#[shakes fist] characters existing in physical space! i will get you one day!!!

[itwoodbeprefect]

update on this: we're at a nice round 4k now. what the fuck!

[liannyeong]

Crimson (Chapter 14)

Summary: A sacrifice must be made.

Word count: 4703

Pairing: Jaebeom X OC

Warning(s): angst, mentions of blood, character death

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

A/N: Just one more chapter to go before this fic comes to an end! Do let me know your thoughts! Show your support for my works by buying me a coffee! Follow me on Twitter for random updates.

It's been days since Yujin was brought to the Ancient Cave. It's a mystical place -- the walls are carved with symbols that Yujin can't recognize, each of them glowing a bright green. She guesses they are magic runes, perhaps to protect the sanctity of the place. The cave itself is lit up with torches of green flames that never seem to burn out.

Yena had left her here after their encounter in the forest, telling her to prepare herself for the ritual. But Yujin can barely wait. She's all ready to give her heart up. She's all ready to move on and forget this cruel life.

“The ritual can only be performed when the fae and his human love are present together,” Yena had explained, much to Yujin’s disappointment. She had hoped she wouldn’t see Jaebeom anymore. But at the same time, she does want to see the look upon his face as the ritual is conducted. Would he look regretful at least? Or would he look at her with indifference? 

What does it matter? Yujin scolds herself. It's not like she can back out anymore. And she’ll definitely not be coaxed out of it. Perhaps, it's just her heart yearning to see his face for the last time.

Yujin is broken from her thoughts when she hears an echo of voices. Her ears automatically tune in to the one voice that her heart has been wanting to hear. She feels the swell in her heart as it gets louder and closer. Why does her heart feel this way? While her mind is determined to end this, why is her heart reluctant? Why is her heart and mind at war?

"-- Why did you bring me here?" Jaebeom's voice booms in the cave. The moment he steps in, the moment he lays his eyes on Yujin, he freezes. His eyes go wide. Perhaps he didn’t anticipate her in this cave.

“Y-Yujin…?” he calls out weakly, as if he doesn’t believe that she’s real.

He shuffles forward slowly, cautiously. There’s ample time for Yujin to back away from him, but she remains rooted to the ground. Jaebeom holds out a hand, raising it to her face. His fingers are inches away from her face, almost touching her cheek--

Then Yujin blinks, snapped out of a trance. She backs away, repelling from his touch. She sees the way Jaebeom's face falls, the look of dismay scribbled all over his face.

“Shall we begin?” Yena suggests, curling an innocent smile on her lips.

Yujin promptly nods, diverting her attention to the Air fae instead. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices the slump of the male’s broad shoulders as he shifts to the other corner.

Yena circles an arm in a fluid motion before thrusting her hand forward. A gust of wind blew from her hand, so strong that it nearly extinguished the torches. Dust has been cleared away, revealing a circular rune on the ground that Yujin didn’t notice before. There are symbols lined along the circumference of the inner circle, caged by the outer ring. The inner circle itself contains geometric shapes -- squares, circles, straight lines -- with two semicircles at the core.

“Step into the center, and we can begin,” Yena says, gesturing at the two.

Yujin easily obeys, standing on one semicircle. Jaebeom, on the other hand, stays where he is. He bears a frown on his face, as if he’s having second thoughts.

“Yujin,” he says her name so gently, it could have made her go weak in her knees, “You don’t have to do this...”

Yujin wants to laugh. He’s just one step away from getting what he wants, and yet he’s hesitating? What a fool.

She tips her chin up, determined, "Let's get this done and over with."

Jaebeom moves a moment later, still reluctant. He stands on the other semicircle. She would prefer to look at anywhere else but his face, but in this position, he's directly in her line of vision.

“You may begin the ritual,” Yena announces, backing away into the wall.

“We don't have to do this, Yujin," Jaebeom mutters, "We can still work things out--”

“It’s too late for that, don’t you think?” Yujin interjects, glaring at him.

“Yujin, please..." he whispers, sadness in his voice. Even though he's just calling her name, it strikes a chord in her heart. But Yujin has to shake it all away. This is the best that she decides for herself, and for him.

Ultimately, Yujin knows he'll be happy in the long run, with his newly gained powers. He has spent most of his life -- if not all -- being an outcast and looked down upon by the entire faefolk. Yujin reckons it’s time he claims the honor and respect that he deserves. Besides, she's sure the sorrow that Jaebeom feels -- if any at all -- will be short-lived. There is another love waiting for him after this. She’s sure he’ll be healed by it.

"I'm doing this for you, after all," Yujin admits quietly. 

An expression passes over Jaebeom's face, his eyes glistening, his lips trembling slightly. If he's feeling remorseful now, it is of no use. 

Jaebeom tentatively raises his hand, reaching out for Yujin's face. She lets him. She lets the male cup her cheek and brush the skin there. She closes her eyes, revelling in the warmth of his palm for the last time.

A beat passes before Yujin opens her eyes again.

"Perform the ritual, Jaebeom," she says. "Please."

He nods slowly, still reluctant, before shifting his palm to Yujin's chest, right where her heart is. Then, he recites the same spell he once shared with Yunho:

Here I bring

A mortal heart.

Its love so pure;

It strengthens me.

Let the magic come

And give me strength.

In the next moment, Yujin feels warmth blossoming from her chest, spreading to the rest of her body. She feels the ground beneath her start to shake. The rune below starts to glow a bright turquoise. A force beam emerges from the ground, engulfing both Yujin and Jaebeom, its rays of light illuminating the cave. The warmth that she feels starts to burn through her skin, as if she's doused in oil, set aflame, and left to burn. She screams, the pain searing, her back arching. She doesn't notice the way Jaebeom's crimson eyes go wide, his face stricken with horror. And she definitely doesn't notice the huge grin on Yena's face.

Everything disappears and then, Yujin's vision goes white.

---

All she sees is white. The purity of the color is so blinding to her eyes, that Yujin can't help but wince. It takes her some time before she can adjust to the room, if it's even one. It's an endless space of white, nothing else in view.

"Hello, Shin Yujin," a voice calls out from behind, startling her.

A woman stands behind her, almost blending in with the background due to her pale skin, her white gown. Her hair is silver, her eyes bear a grayish tint. She wears a silver-plated circlet with a clear quartz at its centre.

Yujin swallows her throat, her heart pounding in her ears. Will this woman gouge her heart out?

"Don't be afraid," she says, coming closer, "I'm Sowon, a White fae."

Yujin blinks up at her, lost.

The woman starts to circle around her, as she continues, "All the faes that you have encountered in the physical realm are elemental faes. White faes, however, exist in the spirit realm. We are the guardians of the spirits, guiding them as they travel between realms."

Sowon stops right in front of Yujin. She raises her arms, gesturing at the white space. "This is the Transitional State,” she states, then looks at Yujin directly in the eye. "You are a spirit."

"What?" Yujin lets out weakly, confused.

The White fae snaps her fingers and the same magic rune in the Ancient Cave is projected in the air.

"You chose to sacrifice for a halfling called Im Jaebeom," Sowon says.

Yujin nods. "But-- But why am I a spirit? Doesn’t the ritual only require a mortal love?”

Sowon stares at her for a moment, as if expecting her to continue. When Yujin doesn’t, the White fae lets out a sigh, shaking her head slightly.

"You don’t know," she realizes. She proceeds to explain, "What the ritual requires is a mortal’s heart -- a physical heart -- that possesses a pure love for the fae. Thus, you’re sacrificing your physical heart and that will render you dead."

She holds out a hand, uncurling her fingers, revealing a small cube suspended just above her palm. It looks empty, worthless. "Your entire heart will be transferred here, converting itself into an endless flow of energy -- and power."

Realization dawns on Yujin. Not only will she lose all her feelings for Jaebeom, she will have to give up her life for him. In exchange for the power that he craves for. Yujin clenches her fists. Is the restoration of Jaebeom's power really worth her life? Or should she back out now, and leave him to suffer as a powerless fae in the woods?

"How tragic," Sowon utters, shaking her head in disapproval. "It’s already a forbidden spell, yet they were so wicked to lie to you about its requirement.”

Did Jaebeom know the true requirement? Or did he keep it a secret from her too? Yujin feels a tear trickle down her cheek.

"Tell me, dear Yujin, do you wish to proceed with this sacrifice?” Sowon asks, sounding genuinely concerned as she brushes the teardrop away. 

Yujin exhales deeply. What does it matter anyway? Whether the ritual requires her heart or her life, it doesn’t change the fact that at the end of the day, it’s Jaebeom who will reap the benefits. He’ll possess greater power, greater influence, and he’ll be able to take Yena as his true bride. It would no longer matter if she's dead or alive. He won't need her afterwards. He’ll proceed to live on as if nothing happened. She will just be another heart he has crushed, just another mortal that passed on. 

Yujin reaches out to take the cube, but Sowon retracts her hand just a little. She has her head cocked to the side, finding it odd.

“Why?” she asks, blinking at Yujin with curious eyes.

Why? Yujin questions herself. The answer is simple: love. Despite having her heart trampled on, be used and abused, the love she harbors for the Fire fae overpowers. Yes, he may have utter sweet words and promises as a tool to manipulate her. But she was the one who let herself believe in them. She was the one who let her heart be swayed by him. She has fallen so deeply in love with him that she's willing to do anything. Even if it means giving up her life for him to be with someone else. Even if it means removing herself from the picture.

“Because I love him,” Yujin answers simply, much to Sowon’s surprise.

“Truly, your love for the fae is of the purest form,” Sowon acknowledges, with a nod.

The woman offers the cube on her palm. Yujin takes a deep breath before grasping it.

"We shall meet again, Shin Yujin," Sowon bids goodbye, disappearing into the whiteness of the place.

A moment later, Yujin feels something being ignited from deep within. Her body temperature starts to rise. Energy surges in her, coursing through her veins. Then, she feels a kind of current in her. The energy from the crown of her head to the tip of her feet flows to her chest, her heart pounding hard. There's a crack, and then, her chest is ripped open. Yujin screams in pain, her pitch high and deafening. Tears stream down her face, and despite the blurry vision, she catches a glimpse of wisps of mist -- stained a deep red -- coming out from her heart. The vapors diffuse into the cube in her hand.

When the last speck is absorbed, Yujin drops to the floor, barely able to open her eyes.

---

When Jaebeom blinks, he’s greeted by the sight of Yujin being suspended in the air. Previously, he was in the cave, standing on the magic rune that gleams after he uttered the spell. He last remembers hearing Yujin’s shrill screams. Now, in this vast space of white, there’s only the two of them. Crimson clouds shroud Yujin’s body, drifting towards an object in her hand. She doesn't notice his presence even though her eyes are wide open. Her face is contorted in pain, her back arching that he swears it could snap into two.

Just what is going on?

"Y-Yujin?" Jaebeom calls out, but receives no response at all.

He takes a step forward, coming closer to the female. He sees how Yujin's eyes are filled black in its entirety, how her skin turns pale. Nausea hits him, because beneath all that mist, her chest is split open. It’s a grotesque sight: her heart peeks through, still alive and beating albeit weakly. Strangely, there is no blood oozing out, only vapors. Observing the trail, Jaebeom realizes, to his horror, that the red mist is actually drawn out from her heart! The red fumes are actually vaporized blood!

Jaebeom rushes forward frantically, repeatedly yelling her name. He hopes her eyes would open, that she would regain consciousness. But nothing happens. So he tries to grab her wrist through the smoke. There seems to be an invisible force that cocoons her, because Jaebeom feels a spark at his fingertips before he is sent flying.

He lands on his back, hard. He groans. Still, it doesn't deter him from attempting to stop the process. Jaebeom sprints toward her, once more trying to pull her out. Again, the same force flings his body backward.

In his desperation, Jaebeom tries to come up with a different strategy. One particular method stands out in his mind, and he doesn’t waste any time. He shuts his eyes, and takes a deep breath to steady himself. He searches for Yujin’s unconscious mind. The Lover's bond that they share makes it easier for him to locate her, but he can’t seem to tap into her mind at all. It’s like he’s barred from entering it. It’s like there is a protective shield that holds him off. No matter how much he tries, he cannot break through.

Jaebeom hears a thud. He snaps his eyes open, hoping that somehow it worked. That somehow, the process is halted. But no, it’s already too late. He sees the last speck of vapor in the air, travelling to the object that was in Yujin’s hand. Her body is almost lifeless, eerily still.

The fae rushes to her side, pulling her body into his arms. Her clothing has a spatter of red at the front, the material ripped down to her ribcage. She’s breathing faintly, so Jaebeom presses his palm into the open wound, hoping it'll stop the bleeding.

"Yujin, please--" he cries out. "Respond to my voice, please--"

The female shifts slightly, her eyes slowly fluttering open just a little bit. She must have realized who he is, for she shoots him a weak smile.

"It’s all yours now," she mutters, voice raspy and weak. Her hand twitches by her side, slowly uncurling to reveal a cube. It whirs loudly, a striking red light pulsing in the grooves.

Soon after, her body starts to disintegrate into dust. Jaebeom envelops her into a tight hug, desperately trying to hold onto the remains of her body. He hopes it’ll make her stay longer. But no, there is no effect at all. Her body continues to turn into ashes.

"No! No, no, no!" Jaebeom screams out, hysterical. Tears are streaming down his face. With the last bit of time he has, he holds her just a little closer, pressing his lips to her forehead.

"Goodbye, Jaebeom," is the last thing he hears before the last bit of her existence slips through his fingertips, carried away by an invisible force, then fading away.

---

Jaebeom returns to the Ancient Cave alone, kneeling on the rune. Yujin is nowhere to be seen. Just a few moments ago, he was holding her in his arms, hugging her tight.

He belatedly notices the cube on the ground, left behind by Yujin herself. With shaking hands, he picks it up. Jaebeom feels its weight on his palm despite it being small, and he feels it pulse against his skin. In the next moment, the object melts becoming liquid, before seeping into the ridges of his skin.

Jaebeom feels stronger; the power making its way to him. The veins in his hand start to glow red. He watches as the energy flows through his body, illuminating his veins as it travels. His core feels a tad warmer, and he's sure any flames he produces will be fiercer than ever before.

“Jaebeom, you did it! You got the power!” Yena rejoices, coming forward excitedly, “This calls for a celebration! You’re invincible now!””

Despite that, Jaebeom can’t comprehend what happened. Yes, he has gained the powers he desired so much, but... Yujin is now gone. He feels a void in his chest, and he just knows it cannot be patched up.

“But Yujin...” he trails off, teary-eyed. “I lost her…”

“No, Jaebeom, she gave her life for you. She was willing to do it. Don't blame yourself for the decisions she made--"

But Jaebeom can't believe it. How did it end up like this? It was a rapid turn of events, that his mind still can't process it yet. Days ago, they were so in love, so happy together. Ever since they returned from the autumn celebration hosted by the Air court, Yujin seemed a little off -- more distant, in fact. She reasoned that she wasn't feeling good, so Jaebeom left her to rest. But the next thing he knew, Han, the Earth fae servant tasked to monitor the Garden, informed him that Yujin had ventured into the area. How surprised he was to find Yujin at the fountain, fully regaining the memories that he took away.

Jaebeom couldn't help the anger he felt towards himself then. He couldn't help the regret he felt from keeping the memories. He should have destroyed the fountain when he had the chance to. He shouldn't have ordered an Earth fae to construct the Garden in order to protect the fountain. He was so reluctant to destroy Yujin’s memories because revisiting them was the only way he could experience being close to her again. It helped him live. It made him happy. 

But how was he to know that Yunho actually implanted his own memories into the fountain after his death? He was so preoccupied with having the real Yujin by his side that he overlooked the fountain. Despite Yujin asking about the Garden multiple times, Jaebeom thought he could get away with it. He thought Yujin's curiosity would die down as time passed by. Oh, how foolish he was! He should have just wiped away Yujin’s memories mercilessly without keeping it in any form at all. Even so, how can he? He cherished Yujin so much, he couldn’t bear to eradicate their childhood memories.

Still, Jaebeom doesn’t have anyone but himself to blame. Seeing Yujin so determined in performing the ritual, it is enough evidence of the pain he has inflicted upon her. Just how much pain has he put her through, for her to be so willing to throw the memories they have, the love they share? Perhaps he will never know now.

Despite his reluctance, he ended up proceeding with the ritual. Yena was the one who informed him of it years ago, when Yujin was still oblivious about the faefolk. They theorized that the sacrifice is merely the emotion of love, leaving the person unscathed.

Now, it proved to be false. Jaebeom didn't expect Yujin to be put through excruciating pain. He had thought the spell required just a mortal love. He didn't understand why she had to go through such a painful process. Why did she turn into dust if all they needed was her feelings?

"-- You finally have the power you have long sought for! Why does it matter if she's alive or not? If anything, you should be grateful that she'll no longer be a distraction to our mission!"

Something about Yena's comment snaps Jaebeom from his thoughts. Something about it brings about a flare of anger in him. Impulsively, he blasts a ball of fire towards the Air fae. His flames used to be orange, but now, it possesses a beautiful blue. Out of reflex, Yena crosses her arms, projecting a protective barrier that disperses the flames.

"What are you doing?!” Yena yells, startled by Jaebeom's sudden attack.

The Fire fae ignites both his hands into flames, bringing them together before pulling them apart. A whip of fire is conjured, without any tangible rope holding the flames. Jaebeom lashes the makeshift weapon toward Yena, successfully grabbing her by the ankle. She cries out, her ankle scorched by the fire. Jaebeom yanks her towards him, and she falls to the ground. He seizes her by the neck, holding her up in the air.

“You knew?" Jaebeom bellows, fury written all over his face. "You knew the ritual would kill her?”

“Of course I knew--” the Air fae chokes out, clutching at his wrist. Her nails scratch against his skin, but he pays it no mind.

“And you hid it from me?”

“If I didn't, you wouldn’t have done it--!”

Jaebeom hurls the female to the side, her body hitting the rough rocks of the cave. He hears her whimper in pain, but he doesn't care. He stomps over, and with his foot, he kicks her body to lay flat on her back. He presses his heel on her chest, ruthless, even as her face is flushed with a deep red, her lungs constricted.

"Why?" he spits.

"J-Jaebeom, p-please--" she chokes out, trying to relieve the pressure from his foot. “I can’t breathe--”

Jaebeom removes his foot, much to the relief of the Air fae. She gasps for air.

“If I had told you, that mortal will only hamper our progress. She's nothing but a distraction to you. I did what is right, to keep you focused on our plan!”

Jaebeom stares her down. "Perhaps I would have married you if you hadn't lied to me."

Confusion passes over Yena's face. “J-Jaebeom…?” she croaks out, unsure.

"Perhaps I would have married you if I loved you more. I regard you as a sister, nothing more," he continues. “This is too late but... I have led you on for so long, only to realize that I can never love you the same way I love Yujin.”

"You can't do this to me! You can't betray me like this!" she shrieks, grabbing Jaebeom’s legs. Tears start to stream down her face. Yena is out of her wits, totally deranged. "You promised me you would-- You can't--! I have been waiting so long for you! I stayed by your side for so long! You can't do this to me-- Jaebeom, please. You can't leave me--"

Jaebeom tugs her away so that he can crouch down comfortably.

"I'm sorry, Yena, but I can't do it," he mutters. "I hope you'll stay by my side as a loyal friend."

Yena's face darkens. She rises, albeit a little wobbly on her legs. Her fists are clenched tight by her sides.

"No, no, no! No, you can’t do this to me-- What do you take me for? A fool?" she growls. "Whether you love me or not, it no longer matters. Yujin is now dead, and you have to marry me, else you can never have the army you need to conquer all the fae courts!"

Jaebeom stands on his feet. He brings up a hand, and blue flames immediately envelop his skin, up to his wrist. He turns his palm over, mesmerized by the intensity of it.

“I’m sure I can still conquer the fae courts without marrying you,” he says simply.

"If I can't have you, then no one can!" Yena spits before rapidly circling her hands. A sphere of air is created around Jaebeom's head, taking away the oxygen he needs. It’s suffocating, the air from his lungs is also drawn out.

Jaebeom struggles to think straight, but he ignites his entire body with fire. The heat prickles his skin but it's only a slight discomfort. Then, it sets off an explosion, scattering the flames in all directions. The air sphere dissipates and Jaebeom can breathe again. He catches his breath for a moment before he points his fist at Yena, set ablaze, ready to strike.

But there is a stench of burning flesh, the fire has already engulfed the Air fae. Her skin starts to peel off like strips. Puffs of heavy black smoke fill the air, her deafening screams ringing in the cave. Then, Yena drops to the ground, moving only ever slightly, before she goes completely still.

Just like that, the Princess of the Air court is dead.

---

"Shin Yujin has passed on."

The words taste bitter on Jaebeom’s tongue, its weight heavy. He is not ready to accept the fact that Yujin is gone. He desperately wishes that it's all a dream, and that he’s just waiting to wake up. But his enhanced powers are clear evidence that it’s real. That he felt Yujin’s body disintegrating in his arms, that he heard her last goodbye.

Even though he’s still in denial, the only thing he can do for Yujin is to properly send her off. He decided to hold the procession at the Garden. The fountain is now gone, its water dried when Jaebeom returned. The Earth faes in the house help to erect a tombstone to honor Yujin. Everyone mourns for her, their heads down. Yeri herself is bawling her eyes out.

Jaebeom stays still, silently gazing at the tombstone. Only when the crowd disperses did the fae let his emotions flow. The sorrow floods his entire being, and he can’t help the tears from falling. He thinks of her, recalling all the memories they created together. 

Initially, he was planning on making Yujin fall for him. He wanted her to trust him entirely. But the more he spent time with her, the more sincere he was. He genuinely enjoyed her company. It was as if he was the same youth Jaebeom who didn’t frown at the world. Momentarily, Jaebeom had forgotten about his original intention. Unbeknownst to him, Yujin had planted the seed of love in his heart. It sprouted through his chest, and bloomed flowers of love.

Now, it’s all too late. He underestimated how dear Yujin is to him. In the end, it wasn’t Yujin who was foolish. It’s Jaebeom himself. Yunho was right; he was blinded by his lust for power to see what truly matters most to him.

Jaebeom senses another presence nearby. He breathes before addressing him, “Scold me if you wish. Mock me for my foolishness. I deserve it.”

He hears a deep sigh from behind. Muffled footsteps, and then a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly. 

“You didn’t know,” Jinyoung responds. “Don’t blame yourself for it.”

"But I should have looked into it. I should have checked the facts for myself. Why didn’t I delve deeper?"

“That’s enough, brother,” Jinyoung placates, sliding an arm around his broad shoulders. “What’s done is done. We cannot turn back time.”

“If only I could…” the Fire fae mumbles. "What am I supposed to do now? I'm so lost. And the Air court--” He sighs. “I have incurred the wrath of the Air court.”

“First, live for her," Jinyoung says, nodding at the tombstone. "After everything, Yujin still willingly gave up her life for you, so that you can proceed with your cause. The least you can do is make sure that her sacrifice wasn’t futile. So live on for her sake."

There’s a pause.

“Next, we shall overthrow the fae courts, one by one, starting with the Air court.”

[prettieparker86]

The Ghost of You is Close to Me

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader

Warning: Sadness? set pre-WWI

Note: I’ve been trying to find my writer’s voice again. It’s felt lost and so far away from me. I still don’t feel it’s back per say. My previous characters still feel foreign to me. But when I feel the urge to write now, I try to listen. Not quite sure what this is. Watched a WWI movie the other night and this sort of rushed out of me like a flood, so I let it pour. For this I really tried to imagine what Tommy was like before the war based on the little pieces we've gotten from the show. And I wanted to explore the idea that she sensed he'd never come back, which in a way he didn't. His body did, but not the Tommy from before.

I’m not super well versed in the Romani culture and what knowledge I gained in the past feels mostly lost, I apologize. I was trying to find the word for horse, Grast was the closest I could. As with cozonac. I’m not sure if it’s really a traditional food. My research said it was. I’m trying my best. My intention is not to offend. Feedback is always appreciated. Thanks

Don’t know what I’m suppose to do, haunted by the ghost of you.

It only takes the sight of him to send you running. As fast as your horse can take you, holding tight to the notion that as long as you never stop running then he never leaves. You hide away to the place you would always run to as children. Back when Tommy's mum would drag the whole Shelby brood up into the hills, running away from her pitiful life in the city and Arthur Sr.

Its a grove of trees overlooking a deep fertile valley, the spot where you use to steal away as children. Long before you knew adults could run away from their grief as easily as little ones, and there was no mistaking it, you were running. You secure your horse to a tree branch where she can nibble away on the overgrown grass encircling the base of trunk, and settled atop a rock that's yours as much as it is the earth's. A rock that has only grown smaller over the years as you've grown bigger. Your family comes to this hills nearly every spring. As a child it never seemed different, now all you see is the changes.

Everything changes, this you know, but you swear if you just sit there long enough this change won't find you. It wont be so. Tommy wont leave. You're oldest companion. Your dearest friend. Gazing out at the valley blanketed in a tapestry of green hues, shadow and light, as the overcast sky moves above you - you tell yourself he isn't leaving. Even though the steady ache in your heart makes it feel like he's already gone. You miss him, before he's even left. You miss him... The words echo through you in shuddered vibrations that sting at your eyes, even worse at your heart, as a rogue tear manages to break free and make a run down your cheek before you briskly swipe at it.

You can't imagine him not being there. Being unreachable to you. You cant imagine not listening to Tommy's thoughts, his sparks of creativity, or the way he can make you laugh. You cant imagine him not being there. The hole he will leave, the one already opening up inside you feels unbearable, sickening, and you just want it to go away. Who will be there when you need someone most? Who will convince you things will turn out ok or you should keep fighting even when neither feel true? Who will know you? Who will see you? Really see you and genuinely care? You never felt you took his friendship for granted, never mistakenly felt there were others who could fill such big shoes, and yet now, as the chill of a breeze sweeps by you, sending goosebumps to prickle on the flesh of your arms, you wonder if you cherished that gift enough. You wonder if it meant the same to him and if he will miss you as deeply once you're gone.

You try not to think about it. You've been trying not to think about it since you received word Tommy had enlisted. You've kept yourself busy, both in mind and your hands. Filling the moments whenever he would start to creep in. But in the end its pointless. Because the more you try not to think of him, try not to miss him... The more you do. Its like trying to stop the rain by shaking your fist at the heavens. Futile and maddening. You see him when you're with the horses, whispering and enchanting them the way only his tongue and heart can do. You see him in the glow of a campfire where he'd often gets lost in his thoughts, scribbling them down or creating a loose sketch. You see him in the charming smirk of a young man, or a joke he once told you. He's everywhere. Inside you. A part of you. And denying that never made it less true.

And the thought of living without him feels terribly sad and lonely in a way your heart feels pathetic to admit and yet hopeless to reconcile. It isn't any place you want to be and yet you also have the sense to understand you have no say in that. You feel immersed in the overwhelming ache of your heart, the one that's been plaguing you for days now, when you suddenly hear the stir of your horse behind you. You glance back and watch as she pawns happily at the earth beneath her hoofs, snooting and pawing at the ground as Tommy appears nearby. She loves him. They all love him. You've often teased he's more horse than man and no one notices that more then the horses.

Tommy meets her joy with firm pats along her neck and gentles strokes to her mane and nose. "Hey girl" He greets.

Seeing him standing there both fills your heart with joy and deeper sorrow. Lean and strong, his hair tousled from his ride over, with those piercing sapphire eyes that cut you like a knife and see right through you at a glance. The sight of him like an old beloved quilt, comforting and well known, now tattered and tore as he rips from your life.

"Little bird", he says as your eyes meet. A name he gave you so long ago you cant even remember how it came to be.

"Grast", you answer back.

"How did you know I would be here?" You ask as you look away, not wanting him to see the turmoil brewing in your eyes the way you know he will.

Tommy shrugs easily, "Just knew." Just knew because he knows you, in a way most will never get to know you. Same way you trust in the way you know him and the ways he's shares himself with you.

When Tommy comes to sit beside you, it takes every ounce of willpower not to hug him desperately, beg him to change his mind, beg him not to go, but you don't, because you're sure it won't change anything.

"You heard," Tommy says, the grit of his breath stressing the weight of his words.

"You're a damn fool, Thomas Shelby. What did the crown ever do for us?"

He chuckles lightly to the fire on your breath, the bite in your words and you can see in his eyes he knows they only come from a place of love and concern for him.

"They need fighting men to win a war. " He tells you, as he pulls a cigarette from his breast pocket and strikes a match. Telling you things you both already know. As if it were that simple. As if the need for more men didn't come from the loss of the ones they have.

"Well then I oughta sign up. I can fight." You carry on as you snatch the cigarette hanging from his lip. Allowing yourself to feel the anger this situation ignites inside you, because anger feels far more powerful and safe than heartache and fear.

"ey, god help any man that stands between you and your cozonac." Tommy teases you, the crook of his mouth curling as he await your reprisal. Knowing your tales of blunder and greatest mishaps better then anyone. Your stories are his stories, your journeys connected.

You gasp in mock offense. "He would have eaten it all! Fistin’ it down like the whole roll was his!"

"A good stab of your fork put an end to that, didn' it?"

"He shouldn't have been so greedy." You feign defense and tug hotly at the cigarette, fighting back the smile pulling at the corners of your mouth to match Tommy's devilish grin. A battle you quickly lose as he elbows your side and snatches back his smoke before you jab him back. And just like that you aren't mad anymore. That's something only Tommy can do, make you laugh when you want to cry. Because he knows you... your dearest friend. The keeper of your secrets, biggest fears, and dreams. It's a gift to be known. An even bigger gift to be known and cherished for who you are. You never thought it wasn't, but you didn't realize how much you needed that gift until it was being taken away.

You both grow quiet against the steady decent of the sun at your backs. The low crinkle of burning paper fills and hovers in the space around you both as his cigarette burns down, subtle like the smoke dancing in swirls past his lips. Its the quiet moments that haunt you now. The hours and space he once filled in your life. The echoing loneliness that you know will only expand and grow in his absence. Those hours eat at you, devour you. Gnawing away until you feel raw and desperate to make them stop, because you swear you can't take another moment in that place. Only this time you know it wont stop. There will be no reprieve, no mercy, your best friend is leaving and you can't stop him. And when he's gone, this- This torturous way of existence, with its crawling of time, absence of joy, and echoing loneliness, it will fill the space his light once illuminated in your life. Like thick dark clouds rolling in over the backcountry hills to settle in around you and call you there home.

Tommy has his reasons, none more then Greta you suspect but you cant help but feel he's choosing the war over you, that he's abandoning you, as preposterous as you know that notion is. But there's nothing logical about missing someone. You can't reason it away with facts and rationality. And it doesn't care that it feels like it's killing some part of you. Nobody tells you missing someone is a physical sensation, a state of being above all else - like an empty or upset stomach, like a punch to the chest or falling off a horse that leaves you winded. It's not merely a thought and it's more than an emotion. You feel it in your bones, the tight hollows inside you, the vibrating ache of longing, the chill that settles in under your skin.

Sitting quietly side by side, you rest your head upon his shoulder. All the girls love Tommy, they always have. With his charming smile, deep set eyes that reach into the soul with a glance, and his devilish humor, its easy to see why so many would be drawn to him. And there was a time even you were too, but there was always too many things in the way and what you've built instead is deeper and more intimate because its not bound to the fickle confines of romance.

Closing your eyes, you can see it all so clearly in your mind. Replaying like a reel at the pictures... Wading in knee high murky pond water and reeds in search of frogs to catch. Covered in filth from head to toe as you battled on rain soaked mud hills with John to see who would be crowned king of the mountain. Sneaking off with mum's herbs and spices into the woods to craft witches brew and cast magic. Building campfires from dried old birch tree branches by the moonlight, to bathe in the scent of it, and tell old spine-chilling tales. Gazing up at the stars on warm summer night, seeing who could count the most. Lying awake late at night by candle light trying to read each other's mind. Hiding in the haystack to terrorize Arthur and any unlucky girl he tried to steal away with for a moment alone. Dragging you off to your first pub in Birmingham and knocking some bloke on his ass when he tried to get handsy. Trying to teach you to drive on slick muddy streets, as you swore at him like a sailor when he wouldn't stop laughing. The keeper of your deepest secrets as you are of his. The person who tried to offer you hope in your darkest moments and celebrated you greatest success. Who genuinely listened to you and sought out your thoughts on matters. The person you trusted most with the innerworkings of your heart and mind. The one you trusted would be there.

