#‘the wreckage of his emotions’ WILL you wanted to FUCK HIM don’t lie to me boy

[spending-life-pretending]

The Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett / Prince’s Gambit, C. S. Pacat

[fanfics4all]

Requests are open! Here's some Prompts!

Angst Prompts

“This will be the last time you lie to me.”

“You know it’s not like that.”

“How could you think this wouldn’t hurt me?”

“You’re never going to be the same after this.”

“I just think it’d be best if we never met.”

“I can’t believe you would even think to leave me like this.”

“You never loved me, did you?”

“It didn’t have to be like this, but now you’ve ruined everything.”

“I hope you’re happy.”

“If you had have kept your mouth shut, then he’d still- he’d still be here!”

“What did you want once this was all through? Tell me!”

“Now I have to deal with the consequences of your actions. Thanks, it means a lot.”

“You could’ve- could’ve stayed. You could’ve helped me fix things.”

“I knew she’d never change, she was too stubborn, too similar to me.”

“This isn’t going to be fixed. You’ve ruined this for good now.”

“I hope I’m not put in the same part of hell as you.”

“When did you think you could hurt me again? Today? Tomorrow?”

“You’re back in my life and I want to die again.”

“You only ever brought me pain and I’m sick of it.”

“I hope you got what you wanted.”

“You made me miserable and I still loved you.”

“When you die, I’ll be the first to dance on your grave.”

“Don’t underestimate me, I have more power than you can even comprehend.”

“If only you knew what you’d brought upon yourself.”

“We’re never going to have a happy ending, just remember that.”

“Everytime something goes well, I momentarily forget how much I despise you.”

“Don’t pretend like you’re not happy to see me like this.”

“There is nothing worse than seeing you get what you want.”

“Your mind must be a horrible place.”

“You can cut me, bruise me and skin me alive, but you will not take her from me.”

“How is it that we always end up in this predicament?”

“I want to wipe that grin of your face with my sword, but my mother taught me to play nicely.”

“Did anyone ever tell you how pathetic you are? It’s incredible how low my standards are for you.”

“Ah, well if you want them back alive, I suggest you lay down your own life.”

“Don’t be ‘smart’. The battlefield is no place for Math Scholars.”

“You shouldn’t have come. You can’t be-”

“Stop talking or tomorrow won’t come.”

“Hand me the gun and I’ll kill him myself.”

“I shouldn’t care for your life, but I’m starting to and it’s becoming an inconvenience.”

“If you live to see her, please send my best regards and this box of her father’s ashes.”

“It would’ve been nice to get to know you better, but I’m afraid I don’t care.”

“I can’t help but think you’re a terrible person.”

“Seeing your face has unconventionally made me want to die. I wasn’t quite prepared for this feeling.”

“You could have loved me, I’m quite good at seducing, but you’re actually vile.”

“I hope I see you in a bodybag sometime.”

“Let’s pretend you didn’t cheat on me with my sister and be good people for a few minutes.”

“We should probably stop talking forever.”

“If I hated you anymore, I think I’d probably be crowned as satan’s right-hand man.”

“To say I ‘tolerate you’ is a vast overstatement.”

“You broke her heart and came back for more, you bastard.”

“This isn’t fifth grade, this is a courtroom, you whore.”

“I think you’d be the perfect match for my ex-husband. He loved to sleep with multiple people.”

“I’m not coming home, don’t look for me.”

“Time was always a measurement of this relationship and we finally ran out.”

“Please don’t look at me with such hatred.”

“I could’ve died and you couldn’t have cared less.”

“Just get out. I- I don’t want you here, just leave.”

“You’re not the same person I married, don’t tell me I’m wrong.”

“I wish you wouldn’t beg for forgiveness, it has the opposite effect of what you want.”

“Don’t hate me for this. You would’ve done the same.”

“This could’ve been the end and you were ready to let me go.”

“You should’ve left me, you could never deserve the person I’ve become.”

“Hate me all you want. I know I’m right.”

“Today you broke my arm, I hope tomorrow it’s not my heart.”

“Nothing can justify this, you’ve ruined him.”

“You live with so much guilt, I hope it drives you mad one of these days.”

“My life was ruined because of one mistake. You were that mistake.”

“You are everything I hate, don’t ever come back.”

“Evil doesn’t come close.”

“Your wrongdoings are becoming your pastimes.”

“I wish you had of just done it for the thrill of it, but now you’re in deep shit.”

