crew be disposable and we don’t even know to what end, he doesn’t look like a guy too concerned about being Pirate King or having riches. I also get a good laugh in that his hobbies are interior design, it makes me really want to see what the inside of his ship looks like. I think as a top 5, I have Luffy, Zoro, Law, Hawkins and then Kid, Bege, Killer and Bonney are not far behind with Apoo dead last because fuck Apoo. Kid and Killer are cool but I do feel like they need a bit more character, Bege earned some points in being funny and his care for his family in WCI and then there’s Bonney - I really hope we dig into Bonney’s significance, she feels really important and that mystery keeps her fresh whenever we see her. Drake too has only really started to become interesting because of SWORD, we could still see more fleshing but for now he is like bottom 3. It’s a shame Urouge has to be so low, he’s not bad but he’s not spectacular either, gotta admire his hobby of lovemaking though, you do you Urouge.

3. I don’t think that either of the ‘Most Beautiful Women in the World’ are the Most Beautiful Women in One Piece The in-world consensus seems to be that the Most Beautiful Women in the World are Boa Hancock, Komurasaki and Shirahoshi, and granted they are very pretty, but the most? Not for me. I mean, y’all know that Nico Robin, Nami and Vinsmoke Reiju exist right? Makino as well is stunning, as are Tashigi, Bonney, Margaret, Ishilly, Nojiko, Vivi, Rebecca, Pudding, Perona, Cosette and I’m sure a few others, realistically I think they could all give them a run for their money. I get how for those three their beauty is a plot point (Boa it’s drilling home Luffy’s obliviousness to it, Komurasaki it’s the swerve of her not being awful and for Shirahoshi it’s due to Vander Decken IX pulling the creep factor on her) but it would’ve worked the same way without the ‘world’ hyperbole I think. As much as Oda is iffy with proportions and rarely writes women with as much attention as the boys he sure knows how to make them attractive.

2. Some of my favourite individual Straw Hat scenes aren’t in Canon If I were to have a top 5 moments of each character, it may surprise you that some of it comes from movies or filler episodes, particularly Sanji’s flexing on Jessica in the G8 Arc (in fact, Jonathon is one of my favourite marines, T-Bone is in there too, but I don’t have room to fit that). Some are of course obvious because of how iconic they are but it does go to show that sometimes filler isn’t all bad. Since you’re probably curious: As a Group Goodbye Merry [Enies Lobby] Entering Shiki’s Palace [Strong World] Walk to Arlong Park [Arlong Park] Entering the Grand Line [Reverse Mountain] vs a Stuck Oars [Thriller Bark] Jimbei Giving Luffy Blood [FMI] Vagabond Drill on Big Mom [WCI] Leaving the Big Mom Pirates [WCI] Returning in Wano [Wano] Trying to argue with Luffy [FMI] Brook vs Chess Soldiers & Big Mom [WCI] Flashback [Thriller Bark] Breaking Mother Carmel’s Picture [WCI] Baron Corpse vs Dog Minks [Zou] Hysterically laughing at seeing Duval [Sabaody] Franky vs Senor Pink [Dressrosa] Playing with the Kids [Punk Hazard] vs Fukurou [Enies Lobby] Freedom Roller [Wano] Trapping Caribou in the Barrel [FMI] Robin  I Want to Live [Enies Lobby] Clutching Spandam [Enies Lobby] Throwing Usopp under the bus [G8] vs Yama [Skypeia] Clutching Tequila Wolf guards [Amazon Lily] Chopper Monster Point [Enies Lobby] Flashback [Drum Island] Chopper Man (& Minoru Kazeno) vs Usobada [Chopper Man Special] Don’t blow the whistle: Immediately blows whistle [Skypeia] Dr Chopper the definitely Human Doctor not wearing fake glasses [G8] Vivi w/ Karoo (she counts okay!) Goodbye speech [Alabasta] Escaping Bon Clay [Alabasta] Karoo Digging Luffy Out [Little Garden] Luffy Fan Club Meeting [Reverie] Slapping Usopp awake [Drum Island] Nami vs Kalifa [Enies Lobby] Standing by the kids [Punk Hazard] Saying goodbye to Bell-mere [Arlong Park] Helping Luffy vs Cracker via Lola’s Vivre Card [WCI] Luffy WILL be Pirate King [Wano] Sanji ‘I needed a light’ [Skypeia] Flexing on Jessica [G8] Saving the Vinsmokes [WCI] O-Soba Mask [Wano] vs Doflamingo [Dressrosa]  Usopp Alabasta speech [Alabasta] Awakening Observation Haki [Dressrosa] Sogeking Theme Song [Enies Lobby] vs Perona [Thriller Bark] Saving Luffy from the fire [Stampede]  Zoro Nothing Happened [Thriller Bark] vs Ryuma [Thriller Bark] vs Mr. 1 [Alabasta] vs Gyukimaru & Kamazo [Wano] “He’s sweeping our floors that fiend!” Test of Luck [Loguetown] Luffy ‘On the Sea, you fight Pirates’ [Wano] Red Roc [Wano] vs Katakuri [WCI] Haki clash with Doflamingo [Dressrosa] Punching Saint Charloss [Sabaody] I will have to say that for some characters I could go to 20 so if one’s missing it may’ve just missed the mark, such as Usopp and Nami vs Enel or Luffy putting back a Zombie or Stealth Luffy, I mean it is 1000 chapters as well as movies and filler episodes/specials...