All of it feels like yesterday. The memories still fresh and vivid. The thought there wont be more to make constricts your windpipe, tightens your heart, as tears you couldn't possibly hold back any longer fill dangerously to the brim of your eyes... You don't know how to do this. You don't know how to live this. You don't know how to say goodbye to him. To let him go. Watch him disappear from your life. And the truth is... You don't wanna know. You don't want to say goodbye. And a part of you feels hurt this seems so easy for him, though you don't actually know it is. And the part of you that knows Tommy's heart, suspects it isn't so easy for him to say goodbye to you either.

The thought you might never speak to him again leaves a frantic feeling trying to rip free from your chest. How do you find peace when you long for someone still there but just beyond your reach, drifting further out to sea by the moment? How do you let them go when everything inside you screams to pull them back in? The tears feel warm as they fall down your chilled cheeks onto the shoulder of his jacket. He can't see your tears, but you swear he can feel them as he pats at your knee in an old comforting gesture you've grown to trust will be there. As Tommy pulls away, you fight with the urge to rapidly wipe away your tears and keep your pride. But as your eyes meet, you realize there's no room for pride here. Staring into his eyes you fear the silence that's already invading the space he holds.

But then he touches your face and you remember to breathe. Though his hands are rough from work, the pad of his thumb feels soft, full, and steady against your skin as he gently wipes away at the tears fallen on your face.

"I'm coming back." Tommy promises you, and you want to believe that more then you've ever wanted to believe in anything. That he will return to you. But you've heard the news of the war, the dyer news that continues to abound. And something deep and sharp within you whispers it isn't true. He isn't coming back, and that quiet piercing whisper radiates more loudly within you then the words on his lips.

"Let's make a fire," Tommy suggests as he gives your knee a final pat. You can see in his eyes he's trying to mend your heart, soften the blow. A solemn smile of acknowledgment creeping around the corners of his mouth, as if anything in the world can be solved by a stiff drink or roaring campfire.

You nod in agreement, there's nothing the dancing flames, glowing embers, crackling branches, and heady smoky aroma can't clear from your mind. Nothing like bathing in a campfire to wash your mind and soul clean.

You rise from the rock in slow unison. You gaze across the rich fertile valley below as it slowly descends into darkness all around you. Vibrant greens from early now turning to deeper winter tones as night begins to envelope all that you see. This place you know. This man you know. As you turn back to Tommy, watching as he moves past the horses.

Your eyes fall closed for a moment as you call to him. You pray he can hear you. The way he use to when you were children lying awake late at night, pretending there was magic between you. "Dearest friend... I love you and perhaps I always will. I see you're headed on a road, and I don't know where it leads, but you will take a part of me with you. It's been yours a long time. I hope you remember its there, I hope you protect it and treasure it. But I won't stand in your way, because that's what it means to love someone more then yourself." You whisper to him, not with your lips but from that place in your heart that already belongs to him. The one he gets to keep. You embrace the truth that your world will never feel the way it did before. You will never feel like you did before. That a part of you dies with him as he slips away. You acknowledge this new reality for what it is, whether you know how to live it or not, whether you even want to.

You take a deep breath and slowly open your eyes.

He's gone.

[fantastic-rambles]

The Skylark’s Song [2/4]

Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Characters: Hibari Kyoya, Kusakabe Tetsuya, Namimori Middle Disciplinary Committee, Fon (mentioned)

Warnings: PTSD, Mild Language, Violence [A/N: Depiction of PTSD may not be accurate. I apologize if this bothers anyone.]

Word Count: 1.7k

Summary: My personal headcanons of the (pre-canon) experiences that made Hibari into the man that he is today. Part Two: the development of his commitment to discipline and explaining his apparent state of constant sleep deprivation. [This may end up being a four-part story, lol. Or a three-part with a small extra... which I guess is also four parts. I hope you enjoy! xD]

[Part 1]

Ever since that night, Hibari had never had a good night's rest.

Other than the week that he'd been in the hospital, woozy from the painkillers that had been constantly fed to him and barely aware of the world around him, he'd never slept for more than a few hours at any given time. At first, the nightmares--the memories--would wake him up in an empty house, screaming for his parents who were no longer there, and then he'd spend the rest of the night huddled in the corner, flinching at every shadow. For a long time, he feared that the men would return, but as time passed uneventfully, he grew more convinced that they didn't care. That they didn't think a mere child could be any danger to them. And they were probably right.

By all rights, he should have probably been taken away and moved to an orphanage, but a distant relative had been found who was willing to become his legal guardian. They'd spoken briefly on the phone, eventually coming to an agreement: since Hibari refused to leave his childhood home and Fon had special circumstances that made traveling and raising a child difficult, a housekeeper would be hired to watch over him, paid out of the fortune that he had inherited from his parents. Initially, she would come early in the morning every day and leave only when he was about to go to bed, but his growing preference for solitude and independence quickly asserted itself, so that she would eventually only come in the afternoon when he was at school, to clean and prepare his meals.

In school, his teachers also noticed a drastic change in his personality. Though he remained a good student, the previously outgoing and energetic child became withdrawn, appearing as though he was actively avoiding his classmates. Any attempts to speak with him outside of his assigned schoolwork were met with a stony wall of silence, and the many phone conversations that they had with his guardian did nothing to improve the situation.

In fact, the only activity in which Hibari demonstrated any initiative of his own was in his new studies of martial arts. Every evening found him at one dojo or another, practicing karate, boxing, kenjutsu, and a number of other combat arts with single-minded focus until he could barely drag himself back home. The physical pain was a welcome distraction, though it was short-lived as his body accustomed itself to the new routine.

His devotion to the arts and strict self-discipline meant that he quickly learned all that the instructors in Namimori could teach him. By the time he started middle school, he was no longer attending the dojos, instead practicing with masters that Fon would occasionally send to him while developing his own style. Hibari also began experimenting with weapons, discarding the sword and spear as impractical to carry and bare fists as too weak, before he eventually settled on his tonfa. The metal was hard enough to be difficult to deform, they were easily concealed, and simply adjusting the force could mean the difference between injury and death.

He still saw his parents every night. But at least he stopped screaming when he woke.

For the most part, his middle school years passed without anything of particular note until his third year, when he joined the disciplinary committee and a group of wannabe punks started to attend. In general, they were harmless, just mimicking the types of idiots that they saw in anime and manga and mouthing off out of the mistaken impression that it made them cool. But it irked Hibari to have to tell them off every morning for their appearances and watch them swagger around like thugs. When they finally started trying to extort their peers, however, he finally had a real excuse to step in.

"Hey, c'mon, you've got cash, right? We just need to borrow a couple thousand. We'll pay you back later, really!"

Hibari had been about to return home when he heard voices coming from behind the gym. If there was a response to Kusakabe, it was too quiet for him to hear, but he hoisted his bookbag higher over his shoulders as he went to investigate. As he turned the corner, the sight before him turned him cold with rage.

Kusakabe and his friends stood in a loose half-circle, a few of them holding wooden swords, leering at the student they had trapped against the wall, a young boy who looked absolutely terrified. His bookbag appeared to have been upended all over the ground, with books and pens scattered everywhere, and Kusakabe knelt before him, his hand outstretched expectantly. One of his friends stretched, cricking his neck threateningly, and noticed the prefect standing there, shaking. He smirked, reaching out to nudge their leader and jerking a thumb toward Hibari when Kusakabe looked up.

"Get rid of him," Kusakabe ordered, and three of his pack peeled away, advancing on Hibari and blocking his view.

"There's nothing to see here, Prefect-san. Get lost, unless you want what he's getting," one of them snapped, and Hibari's eyes fell to the ground as his hands clenched into trembling fists.

"Hey, look at him. You think he's gonna piss himself?" Another one laughed, jabbing his bokken toward Hibari, who took a step back, to more laughter. But in the next instant, Hibari was lunging forward, the gleam of metal in his hands knocking the wood aside and slamming the boy under the chin. Before the other two realized what was happening, they were splayed on the ground, clutching their heads as Hibari stood in front of them, breathing heavily. He staggered slightly, as if he were injured or drunk, as the rest of the gang advanced on him, Kusakabe in the lead, their victim forgotten. They were cautious now, now that they saw he could fight back, and when Hibari's head snapped up, even Kusakube seemed to hesitate. There was a gleam of madness and bloodlust in Hibari's normally flat black eyes, and his stance as he lifted his tonfa in front of his body telegraphed experience.

Even so, they couldn't back down, not from a fight that they had picked, so they approached the older boy carefully, trying to spread out to encircle him. He didn't make any move to stop them from doing so, just standing with an air of watchful patience, like a predator waiting to pounce. The fact that he was outnumbered didn't seem to bother him at all, and he kept his eyes fixed on Kusakabe. His unwavering gaze seemed to make the younger boy hesitate, but at the same time, foolish pride urged the delinquent forward.

"Get him."

After a heartbeat of uncertainty, they rushed in wildly, fists swinging and getting in each other's way more often than not. And in the midst of all of them, Hibari's weapons flashed like quicksilver, falling with precise blows upon heads and joints until he was the only one who remained standing among the carnage, like some ancient god of war. The few boys who weren't unconscious were groaning, clutching where they had been struck, and their victim had run away, leaving behind only a few pencils and a snapped ruler.

Languidly, Hibari walked over to the leader, nudging Kusakabe under the chin with his foot to make sure he had the boy's attention.

"Try this again, and I'll break your bones. A third time, and I'll bite you to death. Do you understand?"

It wasn't a threat, but a simple statement of fact, delivered in a flat tone that left no room for discussion. He waited for Kusakabe to nod, then turned around and walked away, stepping over the bodies that littered the ground.

From his experiences with hot-blooded people, Hibari didn't expect things to just end there, but nothing could have surprised him more when he arrived at school the next day. The moment he stepped inside the gates, he was greeted by a shout of "Good morning, boss!" and he turned to see Kusakabe and his hoodlums bowing to him.

"What's this?"

Hibari watched warily as Kusakabe approached him, smiling while sporting a black eye.

"Hibari-san, you're strong, and you've earned our respect. Please feel free to use us however you want," Kusakabe addressed him formally, bowing again. Some of the other students were staring at them, wide-eyed, and Hibari shoved the punk away with one hand.

"I'm not strong. You're just weak," he snapped. "That's why you just crowd together with the others. It makes me sick."

But his words didn't seem to upset the other boy, who deferentially took a step back to give Hibari the personal space that he clearly wanted. However, for the rest of the day, they hung in small groups at the corners of Hibari's vision whenever he wasn't in his classroom, following him around like a pack of devoted dogs. It was irritating, and when they began to follow him home after school, he snapped again, beating them all thoroughly, even though they didn't even try to fight back.

Gradually, though, Hibari noticed that their one-sided admiration seemed to be imposing better order on his beloved school. Small incidents were quickly straightened out without his interference, and for the most part, the gang stayed out of his way. So he tolerated their existences so long as they avoided grouping up in front of him, using them as yet another tool to protect the discipline at Namimori Middle School and in town as a whole. He never dealt with any of them directly except for Kusakabe, on the rare occasions that he had to give them orders; even so, he kept a close eye on them to ensure that they didn't overstep their bounds. 

His parents had loved the town, and so did he. Even though they had been betrayed, it was only because the authorities had all been weak: afraid of violence, dazzled by money, grasping for power, or any number of other reasons. Although Hibari intended to control them himself through the same methods, he had no intention of unleashing another pack of animals that would cause even more problems for others.

And on the day that he finally finished his compulsory education, he set out to settle the score.

[Part 3]

[rejectofsociety]

Febuwhump: Day Nine

Prompt: Buried Alive

Summary: One dreadful night, Peter is declared dead. However, his healing factor is much stronger than anyone anticipated.

Word Count: 1,956

Warnings: Major Character Death 

Written For: @febuwhump

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The last thing Peter remembered was a long needle sliding effortlessly into his arm, followed by a groggy wave of heavy soreness washing through his practically immobile body. He had been beaten into near-senselessness and yet his mind could only focus on one thing: the baby girl Michelle would be giving birth to in just a few weeks. He had to get up and finish this battle. He had to come out on top. Yet, as his muscles tensed in an attempt to rise to his feet, he found himself unable to move in the slightest. It was like his body was no longer existent and he was now no more than a spirit frozen with nothing but the sound of his heartbeat fading away like a dying drum to keep him company. The sensation of terror shaking his insides mixed with fury and frustration at his failure made him grow lightheaded and feverish.

"That should do it," a gruff voice said to the men beside him; their faces were bruised and their knuckles bloodied, "now toss him outside... his family will find him soon enough."

After a mumbling of 'yessir' from the thugs, Peter felt himself getting yanked off the ground and heaved over the shoulder of an enemy. His eyes fluttered shut and he let out a wheezing breath then felt the freezing midnight air of January strike his open wounds. Never before had he felt so useless and weak— how could he let this happen? How could he have let himself be beaten so brutally? Searing pain shot through every wound and overwhelmed his senses. I'm so sorry, MJ. He thought as his consciousness slipped away and his life escaped through his lips.

As predicted, Peter's family did find him— about five hours later. It was none other than Ned Leeds who had found his friend laying crippled in the lingering snow on his way to work. Peter's lips were blue and his skin was pale with blood loss— his body was colder than death itself. Ned ran to his crippled friend and collapsed to his knees at his side. He gripped Peter's shoulder's tightly and cried out his name.

"Peter!" He exclaimed, "no, no, no! Stop playing around!"

He shook his friend's body harshly, as if trying to awake him from a deep slumber. But Peter was stubbornly frozen, his heart stopped in its tracks, his body practically made of ice— he was dead. Despite the undeniable truth, Ned held Peter's corpse close to his chest and begged quietly for him to wake up.

"C-c-c'mon man..." Ned whimpered, "get up... let's go home."

It would be several more minutes until Tony arrived on the scene and phoned a hospital. He knelt beside the two young men and repeatedly begged FRIDAY to check for a heartbeat, as if she were merely choosing to torture him with some sick joke. Again and again, the AI somehow managed sadness in her voice when she reported that she found no heartbeat.

Later that morning, Peter was carried away from the scene in a body bag. Neither Tony nor Ned could see the blue bag holding a frozen corpse through the tears in their eyes. As heart-wrenching yet numbing the events were, the worst was yet to come— and the worst began with telling Michelle her lover had brutally passed away.

"M-m-michelle," Ned shakily began, many minutes later when he found himself standing in Michelle's living room.

"Ned, what is it?" Michelle asked anxiously, she hadn't slept at all the night before, "have you found Peter?"

His eyes dropped to the ground and the tears came rushing back to his eyes. His mouth opened and closed a few times as he searched for words to speak. Michelle shifted on her sore feet and felt her heart rate spark up.

"Ned?" She called, her tone somewhat demanding, "what happened?"

"Peter..." he drew in a deep breath and choked back a sob, "Michelle, he's gone..."

Michelle went dead silent and time seemed to slow to a stop. The blood drained from her face and her head grew light as the world seemed to disappear around her. She stumbled forward and Ned rushed forward to lower her carefully to the ground. All of her senses were muted, seemingly blocking the reality of his words from sinking into her mind. Ned spoke another sentence, supposedly one of comfort, yet it completely bypassed Michelle's hearing.

"I-I-I don't believe it!" Michelle cried.

"I know, I know," Ned rasped as he wrapped his arms around her, "it doesn't seem real."

"He can't- h-he can't-" was all she could manage as her voice broke and cracked.

She felt a tiny little foot smashing into the wall of her uterus, as if the baby was asking for her father. Michelle broke into uncontrollable sobs at this and clasped her hands over her stomach. Ned could only hold her closer.

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Four days later, the funeral took place. It was modest and uncrowded, just how Peter would have wanted it. The only ones to attend were the Avengers, May, Ned, Betty, and Michelle— no former classmates, no coworkers, no one who would arrive out of pity (not even Michelle's family arrived). 

Michelle refused to view her lover's body. She physically couldn’t bring herself look at Peter if he wasn’t alive, even if his wounds were sealed and cleaned. It's not like she'd be able to see anything through her tears anyways.

After Peter's coffin was lowered into the cavity carved out of the graveyard's ground, Michelle stood from a distance, shaking and sobbing silently. May and Ned kept their arms wrapped around her tightly while Tony and Pepper stood nearby with Morgan clinging to them tightly. The ten year old girl's gaze traveled from Michelle to the grave every few seconds, her eyes red and puffy from crying for the past four days.

Finally managing to contain herself after many deep breaths, Michelle gathered a handful of dirt in her hand and paced towards the grave. Each step was nauseating and made her clouded mind grow heavy and ache. Staring down at that coffin made her legs grow weak, and part of her wanted to lay in that coffin next to Peter, close her eyes and maybe pretend they were merely sleeping in their bed together. Of course that was a ridiculous fantasy.

That handful of soil fell from her hand in what felt like slow-motion. As it collided with the wooden coffin with a soft pitter-patter, a heartbeat was reawakened. A faint sound from within the corpse's chest that could only be picked up by the finest hearing. Peter's seemingly deceased body had been working desperately to heal itself from the moment it had been tossed outside. Now, just hours too late, the process was finished and his wounds were healed.

The first sound to meet his ears was the gentle sound of muffled footsteps stalking away from him. Then a weighted soreness washed over his body, as if he had done an intense workout the day before. 

A loud clatter sounded from above as a shovel carelessly tossed earth on top of the coffin. Slowly, Peter's eyes opened and he inhaled a lungful of musty, stuffy air that caught in the back of his throat. The scent of old dust and fresh dirt hit his nose like a snare, making tired adrenaline awaken in his veins. A chorus of thumps as one shovel-full after another of soil was tossed on top of him and his eyes groggily forced themselves open.

"Em.... j-ay," he croaked out hoarsely, his voice breaking weakly.

A few muffled words reached his hearing and suddenly his heart rate spiked and thundered in his ears. Terror enveloped his body as he stared above to recognize the wooden barrier that sat hardly inches away from his face. 

Claustrophobia forced the walls around him to seemingly cave in, making his stiff body begin to tremble anxiously. He inhaled sharply, only to cough and choke when only dust entered his lungs— he was already low on oxygen. His eyes widened and tears rushed to his eyes, blurring his vision. Instinctively, he flexed his tired arms in an attempt to reach out and free himself. His fists almost instantly hit the casket's roof and, with his arms staying glued to his sides and having hardly any space to move, the hit was feeble and useless. Panic flared inside of him and his heart pounded dangerously fast and impossibly loud, so loud it became the only thing he could hear. His entire body felt feverish as if it had been set on fire, yet at the same time it was freezing cold, like getting hypothermia at the same time as a heatstroke. Frigid sweat dripped down his back and face as he trembled.

Again, he weakly smashed his fists against the wood, only managing to rattle the coffin. If he had awakened earlier, the two men burying him would have seen the shaking and instantly pull him out. But now there were several weighted layers of dirt covering the casket, and the movements went unnoticed.

Dread and helplessness fell heavily upon Peter like each shovel-full of soil being carelessly tossed on his coffin. He hysterically smashed his fists and knees against the roof as much as the tiny space would allow as every muscle horror. His body was still sore and exhausted, yet the adrenaline fought this as much as it could. He had to meet his daughter. He had to raise her with Michelle. He had to see Ned get married to Betty.

"N-no," he wheezed hoarsely, "MJ! No, no, no!"

His useless cries and pleads were drowned out, deeming him mute. His breathing grew shallow and rapid with his eyes squeezed shut as if that would chase away the feeling of the walls collapsing around him.

His knee crashed through the weakened wood and he felt dirt spill coldly over his clothed legs. A plume of dust filled the casket, forcing Peter into a coughing fit as the debris filled his lungs. 

Surely that caused an effect on the surface, someone had to have seen that. He thought with misplaced hope. He blinked away some dust, and for a moment he managed to contain himself enough to strain his ears to listen to the voices above.

"Don't worry. It was just the dirt settling," a gruff voice stated, "it tends to do this. Now hurry, we're almost done here."

"No!" He called desperately, thrashing as much as he could manage as tears streamed down his cheeks, "please no!"

Too panicked to control his breathing, the shaky breaths became unbearably frantic. However, he was fresh out of oxygen and was only hyperventilating dust that clogged his throat and stung his nose. This can't be happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening. Michelle, I'm sorry! Were the only thoughts circling his mind as he fought for consciousness. He felt his breaths grow weak and shuddering as he became increasingly lightheaded. His heart palpitated and skipped beats in terror. His throat was now too dry and scratchy to scream any longer— the words that left his mouth were croaky and hardly whispers. His movements were rapidly slowing down and growing weak.

"M... michelle," he rasped softly, his last breath escaping his lips like a ghost.

His heartbeat faded away and became faint as his body went limp and his eyes fluttered shut. He was not dead yet, only unconscious with lack of oxygen. However, within minutes he would be a corpse once more— laying in a broken coffin with tears drying on his face, dirt in his lungs, and a daughter who would never meet her father.

[bexterbex]

A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 50

Warning, PLEASE CHECK TAGS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THEN DON’T READ. Tag lists are closed

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Will tag as I go along, Will update tags, Slow Burn, Influenced by Star Trek and other Sci-Fi themes, References to We Happy Few, Tons of References and quotes to George Orwells 1984 see if you can find them all, The First Order is the new Big Brother,  but who is really surprised, Blatant Nazi Symbolism, Interrogation Themes, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Really just drawn out Slow Burn, Don’t repost without permission, Torture themes, Suggestive Themes, Execution themes, Disturbing Themes, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Controlling Kylo Ren, Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Possessive Kylo Ren, A character shamelessly based on Zelda

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with some canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 50: Demanding Answers

The Big Chapter 50 is here.

You were ready to walk out into the living area to wait for him. While you waited, you went behind the bar to see if there was anything to drink. You waved goodbye to the ladies and found a nice wine to drink while you waited. You poured yourself a glass and walked over to the couch to lounge, rather suggestively.

You heard the door open and you watched him walk in, he took off his helmet and set it on the buffet in the front entrance area. All while not taking his eyes off of you. He sauntered over to you while his eyes roamed over your body, “Do you want to play Kitten and skip dinner?” As he reached you he bent down for a kiss.

You turned away and moved to get up, setting your finished wine glass down on the coffee table. “No, I would like dinner, and for you to explain some things to me. And if I get my answers then we can play.” You made your way down the hall to the dining room before receiving an answer.

He did follow you. You made your way to your seat and pulled up the menu. He followed and made his way to kiss your cheek which you also avoided, with the back of your hand meeting his lips. “Dinner and questions first, play later,” you commanded.

He let out a frustrated huff but sat down. He made his order and you two sat staring at each other waiting for the food to arrive. You could tell he was getting more annoyed by the minute. You were keeping your face neutral, waiting for him to crack first.

Which he did, “So are you going to ask these questions of yours? Or am I supposed to pry them from your mind.” His fingers thrummed on the table. He hadn’t taken his gloves off yet, something that was starting to annoy you. You prepared yourself for dinner like a lady, but he failed to simply take off his gloves.

“I don’t know, would you rather have some food before you get angry and storm off or would you like to possibly ruin dinner now, before we have even eaten?” Your question was based on history. The last few times you had tried to get him to answer things he had blown up and walked out or made you do a 180 and forget about it until days later.

He was annoyed by this question you could tell. His jaw clenched and the hand that was drumming on the table turned to a fist for a moment before laying its palm flat. “I wouldn’t want to spoil your dinner,” he said through gritted teeth.

Your dinner came in, along with another glass of wine. You were going to need a bit of liquid courage to be able to keep your backbone. As you both ate the tension in the room was high. You could tell by his rough eating of his dinner that he was just getting angrier and angrier. When you were finished you slowly finished off your glass of wine before standing and leaving the room.

You heard a crash, but it did not stop you from your mission. You walked up the stairs to the lounge space and sat down in front of the fireplace causing it to turn on. Before he descended the stairs after you, you ordered a stronger drink from your phone. You could hear him stomp after you, like a child being told what to do. You smirked at that thought. Oh yes, like a child.

He did not sit next to you, but he stood off to the side of the fireplace, glaring at you. With clenched fists and a clenched jaw he asked, “Your questions?”

You raised a finger at him, signaling for him to wait. At that moment the door to your chambers opened and a droid flew up the steps and delivered you your drink. You took the drink from its tray and held up the glass to inspect it before taking a drink. You then hold it in your hand, “Why did you not tell me about the formal dinner? You, not Hux, not Phasma, not your knights, not my ladies-in-waiting, but you.” Your head was level but you glared at him through your lashes, your lips slightly pursed.

You watched him clench and unclench his fists for several moments. His clenched jaw allowed you to see him grind his teeth. If he could harm you with just the look of his dark eyes, you would have been painted across the walls by now, but you were serving him a look back. “It was not a matter of importance,” he sneered finally. His eyes were twitching and seething with anger and frustration.

“Really, because it doesn’t appear that way. Is this not a formal dinner with high ranking planetary officials of the First Order? Is this not the first official event where I will be presented as Lady Ren? Your match. Or is that not something that is important to you anymore, me being your match?” You leaned forward, testing him. Daring him to do something. You took a sip from your drink and swirled it around in your glass waiting for his answer.

You heard a crash come from somewhere downstairs, but you held your ground not moving, not being phased. “Yes, they are important to the First Order and the final agenda, but they are not important to me. You will be presented as Lady Ren because you are Lady Ren. You are my match, the other half to my soul. You are important to me.”

You scoffed at this, something that earned another crash only this time it was a chair that flew off the lounge space balcony and down to the floor below. You flinched for a second before regaining your composure. “If I was important to you then you would tell me such things, or at least you would have the decency to send me a message yourself. Or did you forget that I still have my phone?”

He tore his gaze away from you, his hands clenched tightly into fists, his arms tense and shaking with anger. “Is that what you want?” You were pretty sure his anger was burning a hole in the wall behind you.

“Yes, that is what I want. For you to message me at the very least. I don’t think that is a lot to ask for, or you could tell me before you leave in the morning. Is that such a hard request?” You tilted your head towards him. Your eyes analyze his reaction.  

His fist clenched and unclenched several times before he answered, “No,” through gritted teeth once more.

“Good.” You leaned back in your seat and took another sip of your drink. “Now, I would like you to tell me who you have been speaking to when you think I am asleep.”

This set something off, “I told you never to speak of her again,” he roared. You could see his chest vibrating with anger. Seeming to struggle to keep his emotions locked inside his chest, like a cage.

You racked your brain to think of who he was talking about, but then something clicked and your body felt like ice had been poured through your veins. You stood and turned to walk to the edge of the balcony, “So the scavenger is a she.” Your back was to him.

“She is nothing, she means nothing.” You could hear his anger, but could no longer see it.

Something inside you broke, “If she means nothing then why won’t you tell me about her? Or are you lying to me and yourself.” The ending came as more of a whisper.

You could hear him step forward, “She is no one, she means nothing.” His voice was flat. You turned to look at him, but the look on his face told you everything you needed to know. His eyes were windows that betrayed the privacy of his mind, and heart.

Your drink fell to the floor, your legs moving on their own. You ran down the steps, tears falling down your face. He was frozen in his spot. Your brain and heart were moving at two different paces, without thinking you went into your dressing room and locked the door. You fell to the ground, your heart shattered with the drink you left upstairs. You were alone, but without thinking you hit a button on a remote, to call for them. You did not want to be alone.

There was pounding outside the door. Kylo, he was yelling too, but your brain didn’t process what was being said. You felt numb.

After a few minutes, you heard another voice behind the door and the pounding and yelling ceased. You heard a simple knock and Adlez’s voice, “M’lady it is us, please let us in.”

You hit a button on the remote and the door opened revealing Adlez and Olivia-Rose, Kylo was looming behind them. Adlez’s face upon seeing you was a look of horror and sympathy. She and Olivia-Rose entered and Kylo tried to follow, but Adlez swiftly turned and pointed a finger into his chest. “This is no place for a man. And that very much includes you. Especially when you caused the problem now out.”

Kylo was a bit in shock at what Adlez said, he stumbled back out of the doorway. His face turned to anger and you could see his chest puff up before Adlez hit a button on the panel and shut the door in his face. And she hit another one, presumably locking it. You heard yelling and banging once more.

She quickly rushed to your side, “Now now m’lady, you are safe. Olivia-Rose and I will fix everything just you see.” They both hauled you up, helping you to the vanity.

You glanced at your reflection, your face was a mess, your eyeliner and mascara leaving streaks down your face with puffy red eyes. Your lipstick was smeared and mostly gone from your lips. Your hair was a mess, but you don’t remember ever touching it in the first place. You looked like a girl who was dumped on her prom night.

Both of them moved quickly around you. Taking down your hair, removing your makeup, putting on some weird face mask. You were hauled up once more and changed into a nightgown, one that was similar to last night. Your voice was hoarse, “But I don’t want to wear this.” More tears streamed down your face, making the face mask start to run.

“I said we would fix this, and we will. First, you must wear that and you must stop crying. Now tell us everything,” said Adlez sternly, both of them walked you to the chaise lounge.

You recalled all of the details from dinner and your questions. When you got to the part about the scavenger you could hear Adlez scoff.

“A scavenger for a lady, I think not. Especially when that lady is his match. Why are men, such idiots?” She was angry, you don’t know if it was for you or her own anger, but it made you feel minutely better. Adlez then got up and walked over to the vanity picking up a washcloth and bringing it over to you, she started to remove the face mask.

“Now m’lady if he is still out there, which I have a feeling he is, you will stand your ground. You will demand to know who this scavenger is. If he does not answer, then I want you to come back in here and call on us. We will stay with you all night. If he does not answer you will not sleep next to him. In fact, you will not sleep in his bed until he does.” She walked back over to the vanity to grab various creams and oils.

She applied them to your face and something cool to your eyes. “Remember what I said, men like pretty things in their bed, but they must know to take care of them if they want them to stay pretty. Now I have a correction to that. They must take care of them if they want pretty things to stay. I am more than prepared to spend many nights and days with you in here until he answers you.” A part of you wished you had an ounce of her conviction and confidence. He was a fool for assigning her to you. She finished applying whatever it was to your face and pulled you to stand.

She told Olivia-Rose to grab the perfume from last night, which she then sprayed you with. On either side, they joined you in front of the full-length mirror. Somehow they managed to put you back together again. “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,” you mused quietly.

“Yes, but they were the king’s men, you are an empress,” said Adlez confidently. This caused a spark within you. “Now, you will go out there and show him exactly that. You are an empress and she is some dirty scavenger. You will not ask to be told what she is, you will demand it. You are an empress, now act like it.” This caused the spark to be a fire, a roaring fire.

“Head up, shoulders back,” said Adlez as she followed you to the door. You were an empress. Not a queen. Not a princess. Not just a woman. Not just a girl. And most certainly not a scavenger. You were an empress, and now you were going to claim your empire.

[vaingloriosa]

love brought weight

Summary: When war against alien beings took the love of your life away from you, you cross time and space to find him again.

Word count: 5.5k

Characters: Quentin Beck x female!reader (though I do not use any descriptions or explicitly call the reader a “woman”, i do use the word “wife” to often describe the reader)

Warnings: major character death, angst, pining, cross-dimensional love, more anguish, slight “far from home” spoilers

Author’s note: my first quentin fic and i got a little carried away with this story? VALID! so, the gist of the universe i created is that alternative timelines can cross to different timelines. think back to the ending of endgame and those portals and how scott describes quantum realm physics...but this is on a much grander scale. it’s an occurrence that is readily accepted so it isn’t “freaky” but rather sorta normalized to see alternates crossing the timeline. hope i didn’t lose y’all jsjskaljskal. forewarning though: i did write some of this story while on a lot of ibuprofen...i get absolutely silly whenever i’m on that. i also made quentin bisexual because Rights. gif made by me :)

Quentin isn’t sure why he continues to twiddle with the gold band around his ring finger while he’s not performing in front of an audience.

After every debriefing, he takes a bow as the curtain draws before him, the spotlight diminishing from his view, he can’t help but reach for it. The ring acts like some sort of tether, bound somewhere between the role Quentin plays and something far fetched...a yearning feeling that breaks his own heart at times. He can’t quite find the words to express how he feels but he knows to ignore such foolish longing.