“Next time, I won’t be here to salvage your wreckage. This is the last time.”

“You should have ruined me when you had the chance.”

“No one will keep your name alive. Once you’re gone, everything you once stood for disappears too.”

“Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about your life without me.”

“This is always how it ends.”

“Break my heart once more, I dare you.”

“Forget how you loved me once, I mean nothing now.”

“This isn’t Romeo and Juliet, this is real life and I can go on without you.”

“You don’t own me, I don’t belong to you.”

“I should’ve died. That would’ve made you happy.”

“Are we going to carry on like this or are you going to give him back to me.”

“She drowned and he lost his mind.”

“We shouldn’t. You’re married and I’m pregnant.”

“You’ve never been loved, I can tell.”

“Who told you I needed fixing and what made you believe them?”

“You’re almost as far-gone as I am.”

“Maybe it’s best that we don’t go home.”

“Roaming the streets was never safe for her. What makes you think it’s different for you?”

“I think you’re going to ruin me. Am I right?”

“Do you remember our last feud? I wouldn’t want someone to lose their life again, would you?”

“Kiss me quick and leave them be.”

“I hate seeing you so sad. It’s just so dramatic how humans show emotions and being sad is such a boring one.”

“Will you ever forget my number? No? Ah, because you still love me.”

“After the funeral, let’s surrender.”

“What made you think I cared for you?”

“It’ll be fun explaining this to your sister. I hope she likes horror stories.”

“Don’t act as if we’re friends. I know how much you want to slit my throat.”

“Let’s not get angry. Let’s calmly and sensibly take this outside so I can ruin your face.”

“Please ruin yourself for me and I’ll watch in adoration as I fall apart as well.”

Fluff Prompts

“I missed being with you like this,”

“I’ve been excited to see you all day.”

“You’re my perfect match,”

“No one else can compare to your loveliness,”

“The way you smile like that always turns me on,”

“Can I at least shut the door before you decide to pounce on me the moment I come home,”

“I know you said you didn’t want to be late, but you look amazing, and I’m trying not to kiss you senseless right now,”

“I’ll keep you warm. Hold me closer.”

“Kiss me again, like you mean it.”

“Can I have a message?”

“Truth or Dare?” “Dare”

“Move away if you don’t want this kiss.”

“If you keep kissing my face like that I’ll have to retaliate.”

“Are you my secret admirer, the one that’s been sending me all the flowers and notes?”

“Does this kiss tickle~? Haha. Why are you laughing so much?”

“You’re supposed to be washing my hair, but this feels more like a massage.”

“Hold my hand tight. I’ll protect you.”

“When do you think help will come?” “Not for a while, I guess we’re stranded here alone for the time being.”

“Can you pretend to be my partner for my friend’s wedding? I told them I’d have a plus one.”

“I’m in love with you.” “Are you finally confessing to me? Because I feel the same way.”

“Apparently all our friends have a bet going that we end up together.”

"I want you back."

"You need to stop calling me that."

"You did not just boop me."

"You lost me in a crowd once!" "It's not my fault you're so short!"

"We should get a puppy."

“Hurry up! It has eight legs and therefore will crawl faster than normal!"

"Kiss me." "Not with that morning breath."

"So, will you marry me?"

"How'd you do that?" "Magic."

"It's my happy juice."

"You did not just mimic me."

"I'm on my period and I want chocolate. Now go."

"I left you for five minutes."

"Tell me why I deal with you again?"

"Kiss it better. Please.”

Smut Prompts

“Try to stay quiet for me. Can you do that?”

“Spread your legs. I want to feel how turned on I made you.”

“You can add another finger. I’m ready,”

“I want to watch you take off your clothes.”

“You’re so turned on already? That was fast,”

“Lay back and touch yourself. I want to watch.”

“You want to do this right now? Even though we could get caught?”

“You’re nipples are so sensitive today,”

“Do you want to continue this in the shower?”

“You look so beautiful tied up to my bed,”

“I want you to be rough with me, please leave marks on my skin,”

“Say my name,” “Louder,”

“You say you want me, but your body seems to like it when I tease you,”

“Call me ‘Sir’ when we’re alone like this,”

“No, I’m the one that’s supposed to be making you feel good,”

“Don’t stop, whatever you do. I like that, a lot.”

“I love hearing you moan,”

“Blindfolds heighten your senses, maybe that’s why you’re whimpering louder than usual.”

“I was wondering how long you two were going to make out like that before you realize you weren’t alone.”