1. I’ve learned quite a lot due to One Piece Since my fascination started with a deep dive of checks, I did start to learn a hell of a lot more not just about the franchise itself (you know it’s almost catching up BATMAN on total sales, which has been around more than 3 times longer?) but I also learned a lot about stuff Oda has used as a reference key; folklore, actual pirates, actual practices, the amount of detail Oda puts in is astounding. Which does lean into another thing I’ve learned, One Piece has changed the way I approach some of my ideas for writings and whatnot, before I would be afraid of either spoonfeeding or being too vague, Oda’s mastery not only in storytelling but character development, character quality and pacing has both helped and intimidated me a lot of times, I mean consider this: it took hundreds of chapters to get a proper backstory on Luffy, the main character, how unprecedented is that? Often I could fall into the trap of making sure you knew everything about the main character from day one but now I wonder about what’s necessary for the now and what can I work on. Another thing that both inspires and intimidates me is his drawing, I suck at colours and still do, and a lot of Oda’s attention to detail is incredible considering he’s gotta whip that out on the weekly, but at the same time you see some of his rough sketches and they’re pretty similar to a rough sketch of my own, so in a way it’s a ‘there’s still hope for you’ moment seeing those. I can’t say I’ve learned Japanese from listening to One Piece, but I have picked up on some stuff, some hiragana there, some phonetics here, I also appreciated some of the stuff kaizokuou-ni-naru does (I won’t tag them in case that’s a bit rude to do it out of the blue but check out their tumblr) when it came to deciphering the Japanese of chapters and the little puns and hints Oda puts in his native tongue. And of course any One Piece fan has learned one thing above all else: Patience. Oda himself included, it took over 20 years to get to 1000 chapters and we still have plenty of questions to ask, plenty of islands to see and thus plenty of chapters to go. So Straw Hats off to you Oda, and a happy 1000th!

[detectivecarlosreyes]

Pain of a Different Kind 

Also on Ao3 | Word Count: 1k | Day: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

 Day 6: Buddie + “Just breathe, okay?” + hurt/comfort

@buddieweek2020

Eddie thought he knew what pain was when he was younger, but it wasn’t until he joined the army when he learned what it really was.

Before the army he thought that pain was just physical, the kind you get when you fall out of a tree and get cuts and bruises from the branches. The kind that your mum picks you up from and kisses what hurts to make it better. He used to think that over time pain goes away, forgotten once healed.

Now he knows that isn’t true.

He learned from his second tour that pain can be a memory, one of loss and grief of losing a team member, a friend, someone who he trusted with his life. A memory that reminds you of how close you could have lost your own life, one that leaves an invisible wound on your heart and your head, that will fade but never be forgotten.