Focus, Beck.

Focus.

Home.

A mystery to be solved.

Staring down the familiar cherry wood door before you, there’s a hint of hesitance as you bring your fist up to the door. It will be him, but he won’t be yours. Being in this universe felt foreign to you with the eerily stillness of the Venice air. Back in your universe, it felt as if the world was engulfed in an endless war, a hellish nightmare that had not a single light at the end of the dark tunnel. However, you had your husband, the two of you surviving alongside each other until...until...

You blink back the tears before they have a chance to fall.

Perhaps you weren’t as ready as you thought you were. Though you may argue that the years it took to find yourself on these steps in front of this exact same door that kept the outside world away from you and the love of your life may say otherwise. You poured everything you had to get to this very point in time to be with him again, to reconnect, to have your soulmate in your arms again.

No, you are ready for this.

Knock, knock.

You can feel your body vibrate, goose flesh forming along every inch of your skin, heartbeat slightly drowning your own thoughts. There’s a beat of silence then you think to yourself that maybe this may not be the best time for a reunion. You look over your shoulder to admire the scenic night life outside the bustling tourism. The water current beats against the concrete, boats gently floating near the pier, a hypnotic lullaby. Street lights illuminate passersby as their laughter fills the once still air. You can’t help but smile at them, memories flooding back from your universe with your loved ones. Moving to Venice may had been a spur of the moment kind of deal but you had him by your side every step of the way. You miss waking up in the morning to him, interlacing your fingers into his, the way he would hold you close to his chest.

It becomes too overwhelming to bear the heaviness of the loss of Q-

“Can I help you?”

Your head perks up at the sound of a voice you never thought you would ever hear again. Slowly, you turn around to face the man that had sacrificed his life in return for your safety.

“Quentin.”

Your voice sounds nearly disembodied; even being taken aback by the sound. You swallow thickly as your eyes fixate on the face you thought you had lost forever. The way that everything seems to be in place, how it’s like looking at an exact copy of him, like he never really left, put into this alternative universe that you found yourself in. Your heart begins to skip, you feel your palms become clammy as if you were on your first date with your Quentin all over again.

Oh, it’s him! It’s him! It’s him!

Oh! You know it’s him!

Your eyes beam as if reinvigorated by being in close proximity of his aura. “Hi, I’m your wife from another timeline.”

Silence.

Quentin narrows his eyes at your form to try and soak in who you are and what you just told him. Is he in a dream? Is he currently sleep walking? Another one of his illusions that came back to bite him in the ass? Or, rather, are you what he’s been searching for?

He shakes his head violently.

You begin to protest. “I know it sounds wild, believe me I know! After losing my Quentin, the other Quentin in my timeline, I desperately been trying to find my way back to you.”

Quentin takes a step back, still clutching the door like a lifeline. Even in the dim lighting of the light post shows how white his knuckles are and you know he’s frightened and overwhelmed like you were once you crossed the timeline boundary. You want to reach out, to hold Quentin and tell him it’s going to be alright because you are there to help him through this.

He takes another look at you, then shakes his head again, letting out a shaky breath. Despite the fact that “cross-timeline destiny” has been achieved before doesn’t mean that he fully understands the concept. There were others who have crossed the quantum realm into different worlds and universes but experiencing for himself...it all feels unreal. Quentin has always been more methodical, leaning against science as proof of existence. You standing there may be the lifeline a part of his is reaching for but he thinks with his brain first.

“Listen, I am not him. This “Quentin” of yours must be really something for you to travel through space and time like that but believe me, I’m not what you’re looking for. Goodnight.”

He goes to close the door but you press the palm of your hand before it can lock. Quentin looks at the door then shifts his gaze to you. It’s not a look of determination or anger but rather of brokenness. How shattering it is to look into your eyes that loved someone like him, eyes that carry memories of the two of you.

A ring on your left hand that proves who you are.

You blankly stare at the ghost of a man you used to know, somebody that’s supposed to be dead and shredded into bits. You long to embrace Quentin, to be protected once again against the evils that the world can bring. Memories flash before your eyes as you gaze into those ocean blue eyes of the lover you thought you lost. Lazy weekend mornings, faily evening strolls through the streets of Venice, resting on each other’s shoulders, just conquering the everyday with each other. You know it’s going to be a 500 mile journey to get there yet you are determined to be there every step of the way. You have loved your Quentin and you have crossed several boundaries, bent the known physics of the fabric of time to be with him again. You will not let that stop you from getting him back; the hero you’ve lost before.

“How did Other Me die?”

The first week had been particularly rough for the two of you. How does one even navigate a situation where someone is claiming that she’s his wife from a different dimension? Tense to put things lightly. Quentin often finds you watching and observing him as he gets ready for “work”. You gaze from the corner of the couch while he cleans up the house or waters the plants outside on the patio. Every time at breakfast, it’s always stifled in awkwardness where you can’t help but break a little as you remember your mornings with your Quentin. Ones where you snake your arms around his waist while he cooks, little kisses placed on your forehead before he leaves for work, how you two would play footsies underneath the table and giggle during any ordinary day.

Now there’s just silence.

Until Quentin decides to take a step forward in discovering more about you.

Your chest heaves a bit as you straighten yourself. You’ve tried to give Quentin some space to try and adjust to his new reality since you did just intrude on his personal space. Only when he’s ready to talk, you remind yourself.

“Well, you died a valiant death. There was only one way into stopping the hellish fight with these monsters from another world that you tried to create a portal to engulf them. And that saying...’the captain does down with the ship’...my friends had to pull me away as I watched you waved goodbye with a kiss then turned it on. The portal you created obliterated you. Afterwards, I ran over to your dead body and kissed your forehead for one last time. I told you how much I loved you.”

Quentin mulls this information over for a few days.

He wonders if he should call you “alternate’s wife”.

Sure, Quentin may not live up to his Other Quentin namesake with sacrificing himself up like that but there’s something deep down that believes he is capable of doing exactly that. He’s always wanted to be the hero in his own origin story.

Peering over his shoulder, he watches you paint your nails on the couch in the living room. It’s evening already and the television is playing the news with the volume on low. Quentin can’t help but feel a pull, mesmerized by such simple actions as blowing your nails dry. He has to admit that you are still very much his type. Perhaps this Other Quentin has some taste.

Before you can even catch him in the act, he turns back to his work.

Alternate wife.

Explains the ring around his finger that he has chosen to hide away.

The one who makes him laugh, one that challenges him, nearly breaks his own mind to try and figure you out. You’re good company to the market as you playfully toy with him and reminisce on how the two of you used to do this every Saturday. Sometimes the looks you give him, the way you involuntarily reach for his hand...it kills him to know that he is not Other Quentin.

Still, Quentin tries to be there for you.

One night he wakes to the sounds of your screams.

This is the third time this week.

Quentin rushes over to your side as your whole body rattles. You run your hand over your face and leaving them there. He’s not sure how to comfort somebody who comes from a different timeline who is supposedly your alternate you’s wife and has nightmares about the night his Other died. It’s not like people Google search “how to console someone who has seen another version of you die a horrific death with their very eyes” frequently. To see you in such a state slowly broke his heart.

All he can offer is a shoulder to cry on and a hand to hold.

Those nightmare nights are complete opposites to nights where you get drunk off his beer and become a giddy individual who loves to over share.

“You know I love you, Quentin? Mmm, so, so much. Like you know the universe? The stars and the moon? She has nothing on us.”

You take another sip as Quentin still nurses his first bottle.

You sit right next to him and curl your legs under you, carding your fingers through his silky hair then try to mess around with a few strands. You miss being this close to him and you know it’s the liquid courage coursing through your veins right now.

Another sip sends you back into memory lane.

Your features brighten up, placing a finger up as you place your bottle on the coffee table. “Gosh, I just remembered our first date together and how I thought it was such a disaster. You are afraid to eat in front of others but I didn’t know then so I really thought you were like...blowing me off just to seem disinterested. It was like ‘Hello! I’m carrying this whole conversation or what!’ When I got that text afterwards about that whole fear, I always found it quite endearing. I’m glad we worked through that together though.”

You giggle at your own anecdote and Quentin rubs the back of his neck.

How did you know about that? The last few girlfriends and boyfriends before that never quite understood it, let alone find it “endearing”.

“Ooh!” you nearly screech as you bounced up and down on the couch. “I’ll never forget that giant teddy bear you gave to me for my birthday then having them eye us having sex that night kinda killed the whole mood.”

Quentin watches as you come alive for the first time in a few weeks (after the last time where you nearly blacked out). You dance to the sound of your own tun and try to recruit Quentin on the “dance floor”. He chuckles, places his hands up in mock surrender, and tells you that he should be going to bed. You pout, folding your arms across your chest, and telling him that he owes you a dance.

He caves in with a smile tugging at the edge of his mouth.

You provide your own music as you sing out loud some song Quentin’s never heard before but sounds eerily familiar. It’s some funky pop song that sounds like a top 40s song yet all that is in the background. He focuses on you only, the way your face is animated, lifting his arms up to twirl yourself around and not giving him the chance to dance on his own. You keep telling him that you love him with your entire being and that the rain has nothing on the love you two share.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you...

You press your head against Quentin’s shoulder.

He can feel your shallow breath against the fabric of his night shirt and he feels goose flesh forming. You have started falling asleep with one hand interlaced with his and a hand on his shoulder. Slowly, that hand that was on his shoulder drops down to the crook of his elbow.

Quentin carries you and he finds it a tiny bit ironic at the name of the hold: bridal style. You’re his alternate wife and he’s your alternate husband in a timeline unlike his, a timeline he tells the people at work about. He lays you carefully on the couch you’ve called home for almost a month now and pulls a blanket over your form. You bury your head into your pillow to try and get more comfortable.

Could it be possible to be jealous of a man Quentin’s never met before?

He’s jealous of Other Quentin finding someone like you in his timeline. Somebody who is willing to sacrifice the very physics of time to take a leap of faith and find him again. Quentin will admit that much about his love for his Other Self.

He envies the Other Quentin on how the exact same person sleeping on his couch watched another version of himself perish in front of her eyes yet still had that much love within her to approach a corpse full of blood and a rotting flesh to press a kiss against his temple.

Those same fingers that interlaced his brushed off guts and gore from Other Quentin’s face and still found love even in death.

And he has the audacity to call himself a “hero”.

Anomalies are known to happen in science.

When there’s an unusual blimp on the radar that isn’t of his own doing, Quentin’s blood runs cold. He can’t explain it on his own rehearsed terms and desperately tries to regain his composure in front of Agent Fury and Agent Hill.

Just plaster on another face.

However, deep down, he’s afraid.

Sabbath morning.

He places a plate of Challah bread in front of you as you shift in your chair. You move your head to the side as you wonder if Quentin knew this was your favorite type of bread. Maybe an alternative universe is just a mere mirror of oneself; still the same but slightly different.

Quentin nudges the honey pot closer to you.

The sun highlights the amber tint of the honey that you drizzle over your piece of bread. You take a moment to bask in the warm rays of the Italian sun while sitting outside of Quentin’s patio. Birds call out from above, clouds nearly stationary against the pale blue sky, and the world continues to spin on its axis. You take a small bite of your bread, licking a few honey droplets off your thumb.

It’s a comfortable silence between the two of you before you spot honey along Quentin’s lips.

Out of habit, you reach over to his chair and direct his head towards you with your hand so you can inspect him. You swipe a dampened thumb across the seam of his bottom lip, bringing your thumb to your lips and licking the stray honey right off. Quentin feels that pull again, the pull that you that’s intoxicating and has been drawing him closer and closer to you ever since the moment he found you standing outside his door. Why can’t he just admit the feeling? How can he admit that he can’t live up to the expectations of Other Quentin? The man you once fell in love with? How on Earth is he jealous over how Other Him managed to find someone as beautiful and loyal as you? He thinks he doesn’t deserve kindness, nor does he think he deserves the love that you are trying to give him.

A love that has stood the test of time over an alternative timeline.

Something tells him to give into that pull like a ship returning back to the sea of the unknown. It’s exciting, electric, new. Quentin brings hims lips closer to yours, you closing the gap until both of your lips are mere inches away from each other. His breath tickles your skin and it’s so damn familiar that you’re becoming more unhinged with each passing second. The scent of honey on his lips brings a certain sweet delirium that stirs inside of your body. Quentin shivers as his nose presses against yours and the softness of your skin sends a new wave of chills down his body.

Quentin places the ghost of a kiss on your lips.

He can’t. Not now.

You don’t deserve this emptiness.

Quentin shuts his eyes closed in frustration, pressing his forehead against yours for a second then apologizing.

“Sorry, I have a debriefing to attend to.”

You are not his to keep, anyways.

He wants to be your Quentin but he doesn’t know if he can. Quentin knows he will never hurt you nor put you in harm’s way yet he’s scared his technology might unintentionally do so. Maybe he’s slowly going soft on you as you stubbornly sleep on his couch, eat his food, crack jokes from here and there, and make him smile whenever you can. You are more than just some random roommate but...he fears it’s something more. Maybe the Other Quentin is rubbing off on him in some way, shape, or form even despite such cross-destiny conspiracy that his brain is yelling at him to stop believing in. The longer Quentin stares into your eyes, with infinite knowledge and wonder in them, he begins to wonder if he’s truly fallen for you. The idea of you? Was this just the jealously of Other Quentin?

Or the imminent danger unraveling before him and having no way in stopping? Could it be that he’s afraid of losing you?

Maybe the biggest act of love that he can give you now is to let you go in order to be safe. You don’t deserve to be thrown into the whirlwind of his creation, a deceitful bitter lie born out of cold revenge. To Quentin, admitting that he cares for you is a step in a frightening direction of questioning if revenge is the right way in dealing with Tony’s betrayal. In his fury, he never predicted there would be an actual imminent danger.

He stands up suddenly, pushing the white iron chair away from you then departing. You don’t open your eyes, not just yet. You squeeze them tighter as you hear the sound of the front door close then you feel your chest tighten. You erupt in a ravaging sob that causes your entire body to shake in the process. You bring your trembling hands to your mouth to try and muffle your cries but to no avail. Your fingers brush upon your quivering lips as you try to memorize the shape of him once again.

You love him, you love him, oh, how you loved him in your universe. To do anything to kiss Quentin’s jawline again with his stubble tickling your lips. How he would place kisses on the back of your hand, on your palms, on your neck, your body was a temple and he wanted to show you the utmost devotion. You miss his intimate touches, his hair against the palm of your hand, his warmth near your body. The memories only add fuel to your fire with no end in sight to your crying.

How could you be so selfish, you wonder to yourself.

To think Quentin could be the same as the Other Quentin. How could he love you the same way as yours did?

But it’s him, it’s him...you know it’s him.

Perhaps you are merely just Icarus who flew too close to the sun. Maybe you will die in your own act of selfish hubris with scorching wings that acts as your medal of valor for your efforts in time travel. Have others felt the same way that you did after crossing over a new timeline? Shame? Guilt? Selfishness? You felt alone in a universe that is not yours to keep. Had it all been worth it?

You yearn for his touch, the warmth of another human being.

You sigh, your eyes fluttering up to clean up the long abandoned breakfast.

Anxiety greets him like an old friend. Oh, how the cold Beck before him would guffaw!

Quentin reconvenes with his team and discusses the next illusion. Not as elaborate as the ones they’ve pulled off before but Peter is more than naive to notice. It’s yet another role to act with a script that gives him commands and actions.

He remembers you.

There’s a hesitation as he hovers over the phone number that reads “home”. But why? How can he tell you that the monsters that infiltrated your timeline and killed the Other Quentin, causing you to find your way back to him, are ripping through the fabric of time to destroy this world? The world you thought would be safe? The reason why Quentin pushed his true feelings aside was that he was afraid of hurting you and now there’s actual threat to his livelihood.

Now is not the time to think about his illusion, it’s about saving your life. Feelings coming bubbling in his stomach but Quentin knows this is the right decision, much to his team’s dismay.

After all you’ve done for him, Quentin accepts what has always been there inside of him.

Calling home.

You hesitate at the bar door.

It’s like being in school again when you peer into the windows then your eyes lay on a mysterious figure sitting at the bar. There’s a kid with glasses next to him hunched over a glass much different than the beer bottle of the man. He’s dressed a little funny in what only appears to be a costume of sorts. It’s hard to make out who it may be but you begin to scan the other patrons of the bar. They’re all very much in their own little worlds, caught up in the whirlwind of different discussions.

You wonder where Quentin may be.

The man at the bar turns to the kid and your heart nearly drops. The profile reminds you of Quentin but why would he be wearing a costume? With newfound gusto, you enter the bar.

He turns to see you and his eyes light up. It’s Quentin.

You tilt your head to the side.

Quentin reaches his arm out to you and you walk a little closer. As you approach, the kid turns his attention to you and suddenly you feel very out of place, almost awkward.

What’s happening right now?

“Peter, this is—my alternate’s wife.”

Your breath nearly catches in your throat as after so long, he acknowledges you for who you really are. You feel a hand at the small of your back, almost hesitant but gets stronger as the kid named Peter reaches his arm out for you to take.

“It’s really nice to meet you. Mysterio only told me very little about you but I respect his boundaries, y’know?”

Mysterio? Talked about you?

You turn to look at him but a solemn expression replaces the one he had before. You place a hand on his shoulder and shake your head.

“Are you alright?”

Quentin closes his eyes for a second then lets out a shaky breath. He swallows thickly as he catches your gaze for reassurance, to make sure he is doing the right thing. Quentin begins to replay the gruesome death of Other Quentin he’s conjured up as you told him more and more details over the course of the month. His eyes bore into your soul, knowing the inevitable.

He waves his hand like a conductor and just like that, the illusion drops.

The bar begins to dissolve in thin air with dusty chairs and tables coming to light. You spin around to take in your new surroundings, watching Peter stiffen then removing his glasses. His boyish features turn to that of pure confusion. You look over at Quentin who stands up to take off the chest plate of his supposed armor and tossing it haphazardly to the side. His mouth is agape, almost as if to say something but closes it back up.

Quentin’s afraid to reach out for help. He’s vulnerable in front of you, his lie exposed to you once and for all.

Will you love him any less? Will you care about him any less? Will you understand?

“I’m a fraud,” Quentin begins with his eyes glued to the rotting floorboard of the establishment. “There’s not too much time to explain everything but we are all in real danger.”

He glances up at you with pleading eyes, ones that beg for forgiveness. “Those monsters that came and destroyed your timeline? Well, they’re back in this dimension and I don’t know how to stop them.”

You are taken aback. You can feel yourself become lightheaded, a chill running down your spine as your eyes become wide open.

Oh, no, you tell yourself.

Not again.

“You are smart, Quentin. I believe in your work and so should you.”

Yet he feels absolutely powerless. No illusion to save him from this destruction. No more hiding behind a façade perfectly constructed to his liking.

Several papers sprawl all over the table in a headquarters you never knew operated underneath Venice. All those times you strolled with Quentin in your other life, you never knew this was all happening at the same time. However, you felt somewhat secure in a place like this. Even with the agents you met, Hill and Fury, with a tough exterior towards strangers, they warmed up to you after finding out who you are.

You are brought back to reality when Quentin sighs in frustration.

Just like before.

The life you knew begins to mirror in this timeline and you are petrified of the outcome. Would history repeat itself again and you are left picking up the pieces? Could this happen again where you lose the love of your life again? Were you simply chasing a future to call your own? Or was it simply destiny to live broken?

No matter the impending destruction, you stick right by Quentin’s side, or Mysterio that others refer to him as.

Quentin pulls out the wedding ring again.

He thinks it may bring him luck, maybe even strength, but deep down he knows it represents more than that. He touches the ring to remind himself of you and the journey it took to find him here.

It all feels a little too late when Quentin begins to reciprocate the touches that were once one-sided. He actively seeks you out, having you close to him whenever he can. Even if the days between the two of you is dwindling, Quentin tells him that he won’t stop expressing how he feels in the only way possible. You begin to sleep next to him on his bed, curled against his bare chest and falling asleep to the sound of his heartbeat. You two share lively conversations over every meal with laughter filling the room. Quentin holds you closer whenever a nightmare startles you awake.

It all feels like you two are running out of time.

During a particular debriefing, you recount the plans that Other Quentin had in defeating these alien beings. It pains you to revisit memories just days before his death and even looking at Quentin brings back that forlorn feeling.

Maybe this time is different, maybe this time you can stay.

You two hold onto maybe.

But maybe is never good enough.

The moments before the inevitable begin to play out again and it’s all painfully real. Quentin has the contraption along his wrists, ready to go into the line of fire for his final act. In order for this all to work, he must get close to the actual being in order to extinguish it out of existence.

He had volunteered.

Just like Other Quentin had before.

Hot tears drop down your cheek as you try to find your voice to call out to Quentin. There is utter chaos going about with Peter, known as Spider-Man, begins rescue efforts with other agents from S.H.I.E.L.D. working besides him. You can feel the heat from the fiery being and you close your eyes to blink back the ash that the wind peppers you in. Your arm is being pulled back by Agent Hill, her barking orders being tuned out as you watch Quentin walk past you. He stops with his back towards you.

This is his time to be the actual hero.

He stalls for a bit then turns to you. You can tell Quentin’s eyes are glassy with tears but they weren’t tears from the heat.

Sadness.

In your mind, you begin to plead for mercy, that this couldn’t possibly be happening again to you and your Quentin. The progress you’ve made comes crumbling down as each minute ticks away. Nothing ever seems to last.

Quentin steps forward and places a warm hand to one side of your face. You forcefully remove your grip from the agent to wrap both of your hands around his wrist. He says your name in a gentle voice and you begin to shake when you begin to relive the nightmare that woke you up in the middle of the night time and time again. The love of your life brings you closer to his face and closes the gap, sealing your fate with one final soft kiss on your lips.

And this time he means it.

You are pried away from Quentin once again as he gives you a reassuring nod, a sad smile on his lips. Oh, how you want to reach out for him, to throw yourself into the line of fire if that meant being with him again in another life.

For his final act was out of the love for you. He knows that in order to protect you, he must sacrifice his life for the safety of not only you but for others.

There’s a blast of green that drowns over you as two cosmic beams light up the night sky. Agent Hill shrouds you with her body despite the fact that you are safely away from the chaos.

It’s happened again.

You don’t listen to the chastising commands coming from the agent once the beams die down. You are determined to find Quentin again.

History repeats itself, first as a tragedy but for you, then it’s another tragedy.

Lying on the ground is the man you traveled far to find again. The one who held skepticism towards you but you could tell he was warming up to you slowly. The man who saved your life again.

You drop to your knees at his lifeless body. You wish to kiss his fingertips again, to laugh again, to dance together again, to tell him you love him again.

You brush some of his hair side then trace his jawline gently with your index finger. There are several abrasions, burns, and blood all over his face but you know it’s still your Quentin. Tears begin to blur your vision, smoke permeating the air which wraps around you like a shock blanket.

You loved and you loved and you lost him, then you loved and you loved him then lost him again.

You press a soft kiss on his forehead.

“I love you, too, Quentin.”

Tagging: @kwaiky, @xmicrxn // @omi-writes-things (AHHHHH??), @cura-posterior // @can-t-figure-it-out (i hope u open ur home to all this angst, my friend), @aliebestraum // @fuckodinlives (bruh moment ://) @phalangewrites // @chaotic--lovely (i know u said keep it optimistic...well...), @reyskywclker (you KNOW i had to do it to ‘em), @deviantramblings (i am so sorry), @arsynia (true mysterio sluts), @obsiidio (HHHHHH it be like this sometimes), @alphysian (asjdksajlska ltierally...we had it coming huh), @drmsqnc (hello, queen), @bum-rayee (hehe :3c), @lastflyinggrayson (oh hell yeah babeyy!), @anniesburg (they call us mysteriHOES) and last pero not Least @the-darklings (now i know why u write a lot for your stories....the words just keep coming and they won’t stop coming)

[tonys-assemble]

A thing I wrote while sad two nights ago. Sort of Stony. Endgame spoilers

Based off of this post

Nothing Could Prepare Him

.

-

_

He’s been through many wars in his lifetime. Against aliens, hydra, even friends that he once fought besides. But nothing could have prepared him for this one. Thanos, the titan who had wiped out half of existence and somehow found them through the Nebula from another time. This was it.

As Tony liked to call it, “the Endgame.” It hurt to know that defeating Thanos cost Natasha her life. He felt a stab of grief in his chest. They had to do this. If not for the whole world, then for her.

So when him, Tony, and Thor had the purple bastard in front of them, they fought like hell. Throughout the whole thing, they fought like they never did before. Time went by. They passed the gauntlet around like it was a football. Then, he got it.

That was it. Steve accepted it. Thanos has the gauntlet. He couldn’t even look. All that he could comprehend was the sound of metal moving quickly together and then a white light. The ringing in his ears confirmed his greatest fear. No. We lost.

Unexpectedly, the titan’s soldiers started disappearing. He watched everything around him, their side staying in one piece and the enemies turning into dust. How? Then, It doesn’t matter, we won.

Until it did matter.

He turned to where he saw Tony last, a smile on his face. It was quickly wiped off. The scene in of him causing his whole body to freeze. Thanos and Tony, face to face. Both struggling. The titan was breathing heavily as he turned to find a place to sit, Iron Man stumbling away.

Thanos didn’t have the stones in his gauntlet. One side of Tony’s armor was ruined along with his face too. Like how both Thanos and Bruce looked after using the stones. He felt his soul physically leaving his body, as his bottom lip stuck out in a pout. Thanos turned to dust. Tony.

He wanted to rush to him. He wanted to catch him as he fell against the rock. He wanted to do anything. Say something. But he was stuck. Shock, anger, grief.

Heartbreak.

Complete heartbreak. Tony. HIS TONY was dying in front of him. Move, Steve.

He didn’t. Tears started streaming down his face. No. Please no. Not Tony, please not him.

Pepper and Peter said their goodbyes. Steve still couldn’t physically move. The reactor shut down. Pepper collapsed onto Tony’s now lifeless body. Flashbacks went through his mind like a movie.

When they first met, how much they seemed to despise each other in the beginning but found a friendship, how lonely the Avengers felt without the sarcastic asshole, how much it hurt to walk away from him, how the years without Tony in Steve’s life sucked, and how much he missed him. God, Steve missed Tony Stark every day of his life. When he first saw Tony get off of that spaceship, it felt like things were right again.

The hurt in Tony’s eyes while he went off on Steve afterwards, them keeping in contact for years after that, him dragging Tony into this. Steve tried not to blame himself. After all, he’s lost soldiers before. He lost Bucky twice. Hell, he lost Nat.

But losing Tony Stark? This was a whole other feeling. (A/N: What I want to believe happened in the little space between Tony’s death and the funeral scene) Then Rhodey helped Pepper up, she clutched onto him, breaking down in his arms. Rhodey’s eyes looked distant as he rubbed circles on her back. This wasn’t real. Tony had a kid. Tony had a life.

He finally moved forward. Slowly, he made his way to his friend. Peter looked at him, “Cap-“

A hand reached out and grabbed onto his wrist. He lightly ripped himself away. Steve’s whole body shook. It wasn’t real, this had to be Thanos showing them what they wanted with the reality stone before getting rid of them. But if that was the case, Tony would be alive.

“Tony?” He took his helmet off, tears still flowing. He crouched down before saying more sternly, “Tony.”

His friend didn’t move a muscle. “Get up, Tony. Please.”

He could feel the stares of everyone on him. Sympathetic. Like he was a kid saying goodbye to his favorite toy. Finally he put his hands on his friend’s shoulders. “Tony stop. Please stop.”

Tony didn’t move. Why couldn’t Cap comprehend that this was it? That this wasn’t like New York? That Tony wouldn’t suddenly smile at him and laugh about how scared Cap was?

The once lively brown eyes were still glazed over, chest still. He put his hand up to rest on his friend’s face. “Ton-“

Then he felt it. The coldness of his skin. It was real. This was real. It wasn’t a trick from the reality stone. Tony Stark was dead. Steve retracted his hand.

It all hit him at once. Cap broke down, falling from the crouch into a sitting position, “I’m sorry I’m sorry. I should have left you alone I’m so sorry. This is my fault, I shouldn’t have dragged you into this mess.”

Pepper had now turned her attention to him. The man looked vulnerable and weak. She knew exactly what that felt like so she comforted him just like she would comfort herself. Pepper made her way over to the super soldier and rested a hand on his shoulder, sniffling, “Steve.”

He shot up and wrapped her in a hug. Like a little boy holding his mom. The Avengers who had been standing around watched the scene. Never have they seen their Cap so broken. But it was fair, because they’ve never felt so distant but close from one another at the same time. They lost Nat and Tony. God knows what would happen now.

Pepper pulled away, “We have to get him out of here.”

Steve just nodded and made his way up to Tony, wrapping an arm around his neck before picking him up bridal style, other arm laying limp. Eyes red and puffy from crying. Tony’s head lulled back. Steve readjusted him into a more comfortable position by making his head rest in the crook of his neck. No one else needed to be scarred by the lifeless eyes. The arm that was around his neck fell as he walked. Steve wanted to put it back in place but he couldn’t because then that would require a whole new readjustment yet again.

So he just let it hang. Both arms limp, swing slightly with every step. He was gone. Tony was really gone.

Everyone made space for him. All of the people who fought against Thanos watching in horror and moving to the side. Pepper was close behind him along with Thor, Rhodey, Peter, and Doctor Strange. Then everyone followed. They walked away from the battlefield, glad to have won but distraught by the sacrifice it took. Tony stayed still in Steve’s arms. It was quiet aside from the sniffles from crying.

Eventually they made it far away from the scene and somehow police were there along with barricaded civilians and reporters. Everyone stared in horror as Cap came into view, holding Tony who had half of his body burned, infinity stones in his gauntlet. Paramedics ran up to them. Steve stepped back, shaking his head. One of his tears fell on Tony’s face.

“Captain America, sir, you have to give us Mr. Stark.”

“He’s gone. Nothing you can do will help him. Tony’s gone,” His voice cracked, “And I just want to get him home so we can have a proper burial.”

The paramedic stood there as Steve refused to make eye contact, “We still have to take the body. I’m sorry.”

A hush fell over the crowd as they heard what the paramedic said. Steve just nodded and set Tony down on the stretcher. Pepper wrapped her arms around him once they pronounced him dead officially and he was put in a body bag. The civilians were shocked, tears streaming down their face. Cap felt it coming again. After staying strong in front of everyone, he broke down again. This time collapsing on his knees. Pepper held him, sobbing also.

The paramedics tried to check on him but Rhodey swatted them away as she held Steve. Peter came up to them and rested a hand on Cap’s shoulder. Eventually Clint and Thor made their way over to him. Pepper and Peter moved away as the two helped their friend up, faces grim.

“C’mon, old man,” Clint choked, “Let’s get you out of here.”

Then they went to an old S.H.I.E.L.D safe house. Steve staring out, trying to drown out the memories. Thor and Clint sat by him, also quiet. All of them had beers in their hands. He was grateful for them getting him out of there but he wanted to know how everyone else was doing.

Then he realized. No he didn’t. It was out of character and nobody could ever know he felt that way but he really could give less of a fuck. He lost two people he loved. He lost Nat and now he lost Tony. He could see the expression on Clint’s face and he knew it reflected his. He knew that the way the archer felt about Nat was exactly how he felt about Tony. Clint loved his wife but Nat and him were like soulmates. Maybe not in a relationship way but they were.

Tony was his soulmate, friend way or not. Still to this day, even after losing him, Steve couldn’t place exactly how he felt about the genius. He loved Peggy and Bucky as much as he could but losing Tony felt like losing a limb.

He clenched his fists, turning to Clint, “It hurts.”

His friend stared at him, tears in his eyes, “I know. Out of all of the people you will speak to, I get it. I know.”

Cap tried to ignore the tears. Tony built a space to fit the stones in. His friend had yet another backup plan to sacrifice himself and failed to tell them. Did Tony care that it was killing Steve? Did Tony even think about how lost the rest of them would feel?

“Our friends did what they felt was needed,” Thor spoke. They ignored him.

A portal suddenly appeared and out came Doctor Strange. Thor stood up before Clint sat him down again. Strange made his way up to the porch, silently standing there.

“He was a good guy. I didn’t think so at first but he was,” He eventually said.