“Sorry, did that hurt?” “No, I’m just a little sore from last night.”

“I want to hear you beg for it.”

“I’m not wearing any panties,”

“I want to kiss every inch of your body before I fuck you,”

“I don’t have the patience to remove your clothes right now,”

“Your pussy tastes so sweet,”

“I can’t wait until we’re alone. There are so many things I want to do to you right now.”

“Bite me,” “Where?”

“Were you just touching yourself?”

“What do you want for breakfast?” “Why are you asking me that at 10 o’clock at night-OH.”

“The game is, either of us is only allowed to touch the other with their mouth.”

“I love how your body loses control when you cum.”

“Fuck me like a starved animal or leave.”

“Spank me,”

“Show me how you like to be touched.”

“Harder, Deeper…”

“I want to fulfill that fantasy you’ve always wanted.”

[sinsbymanka]

Hello! I uh. Got so many Fenders prompts guys. Like. A lot. 

I combined three of them because I really wanted to try this ship and I really liked writing it a lot. I hope I did them justice! Thank you to @dalish-rogue​, @morganlefaye79​, and @wardenari​ for the prompts! This is for @dadrunkwriting​!

Title: Not What Was Intended Ship: Anders/Fenris Rating: T Word Count: 1561 Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Crimes & Criminals, Bathing/Washing, Sharing a Bed, Bickering, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Fenris doesn't mean to go to the clinic. But when he sees the windows smashed in, he has to check it out. He is not doing it for himself, he is doing it for Hawke. It's a good lie. Almost believable.

Read on AO3

Fenris does not mean to stroll past the clinic. 

It is nothing more than a momentary lapse in judgement. He is too used to walking these darkened streets so the chain link fences, the broken street lamps, they all weave a background tapestry he hardly notices. His feet drag him onwards down the path he usually walks with Hawke, despite the fact that Hawke is not with him. 

Fenris could have gone home. Instead he turns the corner to find the clinic’s windows smashed, broken glass littering the cracked sidewalk. Fluorescent lights flicker inside, although whether the bulbs themselves are finally reaching the end of their life or Anders has not paid the bill again, Fenris can’t say. 

He hesitates a moment, his contraband ammunition heavy against his chest where he tucked it inside his coat. If he is caught with it, the papers Varric somehow obtained will be useless. He’ll be back in Tevinter before he can blink, and for all Fenris knows Anders is about to be dragged out by the Templars kicking and screaming, blonde hair falling wildly about his face, eyes crackling…

That image forces him into movement. He ducks quietly through the ajar door, suspicious eyes darting into every corner. He tells himself he is there for Hawke, for Varric, for all those who for some reason believe the meddlesome doctor and his idealistic opinions are worth the wrath of the rich and powerful. 

Fenris almost convinces himself. It is a good lie. One Varric himself would approve of. 

But the truth shrivels it the moment Fenris slips past the abandoned reception desk and into the triage area. Because standing in the middle of the room is Anders, surrounded by debris and refuse. 

Something loosens in Fenris’ chest immediately. He crosses the wreckage of the clinic easily, voice dropping to a low growl. “What have you done?” 

Anders finally lifts his gaze from the trash littering the floor. Fenris expects a flash of irritation, a scowl to match his own, but it does not come. Instead Anders rubs his stubbled jaw and shakes his head. 

“Just what I needed. A lecture. Andraste’s pillowy tits. Could this day get any worse?” 

There’s a bitter thread of hurt in his voice that makes Fenris uneasy. He does not pull his gaze from Anders, jerking his chin to the destruction surrounding them. “You were raided?” 

“I wish,” Anders snorts. “I expect the Templars to fuck me over cause of what I’m doing. Who I’m helping.” 

“Varric pays the Coterie. And the Carta. This was not them.” 

“I’ve told him to stop but you know how he is.” Anders puffs out his chest in mockery. “Me? Annoyingly taking care of your problems? I’d never do something so blighted risky and-” 

Anders bends down, stumbling to stop in his impression as he picks up a long, ruined piece of unravelled gauze. He sighs hopelessly as he looks at it before he shakes his head and lets it drop in defeat. 

“You’re right, you know.” Anders looks up, a bitter grin twisting his lips into something monstrous and out of place on his warm features. Something that brings the dread from when he saw the broken windows back tenfold. “I’m down here risking all our asses and for what?” 

“Justice and the greater good, or so I’ve been told,” Fenris replies dryly. 