Yeah, he learned that memory could also leave you reminders, ones that you will never truly be able to forget because these ones are scars, old wounds marring your skin as raised white marks that ache years after they had been inflicted.

Eddie has mementos of the worst time of his life, bullet wounds from his last tour, one in the shoulder and wrist, and a white streak on his leg that was once a graze. Constant reminders of a time of his life that he wishes he could forget.

Most of the time these days he doesn’t notice them, the knowledge that they exist and what their presence represents shoved down in the deep recess of his mind as he goes about his day; doing his job, being a dad, being a boyfriend. He gives them his complete focus because it means that he’s moved forward and hasn’t let his past hold him back.

The problem is when he sleeps, he can’t control what his mind decides to show him. Generally, when he sleeps he doesn’t dream, the depths of a deep sleep claim him after each exhausting day. This particular night, however, had his bullet wounds aching, thrumming with pulses of their own and reminding him of that day.

He’s not sure what brought it on but has his suspicions that his near-death experience underground had left that door to his mind ajar which he had long since locked.

The ache started mid-shift, slowly reclaiming his attention to the point where he couldn’t ignore it. He kept it to himself and he’s certain no one caught on to his disquieted mind, no one except Buck. His boyfriend has somehow always been attuned to the emotions of everyone in the team and it seems he’d picked up on whatever energy Eddie has been mask throughout the rest of the shift.

Thankfully, Buck had kept it to himself, instead choosing to keep close in silent comfort and maintaining his presence until they clocked out and went home together. As if he knew Eddie wasn’t ready to talk about or explain what was going on, Buck didn’t ask any questions on their way home and carried most of the conversation when they got home to Chris.

When it was time for bed, Eddie didn’t think he would actually sleep, unable to calm his mind, not when the old injuries had his undivided attention. Nevertheless, with his back pressed against Buck’s chest and arm held comfortably he found himself being lulled by the sense of comfort Buck’s presence provided.

But as he said, he couldn’t control what his mind decided to show him when he was asleep, and now with the door ajar, and his wounds aching anew it was the perfect environment for those memories to come flooding back and he could do nothing in his unconscious state but relive them.

Eddie doesn’t remember waking up, all he knows is pain fresh from the battlefield when he thought he would never see Christopher again.

At some point he becomes aware of a voice, one he now knows by heart. “Eddie, It’s me, its Buck. You’re not wherever you think you are, you’re with me, in LA.”

Buck manages to get him talking, asking him things he could see, touch, and smell, and with each question he answered he returned to the present, scars still aching.

He falls sideways into Buck and feels his arms automatically wrapping around him, one hand rubbing soothing patterns into his back while the other held his head gently against his chest by his heart. “Just breathe, okay?”

And so he did, doing his best to match his breaths to the slow rise and fall of Buck’s chest. It took some time, but he finally got there and found himself circling his arms around Buck’s waist and drinking in his steady, comforting presence.

 He knows he being uncharacteristically vulnerable, but it doesn’t bother him because he knows Buck understands, having had them be in a reversed situation in the past.

Eventually, Buck draws Eddie back down against the pillows, keeping him cradled against his chest.

“I’m sorry.” He murmured, feeling slightly guilty for waking Buck up.

“What? Eddie, no. You have absolutely nothing to apologise for.” Eddie feels him press a kiss into his hair, “Did you want to talk about it?”

And Eddie finds that he does, so he tells Buck everything and Buck listens as he explains it all, humming every so often to make sure he knew that he was still listening through the darkness of their bedroom.

It helps. He didn’t expect it to, but it does even if it was only a little bit. Maybe it had something to do with being able to share it with someone who understood, who could relate to it even if came from a different kind of experience. Or maybe it's just because he completely and utterly trusted Buck enough that he could be completely open without fear of being invalidated.

In any case, the ache felt more bearable, it was still there lurking, but he knew that it would eventually pass.  And in the meantime, he had Buck there to help alleviate whatever he could in the most Buck-way possible.

Time may not heal all wounds but with the right person by your side, they can be made much more manageable and that’s all Eddie could ask for.