Steve couldn’t help but chuckle, “No one has ever met Tony and automatically thought that he was the greatest man in the world. Well, except for Peter.”

Poor Peter lost yet another father figure.

It went back to silence for a couple of minutes. “I’m sorry for the loss of your friends. As much as it pains me to say it, it was the only way to defeat Thanos.”

Steve didn’t want to hear that. And he certainly didn’t want to hear that purple ballsack-for-a-chin’s name. Clint stood up and walked inside. Strange didn’t chase him but Thor did. “Clint doesn’t like talking about his feelings. He especially doesn’t want to hear that Nat’s death was the only way.”

And I don’t want to hear that Tony’s was, either. But his manners stopped him from saying that out loud, despite how much pain he was in.

“You know, I’ve seen so many different realities, Captain? So many ones that could have ended up with your friends alive.”

Steve closed his eyes.

“I’ve seen enough to know that this is hurting you a lot more than you’re letting on. Just like you’re a lot angrier.”

His head hung.

“Steve. He was an important part of your life and I know you loved him.”

“I did,” His jaw clenched. He really did. Tony was one of his best friends and he cared so much about that asshole.

“And I know you want to punch me in the face, too.”

“I do. Because I don’t want to think about what would have happened if they were still here and we never defeated Thanos. It just hurts. It hurts to know that Nat could have watched Nathaniel grow up. It’s hurts to know that there is some alternate universe out there with Tony still in it,” He stands, getting face to face with the Doctor, “And it sure as hell hurts to know that somewhere in those alternate universes, I’m taking advantage of the fact he’s still alive.

“I’m not showing him how much I care about him or how much he means to me. I’m not picking up the phone after the huge fight we had and I’m sure as hell not by his side after he lost Pepper for a short period of time. And you know what?”

The glass broke in his hand from being squeezed too hard. Doctor Strange just stared. It was almost like he didn’t feel it. Mostly, because he didn’t. Steve’s adrenaline was so high from anger he probably couldn’t tell if he got like stabbed right now.

Soon, Strange and Steve’s faces were inches apart, “It kills me to know that I hurt him. That he saw me as a liar because I told him we would go through it together. No matter what, by his side. And I wasn’t. Maybe if I was, we could have stopped Thanos the first time but no. I was too scared to pick up the damn phone. Do you know what it felt like to get that call from him for it to turn out to be Bruce? A part of me died a little because I didn’t know what had happened to him.

“Now he’s gone. After all of that time I spent waiting for him to come back. After finally getting to hold him again and know he was safe to only later carry his dead body in my arms? Its a pain that you will never understand. So yes...”

He made his way over to the door, opening it, “I want to punch you in the face.”

Then he slammed it behind him after storming inside. He had a funeral to mentally prepare himself for and had to figure out how he would continue his life without Tony in it.

Because even after all the wars he’s fought and people he’s lost, nothing could have prepared him for this.

[freebooter4ever]

Sledgefu Pirate Au pt 5?

In which Eugene saves Snafu (again) and they lead the Governor’s troops on a chase, get tossed in jail, and end up at the OMM ball. This got RIDICULOUSLY long, and a bit goofy, I’m so sorry. @persipneiwrites I hope this still fits within your awesome AU and I didn’t go too totally off the rails ^_^ at some point we need to put this on ao3 as like a collab, my friend.

(Eugene has just visited Snafu in jail the night before he’s sentenced to hang as a pirate. He gave Snafu his ring to prove he will come save him, which I turned into a family ring rather than a USMC ring since I don’t know if the marines existed in the 1700′s? Also, Snafu wears a costume inspired by the Order Of Osiris which was Mobile’s first united Mystic Society for all LGBQT. Technically it wasn’t formed till the 1980s but I couldn’t resist. And that’s pretty much the extent of the research I did for this crack fic. Also I completely got their ages mixed up/the timeline of when Merriell joined the service, it’s hard to find info on the real background of Merriell and Eugene, but this way these characters are totally divided from the living heroes. Just fiction here! I gave Merriell a bit of my grandpa’s backstory cause the real history of his parents and sister is just too heartbreaking, I don’t know how to write that)

As Snafu stands on the raised platform, waiting to die, he reflects on his life. There isn't much enthusiasm in the act. None of his lofty dreams came to fruition. And he honestly never expected them to. This short drop and sudden stop, a brutal end to a mostly exhausting life, is exactly what he had anticipated.

One thing is unusual however. In the past, whenever he imagined the day of his death, of all the possible scenarios, a marching band never featured into any of them.

He always assumed he'd go out fighting in a blaze of guts and glory, not with instruments ringing in his ears. 

The steady beat of drums does lend a sort of importance to the day. It gives Snafu something to focus on, other than the fact that his hands are tied, his stomach is empty, and his brain wants to be anywhere but here.

Eugene Sledge clearly doesn't want to be here either.

The man is conspicuously absent. Snafu twists his ring around his finger, spiraling it tighter and tighter in towards his palm. The sharp sting takes away the ache in his chest. He feels Sledge's absence like a physical blow.

Snafu knows he shouldn't have Gene's ring on. One mistaken flap of his hand and the Governor might recognize his own signet on a condemned man's finger. Not that the hell Snafu is currently in could get any worse, but if the ring is recognized then Sledge might be in for hell too. 

Yet he can't bring himself to take the ring off.

He did turn the damn thing around so the large jeweled seal is pressing into the palm of Snafu's clenched fist. To any casual observer the ring looks like a plain gold band. No one will know. Snafu will see to that.

Still protecting the damn idiot boy who throws himself into danger just because it's the right thing to do.

Snafu, on the other hand, usually picks the wrong thing to do. As the executioner so calmly points out while he reads aloud Snafu's list of crimes for the crowd to judge.

Snafu never imagined being important in death. He lived his life with little fanfare, and thought he'd go out the same - as some unknown seaman with scurvy or battle wounds or water in his lungs. 

But the list of his deeds makes it sound like he's had an impact on this world. The loud boom of the drums corroborate this weighty importance. The crowd gathering beneath his feet is there not to see a pirate, but to see him specifically. To witness the final end of Captain Snafu, who got caught up in circumstances bigger than his own life and paid the final price for it.

As his final moment draws closer, Eugene's empty place on the dias next to his father remains blindingly stark. At the beginning of the executioner's long speech, Snafu still had hope. Now, he can't even glance over at the governor and his cronies. He knows Sledge isn't there. And he doesn't want to see it.

Instead he looks to the sky. The hour is a little before dawn, so a few pinpricks of stars are still visible. There's a line of them, marching upwards, away from the stage, that he'd like to follow.

If he had to be famous, he'd rather it be for having a constellation named after him, than for his bones and hat, and a sign with his name on it, hanging rotting from a gibbet.

Snafu rolls his eyes closed and the floor beneath him drops.

He falls.

Surprisingly, he hits the ground. It shoots pain up his legs and he collapses on his side, but that makes it easier for him to look up and see what the fuck happened.

The last thing he expects is Sledge balanced precariously on the platform above him, desperately trying to dislodge his sword from the wooden gallows where he sliced the rope in two.

It almost doesn't look like Sledge. The man's face is half covered by Snafu's lucky hat. Sledge's large nose is the dead giveaway, sticking out by half a mile. Snafu'd recognize that nose anywhere.

Snafu smirks, thinking about the old wive's tale regarding feet and size, and that a more accurate version for Sledge would be the measure of that nose of his.

"Shit, shit, shit," Eugene curses with every tug, glaring at the sword as if it's the sword's fault for getting stuck. He glares with that little purse of wrinkled concentration between his brows. Which Snafu enjoys so very much.

With one final violent jerk, Eugene manages to free his sword from it's prison. But the movement knocks him off balance and he tumbles through the same hole Snafu fell down.

Luckily Snafu is already there to soften his fall. Eugene lands on his back, spread eagle atop the pirate.

"Get your pointy elbow out of my gut," Snafu grumbles, trying to wriggle away.

Eugene hastily rolls off, and crouches beside him. Their eyes meet for a moment, and magically all of Snafu's troubles evaporate. Every thought flies out of his brain, like maybe nothing sensical ever existed there in the first place. Nothing else exists except the slight shock of coming face to face with someone who desperately wants to look at him as much as he wants to look at them.

Someone who has risked his entire life to save Snafu's ass.

Again.

Reality crashes back down on them pretty quick when the executioner's ax falls between their bodies.

Both their heads swivel to the ax in surprise, and then to each other. As if accusing the other for being distracted. 

"Nice of you to finally drop in," Snafu drawls, "Lucky I did so much shit in my life that the long list gave you the extra time." He leans back on his elbow and tries to look as seductive as possible even with both hands tied behind his body.

Eugene scowls, "Nice of you to be so grateful."

Snafu's smile widens gleefully, "Nice of you to wear your best hat."

Eugene's eyes roll upwards towards Snafu's lucky hat's brim. Eugene's scowl deepens as if he only just remembered that he is wearing the monstrosity. He drags it off his head unceremoniously.

Snafu gets one glorious glimpse of the worst case of ginger hat hair he's ever seen before his vision goes dark.

Not because he's blacked out but because Eugene drags the hat forcefully down over Snafu's head and the brim covers his face. Which wouldn't be a problem except that Snafu's hands are literally tied behind his back and he can't push the hat out of his eyesight.

"Gene, not to complain or anything…" Snafu starts.

Eugene says nothing, he focuses entirely on cutting the ropes binding Snafu's wrists as quickly as possible.

Snafu feels the tension of the rope give when Eugene finally breaks through.

The first thing he does is adjust his hat's position and secure the tie under his chin so he can get a better look at Eugene's wonderfully wild hair. The second thing he does with his newfound freedom is grab Eugene's hand and hold on tight like it's the only thing that matters in the world.

They run.

Snafu is faster, and navigates crowds and small spaces easier, so it's mostly him dragging Eugene along. He thinks they're making it, that they'll successfully get away, until a bullet wizzes past his shoulder too close to his head. He yanks Eugene into the nearest alley and they duck behind a giant cart.

"They're shooting at us?" Eugene exclaims incredulously.

Snafu eyes him, "What'd you expect?"

"I… my father wouldn't…" Eugene sputters.

A voice in the distance yells "Ceasefire! For God's sake…!"

Another volley of shots and then the voice yells again "...do not fire on my son!"

The alley goes quiet.

"Eugene, son, please surrender. You can come out peacefully. Captain Haldane is prepared to take you both into custody, there will be a trial."

Eugene and Snafu look at each other.

They're trapped in the alley. It leads to a dead end with a giant wooden fence and absolutely no toeholds.

Snafu presses himself against the wall to try and peer through the crack between the cart and the brick, and he almost stumbles over an iron cellar door.

"Sledgehammer..." he whispers.

Together they wordlessly lift the door open and slip inside. The cellar is dark. It takes a minute for their eyes to adjust from the harsh sun. Snafu makes sure to lock the door behind them. And then he turns.

And finds Eugene standing in the middle of the room rifling through a giant crate. He holds a pink lace parasol in one hand and lifts a brand new muzzle-loaded rifle with the other.

"Looks like smugglers were either trying to sneak weapons into the city in boxes of petticoats, or sneak the ugliest dresses known to man into the city under the guise of weaponry. Hard to tell which is worse," Eugene says, deadpan.

"Eugene, no…" Snafu admonishes, approaching and taking the parasol from his hand, "Pink is not your color, ginger." He swaps the pink parasol for a muted sea grey one.

"No, you keep that one," Eugene shakes his head and hands the grey parasol back to Snafu, barely suppressing his smile, "It matches your eyes."

Snafu grins, snapping open the parasol and twirling it on his shoulder. Eugene leans in closer to him, a hand at Snafu's waist, like he can't resist.

A muffled yell from outside interrupts them, and they both hastily crouch low to the ground.

Snafu carefully climbs to the tiny window grate at street level and listens.

"I think your father is still trying to negotiate with you," he whispers to Eugene, "No one realizes we've moved. Idiots."

He turns to Eugene to discover the man dressed in the most god awful brown frock Snafu has ever seen. The dress has orange and yellow trimmings and clashes with Eugene's hair, like a sunset gone horribly wrong smeared over day old shit.

"Orange ain't your color either, boo," Snafu says mournfully. Eugene might've looked really nice in the powder blue dress Snafu can see peeking out of a bottom crate.

"Here, I found one for you," Eugene says matter-of-fact-ly, tossing a red bundle at him.

"Well at least one of us will match your hair," Snafu comments as he catches it and grimaces with distaste.

They spend the next minute strapping themselves into uncomfortable garments and a single petticoat layer to hang low and cover their boots. Snafu slows them down somewhat when he insists on strapping as many rifles as he can to his legs beneath the skirts.

"Waste not," he says with a wink when Eugene raises an eyebrow at him.

Snafu fills the dress's puffed sleeves with bags of bullets.

Ultimately their getup makes it awful hard to move, but Snafu figures ladies are always having trouble doing anything more complicated than walking in their outfits anyway, so them mincing their steps will hardly stand out as unusual.

They sneak to the ground floor of the building and pause to listen at the front door.

"Okay, plan. We open the parasols as we open the door, and hurry in the opposite direction, like we're afraid," Snafu whispers.

Eugene nods, daintily twisting his pink parasol in his grip.

Snafu nods back. And then pulls Eugene in for a passionate kiss against the door.

Can't give up his last chance to feel Gene sigh softly against him and all that. If this is his last.

"I love you…" Gene mumbles against Snafu's lips.

Snafu's eyes widen. He gropes for the door handle behind his back and throws it wide open, causing them both to stumble out onto the street. 

Good a time as any to get this game started.

Their parasols pop open and they duck underneath the frilly lace.

Eugene titters in a grating fake falsetto voice that makes Snafu want to stamp on his toes. But the disguise works. The Governor's soldiers ceasefire and Snafu and Sledge run, skip, and hobble down the street towards the docks.

When they hit the wood of the decks and can dare to lift the parasols above their faces, the very first thing Snafu sees is the bright splendor of the Santa Alma's sails. The most beautiful sight in the world, floating only fifty feet away.

Next Snafu sees the second most beautiful sight in the world. A beauty that makes him stop short in his tracks: Eugene Sledge shedding his ugly brown orange shell and clambering into a skiff wearing nothing but his green velvet trousers. Rich and soft, the kind of fabric a man could run his hands over for hours.

And Snafu decides then and there that green is definitely Eugene's color.

"Snaf, jump!" Eugene reaches out towards him.

Except Snafu doesn't have time to jump because right at that moment a bullet rips between his legs, shoots a hole through his petticoat, and nearly hits one of the rifles pressed against his bare skin. Snafu immediately stops - frozen like his balls in the Antarctic during that one memorable sailing expedition.

"Hands where I can see them," Captain Haldane tells Shelton, "And Eugene, if you could please step out of that boat real slowly."

Alarmingly Haldane is using the same tone of voice on both of them. Almost friendly...kind...and mildly amused.

Snafu is surprised the man didn't just shoot Snafu on sight and deal with the emotional fallout from Eugene later.

Eugene calmly climbs out of the skiff and shuffles over beside Snafu. He stands tall and stiff as a board, as if he has something to prove.

"Hands out," Haldane orders Snafu mildly.

Snafu sticks out his wrists and lolls his head in a petulant stare.

Haldane gently clasps him in irons.

"Ack Ack, you can't arrest this man," Eugene protests.

"He has to follow orders or he'll be court-marshalled," Snafu reminds Eugene.

"Your friend's right, Sledge," Haldane says, "But I can also see to it that he receives a fair trial."

"Snafu's not my friend," Eugene snaps and then falters, "He's my...Captain."

"That what we're calling it these days?" Snafu grins and knocks his hips against Gene who blushes furiously.

Eugene continues speaking as if he didn't hear Snafu, "Ack Ack, the things I've seen...the way the law treats sailors...I don't know if I trust the courts…"

"Eugene, what were you thinking?" a woman snaps behind them. The sound of smartly heeled boots clips closer and closer down the dock.

Eugene visibly winces at his mother's voice.

Both her and the Governor arrive, surrounded by crisply uniformed soldiers.

"You can't run off like a boy anymore, Gene," his mother says.

"You're mother's right," Governor Sledge agrees, "What you did today must have consequences. Captain Haldane, have you secured the pirate?"

"Not quite," Haldane responds with amusement, "He is still armed, sir."

"Armed? In that dress?"

"Underneath it, I believe, sir."

"Well then," Governor Sledge sighs, "Divest this young man of his...armory."

Captain Haldane nods and starts untying the laces on the back of Snafu's gown. He strips off the overskirt, and petticoats, leaving Snafu standing bare legged in the most raggedy underwear he owns. Eugene standing next to him swallows with great difficulty.

Haldane then begins to slowly cut away the ties holding the rifles to Snafu's body. It's only when the last gun falls away that Snafu feels truly naked.

"Better check the sleeves too, Skipper," Snafu grins maliciously.

Haldane cuts off the bodice. As soon as the man's knife slices through a sleeve, bullets rain down onto the deck like it's hurricane season.

In the end all Snafu's got left is his underwear and the same ratty shirt he thought he was going to die in.

"Shame you had to ruin the dress," Snafu drawls, "Fit me so well."

"Take him away," Governor Sledge orders.

"No!" Eugene demands and puts himself between Haldane and Snafu.

"Eugene…!" his mother is shocked.

Eugene draws himself up and takes a deep breath, "I killed the Royal Navy commander of the Dauntless while acting as a pirate. If you are going to hang Snafu, you better hang me too."

Snafu is too shocked to breathe.

Eugene's father looks grim. "Arrest them both," he says.

The mother faints.

Captain Haldane quietly gestures for Eugene to extend his arms.

That shakes Snafu into action, "No!" he shoves Eugene out of the way, "That's not how it happened. Gene is innocent."

The mother, who had been starting to come round, promptly faints into her servant's arms again at Snafu's familiar use of Eugene's nickname.

Everyone else, including Haldane, ignores him.

"Snaf…" Eugene says warningly.

"No…." Snafu is shaking his head at him in exasperation.

They're both marched up the docks towards the fort.

"No!" Snafu repeats as he stumbles along behind Haldane, "no…"

Eugene goes silently. Willingly.

And it makes Snafu mad as hell.

They're brought to the same cell Snafu thought he'd never see again on account of being dead by morning. 

In front of the cell door they're delayed.

"What's the hold up, Mac?" Haldane asks the warden.

"The master key's run off, no one can find it," Mac shrugs.

"Then find the individual key," Haldane patiently states the obvious.

"I have my best men on it," the warden smiles.

"They seem to be taking a long time, you best go help them Mackenzie," Haldane says.

The man rolls his eyes, but he disappears further into the fort.

"Ack Ack, please, let us go," Eugene requests as soon as the three of them are alone, "We'll leave port. Snafu's ship is set to sail. You can make it look like an escape. No one will know."

"I'm sorry, Sledge," Haldane says, and he sounds genuinely upset. He casually unlocks the irons on both Eugene and Snafu's wrists. It's a gesture of trust Snafu would never have considered had their places been switched.

Snafu stands, fidgeting awkwardly with his underwear and feeling like a third wheel.

Eugene calmly reaches down, grabs Snafu's fidgety hand, and twines their fingers together. He leans into Snafu's shoulder and murmurs, "Pull on that rag anymore and soon you'll be giving everyone a show."

"Like you'd complain," Snafu retorts.

Snafu tries his best to stand still. Though he's grateful Eugene doesn't release his hand.

Haldane observes them with a knowing expression. "Be careful boys," he warns.

They wait in silence the rest of the time it takes Mackenzie to find a key.

"Hey boys," the warden returns and waggles a key in Snafu's face, "you're in luck, I found the small key." 

Snafu casts his eyes to the ceiling.

With a compassionate goodbye, Captain Haldane leaves them to their fate.

The cell door is unlocked and Mackenzie shoves them both in.

A small mercy - keeping them together - or an act of necessity in a relatively small fort, Snafu doesn't know. When the door closes and locks behind them the only thing he focuses on is Eugene's hand in his.

"Looks like it's all over for you two," Mackenzie says, leaning against the cell door. He says it casually, as if trying to start a conversation with an old buddy.

Eugene cuts his eyes to the man outside the cell.

"Sort of a… what do you do now, huh?" Mackenzie's smile is slimy, yet almost genuine. The type of man who can't imagine a life or mind more complicated than his own.

It draws a stark comparison between the supercilious warden versus naive pretty boy Sledge, who's world started out equally as narrow, but who was determined to learn. And to change.

"Here," Mackenzie passes a bottle of rum through the bars, "Everybody deserves a last meal."

"Thank you, sir," Eugene grits out, ever the polite gentleman.

"What an idiot," Snafu says under his breath as he watches the warden leave.

If it weren't for Eugene clinging to his hand in a death grip Snafu might wonder if being alive was worth being back under this asshole's thumb.

Of course, technically it's Eugene's fault for landing Snafu in jail a second time. Otherwise he could be peacefully decomposing right now.

As soon as they are alone Snafu slips out of Eugene's grasp and crosses the cell to the outermost wall. There's a window, high above, nearly level with the ceiling, and Snafu worked out the climbing path on the stone the last time he was trapped in this godforsaken place.

Eugene watches silently as Snafu expertly scales the rock.

Snafu knows Eugene could easily follow. He's seen the boy monkey up rigging enough times to realize that when it comes to heights, Eugene shares the same lack of self preservation sense as Snafu.

But this time Eugene lets him go it alone.

Snafu eases his ass onto the three foot deep window ledge cut into the wall and presses his face against the bars. If he squints he can almost make out the sails of the ships down at the dock. They blur together, though, becoming one massive fluttering speck, like a caught moth.

He sighs, and leans his head back against the wall. There is no way he could recognize the Santa Alma from here even if she did escape in time. When he glances down, he sees Eugene still standing in the same place, staring up at him.

"Take a seat, we'll be here awhile," Snafu drawls, closing his eyes, getting comfortable.

Eugene huffs. But Snafu also hears him drop into the pile of straw in the corner.

"I am aware we will be here awhile, Snaf," Eugene snaps, "I may have never been in a jail cell before, but I do understand the general operating principle."

"Could'a fooled me," Snafu drawls, "The way you were tripping all over yourself to get in here."

"I…" Sledge hesitates yet somehow his voice is still firm, "I told the truth."

"Truth'll get you killed," Snafu says, "And it ain't reality, anyway."

"I did kill the commander, Snaf," Eugene argues.

"You didn't have a choice…"

"I did! I made my choices and I won't take them back."

"You were following my lead...I put you in that situation...your choice was a matter of survival…"

"Snaf, I killed to defend your life. That was my choice. I'd do it again, and I will accept the punishment befitting the crime. I won't let you shoulder all the sins of the world yourself. Especially not mine."

Snafu knocks his head against the wall again out of frustration, and falls into silence. He fiddles with a loose pebble, and then tosses it out the window, watches it splash in the water below.

"Next time my life is in danger and you feel like playing the hero, don't," Snafu spits out.

"You don't get to make that choice," Eugene says, sounding arrogantly pleased with himself at having won this particular conversation.

The next pebble Snafu tosses hits Eugene on the head instead. It bounces off harmlessly.

"Hey!" Eugene exclaims, tilting his head back to glare at Snafu.

Snafu grins.

Eugene folds his arms and shrinks further into the straw.

They sit in silence for what feels like an age. Emotions keep itching under Snafu's skin, and he knows what he wants, but he doesn't know how to get it, or if he even deserves it if he does get it. Snafu watches the sails outside the window come and go freely in the open air to distract himself.

At some point Eugene falls asleep. He sleeps fitfully, with a lot of twitching, but deep enough that Eugene fails to hear the soft clatter of paws on the tile floor.

Snafu silently slides down from his perch and greets Deacon at the cell door. The first thing Snaf does is pocket the offered gift hanging from Deacon's mouth. He sticks both hands through the bars and thanks the puppy by giving him extra scritches.

"Good boy," Snafu whispers as quiet as he can.

His voice wakes Eugene up anyway.

"Shelton?" he asks, groggy, "Deacon?" Eugene pushes himself to his feet and crouches near Snafu, but when he reaches through the bars Deacon ignores Eugene in favor of the pirate.

"I'm his favorite now," Snafu taunts with glee, "We bonded last night. He came and slept right outside my door."

"Only cause I sent him to stand guard," Eugene protests, looking a little jealous. "Isn't that right, Deacon?" he asks the dog as Deacon finally moves from Snaf's hands to Eugene's, "You're a loyal dog."

Snafu leans against the cell door, hand on a hip, and watches Deacon try to lick Eugene's face.

"I'm sorry, Sledgehammer," Snafu says.

"What for?" Eugene asks, looking perplexed.

Snafu shrugs and climbs back up to his window perch. He curls his legs up to his chest and rests his head on his knees.

Eugene heaves a sigh. "Snaf, please stop pouting and stay down here. With me."

"I ain't the one with those thin pursed lips," Snafu taunts, "You look more like the pouting type to me."

Eugene turns bright red - a blush almost as endearing as his little annoyed expression.

"Fine," Eugene says shortly, "Stay up there."

If Snafu climbs down, he'll kiss Gene, and if he kisses him, he might hold him, and if he holds him, Snafu might fall asleep in his arms, and if Snafu falls asleep it's going to be a lot harder to do what needs to be done.

He stays seated at the window and maintains his watch.

Eugene sits against the cell door with one hand stuck through the bars, resting on Deacon's fur.

"I ain't from New Orleans," Snafu confesses, just to fill the silence.

"What?" Eugene looks up, startled, "What do you mean?"

"I'm from northern Louisiana. Born in a one room shack, youngest of nine, took baths in the metal laundry basin, I was always the last with the water so always smelled the worst. Ma died having me, Pa died twelve years later in an accident with a farm gate, I hopped a river boat south, starved on the streets of New Orleans till I stowed away on a navy ship," Snafu says quietly, "Nearly starved there too."

He isn't paying attention to Eugene's movements, so he doesn't notice till it's too late and suddenly Gene is heaving himself up onto the window ledge next to Snafu. Eugene settles in his seat and stares hard as if daring him to protest.

"You deserve better," Eugene says with conviction.

"Oh yeah?" Snafu smiles, "You gonna give me better? Going to pull me out of the dirt and let my siblings rot? Some of them are already rotting. Literally. Six feet under. Can't do nothin for them."

"I know I can't but…"

"They're all just as much poor cannon fodder as I am," Snafu continues, "Not much use except as bodies in a count."

"I don't know any of your siblings…"

"Lucky me then, to be someone you know…"

"Snafu, give it a rest. You're being difficult."

"I'm being honest," Snafu throws Eugene's own words back in his face, harsh.

Eugene grabs his hand, and presses his fingertips against the ring on Snafu's finger.

"Maybe I can't save the world, but I can save you," Gene says softly.

"I'm going to free the world," Snafu counters confidently, with a smile that stretches his face but doesn't reach his eyes, so burdened with the impossibility of his life goals, "That's what freebootin' is all about. The first sign you're ready for piracy: you have a desperate need for freedom."

"I don't understand…"

"You already have it," Snafu says, "That freedom. Bought, paid for, and born into it. Don't need to go looking for it. Waste of your time."

Eugene narrows his eyes. He leans back, takes Snafu's hand with him. He holds Snafu's clenched fist gingerly in his lap. Eugene's thumb trails circles around the base of Snafu's palm. Snafu's skin is particularly sensitive there and every pass of Eugene's calloused thumb sends distracting pulses straight down Snafu's spine.

"Why do you think I was on that shipwreck you pulled me out of in the first place?" Eugene asks.

"Gene…"

"I signed on to Mobile's navy to help people. To keep the port secure. I wasn't going to just sit around and watch while everyone I cared about made sacrifices that I'd never need to face. While everyone else became...cannon fodder," he spits the last word out with shame.

"Gene...'"

"So, yeah. I'd help you free the world. If you'd let me," Eugene concludes.

"Sledgehammer, I'm always gonna end up here," Snafu argues, "One way or the other, I'll get caught. One day it'll stick."

"Not today, it won't."

"Tomorrow, then."

"Not tomorrow either if I…"

"Look into my eyes, and tell me…" Snafu interrupts. He leans forward, pushing into Eugene's space, "...someday if they condemn me and pardon you, are you gonna be able to sit by and watch? Cause no matter what happens between here and there, that's how I'll end."

The hand circling his wrist goes still, limp.

"I'm dying, Sledge," Snafu concludes.

Eugene stares into Snafu's eyes for half a heartbeat, and then closes the short distance between them. Gene drags a hand through Snafu's curls and kisses him like their life depends on it.

And Snafu would be hard pressed to say this isn't what he wanted.

"Promise me," Eugene whispers in between kisses, "Promise me you will accept my choice to die beside you."

Snafu nods mutely and cups his hands around Gene's face.

Eugene pulls Snafu bodily into his lap, which is a little dangerous with them being ten feet off the ground. But Snafu supposes he's set to die anyway, and cracking his head open by falling off a ledge mid pleasure seems like a better way to go than his other option. Besides, up here, they're hidden from view.

When they're finished, a little messy, a little sticky, and having a hell of a time shuffling back into their clothes on such a narrow ledge, they climb back down. Sledge goes first. He jumps down, almost eight feet, and hops a little at the bottom. Eugene turns around and stares up at Snaf, his eyes expectant, waiting to help but not offering it.

Snafu skidaddles down, not taking his eyes off Sledge for an instant. Not checking his momentum, he collides bodily with Eugene, who catches Snafu in his arms and kisses him. Again. If Snafu's going to make a fool out of himself, might as well see it through to the end.

They fall into the straw together, and Sledge holds him close. He finds his ring on Snafu's hand and carefully twists it on Snafu's finger so the black jeweled front is on display for the world. Snafu twines their fingers together and rests his forehead against Gene's, who closes his eyes.

Snafu almost laughs. For the first time since he met Eugene, the boy's breath stinks. Guess no one, not even the Governor's son, gets to meticulously clean their teeth in a jail cell. Snafu gingerly kisses the tip of Gene's nose.

The nose twitches, and this time Snafu actually does laugh. Eugene cracks an eye open, sees Snaf smiling at him, and then pulls him in for exaggerated sloppy kisses until Snafu finally settles down calmly, with his head on Gene's shoulder.

Sledge falls asleep wrapped around Snafu as tight as his damn ring.

Some time later a whistle through the window grate wakes Snafu up from foolish daydreams. He's never in his life been more grateful or frustrated to hear Burgie's voice. Snafu carefully lifts Eugene's arm off his waist and slides out of the other man's grasp. He stands up, and watches Eugene's chest rise and fall with every gentle breath. Sledge is so quiet, he could almost be dead.

If Snafu doesn't leave, Sledge will be dead. If Snafu disappears, however, none of the charges against Sledge can stick. Without any evidence or testimony against Eugene, the boy will be safe. Eugene's crazy, misplaced adventure will be forgotten.

Snafu breaks his promise. He drags Eugene's ring off his finger as he leaves. Eugene sleeps on peacefully, unaware, with the ring resting beside his head.

Snafu silently pulls the jail's master key from his inner pocket and slides it through the bars. He deftly unlocks the heavy cell door. The door creaks as it opens and he pauses, his shoulders hunched and eyes on the floor, waiting, listening. When nothing happens he quickly slips through the crack in the door and swings it shut again. He twists the key in the lock once more, and pockets it.

Maybe if they can't open it, Sledge will stay locked away, secure.

When he looks up from the key, he sees Sledge sprawled out across the floor, his head pillowed on a pile of straw.

It takes every bit of self loathing Snafu has to turn around and walk away. He's always been selfish. Never had no one to care for and no one to care for him.

Eugene Sledge is better off without him.

Snafu slips past the guards, steps outside the fort, breathes fresh air again, and there waiting beside a cart is his faithful quartermaster.

For a while, after he escapes jail, the thrill of reuniting with Burgie, his crew, and his ship provides Snafu with enough adrenaline to forget about the ache in his chest. But starting from the first night aboard ship, Snafu's bed is much too large. He takes a tiny corner of it for himself and piles all the pillows around the other half. He doesn't recall it feeling so big before. He never did take up much space himself.

Eugene, though. Eugene would sprawl out like a starfish. Not in the beginning, but once he started trusting Snafu, once he relaxed. And more often than not, Eugene would end up lying half on top of Snafu. His face so close Snafu could count his freckles, and smell his hair.