“So a bunch of kids whose bullet wounds I stitched up last week, no Templars involved, could come back and steal thousands of dollars worth of medical supplies and ruin even more. All while I was out doing home visits for a solid thirty hours.” 

Anders closes his eyes, agony breaking over his features, making him look three times his age. “Maker. I’ll never recover from this.” 

The statement rings too loudly in the heavy silence. It stretches on and Fenris waits for the other man to crack a flippant joke, but it doesn’t come. It is up to Fenris to fill it as best he can. 

“This is unnecessarily dramatic,” he sniffs. “Hawke will gladly resupply you.” 

“I’m not living on Hawke’s charity,” Anders snaps. 

“Then you’ll live on Varric’s. How long have you been awake?” 

Anders finally shows some sign of his own temper, straightening up. “Sorry, should I call you daddy or-” 

“Fasta vass, you are impossible.” Fenris surges forward and grabs Anders by the cuff of his coat. The other man is so dizzy from exhaustion it takes almost none of his strength to drag him from the triage area deep into the clinic.

Fenris himself has been stitched up in this location enough times to know it like the tattoos in his skin. He shoves Anders toward the showers with a growl. “You smell of disease and stale sweat. I will secure the clinic.” 

“You say the nicest-” 

Fenris slams the door shut behind the other man and turns grimly to the clinic to survey the damage. He doesn’t bother with the ruined supplies or the evidence of the ransacking. Instead, he begins the slow, methodical business of checking the exits. Securing the bolts. The windows are, of course, a problem. He drags clean sheets from the cupboards and pins them in place to keep out the wind and cold, but Anders needs new windows. 

And perhaps an alarm system. Or a dog instead of the fifty stray cats that linger in the alley. 

When he’s done what he can, he makes his way back to the bathroom. The water is running and Fenris thinks only to pop his head in and announce that he will return with boards for the windows. 

He’s stopped short, once more, by the sight of Anders. No longer standing, but curled into the corner of the shower. Knobbly knees are pulled to his chest, sandy hair plastered to his skin. His shoulders shake with silent sobs. 

Fenris should leave. 

Yet again, he doesn’t. 

He closes the bathroom door behind him and slips his coat from his shoulders. By the time Anders looks up, blinking water from his eyes, Fenris is laying it and his illegal purchases on the counter. 

“What are you-” 

“You are clearly incapable of taking care of yourself.” Fenis lifts the hem of his cotton shirt over his head, not daring to meet Anders eyes. He knows the other man is tracing the elaborate designs, a brutal reminder of his life before, and he doesn’t wish to see it. “If you drown in your own shower, I will have to explain it to Hawke.” 

Anders’ silence is more maddening than his constant babble. Fenris braces himself to turn, only to find that instead of staring at him, Anders is gloomily examining the grout in the shower. 

“I know you think I’m pathetic.” 

Fenris climbs carefully into the shower and grabs one tiny bottle of expired shampoo donated from a cheap motel and a limp sponge. “I have never said that is the case.” 

“You don’t have to.” 

“I do not have to justify things I have never said.” 

Fenris squirts the sickly sweet shampoo on the sponge and rubs it between his fingers. Anders’ eyes latch onto the movement quietly. Fenris thinks his words over before he turns to Anders. 

“I am envious of your desire to help others. I believe that is a part of me that is gone.” 

It had been ruined, as so many things had. Before he can think too much about his past or about the pale freckled skin slicked with water, he brings the sponge to Anders’ chest and swipes it over his collarbone. 

The motion is soothing. Dull. Repetitive. Soap beads on his skin and falls to the drain. Anders is silent, the only noise the lukewarm water streaming from above and the sound of their quiet breaths. 

“They should not have abused your kindness,” Fenris finally says, flicking his eyes up to meet Anders’. 

A moment of silence, fragile as the soap bubbles. Fenris takes hold of Anders’ thin, lithe arms and hauls him to his feet. He tries not to think of the way the other man sways on his feet, the brush of their chest together. He carefully does not look at the golden hair decorating his chest or the taut muscles beneath his skin. 

Fenris tries not to hear the soft whisper against his ear as he drags the sponge down Anders’ stomach. 

“They shouldn’t have abused yours.” 

Everything passes in a blur. He does not remember how he finishes washing Anders, only the brief tantalizing flashes of skin and warmth that are seared into his memory. But the other man is almost limp with exhaustion as Fenris drags him to a cot. 

Anders trips into it, taking Fenris with him. He curses under his breath and Anders chuckles, warm and real and so much better than the heartbroken man he found. 