He tries to imagine Eugene sleeping in the fancy Governor's mansion. He can't picture it somehow. The only image Snafu's brain conjures is of Eugene sleeping in a jail cell, his expression happy knowing Snafu is nearby.

If he dwells on that too much the guilt sets in, so he mostly tries not to think at all.

He succeeds in not thinking about it until he opens one of his older ship logs and finds doodles scribbled on the margins. The drawings are mostly flowers, and ship instruments; tiny and not particularly detailed. Except for one full page sketch, at the very back of his largest logbook.

It's him. In pristine, exacting detail, down to the last curl on his forehead. Soft, and delicately shaded. The lines of the drawing are fine enough to be almost invisible, like he is looking in a black and white mirror.

The Snafu in the drawing is sleeping, which explains how Eugene got away with it without him knowing.

Snafu slams the book closed and drops it under the table. He vows to not look at it again.

Except he does. Often. Whenever he has an extra minute, he takes the book out, and cracks it open, and runs his finger down the page. As if he can touch the artist's hand through the drawing.

He looks at it so often the graphite starts to smudge.

Eventually the ship makes it to Cape Horn, and Snafu finds the tiny canal Eugene wrote about in his journal. They almost make it through the canal, around the tip, and into open water on track for the Pacific. Except the weather turns dangerous and waves lash the side of the boat, sending a cold shock down Snafu's front. Wet, shivering, and remembering a promise Eugene once made, Snafu makes his own decision.

"Turn her around," he tells Burgie.

Burgie sighs, "Snaf...the men will hate this."

"We'll never make it otherwise," Snafu's eyes are luminous and grave, "Not alone. We need more bodies for this."

"We or you can't make it alone?" Burgie asks.

Snafu sucks on his bottom lip and turns his spyglass to the sliver of clear blue sky in the east. Burgie waits patiently for a minute and when nothing but silence is forthcoming, he strides across the deck to give out new orders.

The crew immediately shares their opinion.

"We're going back for our navigator ain't we?"

"Thank goodness."

"Cap'n would get us lost on a river if we let him."

"Always did think the code 'bout leaving crew behind was a bad one."

Burgie smiles.

As luck would have it, the Santa Alma also encounters a spanish merchant ship on it's way home after pillaging the colonies. The pirate schooner swiftly overtakes the slow merchant and the pirates commandeer the entirety of the ship's stolen native gold.

The Santa Alma also acquires a new passenger. A strong minded girl who goes by the name of Florence and nothing else. No family, no friends, and certainly not a part of the merchant's fleet. She claims her destination is some pacific island called Australia but that she's not picky about the journey to get there. Snafu takes her aboard solely to find out more information on this mystery island if nothing else.

Burgie hastily gives up his private cabin for the girl and starts bunking with the crew himself. Until Snafu gets lonely enough to offer room in his bed for Burgie, which is the worst idea ever because suddenly Snafu finds himself being kept up all night having conversations about girls and courting. A subject which Snafu has zero experience in.

"Just kiss her and be done with it," is the only advice Snafu can offer Burgie.

Luckily Burgie quiets down after that suggestion, although it makes Snafu start to worry he might be down one quartermaster soon.

However, nothing appears to change in the next couple of months and by the time the ship reaches Mobile, Burgie and Florence remain as cordial and distantly polite to each other as ever. Snafu gives it up as a lost cause and goes shopping.

"You look ridiculous," Burgie says after spending an hour assisting Snafu with his costume.

The costume is incomplete by Snafu's standards. He couldn't find a proper crown.  And he had to add decorative elements to his crook and flail himself. But luckily these fancy french balls always seem to require people to wear wigs nowadays anyway. He repurposes a portion of his treasure into jewelry and gold plating. And to top it all off, with the help of an especially hairy crew member, Snafu procures a beard long enough to be strung underneath his costume mask.

"I look proper," Snafu jokes to Burgie, using his crook as a dandy cane.

"You look like a royal court jester," Burgie counters, "All that purple and gold."

"Exactly," Snafu says confidently.

"He looks like a gold crusted emu," is Florence's opinion, which puzzles both Snafu and Burgie greatly. "From Australia," she adds. As if that explains anything.

"The breeches might be a little wide, Shit-N-Ass," Leyden comments.

"No one asked you," Snafu retorts.

All that matters is that he will be unrecognizable at Mobile's OMM ball.

His coach is almost unrecognizable too. The leather covering the tiny, odd shaped thing is stained and bleached from the sun. If Snafu holds a candle up to it the shade is nearly a perfect match for Eugene's hair. Except brighter.

"Does it turn into a pumpkin at midnight?" Snafu asks, sneering at the orange color.

"It's either this or the dung cart, Snaf," Burgie says, "You spent the entirety of your treasure allotment on your outfit."

Orange coaches notwithstanding, it's thanks to his expensive drapery that no one blinks twice when Snafu sails past the guards, up the fort steps, and through the entrance. Everyone assumes he is a visiting wealthy gentleman from some distant city, here to experience Mobile's Mardis Gras celebrations. His costume works flawlessly. No one remembers him as the pirate they tried to hang a year ago.

The only downside to everyone being in disguise is that he can't find Eugene.

He doesn't spend long looking inside the fort. It's dusty and suffocating, and Eugene was more the outdoors type anyway. Instead he takes his search to the gardens.

As he walks, Snafu sticks to the shadows. Despite looking the part, he still feels out of place, so he skulks from tree to tree. He avoids the stark yellow light cast by the candle lanterns strung overhead. And only surfaces to peer cautiously around every mile high brushed and powdered wig to see if the person's face matches the one he is looking for.

Of course the person he is looking for is the only person not wearing a wig or mask.

Eugene Sledge's brilliant copper hair sparkles

 under the lantern light. Snafu is momentarily blinded by it the minute he finally recognizes the back of the head he is staring at. Trust Gene to buck convention and attend a ball with a bare head. He is dressed plainly too in comparison to the other party goers. His jacket is unadorned and his trousers are simple cotton. There's a single flower stuck in the lapel of Eugene's coat and Snafu sneaks closer to see if he can recognize it from Eugene's logbook drawings.

Snafu never meant to be creeping around in the dark. And he certainly never meant to eavesdrop on a private conversation.

It starts when a familiar looking, excessively handsome blond man brings Eugene a drink. The man can't be much older than either of them, but he wears his military rank with ease. He lacks a wig as well, but Snafu can hardly blame the man for it, considering how shiny his natural hair is. He and Eugene almost match, somehow. As if they've known each other long enough to become the same person in habit and gesture.

Their open familiarity with each other sends a rush of jealousy down Snafu's throat. He might vomit, if he isn't careful.

When he hears the other man try to cajole Eugene onto the dance floor, Snafu's first reaction is to slink off petulantly into the night. To disappear and never return. His whole body burns, and he finds himself grinning murderously.

But then Sledge says "No".

Sledge says 'no' very stoutly, and his face is mournful. Almost as if he is missing someone.

And the handsome man returns to the dance floor alone.

Something has soured Eugene's enjoyment of the gala's frivolity and splendor. 

Snafu wonders if maybe it was him.

The world of these galas was always a farce, Snafu wants to tell Sledge. The crowd all gentlemen by government decree; the appearance of nobility rather than the act.

This elegance is unsustainable, this generational wealth built on the backs of stolen labor. To exist within it is to be complicit. As far as Snafu can see the only way to escape the monster society created is to run away and not look back.

Run with me, Snafu wants to say, Run with me and we can be free.

He doesn't say any of that, though. He merely holds his chin high, straightens his back, and steps closer till he is directly behind Eugene's shoulder. Snafu removes his mask for this moment. It is crucial Gene recognize him.

He takes a deep breath.

He hesitates because he almost doesn't want to see how Eugene's mood will change. Whether it turns to anger, or frustration, or worse - nothing.

Then he clears his throat. Takes careful note of the way the back of Eugene's neck tenses.

"I only dance when Eugene Sledge wants to dance," Snafu quotes. He mimics Eugene's accent flawlessly, throwing a bit of his own swagger in for good measure.

Eugene slowly turns around. His eyes are wide with shock as they sweep over Snafu's body, from head to toe. He says nothing, but his mouth gapes a little, like a fish.

"Referring to yourself in third person now?" Snafu asks, "Better be careful...that's the second sign of becoming a pirate." He can't bring himself to meet Eugene's eyes, so Snafu watches the other guests strolling through the garden behind Eugene's head.

Sledge's mouth snaps shut. His shock turns into a glare. He steps forward and invades Snafu's space. It's the kind of close proximity a gentleman might instigate in order to challenge him to a duel. Snafu expects to be slapped with a glove.

Instead Sledge snatches Snafu's carefully powdered wig off his head. He throws the poor thing to the ground, stomps on it, and grinds it into the dirt. The embittered frown on Sledge's face never wavers.

"That was very expensive," Snafu drawls conversationally as he stares at the sad deflated mess of grey hair on the ground between them. 

"It looked awful on you," Eugene says bluntly.

"Least it's not my head being flattened," Snafu shrugs, nudging the destroyed wig with a toe. He feigns nonchalance. Inwardly his heart soars, higher than a bird. Sledge still cares. Sledge is angry, but his anger means he still cares.

"Don't tempt me," Eugene snaps.

Snafu finally raises his eyes to meet Eugene's. "Thought I already did that," Snafu says with a challenging grin.

Eugene is taking measured breaths, and his hands are shaking just a tiny bit, like he is holding himself back. "You were not a temptation…" he says, softer and without anger, "You were just...you."

Snafu doesn't know how to respond to that.

"Who are you supposed to be, anyway?" Eugene asks, drawing his eyes up and down Snafu's form, taking in both him and his costume.

Snafu struts a little and holds his mask over his face for Eugene to see, "You can't guess?"

Eugene rolls his eyes, "Some kind of King?"

"Osiris" Snafu says proudly.

"Who?"

"An Egyptian god," Snafu explains, "One who casts judgement on the dead."

"It suits you," Eugene says.

Snafu grins, stands a little taller.

"Especially considering the lack of shirt," Eugene adds snidely.

"The cape and mantle sort of make up for that," Snafu says.

"Yes, that is an impressively vibrant color of dye," Eugene comments. He pulls at the top of the cape and draws it outward, away from Snafu's body to see the sheen of the fabric as it cascades around his hand.

"And this?" Eugene knocks his hand against the wooden staff tucked in Snafu's belt.

"A flail," Snafu says, "To go with my golden crook." He holds out the cane he's been leaning his weight against.

Eugene steps closer, takes the crook, taps it expertly, "Real gold? Business must be going well."

"Booming," Snafu says sarcastically through his teeth.

Eugene chuckles, "Any more Navy ships?"

"Not yet," Snafu replies, "We'll see how tomorrow goes."

Eugene gives Snafu back his crook and tweaks the beard on Snafu's mask instead. Snafu moves the mask away from his face and slips it into his belt alongside the flail.

They're so close, Snafu can smell the tobacco on Eugene's breath. 

'Touch me,' Snafu wants to beg, 'Stop touching my clothing, touch me instead.'

They stand in silence for a time.

Eugene's hands return to his pipe.

Snafu studies the flower attached to Eugene's coat.

"Never seen you draw that flower before," Snafu notes.

"Never had a reason before," Eugene replies.

"What's your reason now?" Snafu eyes him warily.

"Sentimental," Eugene says, "Traveled all the way to the Louisiana swamp looking for someone...didn't find them. But I brought a cutting of these home so I'd have at least something to show for the trip." He pockets his pipe, slips the blue iris off it's clip and holds the flower out to Snafu, "They grow beautifully in my garden at home."

It's identical to the kind of irises that grow in wild bunches around the shack where Snafu was born.

"You saw where I came from?" Snafu asks, nervous.

"I did," Eugene actually smiles. Softly. Fondly, like it was a good thing.

It baffles Snafu to no end, but he tries to take it in stride.

"The shack used to be a chicken coop," Snafu grins back, "Was probably better as a chicken coop."

"There's an alligator living in it now," Eugene holds the flower out for Snafu, "I had to fight it for this."

"How brave." Snafu doesn't take the offered flower. "What were you looking for? In the swamps?" he asks.

Sledge's hand drops to his side. "Damn it, Snaf. Do I need to spell it out for you?"

"Might help, my spelling is atrocious, you should know better than anyone," Snafu taunts.

"F," Sledge says haughtily, "U...C...K…" he takes another step closer, trodding on Snafu's wig. "Y...O...U…" Sledge doesn't even have to reach to grab the collar of Snafu's jacket, they're so close. "S...H...E...L…"  Sledge closes his lips around the stem of the iris to hold it while he unpins the flower clip from his own coat and pokes it in Snafu's collar instead. The tension around Sledge's mouth forms Snafu's favorite tiny crease between his eyebrows. "T..." Sledge slips the Iris into the clip and smooths the front of Snafu's jacket, "O...N."

"Captain," Snafu corrects, blatantly watching Eugene's lips form each letter.

Gene's eyes flash. He grabs Snafu's collar - forcefully this time - and yanks him into a kiss. Snafu nearly jumps out of his skin in shock.

The kiss lasts less than a second. Snafu shoves Eugene away. His eyes anxiously dart towards the small crowd in the garden. Eugene follows his fearful gaze, and then wraps his long fingers around Snafu's wrist. He drags Snafu through the trees until they come to a hedge maze.

The maze is overgrown. At one point it might have been one of those carefully manicured french monstricities, no bigger than knee height, meant for casual amusement of the European aristocracy, and replicated poorly in the colonies. Now the hedges are well over six feet tall, and thick with tangled branches. Eugene and Snafu barely manage to fit through the entrance.

But the hedges promise privacy.

The air inside the maze is still, and silent, and damp, and slightly cooler than the humid evening around them.

After turning a few corners, Eugene shoves Snafu against a hedge. The bush is prickly, and not at all comfortable, but Snafu finds it hard to care when he is distracted by the press of Eugene's lips, and Eugene's body, and the pleasant intensity of Gene taking all his frustration out on Snafu in ways better than wig destruction.

Without words it feels as if no time passed between tonight and the last they saw each other. Snafu is as familiar with Eugene's body now as he was months ago. Eugene briefly lets go of Snafu's waist to undo his own belt and the buttons of his trousers. Snafu hastily shoves his hand down Eugene's pants himself before the other man can get to it. He breaks off their kiss, chest heaving, to lean back against the bush and curl his fingers around Gene's dick. Eugene braces a hand on either side of Snafu's head and hovers there. He makes a small, strangled noise when Snafu's hand starts to move, but he doesn't look away. Snafu's mouth goes dry and he hardly dares to breathe for fear of breaking whatever the fuck this moment is.

Slowly, he jerks him off, staring into Eugene's dark eyes the whole while.

Eugene makes a complete mess of his pants. He buttons his doublet closed, and smoothes it neat, before hungrily reaching for the red sash wrapped around Snafu's waist.

After a fumbling attempt to get Snafu's clothes off (during which Snafu immediately regrets making his costume so complicated - "Don't. It's fine," Snaf mutters with his hand on Eugene's), Eugene gives up and simply grabs Snafu's hips, and collapses towards him in an embrace. Surprised by the sudden switch to calm, Snafu reacts by limply draping his arms over Gene's shoulders, and waiting.

Eugene turns his face into the crook of Snafu's neck and fully encircles his arms around his body. "God, Snaf," he groans.

"Eugene?" Snafu asks.

Eugene doesn't respond. Snafu can feel Gene's eyelashes blinking against his neck where he is hiding his face.

"Gene?" Snafu tries again.

Eugene sighs. He kisses Snafu's bare skin.

"We should talk," Snafu prompts.

Eugene actually laughs. "Now you want to talk," he says without lifting his head.

"S'what I came here for," Snafu says.

"What is it you wanted to say, then?" Eugene asks, leaning back just enough to look Snaf in the eye.

I love you.

"Nothing," Snafu says, "Thought maybe you might. Maybe a few words to get off your chest?"

Eugene smiles sadly, and leans back in to press their lips together briefly. One small kiss and then he rests his forehead against Snafu's.

"Hope. And faith." Eugene murmurs.

"Hm?" Snafu grunts.

"The flower I found. Irises. They symbolize faith," he fumbles that same heavy ring off his finger that Snafu threw back at him, and then slides it onto Snafu's hand for a second time, "I told you to keep it. I meant what I said."

Snafu stares into his eyes, "Gene…I'm sorry."

"I never doubted you," Gene brushes aside his apology.

Something crazy is on the tip of Snafu's tongue and threatening to spill out, so he keeps his jaw clenched tight and his forehead pressed to Gene's. It's enough. This is enough.

"Stay?" Eugene asks.

Snafu fidgets nervously.

"Here. For a few days," Eugene elaborates, "I've taken care of everything. I want you to meet my family, properly. You can even invite the crew."

"Third sign of piracy: extending dinner invitations to pirates," Snafu drawls. He's imagining Burgie's reaction to getting a cream colored, floral embossed card in the mail.

"Privateers. You are an official United States privateer, Captain Shelton," Eugene corrects. He laughs at Snafu's startled expression, "I have the paperwork all drawn up. It's in my room. Waiting for your signature."

"In the mansion…"

"Yes, to do this you'll have to go to the governor's mansion. You might even have to sleep in an actual bed that doesn't rock up and down with the waves."

"That takes all the fun out of sex…" Snafu murmurs.

"I'm sure I can improvise," Eugene kisses his neck with a smile.

"Will you be doing the rocking then?" Snafu quips.

"For as long as you want…" Eugene promises.

Snafu nods and kisses him, tries to quell that ache that's bubbling up inside him again.

Eugene breaks away, grinning ear to ear. He looks at Snafu as if all his prayers have been answered. And who is Snafu to deny him any of it.

So when Eugene takes his hand and leads him out of the maze, Snafu follows.

He is so dazed by an emotion he never thought himself capable of feeling again he almost doesn't notice where Eugene is leading him. Until he recognizes the same inner courtyard where Snafu was condemned to die. 

Snafu stops short. His abrupt halt yanks Eugene back by his arm. Gene turns around and stares at Snafu in confusion. Snafu is preparing to run. His palms are sweaty, and the skin there feels melted to Eugene's, and he's about to twist away and disappear when Eugene's hold on him tightens. 

Eugene is looking Snaf straight in the eye, and he slowly lifts their clasped hands to his lips, "It's all right, Merriell. I promise." 

And in full view of the Governor's entire court, Eugene Sledge bends to kiss Snafu's hand. The same hand Snafu recently stuck down Gene's pants.

No one says anything.

All eyes are on them, though.

Correction, all eyes are on Snafu. His planned ostentatiousness backfires. Eugene notices him, for sure. But so does everyone else.

His costume glows golden in the candlelight. If the glint half blinds him when he moves in the wrong way, he can't imagine how difficult it must be for someone standing across from him.

Snafu grins petulantly when Eugene guides him forward to stand in front of the Governor himself. He can tell Eugene's father recognizes him immediately. The man frowns. He shakes Snafu's hand politely, but he doesn't speak a word.

Surprisingly, it's the Governor's lady who breaks the tension. She eyes her husband calculatingly, sucks in a deep breath, and reaches out to take both of Snafu's hands in hers.

"I want to apologize for the previous case of mistaken identity," She says, regally and with great intent, "As I understand it, Commodore Haldane confused you with the dreadful pirate Snafu. I assure you, Captain Shelton, we will rectify this mistake and will remain forever grateful to you for bringing our Eugene back home alive."

Snafu's eyes slide sharp towards Eugene, realizing for the first time how the boy must have brought about this miracle of clearing his name.

Eugene returns Snafu's stare with a confident grin. He rejoins their hands and pulls Snafu off to the buffet table. A very smart decision as he is going to need a full belly to stomach all this nonsense.

Contrary to popular opinion, food on a ship is not half bad. Burgin keeps their cook happy with the third highest salary on board and frequent stops in port for fresh supplies. Snafu's diet as a child on land, however, was regularly lacking. His father was a failed farmer, and boiled cabbage soup was their evening meal more often than not. So Snafu supposes his standards for good food are not as high as most people's.

But this buffet laid out before him at the Governor's ball? This is a masterpiece. 

Snafu immediately heads straight for the pork chops. He loads up a plate and even concedes to taking utensils and a napkin when Gene offers them.

"Just so you know, we're going back for seconds," he informs Eugene. Eugene chuckles, and holds Snaf's plate for him while he pours them both drinks.

They find a table under a tree to sit and eat. If Snafu must use a fork and knife instead of his fingers, he's gonna need two hands to do it. And that shit's not possible while standing.

Eugene scoots his chair conspicuously close to Snafu's. But the low hanging branches of the willow tree partially conceal them from view, so Snafu allows it. After he finishes his first plate, he does indeed go back for seconds, and thirds. And then Eugene lights his pipe and they pass it back and forth. Their shoulders and legs are pressed together, and Eugene's arm reaches behind Snafu's neck to rest along the back of his chair. Sometimes when Eugene leans in to gently lift the pipe from Snafu's hand, he whispers in his ear and his nose brushes his cheek.

At one point Snafu makes a particularly cutting remark about the state of one unfortunate gentleman's coat, and Eugene starts laughing. He laughs so hard at the joke he leans his hand against Snafu's back and hides his face in his shoulder. Snafu has never seen Gene laugh like that. Ever. A wave of relief washes over Snafu and for a minute he forgets himself and tucks a stray lock of hair behind Eugene's ear.

His gesture is altogether too much like a caress, and he remembers with cold fear, that they are out in the open.

The minute Snafu's fingers leave Eugene's skin, his nerves are back. He darts a glance towards the Governor's dias and he freezes in place. The harsh sensation of a particular pair of eyes boring into the back of Snafu's head takes him out of whatever spell he'd been under making him feel like he and Eugene were the only two people in the room.

Snafu may have the weight of a ring on his finger, but the thousand yard stare of Governor Sledge holds the weight of the world. And every bit of it exudes disapproval.

It chills Snafu to his bones.

At the end of the party, after they've returned to the Governor's mansion, Snafu is shown to an opulent room by an opulently dressed butler. Eugene disappears somewhere down the hall. And Snafu finds himself standing alone, wearing his gold plated costume, inside a masterpiece of a room, feeling an utter fool.

He removes all his jewelry and unwraps his sash. He drags the covers off the bed and makes his own nest in front of the roaring fireplace. He curls up and he tries to sleep.

He is interrupted when Eugene mysteriously appears in Snafu's room through a hidden door behind a bookshelf.

Gene laughs at Snafu's floor nest, and helps Snafu pull the blankets back onto the bed.

Eugene then helps Snafu out of his costume, and this time he succeeds.

They fuck tenderly atop silk sheets and plush pillows. And the way Eugene whispers "Merriell" in his ear is almost enough to make Snafu forget he is here on borrowed time. Almost.

Right as Snafu is about to finally fall asleep there is scratching and a thud against the bedroom door, and for a second Snafu's heart stops at the fear they've been caught. But Eugene simply chuckles and wraps an arm around Snafu's bare waist in a quick hug.

"Go answer it," he says with a kiss to the nape of Snafu's neck.

Eugene lets go of Snafu and reclines back against the pillows, his eyes twinkling.

Snafu grunts about spoiled Governor's sons and casts his eyes overhead to the four poster bed's velvet canopy, but he drags Eugene's breeches on and does as he is told.

On the other side of the door waits a very patient dog. Deacon wags his tail excitedly and the dog's entire body wiggles. Snafu immediately crouches down to greet him and gets a few licks to his face in return. Snafu nearly falls over, but he moves to the side enough to get the dog in the room and the door closed.

"You were missing your master, huh?" Snafu asks Deacon, scratching under the dog's ear.

"He was missing you," Eugene speaks up from the bed, "This entire week, he has done nothing but stare out the window at the ocean and whine. If I didn't understand exactly how he felt, I might have been jealous."

"That's the real reason I've come back," Snafu says as he wriggles back out of Gene's pants and crawls into bed, "To steal your dog and turn him pirate."

"Guess if you've already got one of us, you might as well have the whole set," Eugene replies, drawing Snafu close and insisting on a kiss before letting Snafu settle his head against Eugene's shoulder. Deacon happily curls up at the foot of the bed.

The next morning he wakes to find that somehow during the night Snafu ended up flat on his back with Eugene sprawled across his body and Deacon stretched out across his feet. He is completely unable to move.

Snafu snakes his arm out from underneath the covers and tickles Eugene's ear. Eugene twitches in his sleep. Snafu stays persistent with the tickling until Eugene rolls over, almost accidentally knees Snafu in the groin, and is woken by Snafu's panicked yelp.

With Eugene awake the tickling quickly turns into a wrestling match, which Snafu almost wins. He straddles Eugene and pins Gene's hands above his head. Snafu presses teasing, featherly light kisses across Eugene's collarbone until Deacon barks and a sharp knock on the door interrupts them. Eugene bucks Snafu off him, dives underneath the blankets and slides down the bed in a lump like a coward, leaving Snafu on his own.

"Yeah?" Snafu calls out with as much authority as he can muster. He holds the bedcovers tight over his waist, but his hands won't stop shaking.

It doesn't help that Eugene chooses to put his mouth somewhere very distracting on Snafu's body right as the door unlocks and opens.

"Deacon's food is waiting for him downstairs," the butler says kindly, "Would you like your breakfast brought to your room?"

"Ah, no," Snafu improvises, "I will...uh...be out. Shortly."

Deacon jumps off the bed and trots out the door, tail wagging.

The butler nods and backs out of the room.

"Thank you!" Snafu adds belatedly to the closing door.

Once they're alone again, Snafu yanks back the blankets covering Eugene and finds his lover shaking with silent laughter and the worst case of bedhead he's ever seen.

"Asshole," Snafu accuses him, refusing to give in to the urge to run his hands through Gene's hair - a vibrant red in the morning light.

Instead Eugene pulls him down, silences him with a kiss, and they're both rather late for breakfast.

Snafu stays in the mansion for three days. He doesn't send Burgie any dinner invitations, knowing how well they'd be received, but he does mail a monogrammed card letting the crew know he's safe. He includes a handful of stolen silver artifacts in the parcel to appease any pirate tempers.

Every afternoon Eugene closes them both in the study and forces them to go over page after page after page of legal documents. Snafu attempts to read a few lines here or there, but mostly he only serves as a distraction. His hands wander of their own free will, and they both continually risk getting caught with Snafu's hands up Eugene's shirt or on his thigh, or tracing the line of Eugene's mouth.

"Pay attention," Eugene huffs with as much frustration as Snafu felt when Eugene kept trying to pry Snafu's attention from his maps.

"I am," Snafu insists, trailing his finger down Eugene's neck and studying the way the scruff of his hair stands on end.

"To something other than me," Eugene admonishes.

"Impossible," Snafu leans back on the cushy window seat and admires Eugene's profile against the sunlight. He grins devilishly, crosses his arms behind his head, and adjusts the seat of his hips in a languid manner. Snafu has never had this much free time to indulge in all his urges and he is determined to enjoy it thoroughly.

Eugene stops pretending to read the paper he is holding and glares at Snafu out of the corner of his eye.

It only makes Snafu smile wider.

"Fuck it," Gene says. He drops the page to the ground, plants a hand firmly on the windowsill, and leans over to kiss Snafu with wild passion. Snafu laughs between kisses and Eugene wraps an arm around his waist and tightens his hold, lifting Snafu off the seat until there is no air left between their bodies.

Then the locked door to the study opens.

Snafu drops his arms from around Gene's shoulders and goes still and silent. Eugene sits up, immediately alert. But bizarrely his hand falls atop Snafu's thigh and prevents Snafu from moving his leg off Eugene's lap. Snafu is left lying awkwardly on his back like a turtle, one leg still around Eugene's waist, the other shoved up against the cold glass windowpane, bent as far away from Gene as he can get it. The tent in Snafu's loose breeches is painfully obvious, and his mind is racing, calculating every possible exit from the room. There is only one thing keeping him in place and it's Eugene.

Unfortunately Eugene's strong grip on Snafu's upper thigh only worsens his state of arousal.

The Governor himself calmly looks at them, walks into the room, and closes the door behind him.

"Did you get all the necessary documents signed?" the Governor asks in a tired voice.

"Yes," Sledge replies defiantly, his shoulders straight, his chin high.

Snafu can barely breathe, let alone talk.

"Good," the Governor remarks politely, "I trust Captain Shelton will be setting out on his first officially sanctioned voyage soon."

Snafu's eyes dart between Eugene and the Governor in a panic, trying to guess what his answer should be.

"Actually," Eugene says, "He's staying here. Indefinitely." His tone is light but his accent is sharp.

Snafu, for his part, is still blinking like a fox caught outside its hole.

"Very well," the Governor says solemnly. He stands in the middle of the carpet, and makes no move to leave, even though they are all sitting in silence.

After a minute the Governor lifts his head and gazes out the window beyond where they're sitting. "It's a beautiful day today," he says casually, "I think I might organize a hunt." And with that he takes his leave. The door closes behind him gently. They hear the lock click back into place.

"Shit fuck, he's gonna kill me," Snafu claws at his face with his hands, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes.

"No," Eugene says calmly. He releases Snafu's leg and Snafu curls in on himself like the turtle he feels. "He won't," Gene promises.

Snafu groans.

"Snafu," Eugene says, trying to grab Snafu's hands behind the protective barrier of his legs. "Merriell…" Eugene eventually succeeds in wrapping his fingers around both of Snafu's wrists and uncovering his face. 

Snafu lets his knees fall open in defeat. He stares at Gene between his legs balefully.

"I love you," Eugene tells him. Certainty is written all over his face.

Snafu doesn't know how Eugene manages to look at him with such intense affection when they're surrounded by so much fear.

"Father is the only one who has the keys to this study," Eugene says, "I trust him. Do you trust me?"

"Yes," Snafu's response is immediate and uncompromising.

Eugene lets go of Snafu's wrists and twines their fingers together instead. Snafu uses the grip to pull himself into a sitting position. He takes a moment to run his eyes over Eugene's serious face. His chest presses into the side of Eugene's shoulder.

"I trust you with my life, Gene," Snafu confesses.

"Then stay," Eugene says, and closes the deal with a chaste kiss.

That night the two of them fall asleep in Eugene's own bed instead of the guest room. Snafu luxuriates in the comfort of being utterly surrounded by reminders of Gene.

But this time Snafu wakes up alone. 

He hears a knock. Not on Eugene's door, but on the door of the guest room down the hall. Snafu falls off the bed in his haste to both yank his pants up over his ass and trigger the bookcase to open the secret passageway. He manages to get back in his room, slip on his shoes, and open his door by the time the impatient person looking for him knocks a third time.

"The Governor wishes to see you," the butler says.

"Right," Snafu nods, scratching the back of his neck and makes as if to step into the hall when the butler places a gloved hand on his shoulder.

"Perhaps Sir should put on a shirt?" the butler smiles in a fatherly manner.

"Ah…" Snafu glances down at his bare torso and retreats inside his room to fish out something respectable.

"Perhaps a coat as well?" the butler once again poses the suggestion as a question.

Snafu gets the distinct feeling he is receiving advice. He hunts through the wardrobe and holds out a deep purple velvet ensemble for review.

The butler smiles and shakes his head discreetly.

Snafu presents two more outfits before they decide on a smart grey number made of flawlessly tailored rich fabric but without a lot of frills.

"Good luck," the butler whispers to Snafu before leaving him outside the door to the Governor's private library.

Snafu has already spent many hours in the family library. It's the only room in the mansion he actually likes. The Sledges own a copy of every single overseas expedition logbook Snafu could possibly want. Sailing is clearly a pastime both Eugene and his father enjoy.

This is the first time, however, that Snafu is given the privilege of seeing the Governor's personal book collection.

As soon as he walks through the door, the first thing to catch Snafu's eye is a large, exquisitely detailed globe resting in its own golden stand on the floor to the right. He itches to lay his hands on it, and he barely manages to restrain himself before the high backed chair turns and the Governor sets his eyes on him.

For a split second Snafu's breath leaves him. But then, he relaxes. He tilts his head with a small smile, and crosses the room to the globe. He ignores Eugene's father in favor of running his finger down the eastern coast of the Americas. Keeping his finger on the surface of the globe, he rotates it until he is touching China, and then the East Indies. He lifts his hand, spins the globe, and stops it with a touch.

He shifts his finger aside and reads the name of the country he landed on.

Japan.

"How much?" the Governor asks plainly.

"What?" Snafu's head jerks up.

"How much money can I offer to make you disappear from my son's life?" the Governor folds his hands on his desk and looks at Snafu pleasantly.

Snafu stares in shock, processing this new information.

"If you are killed, Eugene will mourn you forever as if you were a martyr. But if you leave, he will forget you," Governor Sledge explains.

"If I leave he'll miss me forever," Snafu taunts, smiling.

"You want to leave," Governor Sledge points out, "I can see it. Eugene certainly sees it. You are restless here. You have nothing here, except him. Let go of him. And I will give you any amount you ask for."

Snafu honestly considers it. Considers that - if Sledge's family truly hate Snafu that much - leaving Eugene alone might be the best decision for both of them. Considers how much Eugene loves his family, enough to risk his life to get back to them, to lie to a pirate. Considers the fact that the kind of money Governor Sledge is talking about could probably get Snafu across the pacific and back five times over. Considers how often Snafu has seen Sledge genuinely smile back home with his familiar comforts compared to his scowls aboard ship.

"I'd break his heart," Snafu says before his throat chokes closed. He coughs. His eyes sting.

"Exactly," Governor Sledge agrees amicably.

Snafu laughs. He hates how it sounds wild and a little despairing, even to his own ears. He can feel a grin on his face, mouth stretched so wide his muscles already ache.

"Well," Snafu bites his lip. He spins the globe again, faster. And this time he lets his finger drag against the curved surface, intentionally stopping it right over the port of Mobile. He looks up, and saunters to the desk, pulling Eugene's ring off and holding it high for the Governor to see.

"You want me gone that badly, I'll do it for free," Snafu offers, "But I'm keeping this." He closes his fist around the ring.

Taking a leather cord strung with keys from the corner of Governor Sledge's desk, Snafu unhooks the clasp and carelessly dumps the keys to the floor. He slides the ring onto the cord, knots it in the middle to keep the ring secure, and hooks the clasp around his neck.

"He'll know," Snafu says as he stuffs the necklace down his shirt front, "No matter what lies you tell him, he'll know. And he'll come after me."

The Governor doesn't respond, and Snafu turns his back on him to walk out the door. He'd take the globe with him, too, if he could think of a way to lift it on his own.

Snafu leaves the estate without another word to anyone. The relief he feels when he walks past the final gatehouse is palpable. He can breathe easier again out here, in the fresh air. And when he reaches the docks his confidence in life soars the minute he sees the Santa Alma waiting patiently in the bay. For the next few weeks he remains confident every time the crew sets sail, charting a course that wins them easy prizes while staying within a couple days reach of Mobile. They make berth regularly in the port, the crew eagerly enjoying the extra shore leave and spending money.

But after the first month passes and there is no sign of Eugene, Snafu's confidence dwindles. By the sixth month the heavy weight of the ring around his neck is no longer a security but an anchor. More time passes, and after the second full year spent alone, Snafu gives up hope.

He begins to plan another voyage around Cape Horn. This time enroute to Japan.

(My sketch of Pirate Snafu)

(the END for now, i swear they get back together, i promise, eugene didnt forget he’s just busy and he thinks snaf is an asshole who left without saying goodbye. if you want to see more PLEASE TELL ME cause i might do it)

[fertileimaginationvault]

Martha’s Day - Superbat DCEU series

Hello my fellow Superbat shippers! I hope you’re all doing alright.

 It's my first attempt at writing something about Superbat and I sincerely hope to be doing it right  and that you like it, of course.

I have plans to do a series of Superbat fanfictions, and this is the first post (I don’t know how many I’ll post, it will depend on the ideas that pop up in my head). I just want to warn you that the order of events is going to be a bit off (again, it's my head's fault that I have ideas out of the right order). I'll be happy to clear up any questions you may have about it. But first, let me establish a few things:

The "chapter” that I am posting today obviously happens on Mother's Day, almost two years after the events of the Justice League (2017).

Clark and Bruce have finally become friends, but they hide their true feelings for each other because they are afraid of ruining their friendship (it reads: because they are dumb).

I really like the idea of ​​the Wayne Mansion being rebuilt to become the Justice League headquarters, so I incorporated it into the story. Which means the league members will also appear.

What I wanted to see most about DCEU is the bat-kids, and they'll appear more on future posts because I love seeing Bruce being a dad, and I'd love to see them interacting with Clark.

I’ll give you more details about their relationship and what happened after the Justice League in the next post but I have not finished editing yet (the chapter is still too long and I'm still thinking whether to divide it into two parts or not).

I would like to apologize in advance for possible errors. English is not my first language.

I would also like to thank the kind people who encouraged me to post this. I've loved these characters since I was a child, and I was really excited about writing something about them, even though it’s fanfiction. And although today’s post is a litle sad, I hope you guys like it.

This “chapter” is dedicated to all who have lost their mothers and have a hard time during Mother’s Day and every day that their absence is felt the most (myself included). i’m sending my love to you all.

_________________________________________________________

It didn’t matter how many times Bruce had walked the path between the Manor and the Wayne family mausoleum, it always felt as if he was dragging chains along with him. It didn’t matter how many years had passed, it still felt the same, the pain piercing through his soul and the darkness clutching it. He stared at his parents’ crypts in silence holding the bouquet of white roses strong enough to feel the thorns entering his fingers and palm, through the wrapping paper around it, but he didn’t care. That was nothing compared to what Bruce went through for the last twenty years. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for a few seconds and opening them again, still unease. He thinks if he should say something as he used to do when he was younger, when he still dared to ask if his parents would be proud of him, of what he was doing in their memory.

Bruce didn’t know anymore, neither if they would or if he has even the right to ask. Specially on this particular day... He wondered if he could cry even after all this time, but the tears were stuck somewhere inside of him just like the rest of his emotions and everything else that resembled the faintest evidence of weakness. He stayed there, silent, holding the bouquet of white roses, still thinking if he should put them in the vase hanging on the marble wall beside his mother’s crypt or not.

He couldn’t say how long he had stayed there, and again, he didn’t care. He doesn’t even flinch either when realizes he’s not alone. Someone was outside. Bruce could see them through the crack of one of the heavy iron doors of the mausoleum that was ajar, conflicting about getting in or just staying in the private graveyard outside.

“You can come in, Clark” he managed to say, his voice sounding hoarse but not as annoyed as he liked to be. That always happened when Clark was around, he could never truly push him away.

“I’m sorry, I-I didn’t want to disturb you” Clark walked in, voice low, taking each step carefully, almost ritualistic as if his existence in that place was disrespectful by itself. He stopped beside Bruce.

“I thought you were in Smallville for the day.” Bruce didn’t care to look at him, his dark eyes still lingering on his mother’s name printed in bronze on the marble surface of her crypt.

“I was,” Clark answered, looking at Bruce, examining his friend dressed in a three piece suit as if he was ready for a board meeting or a dinner at The Plaza. Clark knew the reason for Bruce being so well dressed and the knowledge of it made his heart clench, “I spent the day with Ma, actually. I just came back to the Manor.”

Bruce glanced around, realizing the deeming of the sunlight inside the mausoleum. The sun was setting behind the trees and the figure of Saint Michael in the stained glass could hardly be seen, finally giving him notion of time.

“Bruce,” Clark started, also struck by realization, “how long have you been here?”

“I don’t know... A few hours, maybe...” Bruce let it out in whisper, even though knowing Clark would hear, “I just woke up and came here to…”

Clark waited for Bruce to finish his sentence but he never did. He just stayed there beside the other man, making company to his silence. He knew how hard that was to Bruce, specially considering what day it was. Clark knew how that felt, how certain dates could be more difficult to “celebrate” than the others. Birthdays, holidays, always making it hurt a little more that the usual. Bruce didn’t need to finish explaining why he was there, Clark already knew. But he would still wait as much as necessary for Bruce to finally find his strength to say anything at all. He wouldn’t move an inch away from his friend.

“I’m not a child anymore,” Bruce finally managed to say, breaking their silence.

“I know.” Clark nodded, still waiting for his conclusion.

“It’s has been more than thirty years,” he continues.

“I know.” Clark is still nodding without saying more, giving Bruce all the space he needs to keep going.

“I’ve been keeping my promise, I’ve been taking care of Gotham... I’ve been trying to help as many people as I can… I- I’ve built a family of my own now... And yet I don’t understand…”

Clark stares at Bruce to find him staring back, his brown eyes glistening with the presence of tears that would be hidden in any minute, only Clark being able to see. Clark remains silent, giving Bruce all the time he needs, fighting the urge to hold the other man in his arms. He knew it wouldn’t be welcomed, so he stayed where he was, patiently waiting for Bruce to let the words out once and for all.

“I don’t understand… why does it still hurts?” Bruce closed his hands into fists, letting the thorns of the white roses sink into his fingers and palm again, hanging his head down. He starts to take deep breaths in an attempt to subside the feeling of anger and helplessness coming over him.

Clark wanted more than anything to hug Bruce at the moment, to take him away from that mausoleum, from all that pain and suffering he had to face throughout the years. However, Clark knew he wasn’t allowed to do so. Bruce wasn’t like Clark, who liked being touched when experiencing an emotional breakdown, the warmth of physical contact always bringing him peace. Bruce, on the other hand, always kept his distance even when he needed to be touched, to be held in someone’s arms. Clark wished he could change that about Bruce but he couldn’t. So he stays by Bruce’s side, listening to everything his friend has to say.

“People always say it gets better with time,” Bruce finally manages to speak, however, his voice was shaken, trying to get the words out before he would burst into tears, “That time heals everything. That it hurts less after a while…” he shakes his head, “It has been more than a while, Clark... Why does it still hurts like it was yesterday?”

“Because you love them,” Clark said without thinking twice, his voice heavy with understanding. He had himself a grave to visit, a wound that would never properly heal. That would always hurt the same even after all those years.

“Because they shouldn’t have gone so soon” Clark continued, worried if he was saying that more to himself than to Bruce, “Because you miss them and wish they were here to see you become the man you were supposed to be; because you wish they were here to see that you’re a father now. To see your children, the family you built on your own.” Clark now was staring at the ground, unable to look at Bruce, only letting the words find their way out of his mouth. He hoped he wasn’t trespassing by saying them. He swallowed before facing Bruce again, waiting for his reaction. “That’s not the kind of wound that fades away. It’s the kind we learn to live with.”

Bruce took his eyes from Clark to his parents’ crypts again, processing Clark’s words as if suddenly everything made sense. And he knew it did. If there was something Bruce knew very well was that losing a parent (or both of them) and losing a child were the worst things a person could go through. He would never stop hurting from it. He would never fill the hole left in his soul by their absence. That was a fact he would have to accept. A wound he should have known how to live with.

“I wish I could have done something…” Bruce whispered, once again feeling helpless and angry.

“I know.” Clark nodded, still waiting to hear more.

“I would have stopped it if I could.”

“I know.”

Bruce breathed deeply once again, trying to keep himself steady.

“There is so much I wish I could have told her… None of our conversations seemed to be enough…” He took another deep breath to finish his sentence, “when she was gone.”

“You can do it, now” Clark tilted his head to the marble wall with the crypts of the members of the Wayne family, “If you still want to.”

Bruce raised a brow to him, then letting out a sigh.

“She’s not here, Clark” he muttered, “There’s nothing left of her anymore…”

“Maybe not,” Clark agreed with him, “or maybe she is listening from somewhere else,” he tilted his head back as if looking through the ceiling to the night sky beginning to show, and maybe he was, “I always talk to Pa when I visit him.”

“And you believe he’s somewhere else listening to you?” Bruce did his best not to sound sardonic, but he couldn’t help it. Gone was the time when he still believed in such things.

“Bruce, I’m an alien who flies and shoots lasers from the eyes. I died and came back to life,” Clark replied narrowing his eyes in annoyance, “I don’t think I have the luxury of being skeptical about anything else.”

“Fair enough.” Bruce conceded.

“Look, I know Pa is not physically there when I talk to him, and that he can’t actually reply anything I say but…” Clark paused for a couple of seconds, then looking right at Bruce who was watching him curious, “You don’t do it to hear their answers right away, you do it because it brings you comfort. Because while you talk, you’ll be seeing things and even yourself through their eyes. The answers will come, eventually. It might take a while but they always do.”

Bruce was silent, once again processing Clark’s words. He looked down at his hand holding the bouquet of white roses, seeing the blood stains in the wrapping paper, hoping Clark didn’t.

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Do you mind if I talk to her?” Clark asked Bruce with a warm smile but still tentative, trying once again not to trespass any of his boundaries.

“Do you want to talk to my mother’s grave?” Of course he wants, Bruce thought, of course Clark would talk to his dead mother just to make him feel better because that’s what Clark Kent does.

“You think she won’t like me?” although Clark’s smile was present, Bruce noticed the concern in his voice and couldn’t help but feeling amused by it and by the way Clark said “she won’t like me” instead of “she wouldn’t”. That was Clark Kent ladies and gentlemen, easily going through the barriers Bruce constantly tried to build between them, being the kindest person possible to exist in this earth, even in a moment like that. Specially in a moment like that.

“No,” he managed to say, while trying to keep his heart and mind steady before Clark’s inquiring gaze, “I think it would be quite the opposite.”

Seeing Clark’s grin widen with that response surely made Bruce feel warmer inside, even though he wasn’t hoping to feel nothing of the sort that day in particular.

“So, it’s best to give her the gift you just brought, what do you think?” Clark gestured to the bouquet on Bruce’s hand.

Bruce blinked at him, raising his hand with the bouquet at the level of his chest.

“Bruce…” Clark examined the blood stains on the wrapping paper around the bouquet only with his vision. He didn’t dare to touch Bruce yet. He wouldn’t do anything without his permission. Even if all he wanted was to touch Bruce’s bruised hand in an attempt to make all of that pain go away.

“I came here to put some flowers in the vase for her...” Bruce said, finally finishing what he started to explain minutes ago but failed, “She always liked white roses.”

“Can I?” Clark reached his hands for the bouquet, again, waiting for Bruce’s permission.

“Y-yes.” Bruce handed the bouquet to Clark as if it was a burden he couldn’t stand carrying anymore. His brown eyes, pleading against Clark’s blue gemstones that stared at him so understanding when taking the flowers from his hands.

Clark carefully took off the bloodstained wrapping paper, holding the roses with his bare hands. Their thorns would hurt his skin anyway. He deposited the flowers in the vase hanging on the marble wall and began arranging them as in an ornamental vase. Clark has done that many times so his mother wouldn’t hurt herself when they have to replace the flowers on his father’s grave. He wondered how many times Bruce have done this alone for the past thirty years and wished he was there to keep him from hurting his hands too.

Bruce did nothing but stare at Clark carefully arranging the flowers in the vase beside his mother’s crypt, as if it was a ritual. He usually doesn’t let anyone join him when visiting his parents, specially in dates like this, except for Alfred who rarely comes along to keep him company. However, at that moment he was glad for having Clark there beside him.

“Done. They look beautiful this way.” Clark said, looking satisfied with his work, then placing himself beside Bruce again and turning to the face Martha Wayne’s crypt ornate with the white roses. He gives a step forward and clears his throat, “Hm… Hello Mr and Mrs Wayne, I’m Clark Kent, I’m a friend of your son’s” he started, fidgeting a little before continuing, Bruce couldn’t believe he was nervous for talking to his dead parents who couldn’t even listen to him.

“I know, he never brought none of his friends here and it probably made you think that he doesn’t have any friends but... he has me” Clark turned his eyes to Bruce, smiling, then turning to the marble crypt again, “Well, not just me, he has more friends. He has the kids and Alfred… Oh, and Ma… my mother, I mean” he was rubbing the back of his neck, like really having a conversation with the Waynes. Bruce couldn’t help but letting his lips curve in a little smirk with the sight, “It’s interesting that you two share the same name... I truly believe you’d get along very welI, considering what your sons’ job is. Even though I don’t think sharing our baby pictures would do good for our reputations...” Clark chuckled at the thought.

“Anyway, Mrs Wayne, I just wanted to wish you a happy mother’s day. I assure you that Bruce is being taken care of, specially by Alfred and Ma. I swear, someday I’ll get home and find that she replaced me with him as her son, really.” he grinned at Bruce who was still staring at him filled with amusement, “She loves him very much. We all do.” Clark found himself smiling saying those words, without worrying about what Bruce would think of them. Bruce need to hear, even if they were disguised. Even if that was everything Clark could do at the moment to let his feelings show.

“And I also wanted to thank you.” He cleared his throat, turning his attention to the marble crypt, “I’m sure Bruce wouldn’t be the person he is today if it weren’t for having an amazing mother by example. He’s a good man, a good father and a good friend. He is the kind of person who always thinks of others before himself and is always trying to make other people’s lives better. I believe he got this qualities from you and from Mr Wayne as well. And, of course, from Alfred. I hope to talk to you again soon, I promise to come visit often… if Bruce allows me. I hope you’re having a great mother’s day wherever you may be listening to us.”

Clark took the step back to Bruce’s side, still not sure if his efforts have borne some fruit until turning his gaze to the other man. Clark startled at the tears streaming from Bruce’s eyes and set himself even closer to him, still not sure if he would be allowed to touch Bruce but letting their shoulders touch, giving something for Bruce to lean on if he needed.

They stayed like that for a few seconds without saying a word. Bruce taking deep breaths while the tears kept streaming down his face. A silent sob, repressed even, but still better than not feeling anything at all. Clark murmured, asking if he was okay, and Bruce nodded in response, wiping his face before looking at him.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve done this. Talk to them.” Bruce’s voice sound weak through the tears.

“I’ll leave you alone so you can talk to them” Clark said, softly as if he was talking to a child, before turning his way to the mausoleum door.

“Thank you.” Bruce said, holding Clark’s hand so he would turn back.

Clark stopped on his feet and turned to look at Bruce, surprised by his gesture but glad at the same time.

“I’ll be waiting outside if you need me,” he smiled again, squeezing Bruce’s hand before letting go, feeling his own strangely cold afterwards, “Bye Mrs Wayne. Bye, Mr Wayne.”

______________________________

Clark stayed in the private graveyard inside the Wayne Estate, waiting. He didn’t dare to eavesdrop Bruce’s conversation with his parents, so he took a walk between the gravestones outside, near the great Wayne mausoleum. Clark knew how hard this day must be to Bruce. Father’s day was never a pleasant day to him as well, and if he had lost Ma too, Clark definitely would be as hurt as Bruce was at the moment. Clark was grateful for having his mother around. He knew Bruce had Alfred too and knowing that was enough to hope at least the old butler could cross Bruce’s boundaries without being pushed away like the others.

Bruce had so many walls around his heart, sometimes Clark wondered how could he even breath. Clark was hopeful to someday break one by one until there was only him and Bruce, with nothing in between. He just couldn’t see that happening any soon. However, at least that moment represented a improvement in their relationship. Clark knew that being allowed by Bruce’s side in such vulnerable moment was a big deal. He knew what meant to be allowed inside Bruce’s family mausoleum, what meant for Bruce to share his grief with Clark like that. He was glad to be there, to be by his side, and would stay there until Bruce decided he didn’t need him anymore. Since it was everything he was allowed to do.

______________________________

Minutes later, he saw Bruce coming out from the mausoleum, closing the heavy iron doors behind him. Clark paced towards him, so they could walk back to the Manor.

They walked in silence for a while taking in the sight of the lights of the Wayne Manor. The Boys and Steph were there waiting for them. Barry was there too. Clark could see them gathered in the media room, arguing about what movie they should watch on Netflix this time. Alfred was in the kitchen preparing them snacks.

“Feeling better?” Clark turned his eyes to examine Bruce.

“Yes.” Bruce’s voice was hoarse due to how much he cried, but he still wasn’t willing to show it. His head hanged low, facing the ground as they walked away from the private graveyard.

“It always works.” Clark said in return, bumping his shoulders on Bruce's..

They kept walking in silence across the garden. They were halfway through the trail of gravel past the main fountain in the middle of the garden when Bruce stopped walking.

“About what you said…” Bruce managed to speak, finally lifting his head to face Clark.

“You mean, about visiting your parents?” Clark turned to face Bruce, concerned about having trespassed.

“You don’t have to-” Bruce tried to say, to thank Clark for his kindness when Clark interrupted him.

“I know. But like I said, I already promised to Mrs Wayne I would, so…” Clark shrugged, trying to assure Bruce that’s okay, that he didn’t need to do that alone. Not anymore.

“Clark…” Bruce tried again but Clark stepped even closer, taking Bruce’s hand with his own.

“Bruce, if you want company whenever you visit your parents, I'll be more than happy to be by your side,” he squeezed Bruce’s hand as the words left his mouth, as if trying to tell him something more. Really telling something more and praying Bruce would understand, “But I’ll do it only if you allow me.”

“Thank you, again.” Bruce ran his hand to hold closer into Clark’s in response. Maybe he did understand.

“Don’t mention it.” Clark’s grin made Bruce feel warmer inside for the second time that day.

They stayed in each other’s eyes, talking without saying a word. Clark didn’t care if he was letting his true feelings show at the moment, Bruce had to know he wasn’t alone. He would always be there, ready to hold Bruce’s hand when he needed.

Bruce tried to keep his heart steady, hoping Clark wouldn’t listen how it quickened when their hands touched but at the same time hoping he had. Clark was staring at him with such loving eyes, being so careful since they were in the mausoleum… He only wanted to be worthy of all of this.

“The kids must be home.” Bruce finally broke their gaze, turning to the windows of the Manor.

“They are.” Clark did the same, clearing his throat, “Barry is there too.”

“Of course…” Bruce mused about what that meant. Of course Barry was at the Manor too. He wasn’t the only one there who lost his mother. Barry and his children also knew the weight of a day like this.

“They told me where you were” Clark explained, “Dick said, I’m quoting this by the way, ‘Today is the day when all the orphans who live in this house should be gathered in a giant sofa, eating junk and watching movies’ and I think he’s right, though.”

“Are you staying tonight?” Bruce asked, wondering if he sounded too eager for Clark’s response.

“Sure.” Clark shrugged, trying to sound casual, but happy being allowed to stay “I mean, if you want to...”

“I do.” Bruce let his mouth form a little smile, only for Clark to see.

“Good.” Clark beamed at him, “They wouldn’t let me skip a movie night anyway.”

Bruce chuckled briefly, letting himself be embraced by the sound of Clark's laugh, feeling his heart lighter. It was always like this when Clark was around.

They started to walk again. They were still holding hands.

“Bruce?” Clark called as they got near the entrance.

“Yes?”

“Ma asked me to tell you next year she wants you, the kids and Alfred in the farm for a Mother’s Day lunch. And that’s not up for debate.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Bruce nodded.

“No, Bruce. That’s. Not. Up. For. Debate.” Clark said, looking genuinely worried, “You don’t know how much I had to hear from her because I showed up today without you. You’re going next year and this year’s Thanksgiving too. I don’t want to have to show up there without you again and she suddenly decides I don’t get to eat the turkey.”

“Alright,” Bruce conceded, amused by the nearly terror in Clark’s eyes, “We’ll be there.”

“I swear to God, sometimes I think Ma loves you more than she loves me.” He pouted, faking annoyance .

“I strongly believe the fact that I’m her favorite person might get you jealous.” Bruce said a little smug for seeing Clark pouting.

They passed through the door. Their hands still entwined. None of them in a hurry to let go.

“Nah.” Clark chuckled, rubbing the back of his head, and turning to give Bruce one of his heart stopping smiles, “Actually, I’m glad she likes you.”

For the first time that day, Bruce allowed himself to truly smile when said, “Me too.”

[fanfics-await-you]

Sometimes It Comes Down to a Choice (Part 4)

Pairing: Christopher Pike x Female OC

Takes place some point in the future after the events of the Red Angel

Summary: Alina has always carried a secret flame for her Captain and she's always known that it could never lead anywhere. However, the combination of a party and some drunken words might just make that a little more complicated. The only problem, everything just seems to be going wrong. Who knows, maybe a proper goodbye is just what they need.

Tags: angst, injury, a pair of dumbasses unnecessarily complicating things, mild blood

Notes: I like my characters to be strong and have stories and relationships in their own right. Like, I just don't like writing stories where they justs exist for the romance. I find it…eh. also, i've been without internet so i still haven't seen the finale!

Also, thank you everyone for the kind reviews and support! I've really appreciated it!

Word Count: 2,328

masterlist

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

———

Ba-bump.

Ba-bump.

Ba-bump.

All I can grasp is agony. It's in the strands of my DNA, it's the only thing holding me together, it's all I know.

Ba-bump.

My heartbeat is as loud as a pulsating thunderclap.

Ba-bump.

I can't move. Not a single finger. I can't tell if it's the pain or the weight of the sky.

Ba-bump.

Light.

Ba-bump.

The world becomes a maelstrom of indistinguishable sensations.

Ba-bump.

Echoing shouts of meaningless sound drill into my skull.

Ba-bump.

Without warning, someone touches me. A choked shriek more animal than human pierces the air. Somehow, I realise it must be me.

Ba-bump.

I'm being touched all over and the only reason I don't scream again is because my lungs won't fill.

Ba-bump.

The thunder is fading.

Ba-bump.

I can feel the great black swallowing me but I want to stay.

Ba-bump.

As much as it hurts, I want to stay.

Ba-bump.

The dark doesn't care. It devours me anyway.

———

I'm warm.

It's the first feeling that my mind conjures. Slowly, the physicality of the world comes into focus underneath my skin. The tickle of my hair against my neck, the light press of a blanket across my legs, my fingers curling into a weak fist against the sheets; I allow the sensations to wash over me without judgement. The absence of pain is a welcome but deeply alien lightness. Once I've taken some steady breaths and feel sure that I can take whatever lays beyond me, I open my eyes.

A medbay?

No, not a medbay. I recognise this place.

Everything is still too foggy for thoughts to come easily but any panic that had been growing in my chest dissipates. It's safe and it's home and that's enough.

"Hi Alina."

I turn to blearily look at the man next to me. Dr Culber…

"Hugh?"

His face breaks into a huge smile like I've performed some miracle.

"You have no idea how good it is to see you awake."

…Maybe I have.

"What happened?" He helps me sit up as my muscles ache from disuse.

He scratches his head apprehensively before starting, "I should alert the crew…Shit, the captain."

I shake my head before I find my voice, "No, not yet. I-I need answers first."

Hugh seems unsure but sits next to me on the bed anyway, "I guess there's the question of how much you remember?"

I furrow my brow, "I remember running for the surface and then-" my fingers go to the bandage on my forehead-"something hit me. I went down. Then there was a lot of pain, and now we're here."

He brushes my hair away from the bandage gently, "It's mostly healed but I wanted to wait for your permission to remove the scar…I know how much they can mean to people."

I nod gently but say nothing.

Hugh continues, "We found you not long after the bunker's collapse. We managed to track your bio-sign and use the Discovery's tractor beam to clear away the debris. Almost all of your bones and organs had sustained trauma and you were clinging onto life. You've been in a coma for four days to give your body time to heal and…"

"To see if I would wake up?"

"Yeah. I knew you would, though. You've always been a fighter, Alina."

He pauses to take a deep breath and it settles like a heavy weight in my throat.

"If you hadn't stayed conscious for so long, or had been much deeper underground or any number of things, we wouldn't have been able to find you. But you'd nearly made it to the surface all by yourself…Your fingers were bloody from trying to climb out."

The quiet admiration on his face is enough to make me tear up. I feel him take my hand.

"You saved yourself, Alina."

A little hiccuping sob sneaks out.

"Not that anyone was surprised by that."

This time, a breathy snort slips out.

A silence settles between us for a little while as Hugh holds my hand and I find my calm.

"Can I go back to my quarters?"

He seems surprised, "I mean, yes, after some tests…People will want to know you're awake."

I close my eyes for a moment, "I know but I-I just can't right now…I need some time to process first. Just say that I'm okay if people ask but that I need some space."

"…I understand…Well, sit still and I'll go get my diagnostic tool."

I lean back against the pillows.

"So, first question: the scar?"

"How does it make me look?"

"Like an absolute badass."

For the first time in a while, I feel a smile curl across my face, "Well then I've got to keep it."

———

Sleep is elusive with dreams of my dirt-filled lungs keeping it at bay. So instead I'm sitting by my window and try to piece together some answers from the stars before me. Unfortunately, they're not saying much.

I survived.

It just doesn't feel concrete, like this is my mind's final comfort and any minute the world will fall away. Absentmindedly, I trace the thin scar mirroring my eyebrow. If anything, this mark is the only thing grounding me right now.

The gentle ring of the doorbell breaks my trance. I quietly sigh. The ship's day-lighting had flared not long ago; I knew someone would come past soon enough.

"Door."

However, I am not prepared for Chris to be on the other side of the door.

For a couple of seconds, he doesn't move. His expression is somehow two parts admiration, one part grief. I feel the weeks apart slip off my shoulders like sandbags. I don't care that he won't- can't -choose me. The sliver of me concerned about pride or dignity has melted away. I don't know if this is forgiveness or simply acceptance.

"Chris?" the word is both pleading and unsure.

I stand too quickly and the room becomes painted with technicolour streaks of black. The fear that everything will dissolve into darkness surges up my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut to stave off the panic. Before I can fall, strong hands are holding me upright. Instinctively, my hands go to his shoulders and I lean closer. It's a couple of darting breaths before I can open my eyes. I'm met by vibrant blue eyes lined with warmth and concern.

"Are you alright?" Chris' voice is interwoven with worry.

I nod, unable to find words or take my eyes off him.

The strong grip at my arm and waist are an anchor but I still don't know what to say to him. There's so much that I couldn't say but now can that is haunting the tip of my tongue.

"I am so sorry, Alina."

"No-"

"I should never have pushed you away."

"I-"

"I should never have put you at risk."

"That's-"

"You should never have had to put your life on the line."

"I made-"

"A choice. I know. But-"

"Chris," I cut through his flood of words.

I cautiously brush a thumb across his cheek just to feel his skin. His eyes search mine- for what, I don't know.

"There's no need to apologise. There never was. You've always done what you thought you had to. It's something I've always…respected about you." I don't stop drawing patterns against his cheek.

Chris closes his eyes and lightly leans into my hand. I take the moment to study the lines of his face. The bone-deep weariness drawn across his features cracks something within me and finally the words find a way out.

"When I was down there, waiting for the countdown…I only thought about one thing."

Chris' eyebrows furrow and his eyes open to meet my gaze in silent question.

What I would give to kiss him one last time.

I would truly give anything just to have him here, holding my hand, as the world ends.

I lean forward until our foreheads meet. He gently nudges me back, brushing our noses together, in a familiar, simple movement that ruptures the floodwall. Tears begin to fall before I find the strength to speak.

My voice cracks, "How much I wanted to come back to you."

Chris' hands come to frame my face but I screw my eyes shut. I can't bear to look at him anymore. I can't bear to know that he will always be right there but never mine.

The words cascade out of me without regard, "I know that this can't happen but I need you to listen, to know what you mean to me. You gave me the strength to stare death in the face. You were the one I wanted to run back to, those weapons be damned. You were the person I wanted by my side when I thought my time was up…I choose you, Chris, even if you can't choose me."

"Alina…"

"Chris, please, I don't want pity, I coul-"

"Sometimes it comes down to a choice," his voice is quiet but steady.

I dare to open my eyes. He bears a tentative smile that I can't help but gently return through the persisting tears.

Please, please, please.

"Sometimes you make the wrong decision. Sometimes you lose the only thing that ever really mattered and you have to bear that regret for the rest of your life…but sometimes, if you're truly lucky, you get the chance to try again."

The hope in my chest is expanding with every breath. I'm trying to not grin, to not prematurely celebrate a moment that's not yet mine, but I'm failing. Instead, I take one of his hands in mine and gently press it to my mouth in a lingering kiss to hide my budding smile. Chris tucks back a stray strand of my hair as his own grin grows from hesitant to glowing. I am suddenly struck by the symmetry of this moment with the last time we were this close and find myself praying that this story will end differently.

"Alina, it was unfair of me to think that you would ever make me choose between you and our crew. I underestimated you and for that, I am sorry…I also know that I caused you pain and I know that you said you wouldn't wait around for me to come to my senses but-"

I don't let him finish.