“You can’t stay here,” Anders murmurs sleepily, lips twitching in amusement. 

“I have no wish to,” Fenris hisses between his teeth. 

The cot is soft, just barely big enough for both of them, and his arm is trapped beneath a man who is rapidly letting exhaustion overtake him. Fenris means only to rest there until he can free himself without waking him. 

He does not mean to fall asleep beside him, arm over his waist, face pressed into his shoulder.

Yet he does.

[thewhumperinwhite]

And Then You Kill Me (part 5)

story masterpost

TW for: referenced dubcon; guilt and self-hatred; suicidal behavior; angst and misunderstandings; under-negotiated sexual behavior. Nothing directly nsfw here but it is very much The Morning After.

@whumpitywhumpwhump @favwhumpstuff

----

Usually, the morning after he eats, Karim sits on the roof with a cup of coffee and watches the sun rise.

It’s half indulgence and half penance. He can’t actually drink the coffee, which makes the smell exactly halfway between comfort and torture. And, depending on the…volume, he guesses, of the person he’s fed from, he can only stand the sun for about an hour on a clear day. Though sometimes he stays longer than that, to feel it prickle and burn against his skin. It depends on how much he feels like a thief, how much his mouth still tastes like lies.

This morning, of course, is different.

On the one hand, he isn’t as full as he normally is. It’s cloudy out, but he still needs the sunglasses he borrowed from Diana ages ago, that take up half his face; and he pulls a cap down low over his ears and forehead, too, for good measure.

On the other hand, he didn’t say a thing last night that wasn’t true, and that feels so good he’s almost drunk on it.

There’s warmth in his belly that’s more than blood.

Karim leans forward, cradling the still-hot mug against his chest, and squints down at the street below him. There’s a little shop on the corner, where he goes for batteries sometimes; they sell some simple groceries. Karim’s never had a reason to buy them before. He can’t think of any reason he’d like better than this.

----

Art wakes up with a screaming headache and absolutely no idea where he is.

Which. What he’s learning—what it feels like it’s taking him forever to learn—is that no matter how many times you wake up naked on someone else’s couch and don’t remember how you got there, it never gets easier or better.

And then he does remember. And that’s much worse.

----

Karim pauses inside the door, in the act of setting down the single bag of food and drink he’s bought. He’s just realized that orange juice belongs in the refrigerator, and he doesn’t actually have one of those. He doesn’t eat, and it hadn’t seemed worth the electricity.

Possibly the boy can drink it all in one go? It’s been so long since Karim’s drunk anything that comes out of a bottle, he isn’t actually sure how much—

He’s still standing there, in the doorway, holding Diana’s sunglasses in one hand and the carton in the other, and then a lamp hits him in the side of his head.

It doesn’t hit hard enough to rock him backward, but it does crack in half, and land at his feet in three big pieces.

Karim stares for a moment, down at the wreckage, and then up to the bathroom doorway, where the boy he picked up from the docks is standing. He’s wearing his sweatshirt again, and he’s trembling.

“What was that for?” says Karim. The boy’s face twists.

“We had a deal,” the boy says, and that’s when Karim realizes that the boy is shaking because he’s very, very angry.

“…Huh?” Karim says. It’s the wrong answer, apparently; the boy makes an unintelligible noise and lunges for a ceramic vase sitting on a nearby end table. Karim scrambles to set the orange juice and sunglasses down (Diana likes these glasses, and she’s terrifying when she’s angry) and throw his hands up in surrender. “Woah—Hey wait!” The boy pauses, holding the vase like a grenade. He’s swaying slightly under its weight. Presumably like someone who’s lost about a liter and a half of blood. Karim kind of can’t believe he’s even on his feet right now.

“…I bought you some orange juice,” Karim says, hesitantly. “The internet says it’s good for—”

The boy throws the vase.

“Oh my god!” Karim says, ducking into the kitchen, more by instinct than any actual fear of injury. (He is full of blood and almost indestructible; and also the boy aims like someone who has lost thirty percent of their blood by volume.) “What is your problem?”

The boy gapes at Karim, and has to grab the bathroom doorway to steady himself.

“My problem,” he gasps, sounding like he wants to shout it but is too out of breath. “Did I fucking stutter last night, you asshole?” He presses his hand to his temple and closes his eyes; his head must feel like a rotten melon by now. “What part of dead by sunrise was too fucking complicated for you?”