I pull Chris tighter against me as I bring his lips to mine. This time he tastes ever-so-slightly of honey and I want to drown in it, in him. He presses back against me like he's the one drowning and it gives me a little thrill that I am so wanted. Chris' hands dig into my shoulder and back, and his strength is probably the only thing keeping me on my feet. I can feel every line of his body against me and the pressure against the aches of my injuries is nothing short of delicious. The fevered beat of Chris' heart echoes beneath my fingers and every pulse further washes away my fears. This is real, I am alive, we're going to be okay. I break away first but the very welcome cage of his arms means I don't go far.

"I know you Christopher Pike, you don't need to apologise to me for trying to do the right thing."

Maybe I'm forgiving or risking more than I should but I love Chris. With every fallible, mortal, and adoring part of me, I love him. He nods, his face still unsure. Gently, I brush my thumb across his brow and smooth out the worry lines before going up on my tiptoes to plant a soft kiss on his forehead. Chris' arms tighten at my waist but his eyes are bright. He leans in for another kiss but I place a single finger against his lips, making him pause. His puzzled expression is enough to make me laugh but what I need to say sobers me slightly. I take a step back as Chris continues to look on in confusion. Slowly, I place a splayed hand just above his heart and take a moment to admire how alive he feels beneath my fingers before I speak.

"I choose you, Chris. In this life, the next, all of them, whatever I don't care- I choose you. I-I love you."

His expression almost makes me cry again simply because no one has ever looked at me like Chris does, like I put the stars in the sky. Steadily, his hand comes to mirror mine and rest just above my heart.

"I've loved you since you saved me back on Kaminar. I choose you, Alina Osborne, and I'll follow you to the ends of the universe if you let me."

This time when Chris leans in for a kiss, I don't stop him. The taste of his smile against mine is enough to wash away the weight of the world.

[shy-violet-soul]

The Edge of Okay

Characters: reader, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester Rating: Teens+ Summary:  A weary warrior fights an unseen battle, trying to hold herself together and hide her pain from the brothers.  

***TRIGGER WARNINGS***: anxiety/panic attack, self-harm, graphic descriptions of injuries

A/N:  For all of us who struggle with an invisible mental illness.  For all of us who don’t want to hurt ourselves, but just want it to stop.  For all of us who have trouble seeing our own amazing courage.  For all of us who claw our way back from the scary edge.  This one is for us.

If you need help, please reach out!  You are precious.  Here’s a link of contacts.

A very big thank you to @thesassywallflower for being my beta once again.  I so admire your writing talent, my friend, so your feedback, suggestions, and praise always mean so much to me.  THANK YOU!

(image credit: Olga Zavgorodnya via www.fineartamerica.com)

“I’m okay.”

Of all the lies I’ve ever told, that one is the biggest.

My body is a relief map.  Rough and raised on the space where my left thumb meets my hand - machete callous.  Painted blue on my right rib cage - bruise from an upright player piano a vengeful spirit slammed into me.  Thready and crooked - new part in my hair beside my ear from a too-close-call with a wraith.  A fretwork of pink raised ridges, whitish blobs, and silvered indents - an atlas to past mileage.  

You’re okay, I tell myself, not even feeling the frenetic bounce of my knee anymore.  Fingers cold, I trace the newest mark on my skin, up and down, up and down.  Sam’s gotten pretty good at stitches - they don’t look as much like Frankenstein work anymore.  The still-tight scars lay pink and healing where they webbed up from the inner knob of my right collarbone to my ear.  My fingertips can still feel the tiny spots where the stitches laced me back together.  Stupid, lucky lacerations.  They’re easy.  I mean, getting filleted like a mackerel by a demon was a bitch.  But hey - stitches work.  Fluids and food restore.  A whiskey or three cures a lot.

Up and down, up and down, I trace the lines that tell me I’m okay.  That my skin is knitting back together, and my blood is staying inside where it belongs.  Physically, I’m well on the mend.  It’s just my brain that’s a mess.

It started when I was in high school.  I thought everyone got chest pains studying for calculus exams, or nausea over a required oral presentation on European folklore.  Eventually, after being found wedged between two sections of lockers hyperventilating about an essay I’d forgotten, my parents insisted on getting me help.  Enter Dr. Bass and an answer: General Anxiety Disorder.  I’d hated the idea of medication, but I’d hated the constant panic attacks more.  It took a while.  A long while.  But I finally figured out how to co-exist with the anxiety.  It took even longer to stop feeling ashamed of my invisible illness.  I succeeded, mostly.  The rest of the time, I trained my face to lie.  The official I’m okay robot, complete with appropriate facial expressions.

Then, you know - parents dying and monsters and real angels and crap.  Dean and Sam patched me up, showed me the ropes, and I never looked back.  Who has time for panic attacks when you’re busy torching wendigos?

You’re okay, as fatigue burns the back of my eyes, puffed and scratchy.  I haven’t slept more than a couple of hours at a time in days.  Sam remarked on the beautiful bags under my eyes the other morning.  

“Sleep is for the weak,” I’d winked at Dean, slapping a smile on.  I can’t let them know.

You’re okay, the refrain as I count the skipped heart beats and feel the chest pain tighten.  Black eyes and a cackling smile flash in my mind, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shake the image away.  I can beat this.  

You’re okay, while I swallow sticky around the need to hyperventilate at the memory of my blood running warm down my neck, then cold and clammy.  I can’t do this.

Up and down, up and down, my fingers rub the crooked lines a little too hard.  A raw pinch, a reminder from the tender skin that it’s still healing.  The sensation washes up into my head, and for a moment, I don’t feel the awful suck.  For a moment, my knee stills and the fatigue ebbs.  For a moment, I get a breather from the silent suffocation.  Temptation brings a tremble to my hands, wet to my eyes, and I yank my hand away, tucking both fists under my legs.  Exhaustion sags my edges hard, and I can’t hold up my head anymore.  My kneecaps dig into my cheekbones, my lungs shudder as I remind myself that’s not the answer.  You’re okay.  Frantically, I try to grasp at past coping techniques, and flail away the lies.  

I’m not weak.  I’m not a failure. I’m not broken.

But the ‘nots’ feel heavy in my head, and everything’s too hot and too cold.  I want to run five miles and lay down and never move again.  My clothes are too loose and too tight. I want pizza but I feel like throwing up.  It’s all too loud in here, and too quiet, and I would give a lot - almost anything - to make it all stop.

A sob croaks its way past the dryness, wheezing around a weak gag into the blaring silence of the library.  My fingers reach up, up to the table’s edge and press forward till I feel them.  The feel of the plastic containers both relieves and terrifies me.  I’m clinging to a new and scary edge I’ve never seen.

“Hey.”  The deep rasp squeezes my throat shut as I sense Dean’s warmth beside me.  I can sense him crouch down, one hand resting on my arm.  “Hey, are you okay?”

The weight within me presses, hard, and I feel something crack.  Oxygen is hard, all of a sudden, and the panic spikes, black dots in my vision.  One hand fumbles towards him, skittering one of the plastics a bit.  But I’m too tired to hold him, and oh, God, I need to hold on to someone.  As if from under deep water, I drag my head up to look at him, but my face is too tired to lie.  I’m too tired to lie.

“No.”  I try to swallow, cotton all the way down till my stomach hurts.  “No, I’m not okay.”

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

She thinks she’s hiding it well.  Maybe from someone else, but not me.  You don’t have to be a Sherlock to see she’s not sleeping.  Her face is washed out, and we could go shopping with those bags under her eyes.  Always alert, she’s gone from awake and aware to outright jumpy.  I’ve teased her for her diet in the past, which she affectionately dubbed ‘the Winchester hybrid’ - a steady mix of my junk and Sam’s rabbit food.  You couldn’t keep a mouse alive on what she’s tried to fool us with.  

I get it.  She damn near died.  I took a great deal of pleasure in ganking that demon.  Blood was freakin’ everywhere.  Thanked whatever deity for Sammy’s dinner plate hands holding her neck together till we could get her sewn up.  Damn.  I’ve seen blood before.  I’ve seen my little brother slashed to shreds, held his broken bones in my hands.  You never get over that.  Doesn’t matter how many times.  It keeps me up at night sometimes.  That cold, quivery awfulness that hits your gut and won’t let go.  Makes you feel like you’re licking a battery or some shit. Sam thinks I got my awesome headphones to drown him out.  Sometimes, but mostly I just need to get out of my head.  Try to block out that crap with some classic electric guitar.  And beer.  You just...figure out how to live around it.

Seeing her blood all over - I don’t know why, but it was so much worse.  Felt like I swallowed the damn battery, I was so juiced up.  My gut felt cold for days.  But she got better.  Stitches work.  Fluids and food restore.  And a whiskey or six helped me catch a little shut eye without the memory of holding her neck together while Sammy sewed.

Cuts?  Those are easy, though.  Gimme a dislocated shoulder or a gash, I can fix that five ways from Sunday.  It’s the dying I see happening in her eyes that kills me.  I can’t fix it.  Not with dental floss and boosted painkillers or ice packs.  What the hell can a chewed up hunter do to help her?  I just wish she’d quit tryin’ to hide it.  Jody throws around the word ‘PTSD’ like it’s something new, but it’s not.  This fear?  The panic?  All hunters live with it.  If they don’t, they’re either liars or sadists.  She’s gotta know she’s not alone.  Time for me to sack up and tell her.

She looks so damn small.  Pajama pants with Bambi and Thumper printed all over and a Captain America hoodie are swallowing her.  The blanket from her bed is flopped around her, and she’s stuffed herself so small into one of the leather chairs, it makes my back hurt to look at her.  Hair’s a mess, lips all chapped, and salt stains on her face.  But her eyes...goddamn, my chest hurts just looking at her pain.

“No.  No, I’m not okay,” she croaks, her fingers knocking against something on the table before they’re shaking on my arm.  Everything in me wants to hold her tight, but I don’t.  Not yet.  I ease down on my knees beside her.  Squeeze her arm a bit while I prop my other hand on the chair beside her shoulder.  Close so she knows I’m here but not caging her in.  Hoping she’ll come to me when she’s ready.

It works.  She breathes like she’s been underwater, then her hands are tight fists in my sleeves. My throat squeezes shut when she looks up at me, like she’s begging me to understand.  Oh, honey...I raise my hand and brush some hair from her eyes.  Keep my movements slow and light, my gaze soft and open on hers.  

“I’m here,” I whisper, watching her eyes fall shut and tears dribble from the corners.  She leans toward me, resting her forehead against mine.  One hand on her head, the other still on her arm, I hold her.  We just breathe like that for a minute.  When she leans back and slides her eyes towards the table, I follow her gaze and my heart stops.

A line of prescription bottles are rowed up near the edge of the table, one tipped over where she must have hit earlier.  A couple with one of her aliases on them.  The other a high-powered painkiller that I know she stopped taking a week ago.  I have to swallow twice as I rub my thumb against her arm.  Do not sound judging.  Keep your cool.

Fresh tears are rolling down her face when I look back at her face.  I reach to hold her hands, a little shocked at how cold she is.

“What did you want those to do for you?” Kept my voice soft, so afraid I’d spook her.  

“I - I -” A sob cuts her off and she reaches for me.  My whole body loosens with relief as I pull her down on my lap, into my arms, and away from this edge it feels like she’s dangling from.  Her face dives for my shoulder and she just cries. 

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

“I don’t want to die, I don’t!” My tongue feels stuck and heavy as I try to rush the words out.  My nerves feel like they’re on fire.  I can feel each heart beat in my temples as my blood pounds panic through my veins like a firehose.  I’m so terrified of seeing disgust in Dean’s face, but I’m more terrified of this edge I’ve ended up at.  I can’t stop the words from pouring out.  The nightmares of black eyes and horrid breath in my face.  Blunt nails scratching my skin when he squeezed my throat.  The scathing, sliding bite of his knife down my neck, and the certainty I was going to die.  It all comes gushing free like something cut loose inside of me.

As the black spots swirl around me sickeningly - comfort.  Slow, like a signal light from way off, I feel it first - hard arms holding me.  Big shoulders shielding me.  Warmth bleeding into me.  Soothing whispers start to piece-meal into my ears.  

“It’s alright.  I’m here.  I’ve got you, don’t worry.  I’ve got you.”

The words, the truth there actually hurts me for a second, and I squeeze his shirt tighter in my hands below his collarbones.  I scrunch myself smaller under his chin, and my lungs stutter as they try to suck in more air.

Minutes pass.  Maybe days, I don’t know.  Panic attacks will do that to you.  The lies are quiet for a moment, letting that bubble of truth float its way to my brain.  

“I don’t want to hurt myself.”  He needs to know that.  I need Dean to know that.

“What do you want?” His words rumble, soft but soothing, against my cheek.  I couldn’t stop the dribble of tears that leaked fresh from my eyes, and the weight of that water felt too heavy, so I closed my lids beneath it.

“I...I just...I’m tired, Dean.  I just want to sleep.”

“Do you want to go to my room and lay down?”

The thought of being in a small room makes my skin crawl.  “No,” the whisper forces its way out of my throat.  “I like it here.”

Dean didn’t say anything.  With the storm of panic passed, I feel wrung out, cold, and weak.  I barely track Dean moving an arm for a reach or two.  Then, he’s easing me back onto my butt.  It steadies me to focus on his face as he’s grabbing around me.  His eyelashes, the freckles on his cheekbones pull me in until I feel my blanket against my shoulders.  Numbly, I watch Dean’s hands as he cocoons the blanket around me.  His fingers feel warm and rough on my face as he cups my cheeks.  The sensations ground me, and I’m able to breathe a little deeper for a second.  When I open my eyes, Dean’s looking down at me.  He offers me a smile that’s crinkled eyes and soft reassurance.

“There.  Now you’re a burrito of tired.”

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

The chuckle she gives is sorry and sad, but I’ll take it.  My hands look too big and rough against her face, but her eyes close and her shoulders try to let go when I stroke one cheekbone with my thumb.  Screw it.  I ease her against my chest and stand up, holding her tight.  The main lights of the library click off - Sam got my text.  I clock him hovering in the kitchen doorway, giving me a ‘two minutes’ sign.  His puppy dog eyes look worried as I plop us down in one of the leather armchairs.  It takes me a second to get her situated where we’re both comfortable.  As soon as I stop moving, I notice how she’s shaking.  But her skin isn’t as cold as it was, and I feel her ribs expand with the first deep breath since I found her.  Feels like I can breathe a little deeper now, too.  

Pretty sure Sam conjured up a kitchen spell or something, because there’s no way it’s been two minutes when he comes trotting back in.  I roll my eyes when I see that instead of the one piece of toast I asked for, he’s got a pile as deep as his stupid hair.  But, I smell her private stash of cinnamon-sugar in with the toasted goodness - good job, little brother.  The plate slides onto the table next to us, and a bottle of water plops down with it.  I feel her eyelashes tickle against my neck when she opens her eyes.

“Hi, Sam.” God, she sounds tired.  

“Hey.” Sam squats down on his heels, reaching to tug the blanket up a little higher around her shoulders, then strokes her head carefully.  

You good? he asks with a lift of his eyebrows.  Yeah, I tell him with a bob of my chin.  The breath she pulls in is slow, now, and it’s got more O2 behind it when it sighs out warm against me.  I rub my right hand against her back, up and down, up and down. My left hand slides up into her hair and I start to drag my fingertips against her scalp.  Her shaking slows down to almost nothing as she sags against me. Her fatigue is contagious, and I feel my eyes growing heavy as I let my gaze drift.  Those damn pill bottles are ready to remind me, though.  That edge that almost pulled her under.

This battle may be on hold, but the war ain’t over.

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

For the first time in days, I feel warm.  My elbows and knees still feel trembly, but I feel loose instead of wound tighter than a spring.  Dean’s slow breathing moves underneath me, letting me rest against the swell and fall of his chest.  Leather and laundry soap reach me, a comforting cloud above the tickle of cinnamon-sugar.  The chair beside us creaks, and I hear Sam’s boots against the floor as he gets comfortable.  Dean’s hand rubbing my back, up and down, up and down.  My stress-singed senses settle amid all this, grounded and grateful.

The memory of that scary edge, though…

“I didn’t want to hurt myself.”  I wanted them to know.

“What did you want?” the calm question.  

“Sleep.  I just...I’ve been fighting and fighting and I’m so tired.  I just didn’t feel like I could fight anymore.”  I’d be ashamed if I wasn’t so exhausted.  These two warriors had literally been to hell and back, and I was whining about being tired.  Dean’s arms tighten around me, and the sandpaper-y rub of his chin feels good.

“But you are fighting.  Look at you.  You didn’t do anything.  That’s fighting.”

I want to believe him.  But my gut is too quivery for hope yet.  

“It doesn’t feel like fighting.  Feels like failure.”  Bone-deep tired pulls heavy on every muscle, and I close my eyes as I snuggle in closer to the anchor Dean offers.

“Sure as hell ain’t failure, sweetheart.  Looks a lot like a tough as nails hunter kickin’ it in the ass and swingin’ for all she’s worth.”  The words sigh a deep breath from me.  I don’t know what to say anymore.  “I know you’re tired.  But you just gotta keep fighting.”

That same stupid flicker of anxiety that’s my own evil pilot light wavers in my gut, and I swallow around the desire to cry all over again.

“And what if I can’t?  Keep fighting?”  Dean sits quiet for a minute.  I knew it.  I am hopeless…

Then, he presses a kiss to my forehead, stirring warm against my hairline.  “Then, you come get us.  We’ll fight for you.  We’ll make sure you’re okay.”

My mind lies still - no nightmares to tear through me at the moment.  The arms around me like a buoy, letting me catch my breath as I back away.  I know that scary edge is still there.  But now...I feel like I see it from a different view, one where I can see the corners.  The other edge where I can learn how to coexist with this invisible monster again without my face telling lies.

It feels like the edge of okay.

[actually-impostor]

Chaconne

Warnings: Major Character Death, car accidents, stabbing, suicide. Angst. the deaths aren’t exactly explicit but they are basically what the fanfic goes about so please keep a heads up. Mentions of therapy.

Pairings: Past Royality [Patton/Roman], Analogical [Logan/Virgil]

Under a read more because of the heavy themes the fanfic revolves around.

Please listen to this song while reading [LINK]

Also, before you all procede, this story is basically to celebrate the fact that i have 2,029 followers [?!?!!!!!!!! WHAT?!?!?!?!], I’m sorry the thing i decide to bring as celebration is a 1,480 [or something] words fanfic of pure angst. Enjoy

-0-0-0-0- o0o o0o o0o -0-0-0-0-

He stared as they lowered the casket to the ground.

A morbid part of his mind thought that it was fitting. Fitting that their last goodbye would be in the same place where they were first introduced, fitting that the same song was playing, fitting that similar enough people were present.

A hand on his shoulder made him look at the man he saw as a brother. Tears were running down his face.

‘He looks more affected than me’

“Let’s go home”

He didn’t want to. But he was scared of voicing the fact that, without the other, that place didn’t feel like home. He was scared of acknowledging that he was gone.

Everything in that house was full of memories, of the ghost of his loved one.

They meet in a rainy day of July, the sky dark with grey clouds, and a casket being lowered to the ground.

It was not someone he had spent a lot of time with, but his best friend had once been in love with the other and he had been there for emotional support.

Roman Torres had been the oldest child of a calm family. His twin was currently staring emotionless at the last resting place of his brother.

Logan hadn’t thought much of it; a shock response was maybe the responsible of the lack of emotion on the younger twin. But Logan had enough present of mind to realize the bandages all around the emotionless boy.

He thought to ask Patton later, to ask about what exactly had happened. The answer was a surprise. For what he knew Roman was egoistical and self aggrandizing. But to think he had protected his twin instead of himself during the car crash…

A new found respect blossomed in his chest. Roman had obviously been a good person who worried for those he loved.

When Patton and Logan had reached Virgil to offer their condolences the shorter boy had snapped, slapping Patton’s hands away

“Don’t fucking touch me”

His voice was raw, and Logan wondered if he had been crying.

“Kiddo-”

“It should’ve been me!”

That silenced them, at least enough for Virgil to smirk at them and chuckle. It was the saddest sound Logan had ever heard.

They didn’t saw each other after a few weeks, where Patton had finally managed to drag Virgil away from his room, and they had gone out. It wasn’t happy, no matter how much Patton tried to light up the situation.

Almost at the end of the day Virgil stared at them, his inexpressive mask slowly crackling and leaving space for eyes full of rage

“Why are you pitying me?”

“I don’t pity you Virgil”

“Then what the fuck is going on! Why do you suddenly want to spend time with me! Im not Roman! He is dead Patton! he’s fucking dead and its time you start to face it”

A silence surrounded the table, only broken by their heavy breathing. Patton stared at Virgil in shock, his mouth opening and closing with no clear idea what to say meanwhile Logan stared at the other in surprise.

But Virgil was far from done

“You think is easy to wake up, to see myself and remember him every day?! Do you even have any idea how fucked up the house is?!”

Virgil laughed, tears running down his face while his fist balled in his eyes. He was shaking all over, and Logan had never seen someone break so extremely in front of him.

Patton reacted for instinct, throwing himself to hug the shorter boy. In a matter of seconds they both had sunken to the floor, Patton hugging the shaking man to him and curling protectively around him. A failed and weak attempt to protect him from the world.

Things had gotten slightly better after that. Virgil was allowing himself more expressions, and in a desperate attempt to look less like the ghost that followed him everywhere he had dyed his hair, warm brown locks now a vibrant and deep purple, carefully maintained bangs now covering part of an eye and enhanced by a subtle Mohawk , a piercing crossing his eyebrow and another in his tongue. He was trying to put as much distance as he could to the pictures in his house.

Logan had tallied and noticed every single change, a mental list in his brain that grew bigger and bigger by every detail he noticed. It was like he could do nothing except but to keep count, to notice, to feel a pull every time Virgil added or took something away from his persona. It was relaxing and unnerving.

Sometimes they got together without Patton; those days were a quiet companion was everything Virgil wanted. Days where he could let his emotions out in the form of words, of tears where he knew he wouldn’t be judged. Days where the only thing he wanted was to fight someone and have his body aching for days to come, if only to make the physical pain be stronger than the emotional.

They were counting on each other.

It wasn’t always an up curve. There were days where Virgil smirked, a depressed chuckle leaving his mouth. Days where Virgil questioned why they were there, why they tried, days where Virgil felt guilty for being alive.

Days where Virgil curled down on himself, sobbing and begging Patton for forgiveness, because if Roman hadn’t protected him then Patton could still get him back, they could talk things out; they could go back to being the perfect couple everyone knew they would be.

Patton never knew quite well what to do during those particular break downs. But it was okay, a few hours in a cuddle pile usually gave the younger one a clearer mind.

He had tried therapy, once. The doctor explained how his survivor guilt would eventually disappear, and that had been enough for Virgil.

The Ghost was one day going to stop following him around, and he was content with that.

His relationship with Logan started slow, in a day where neither had suspected it would. In the middle of a breakdown where Logan couldn’t help but to think Virgil was the most beautiful human to ever exist.

They had kissed because Virgil needed to feel he was connected to the actual reality. They had kissed because Virgil had grabbed a fistful of Logan’s turtleneck and had kissed him, angry lips pressing against surprised ones. A small hint of salt from the tears, a small taste of mint from the ice cream, and perhaps the most important moment in their friendship.

It was hard, and complex; because Virgil hated medical help, and Logan just wanted him to get better, to not be swallowed whole by the deep of his depression. But he figured he understood, at least a little. Virgil had lost the other part of his soul, the only other person who would understand him fully.

A part of him thought that Virgil should know better. A small, selfish part of him thought that Virgil should realize that they would eventually pull apart, but he never mentioned it. It would do no good to say something he knew Virgil knew.

So he kept silent, and he helped when he could.

They had spent a year as a couple when they moved in together. After three months of living together Virgil re-started therapy. After four years of living together he asked Virgil to marry him. After 5 years of living together they went to Patton’s wedding.

After six years of living together Logan was starting to realize how strong Virgil really was.

He stared at the empty kitchen, at the empty studio, at the empty bedroom.

He felt like he left a part of his soul in the cemetery.

Roman Torres had died because an irresponsible driver had skipped a red light, crashing against the side of the car and leaving all its occupants in a heavy state of injury. The younger Torres was pressed against the window the driver had impacted. His older brother had noticed, the scene going in slow motion, and had thrown himself on top of his brother shielding him.

Virgil Torres had died in the hands of a greedy man who only wanted money. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, but the man was desperate and he didn’t want to wait until Virgil passed him the things. Instead he stabbed him, took his phone and wallet and left.

Virgil Torres had bled to death, scared and alone.

Logan Sanders had died because of a gas leak. His windows closed and doors trapped to make the smell stay inside.

Logan Sanders had died alone and empty.

Because he wasn’t as strong as Virgil. Because they had spent all that time together. Because Logan had promised himself that they will die together too.

[thelioninmybed]

Do you and June think Yreth and Tuluspen have ever interacted with Dagnis? i like the idea of them being momentarily united in their shared distaste for her. Or maybe they'd all get along great???? Who knows! Not me!

Although Dagnis, Tuluspen and Yreth do all exist in the same horrible shared universe (Tuluspen and Dagnis even appear together in the next chapter of You Are Coming Down With Me!), I don’t think we’d actually considered how the three of them get on. 

Now we have. 

June: I feel like yreth would really appreciate dagnis

Lion: from a safe distance

June: She proves her right about EVERYTHING

Lion: YUP

June: She doesn’t want to be in an enclosed space with her but bigod is she good for someone looking for evidence of feanorion garbness

Lion: Right, the fact they’ve not put her down is PRETTY TELLING

June: fuck ok i’m having an idea

what if dagnis picks up on how much tuluspen hates her and decides to be oblivious about it

Lion: ooooooh

Friendly even!

June: and decides to follow her around like a devoted

weaselthing

Lion: YES

June: ‘we have so much in common’ she growls happily

Lion: god, Dagnis is the actual worst? I love her SO MUCH

June: ‘my master and yours, our lives are so common, hoo yiss’

tuluspen has never felt more defensive of maedhros

Lion: ahahahaaha

(and she is never NOT feeling defensive of Maedhros) (all those tumblr posts about how great he is and how he never did anything wrong ever are all her)

June: (100%)

dagnis leaves her little gifts

the poos were wooing!

Lion: awwwwwww lil’ bits of tasty squirrel for her new bestie

June: owl pellets

terrible poetry

if you’ve never heard ‘you soak my loins like a bitch wolf in heat’ warbled outside your bedroom window

you are missing out

Lion: oh my god I’m swooning

June: tuluspen is beside herself

maedhros shrugs, if he could have done anything about dagnis she would have been dead in the compost heap 150 years ago

Lion: Maedhros this is a hostile working environment you are cultivating

'seduce her back. I don’t know.’

June: 'they’ll be leaving soon’ he says, with a note of hope but not much conviction

listen, if tuluspen could seduce anyone, things would be very different

Lion: Is Tuluspen the least seductive character in all the legendariums? Probably

Dagnis definitely wouldn’t pretend to be Fingon so she wouldn’t be able to get off anyway

June: that log that gollum paddles around? might be slightly less winsome and flirtatious than tuluspen

Lion: But only once the mould started growing on it

June: right, before that it would outcharm her

Lion: Tuluspen’s girlfriend is only with her out of spite  😞

June: i don’t think dagnis and tuluspen ever get physical (i really hope not) but if they did, dagnis would definitely give her the worst orgasms of her life

shameful, terrible, nightmarish orgasms

Lion: They definitely don’t but Tuluspen probably has a horrible sex dream about her

And can handle her even less afterwards

June: okay but about tuluspen’s girlfriend i feel like yreth would be BEYOND amused

tuluspen has never talked this much to yreth, it is all complaining

(shit, yes, imagine tuluspen not being able to make eye contact with dagnis and dagnis knowing IMMEDIATELY)

Lion: Tuluspen talking to her about things that aren’t their duties or part of unhealthy roleplay!

(Dagnis was howling outside her window for exactly that reason)(it was very sensual howling, she knew the effect it would have) (Maedhros also had a nightmare about Dagnis that night but it was, tbh, still better than his usual nightmares)

June: dagnis lurks up to yreth at some point and is like 'for $100 and your horse i’ll let you white knight at me for your girlfriend’

yreth is conflicted, on the one hand she doesn’t actually feel the need to HELP tuluspen, on the other this would be GREAT role play fodder

Lion: oh no Yreth don’t do it, this is a devil’s bargain

June: on the third hand, dagnis is probably going to eat her horse and she likes her horse

Lion: Right, that’s a v. good point. Obv. the solution is to pay someone else to pretend to be Dagnis (not in horses) and then white knight them

June: who has the free time and performance sense to properly -

Lion: OH NO

'this shall be my greatest challenge as an artist yet’ Maglor says, already rubbing fox dung into his hair

June: maglor 'over involved in everyone else’s life’ feanorion

Lion: (this explains SO MUCH about crooked aim) (he’s HAD PRACTICE)

June: SHIT

-shakes fists above head- MAGLOR

Lion: okay so Maglor - does he bleach his hair or get a wig? On the one hand elves love their hair

on the other, he’s a true artist  and his dedication to the craft is unparalleled

June: But verisimilitude, right. He’s gonna bleach his hair and then be stuck with it. Celegorm tells him he’s never looked better

Lion: ❤ Obv. Celegorm is quick to inform him that he wears it better and also Maglor’s roots are showing but whatevs, art is suffering

Maglor, in Dagnis-guise, serenades Tuluspen again that night. The plan is for Yreth to show up and shoo him off in full view of her swooning hatesexbuddy

Unfortunately Maglor cannot bring himself to accurately replicate Dagnis’ actual musical/poetic ability

June: maglor you fuck

Lion: And writes something of unsurpassed beauty that all weep to hear

June: you had one job

Lion: Tuluspen is confused mostly and wants to know why Maglor, dressed as Celegorm, was singing

does…Maglor have a crush on her? Does Celegorm? Is that why he was dressed as him to woo her?

June: oh no, he’s gotten bad intel on which brother she liked

Lion: Celegorm is furious that Maglor is seducing Maedhros’ steward on his behalf, he doesn’t need anyone to do his seducing on his behalf. He’ll go seduce her his own self right now

June: tuluspen is so upset

Lion: I suppose that’s the part where Yreth gets into a fight with Celegorm? Poor Tuluspen did not ask for any of this

June: yreth is so pissed, this is what you get for hiring a feanorion to do ANYTHING. more confirmation bias

Lion: ahahahah. At least 'stealing mah girl’ is an ironclad excuse for punching the most punchable of Feanorians…like the murders weren’t

June: somewhere mid trying to kick celegorm in the shins with a sword celegorm informs her that the most effective way to get rid of dagnis is with a squirt bottle of soapy water

Lion: ahahahaaha Curufin invented squirt bottles specifically for this purpose

June: 'i can make them acid resistant too,’ he says hopefully

Lion: Oh Curufin. If bits of her were burnt and melty she’d just smell worse

June: and she would just get grosser looking, she is not killable. she is the most durable elf

Lion: She’s the physical manifestation of their sins, come to haunt them, one of them suggests while feeling esp. maudlin about the dead three day old badger in his bed

lmao Dagnis survives the sinking of Beleriand and follows Maglor around for all eternity

June: a manifestation? dagnis is a little annoyed to think that anyone could consider a vala ordering her to do anything

Lion: Right, Dagnis follows no will but her own

June: did they miss the part where she made not one but two valar so uncomfortable that they tried to fire her from being an elf?

Lion: The Feanoians are very self centered

June: 'it’s not an elf’ says vana. 'some kind of fisher cat’

'how dare you’ says orome 'some of my best friends are fisher cats’

they settle on bog goblin

[flauntpage]

The NBA's Man of Many Faces

On a hot day in early September, three glass revolving doors twirl into the midtown Manhattan high-rise where the most fascinating man in the NBA spent most of his summer. The lobby is palatial, with a dazzling chandelier fixed in the center of the room; a young woman with platinum blonde hair stands directly underneath it, inside a front desk that looks like someone cut a marble egg in half, juggling phone calls and small talk with delivery men as they scurry across the floor.

New York Knicks center Enes Kanter steps out from an elevator behind her, armed for the heat in a white short-sleeve hoodie, dark mesh shorts, and solid teal low-top Nikes. A trimmed beard accentuates his baby-fat-free face, and the thick hair atop his head takes the shape of a Brillo pad that’s been dyed black. A long, red scar runs along his right forearm, memorializing the time he fractured it punching a chair in the middle of a game. A towering, chiseled, bronze sculpture of a man, Kanter’s stride is unexpectedly graceful; it’s unclear if his heels ever touch the ground. If any other first impression can be had, it’s that he’s almost too affable: Over the next two minutes, Kanter asks how I’m doing and/or if I’m good four separate times.

We exit the elevator and pass through a noisy weight room and congested lounge, towards a cafe that’s attached to a broad outdoor terrace. Before we move outside to escape the crowd, Kanter points up at a giant menu populated by fresh pressed juices, açaí bowls, and almond butter shakes. “They have smoothies!” he smiles. I’m not really hungry. “Are you sure you don’t want something? You’re not getting anything? Seriously you have to get something.” We grab two water bottles and make our way outside to sit in the far corner, beneath a giant sun umbrella for the rest of an afternoon that’s already unlike any I’ve ever had. For Kanter, it’s a typical day: A visitor is here to ask questions about his inexplicably complex life.

Over the past two years, Kanter has manifested one of the NBA’s most distinct personas: He’s an activist, one of the world’s hundred best basketball players, a political dissident, gentle humanitarian, and proficient troll. (“I don't know what's wrong with him," LeBron James once said.) He combines mild mischievousness with a big heart, adored by those who know him as he exasperates those who don’t.

“He was a straight enemy,” Kyle O’Quinn, Indiana Pacers center and Kanter’s former New York Knicks teammate, says. “[Now] that’s my boy. Make sure you quote me on that. That’s my boy. That’s my boy. There’s a bunch of o’s and a bunch of y’s. That’s. My. Boooyyy.”

On the court, Kanter is determined but limited in ways that have prevented him from logging heavy minutes on a good team. Off it, he’s an impossibly generous, vulnerable, and self-motivated spirit.

“I think there’s a lot of guys in the NBA who’re blessed with this huge size and huge strength and huge ability, and therefore they act accordingly. They are loud or they are dominant or demonstrative,” 11-year NBA veteran Steve Novak, who played with Kanter in Utah and Oklahoma City, says. “I think Enes has been blessed with so many of those things. He’s this huge dude. But he’s holding kittens at the humane society and going to the children’s hospital. He uses his platform in as amazing a way as I’ve seen a teammate use it.”

“When I look back at my basketball career, I want to say I tried to inspire as much as I could.”

This summer, Kanter organized 14 free basketball camps for children all over the United States, paying for everything—t-shirts, pizza, the gym, water—out of his own pocket. “When I look back at my basketball career, I want to say I tried to inspire as much as I could,” he says. “When I go to those camps, I don’t just talk about basketball. I talk about education, how to become a good person, everything.”

His interests span wider than the average human, let alone your typical NBA player. He still gleams as the boy who used to dream about becoming an astronaut—he follows NASA on instagram, and half-jokingly won’t let the narrow physical dimensions of a spaceship’s cockpit ever impede him from strapping into one. (“I still would love to go to space,” he says.) Kanter also grew up watching David Copperfield and Chris Angel. He can turn a cup of water into ice, bend spoons with his mind, and plunge a tight string into and through his Adam’s apple. “I actually learned a few tricks from him,” Kerem Kanter, his younger brother who plays professional basketball in France, says. “I try to do them every once in a while to impress people.”

Kanter’s most intense obsession is the WWE, and it’s grown ever since he introduced himself as The Undertaker at the University of Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness in 2010. “It was funny as hell, and the fans flipped out,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari says. “There were people falling from the upper deck to the lower deck when he came out.” (When he met the real Undertaker a few months ago, Kanter’s knees shook.) Today, he’s close friends with several professional wrestlers and is dedicated to becoming one after he retires from basketball, which he hopes won’t be until his mid-30’s.

“I’m actually talking to the people over there now. Vince McMahon, he knows me,” Kanter says. “I had dinner with [Paul Heyman] two, three days ago. I asked him how long he’s gonna do this and he said ‘as long as Brock [Lesnar] goes, I go, and then I’m with you.’ I’m like yes! Seriously. I’m really serious about it.”

A few minutes later, as we discuss how Jersey Shore, Spongebob Squarepants, and Home Alone—“You can not beat that. It’s a classic. I watched that when I was growing up and I still watch it when I get bored,” he says—helped him pick up English, Kanter is suddenly adamant about showing me who he’s been exchanging DM’s with on Twitter. He taps his phone: “I’m talking to Mike The Situation! He said ‘let me know when you have some tickets when the season starts, I will bring Vinnie and the wifey.’ That’s my man.”

All this makes Kanter compelling enough, but the intersection between that playfulness and a literal life-or-death fight he’s waged against the Turkish government is where he becomes one of the most fascinating professional athletes in recent memory. With a voice that serves as a tight fist for thousands of imprisoned Turkish citizens who themselves have been silenced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian regime, it’s critical that Kanter’s diverse interests and sometimes bizarre behavior do not damage his credibility. Instead, what he represents in public is the natural and masterful interpretation of a benevolent rebel. At 26 years old, Kanter pursues it all in the most admirable, cringeworthy, and immeasurably hilarious ways; he exists without an analog.

“I don’t want to say socially awkward,” Kerem Kanter says. “But Enes used to be shy and he didn’t like to talk to strangers. Now he loves the attention. He talks to the media a lot. He has a ton of friends. He talks to people every day. He actually enjoys doing that.”

So much of this side can be seen every ten minutes on social media, where Kanter floods his feeds with political opinions, videos of himself strolling through Times Square, dressing up like a Marvel character, and, of course, the unprovoked albeit harmless attacks on fellow NBA players and teams.

“This guy doesn’t stop. I don’t know when he sleeps,” O’Quinn says. “He just sits on the internet, and I think there’s somebody helping him, behind closed doors, because I don’t know when he gets any rest. He’s on Twitter and Instagram all day.”

That incessantness translates offline into other areas of his life. The impact Kanter’s energy has in locker rooms, on bus rides, and cross-country flights feels relatively miniscule—to a certain degree it very much is—but so many of his teammates cite his ability to loosen the atmosphere as a professional advantage.

He’s the butt of a trillion jokes, but never gets sensitive about any of them, knowing that A) he brings most of the ridicule upon himself, and B) nobody is actually trying to hurt his feelings. Even when they mock his accent, diet (knowing he avoids pork for religious reasons, Kanter’s teammates would sometimes order bacon just to put it on his plate, or convince him their meals were cooked on the same grill), tight clothing, or not-that-rare refusal to shower after practice, it’s never done with malicious intent. The result is an endless collection of stories that make those who tell them smile.

Indiana Pacers wing Doug McDermott didn’t really talk to Kanter when they were teammates in Oklahoma City, but things changed after they were both traded to New York. “He called me like ‘Doug! Man! We’re going to the best city in the world!” he says. McDermott chuckles at all the different ways Kanter made himself an easy target. “Just how cheap he was. I think he still had an iPhone 4 when that was like four iPhone’s ago.”

A popular topic of conversation at the Thunder practice facility was the house Kanter purchased in Oklahoma City (that he’s since sold, at a loss). He was so excited to furnish it and asked around about hiring an interior decorator. But later, when he saw the bill and noticed that he was charged around $10,000 for curtains alone, he lost it. “It became a joke in the locker room,” Novak says. “Like, ‘Oh God, Enes is bitching about his curtains again.’”

Bring up the curtains with Enes and his smile turns into a sheepish grin. “She didn’t charge me that much but it was very expensive curtains. Very, very expensive curtains. I was like ‘what was I thinking?’”

Now a minimalist, Kanter does not own a car or a house. He refuses to indulge in the same luxuries any person on a $70 million contract is expected to enjoy, and in fact, continuing a life-long habit that began in the small bedroom he once shared with his two younger siblings, Kanter sleeps on the ground. “It’s actually better for your back” he says without the slightest trace of embarrassment. “I’m comfortable!”

This is a tiny exaggeration. A twin XL mattress is plopped in the corner of his otherwise deserted bedroom in White Plains, where he lives during the season. It’s wrapped in dark brown sheets, one matching pillow, and a champagne-colored comforter. But that’s literally it. There is no box spring, headboard, bed frame, nightstand, or lamp. (Kanter laughs out loud for a solid five seconds when I ask if he ever reads before bed.) There are no posters, rugs, or, well, anything. Officially listed at 6’11”, his calves still dangle off the foot of the mattress. “I know it’s weird,” he says. “I just like it that way.”

Photo by Jason Szenes - European Pressphoto Agency

Even though he was born in Switzerland while his father, Mehmet, earned his M.D. at the University of Zurich, Kanter’s earliest memories trace back to kicking a soccer ball through the mundane streets of Van, a small city on the east side of Turkey.

His mother was a nurse, but soon retired to take care of her four children (Kanter’s two younger brothers play basketball—the youngest attends high school in Atlanta—and his sister recently graduated from medical school.) “We were not too wealthy, we were not too poor,” he says. “We were comfortable.”

For the Kanter family, countless weekends trickled by on the beaches of Lake Van, Turkey’s second-largest body of water. “There was a rumor that there was a monster inside,” he says. “I don’t think there is.”

Kanter’s passion for soccer grew—he still thanks it for developing his low-post footwork—until other kids in his apartment building and throughout the neighborhood stuck him in goal. They laughed at his big feet and poked fun at how huge he was. He hated it. Life in the classroom wasn’t any more pleasant.

“I don’t know what happened. I became a very terrible student.”

Kanter can still picture the wood switch his first-grade teacher used to wield at students who fell out of line. “Whenever you did something crazy they’d say ‘open your hand,’” he says. “I still remember, man. My hands would hurt so bad. Oh my God.”

School was everything in his family, but it wasn’t his thing. “I was a really good student, first, second grade, third grade, and then fourth grade a little bit. And then I don’t know what happened. I became a very terrible student. I wish I took it more serious.”

His parents still pushed him up through middle school, until the pressure to succeed conflicted with the cold reality of knowing he wasn’t put on this Earth to master or even enjoy academia. (Years later, when enrolled at Kentucky, Kanter passed all his classes except art, which he eventually dropped. “It was three hours at night. Too long,” he says. “We weren’t drawing either. It was like history, with reading and stuff.”) Whenever organized basketball came up as a possibility, Kanter’s father would rant about poor grades and the money he already paid the school. His mother repeatedly reminded him that millions of kids wanted to do the exact same thing. “I was getting so much shit from my parents, from my family,” he says.

But perspectives began to shift when he was eleven. A competitive game of after-school ping-pong against his dad spilled onto the basketball court. The two played one-on-one, a boy against his athletic, volleyball-keen, 6’5” father. Enes won. In Mehmet’s eyes, stifling this gift was officially foolish.

Fate intervened a couple years later, when, according to Enes, Mehmet attended a conference in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. He walked into a store for school supplies and a man tapped him on the shoulder. “Is your son as tall as you?” It was a local basketball coach who wondered if today might be his lucky day. (It was.) Enes’s family followed him to Ankara, where he spent two years playing at a school called Samanyolu. After that he moved to Istanbul to play for Turkey’s top basketball club, Fenerbahce Ulker. Not even 16, Kanter had already become one of the world’s more alluring big man prospects.

He never stayed up until 4 AM to watch NBA games when they aired at home, but did catch Utah Jazz highlights the following day, so he could see Turkey’s Mehmet Okur in action. Aside from Okur and Hedo Turkoglu, there weren’t many Turkish role models in the NBA for Kanter to look up to. But even then, when he was banging up against grown men literally twice his age in the Euroleague, Kanter’s focus was always on the United States. He desperately wanted to play high-school, college, and professional ball against the best of the best. But leaving Fenerbahce was more complicated than he expected. During his second season with the team, Kanter turned down a six-year contract for one million Turkish lira (which translated to about $785,000 U.S. dollars at the time). “They’re saying ‘don’t go, don’t leave,’” he remembers. “I was scared.”

The relationship grew tense. One day at the gym, an older teammate untied his shoes, took them off his feet, and hurled both right at Kanter. “How can you leave without talking to me?” he shouted. Kanter wanted to scream back “You’re not my dad!” but kept quiet.

Another long-term contract offer was made, this time for six million Turkish lira. But Kanter spurned the club once again, and along with his life coach and eventual agent Max Ergul, flew one way across the Atlantic Ocean for the very first time. The first stop was Chicago, where Kanter worked out with Tim Grover, Michael Jordan’s famous personal trainer. “There was so much free Muscle Milks,” Kanter says. “I was drinking three or four a day. A day! It was free! I was like ‘Oooh, it tastes so good.’”

From there, actually playing high-school basketball wasn’t easy. As a coveted international prospect, prep schools all over the country wanted him on their side, but thanks to a Nike contract his father signed, along with the money Fenerbahce gave his family, they were also weary of his flimsy amateur status. Kanter initially wanted to enroll at Virginia’s Oak Hill Academy—a basketball factory that’s produced an untold number of success stories, including Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant, and Rajon Rondo—but the team’s head coach, Steve Smith, preferred to avoid any potential scandal.

Plan 1-A was Nevada’s Findlay Prep. With the hope of joining forces with Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph, Kanter was a tank with ball skills. “He could step out and put it on the ground,” Mike Peck, Findlay Prep’s former head coach, says. “His movement was fluid, much like a perimeter player. He wasn’t stiff and rigid.”

But Kanter only spent a couple weeks in Las Vegas before the program ended their relationship. (Oak Hill’s Smith had reportedly refused to compete against any team Kanter was on.) “Our understanding was I think there was something with his dad,” Peck says. “His dad may have signed something over in Turkey that, on behalf of Enes, affected his amateurism. So that’s when we had to say ‘Hey, sorry but we can’t jeopardize our program.’”

Enes, understandably, was crushed. “Think about it, man. I came [to the United States], turned down millions,�� he says. “Turned down all the big Nike deals. Turned down...I could be like a legend in Europe. I was killing everybody my age.” But he didn’t sulk. In the days after Findlay Prep informed him of their decision, as Ergul tried to figure out their next move, Kanter’s drive didn’t decelerate. “He was in the gym and he was sweating and he was working,” Peck says. “He wasn’t just, shoes unlaced, messing around. His poise and composure was commendable.”

A similarly frustrating pitstop at West Virginia’s Mountain State Prep preceded Kanter finally landing somewhere that was willing to let him play: Stoneridge Prep in Simi Valley, California, a few miles north of Los Angeles. It was nice to have some stability, but Kanter remembers the situation as anything but normal.

“I walked into the classroom and there were spiders everywhere,” he says. “It was like spider webs. It was very weird. There were like fifteen students in the whole school.” Kanter was there seven months, first living in a house with his teammates before he moved into an American family’s home. It was his first uninterrupted taste of a new culture. At first, he didn’t shop for groceries and ate Nutella for lunch. One morning, he grabbed a box off the top of the refrigerator, opened it, then mixed its contents in a bowl with some milk. A teammate strolled into the kitchen and couldn’t stop laughing. “They said ‘You’re not supposed to eat it like that.’ I said ‘Why? It’s cereal!’ They said ‘It’s not cereal. It’s Cheeze-Its.’”

Practices were held at a 24 Hour Fitness, and Kanter still remembers being confused when random gym members shot at the same basket his team used. But he was dominant, and knew he wouldn’t be there forever. “I remember I had one game, I was so tired of scoring,” he says. “I missed a shot on purpose. A free-throw! I don’t want to score anymore. I still remember that game. It was too easy.”

Kanter verbally accepted an offer made by the University of Washington without ever visiting the school or even stepping foot in the same state. He knew a couple coaches there but had no serious ties or desire to attend. Not long after, Calipari flew to Los Angeles to see Kanter in person for the first time. It was a pickup game at 24 Hour Fitness.

“I immediately said ‘Holy cow, this kid is like 18? This is ridiculous,’” Calipari says. “He was really skilled. Obviously he was really big. But he was really skilled for a guy his size, which kind of surprised me.”

Once he realized they were interested, Kanter immediately decommitted from Washington to sign with the Wildcats. He had emerged as a prodigious cult figure, having recently broken Dirk Nowitzki’s single-game scoring record at the barometric Nike Hoop Summit in Oregon, with a 34-point, 13-rebound gem in just 24 minutes off the bench. (Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson finished with 29 points combined.)

But Kanter’s alleged impropriety followed him to Lexington. And the fact that Washington’s former athletic director, Mark Emmert, had just been named President of the NCAA probably didn’t help. Weeks before his freshman season began, Fenerbahce went public, alleging that Kanter had received “over $100,000 in cash and benefits.” They also submitted financial documents to the NCAA. Instead of playing basketball, Kanter sat through several interviews with investigators, some lasting six hours.

“His dad didn’t want him to go to a club school [in Turkey]. He wanted him to go to a private school, because his father was a professor,” Calipari says. “The club agreed to pay for it, and instead of paying the [private] school directly, they paid Enes’s father to give the money to the school, which the father did. And he had checks and everything that he wrote and showed. The club was upset that [Enes] didn’t come back and said that they wouldn’t cooperate. In other words ‘we’re not gonna say that’s what it was,’ but the dad showed that’s what it was. The NCAA said he’s not paying. I was appalled.”

Kanter learned about his lifetime ban watching television in his dorm room. Calipari remembers a meeting soon after in his office: Kanter looked at the floor and held back tears. Going back to Istanbul never crossed his mind, though, especially after he received a barrage of texts from his former club that outlined how hopeless his NBA dream truly was. If he wanted to succeed, it had to be in Turkey, they told him. “I knew if I went back, that road would be closed and none of the [Turkish] players would take that risk and come to America again,” he says. “Everybody would be scared.”

Kanter stayed in Kentucky throughout the season. Initially he wasn’t allowed to be in the same gym while the team practiced, so the school assigned Kanter his own coach. “I would practice after or before [the team],” he says. The restrictions extended to weight training, where strength and conditioning coaches wrote instructions on note cards and then taped them all over the room. “He said ‘When you work out, we’re not allowed to talk to you’,” Kanter says.

That was short lived, though. Kentucky quickly made Kanter “a student-assistant coach,” and the NCAA allowed him to practice with the team. “Every day, NBA people came in and watched him. He got Josh Harrellson drafted because every day Josh had to go against him. Josh Harrellson got drafted because of Enes Kanter,” Calipari says. “I told him ‘we have a plan. You’re gonna practice, we’re gonna have pro scouts, and you, my man, you’re getting drafted, son. And you’re getting drafted in the top five.’”

In 2011, Kanter was selected third overall by the Jazz, but the NBA’s lockout robbed him of a formal training camp, leading to an understandably rough adjustment period, on and off the floor. He was hazed by veteran teammates, especially Al Jefferson, and found that the more he tried to fit in, the further he drifted from who he really was.

“Enes partied a lot. Everybody knew that,” Trey Burke, Kanter’s current teammate who also played with him in Utah, says. “That was his rookie season, though. He’ll even tell you that.” Indeed, he does: “I was going out with my teammates and hanging out and stuff, but once you’re in your second year and your third year, you get more smarter and more smarter, you know? And you’re like ‘OK, basketball comes first, so stick to basketball,’” Kanter says.

He was not happy in Salt Lake City, primarily due to limited minutes and a diminishing on-court role. “He was boiling on the inside,” Novak says. Right before the All-Star break in the last year of his rookie-scale contract, Kanter demanded a trade. A couple weeks later, he was dealt to Oklahoma City. Novak was included in the deal, news that prompted his wife to burst into tears. When Kanter heard, he immediately called to apologize. “My wife wanted to kill him,” Novak laughs. “If you’re mad at Enes you’re usually not mad for long. He’s crazy so he does dumb stuff, but it usually comes from a really good place.”

The most meaningful upshot from his departure was Kanter’s own maturation intersecting with a rediscovery of the altruistic Muslim principles he embraced as a child. The need to help others, especially those who can’t help themselves, took on a much larger role in his life, dramatically altering how he viewed his responsibilities as a public figure. Kanter was about to become so much more than a basketball player.

As we sit ten stories above New York City’s rush-hour traffic, a fire truck’s deafening siren pauses our conversation. Kanter stops fiddling with his black matte watch, turns his phone over and raises his eyebrows. “Look at this, man.” He shakes his head and stretches his arm across the table. It’s a clip of Florida senator Marco Rubio dropping Kanter’s name during a senate hearing about political censorship on social media. (Kanter’s Twitter account has been blocked by the Turkish government.)

A few weeks later, outside the Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, sunlight sifts through a cloudy fall sky and glares off automatic machine guns held by NYPD officers clad in riot gear as they effectively secure the building’s perimeter. We’re at the Oslo Freedom Forum, a conference sponsored by the Human Rights Foundation that’s designed to promote and protect human rights all over the world.

As the conference begins, Kanter stands in the back, watching as a young North Korean defector tells her story in front of a packed, teary-eyed audience. When she’s through, he bends over to give her a hug as organizers latch a microphone over his ear. During their on-stage talk, Thor Halvorssen, the forum’s founder, calls Kanter an accidental activist, someone who didn’t set out to change the world but stepped up once he realized he had enough influence to do so.

Kanter first considered speaking out against Turkey’s backsliding government in 2013, after Erdogan embroiled himself in a corruption scandal. The subsequent power struggle culminated in an attempted coup, allegedly orchestrated by Fethullah Gulen, one of the country’s most popular religious and political figures. Gulen, who denies he was involved, lives in exile in Pennsylvania, where Kanter visits him regularly. Kanter's criticism of Erdogan is well documented, and nearly led to his abduction in Romania while on a worldwide charity tour last year. Since, Kanter has taken every opportunity possible to denounce a regime that’s imprisoning innocent citizens and kidnapping dissenters who live in democratic countries.

“He’s the second-most wanted person in Turkey, after Gulen, and we’re walking aimlessly in Hawaii, in Des Moine, Iowa, not hiding from anyone,” Kanter’s manager Hank Fetic says. “There were a few times this summer where I said ‘Bro, this guy is walking a little close to us. I’m a bit worried.'”

A warrant for Kanter’s arrest was issued by the Turkish government last year, and his father is facing a trial that could put him in jail for years. It’s a neverending nightmare, but Kanter is somehow able to compartmentalize the most psychologically corrosive aspects of his life and stay as upbeat as possible. While with the Thunder, the team’s psychologist tried to speak with him. Kanter politely refused. “Don’t worry about me,” he said he told the doctor. “If I ever need someone to talk to maybe I will. But right now I’m okay.”

The emotional toll is obvious, but Kanter’s sacrifice is evident elsewhere. He can’t leave North America and hasn’t been able to secure any endorsement deals. Nike, the same company that championed Colin Kaepernick’s controversial remonstration by putting him on the frontlines of a recent ad campaign, now refuses to sign Kanter. “I talked to Nike and they said ‘we want to give Enes a contract. We’re watching him. But if we give him a contract they will shut down every store in Turkey, so we cannot give him a contract,’” he says. “I’m an NBA player with no shoe deal. No endorsement deal. And I play in New York!”

He’s curious about the fluidity of American politics, and didn’t initially understand why so many people get upset when he tweets anything negative about Donald Trump—particularly during his time in Oklahoma. Speaking as someone who’s still shocked by what’s happened to Turkey, America’s violent divisiveness and piping hot political climate terrify him. But he still dislikes the idea of protesting in the United States, for fear of turning another country into his enemy. (Don’t expect Kanter to take a knee during the national anthem anytime, ever.)

He wants to be a U.S. citizen—he’s two years from becoming eligible—and has thought about giving himself an American name. (Kanter scratches his chin when I pitch “Michael” as an option.) “I see [America] is going there, to become another Turkey,” he says. “I hope not. I pray not. But right now you see people are getting polarized. When I think about America, I think about freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion. It’s a peaceful country. Now it’s like, for an immigrant, you’re kind of scared.”

Inside the Knicks practice facility, a dozen media members file into a gym that has two full-length basketball courts. New York’s second day of training camp has just ended. As players break up to shoot free throws and work on individual skills, Kanter is the only one who jogs over to the near sideline, where several coaches and front office executives—the team’s president (Steve Mills) and general manager (Scott Perry) included—are seated in a row. He goes down the line, like a the world’s most earnest politician, and shakes everybody’s hand.

Kanter recedes to a far basket and simulates pick-and-rolls with one of his coaches. He steps outside to attempt a few mid-range jumpers and then settles into the corner to hoist some threes. From shoulder to hip, his muscles ripple like a miniature mountain ridge.

“How do you not like Enes?” Knicks head coach David Fizdale says a few minutes later. “For me, he’s like our spirit. He keeps our gym light. He keeps the guys in an upbeat mood, an energetic mood. He doesn’t have bad days. And thinking about what he and his family [are] going through, the fact that he can come in here and still have enough energy to give to us, I love him.”

“How do you not like Enes?”

Kanter began preparing for this, his eighth NBA season, less than a week after his seventh one ended five months ago. Even with a hectic travel schedule, he still spent between three and four hours a day in a gym all summer. The only days he took off were those designated for rest.

“Honestly, he’s the most consistent athlete I’ve been around in a long time, as far as just being on time and punctual and what he demands out of himself,” Mike Atkinson, Kanter’s personal performance coach, says.

Kanter walked into camp with 2.8 percent body fat and 20 more pounds of muscle than he had a year ago. “He’s the healthiest eater of all time,” McDermott says. “I’ve tried multiple times this summer to go to Shake Shack, but he won’t do it. I remember on a plane ride once, I was like ‘Enes, if this plane goes down, what’s the first thing you’d do?’ He said ‘I would eat all the cheeseburgers and cookies on here,’ just because he eats more quinoa and kale and spinach than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

On the court, Kanter is aggravatingly schismatic. At his best—AKA when his team has the ball—he moves like a rhinoceros who could place in the Kentucky Derby. He consistently finishes around the rim at an elite rate and creates second, third, and fourth chances whenever a teammate’s shot (or his own) doesn’t fall. “He’s a walking assist for a lot of us guards,” Burke says. Kanter finished seventh in rebound chances per game last season, averaging at least five fewer minutes than everyone who ranked higher. Since he entered the league, only seven players have grabbed more than 1,400 offensive rebounds. Kanter has tallied at least 2,100 fewer minutes than all of them.

“My thing is to do the dirty work, bang inside, and just be a banger, you know?” he says. “I know my weaknesses. That’s the most important thing. You have to know your weaknesses. I think my [weakness is] defense, of course.” For the past five years, Kanter’s team has been atrocious on defense with him in the game and significantly better when he’s on the bench. Two postseasons ago—after a play in which Kanter was helpless to stop James Harden and Clint Capela from connecting on a lob—that reputation collided with the national spotlight when a camera panned to Thunder head coach Billy Donovan right as he turned to his assistant Maurice Cheeks to seemingly say the words: “Can’t play Kanter.”

“I did see the clip. I could read his mouth. But he said ‘I never said anything like that, I was saying something else’,” Kanter says about Donovan. “He told me he never said anything like that and I go with it. You know what I mean?”

Kanter will never be Rudy Gobert, but he’s spent the offseason building up his legs, training himself to stay in a lateral stance, watching more footage, and conceding that where he is and how he reacts is increasingly critical in a league that goes out of its way to attack him. Physical improvement can only accomplish so much without awareness, zippy instincts, and the capacity to communicate on the fly, though. And big men, like Kanter, who neither protect the rim nor shoot threes—something Washington Wizards coach Scott Brooks first encouraged him to try when both were in Oklahoma City—are an endangered species.

His game is often synonymous with these flaws, but Kanter can still be a devastating weapon if deployed correctly. Size and strength will always have a place in the NBA, particularly when found in someone who’s coordinated, physical, and willing to exert maximum energy.

As a 27-year-old free agent hitting a marketplace that’s flush with cash, so much of his next contract hinges on the progress seen in 2019. “You always think about [free agency],” Kanter says. “Even if people said ‘Oh I don’t think about it, I’m focused on the season’ it’s always in the back of your head. It can not let you affect your game, but you always think about ‘Hey, what am I going to do?’ ‘Where am I going to go?’ ‘Am I going to stay,’ ‘Am I going to leave?’”

Based on everything seen so far, odds are strongly against Kanter ever approaching league average on the defensive end, but marginal improvement is always possible. Even more likely, though, is further growth on offense, where Kanter’s assist rate—normally near the bottom of the league—has ascended over the past couple years. An opportunity to show off his three-point range will be there, too.

“Before I was saying ‘I want to average a double-double. I want to score this much points, this much blocks.’ But how can I make my teammates better? How can I make the young guys better? Because that will take you to the next level. To share the ball, to make an extra pass, to cheer for your teammates. If you’re having a bad game and other big men are having a good game, you clap for them. You stand up and cheer for them. I think those little things add up and you become a better teammate and become a better player.”

Photo by Jason Szenes - European Pressphoto Agency

The most popular example of Kanter’s loyalty—and quite possibly his most relevant on-court moment—happened one year ago, when the Cleveland Cavaliers visited Madison Square Garden. The conflict started hours before the actual game, when LeBron incidentally disrespected New York’s baby-faced French point guard Frank Ntilikina by saying Dennis Smith Jr. should’ve been the Knicks pick instead.

Late in the first quarter, LeBron dunked home a lob, bumped into Ntilikina, and then refused to get out of his way. It was pure intimidation. The rookie responded by shoving James back before Kanter sprinted over to join the fray. “I was like ‘I’m proud of Frank. He’s pushing with LeBron, that’s good!’ But then after that it’s like OK, LeBron is 260 going up against an 18-year-old kid,” Kanter says. “So then I break in and I actually didn’t say nothing crazy. I was like ‘Don’t mess with my man.’ That’s it.”

The Knicks barely lost that game but then won three of their next four. “Our team needed that. Frank needed that. And I think it went a long way in the locker room,” O’Quinn says. “[Enes] got under the skin of somebody who is kinda unfazed by the many different things that people throw at him.”

The moment also cemented a bond between a veteran and a rookie who’s as shy as Kanter used to be. “The first person that I saw who wanted to help me was Enes,” Ntilikina says. “And it’s always like that, in the locker room, on the court, you always know that Enes is going to be there for you.”

This is who he is. Even still with a slight language barrier, Kanter speaks with an intent to ease. At the end of every other sentence, the man he’s talking to is “bro” or “my man.” Back at Lincoln Center, I sat on a yellow couch in the second-floor media room while he conducted an entire day’s worth of on-camera interviews with outlets from all over the world. A little after 4 PM, Kanter met me around the corner at the Empire Hotel. He looked the opposite of exhausted. We sat down on a gray couch in the brisk lobby, and without saying a word, Kanter grabbed my digital recorder and moved it to his side of the table, just to make sure it’d catch his voice. Again, he's almost too well-mannered.

“We’ll be having dinner, and someone will come to the table and ask to take a picture and he’ll stand up and take a picture with them. I’m like ‘Bro, you’ve gotta say ‘No. After dinner.’ But he just doesn’t decline it,” Fetic says. He’s unfailingly polite, but add everything he brings to the table that’s completely disconnected from on-court performance and it’s easy to see why signing him to a long-term deal is risky. So long as he’s on their roster, the Knicks aren’t broadcast in Turkey, no small loss considering a potential market of approximately 80 million people who would certainly tune in to watch.

McDermott believes Kanter is a perfect fit where he is: “I think, not anything bad against anywhere else he’s played, but I just think he’s meant to be in New York or L.A. He just has that presence.”

He’s unpredictable and different, but being unpredictable and different, in this case, is good. Instead of ego, there’s curiosity and compassion. Given all that encompasses his world—a deteriorating homeland and troubled family that's endured so many challenging circumstances—who has time to feel pressure on a basketball court, especially when it’s impossible to prepare any more than he already has? Kanter is unafraid of his own ambition and has long established himself as a productive professional, someone who can unmistakably affect his team’s culture without taking it over.

One day after the loss to Cleveland, Ntilikina sat by himself in a cold tub at the Knicks practice facility. A few minutes later, Kanter walked in and slid into the freezing water. They acknowledged each other and then sat in an awkward, shivery silence before Ntilikina looked up, turned his head, and stared at the teammate who just stood up to one of the world’s best and most famous athletes on his behalf. “Thank you,” Ntilikina said, softly. Kanter nodded back. “No problem, my man. I’ve always got your back.” The room fell quiet once again. “Whatever happens,” Kanter said. “It’s us against the whole world.”

The NBA's Man of Many Faces published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/