Karim blinks at the boy. Feels borrowed blood rise into his cheeks.

“Oh, that,” Karim says. “I, um…” He has no idea what to say. “…Sorry?”

His apology—which is half-hearted, admittedly; for once it hadn’t even occurred to him to feel guilty about this—hits the boy like a blow to the stomach, and the boy covers his face with one hand and slides down the bathroom doorframe until he’s sitting in a little heap on the floor. Wearing his still-damp sweatshirt and nothing else, his bare legs splayed out to either side. He looks—small, and less alive, and ah yes, there’s the guilt Karim has been missing.

“—so fucking stupid,” the boy mutters, into his hand.

Karim puts the juice down on the counter. He wants to move closer, but that cannot possibly be what the boy wants right now.

“God dammit,” the boy says, and he turns away from Karim, and climbs forward, easing himself back up to his feet against the wall. “Fuck this,” he says, and then Karim realizes he’s crawling-stumbling-falling toward the door, like he’s going to leave that way, swaying and half-naked.

“Woah,” Karim says, darting out to catch at the boy’s shoulder, “Hold on a s—”

“Don’t fucking touch me,” the boy spits, spinning away from Karim’s touch. His back is against the front door again, like it was when he opened up so sweet and easy under Karim’s mouth and hands—what, six hours ago? Less? The boy is incandescent with rage for a second, his eyes—they’re green, an ordinary alive-person green, shot through with brown, and achingly pretty—almost glowing with it, and then his face shutters like an empty house and he says, voice cold and precise, “Get out of my way.”

Karim hadn’t even realized he was in his way. But the door opens in, so the boy really can’t get out unless Karim moves. Karim holds his hands up instead, leaning back out of the boy’s space.

“Just—just wait a second, okay?” Karim says. He tries to pitch his voice as low and nonthreatening as possible, like he isn’t looming over the boy whether he wants to or not. “Let’s just—can we just talk about this for a second.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” the boy says. He’s supporting himself against the door, but if Karim didn’t already know he wouldn’t guess how unsteady on his feet the boy is; his voice is steady and flat and colder than Father’s basement in January. “It’s my own fault for being so fucking dumb and gullible, fair enough, glad that worked out for you, now back the fuck off.” That last part is said with so much sudden venom that Karim actually does stumble back a step without really meaning to.

“Gullible,” Karim repeats stupidly, like if he can understand just one word of what the boy is yelling at him this will all make sense suddenly. And then—suddenly—it does, and he gapes at the boy.

“Wait,” Karim says. “Do you—you think I was lying?” He almost expects the boy to deny it, except the boy is still giving him that same flat, blank look (with incomprehensible emotion underneath it, disgust and anger and maybe even hurt). “What—why on earth would I have—”

The boy looks at him. There are splotches of color in his cheeks, and his eyes are slightly too bright, and when Karim stares at him he tugs the hem of his sweatshirt down just a little farther, like he’s trying to cover his ass.

Karim takes a step back, dropping his hands to his sides.

“I wasn’t,” he says, nonsensically. “This is—Boy. I swear to you. I did not say a single thing last night that wasn’t true.”

There are big raised welts on either side of the boy’s throat, where Karim’s fangs went into him last night. The boy must have seen them, if he was in the bathroom; his reflection works just fine. They don’t look like hickeys or bruises or anything other than what they are. There’s no way the boy shouldn’t believe him, this one time when he only took what was given willingly, and not even all of that. There’s no way—

“Then explain it to me, asshole,” the boy says, and his voice is shaky with unshed tears. “Explain the world where everything you said is true, and I’m not dead yet.”

Karim wants—Karim wants. Karim wants to reach out and touch the boy. Karim wants to hold the boy gently, wants to wrap him up in something warm and safe until he tells him why he talks that way, why he wants to give his life—this thing he has that Karim doesn’t, that Karim won’t ever again—away so badly his voice trembles like that whenever he talks about it.

“It’s,” Karim says. His Father is always in despair about how bad he is with words. “Well, it’s just—I like you.”

Karim hasn’t told a lie in almost eight hours, now. This isn’t a lie, either.

The boy’s eyes go wide, surprise and then fear and then anger, and then without warning he dives down, flops onto his knees, grabs a shard of the shattered vase, and jerks it toward his own throat.

“No!” Karim grabs the boy’s wrist, too hard; it creaks alarmingly in his grasp, but the jagged ceramic piece falls from his hand and clatters to the ground. He wants to let go—the boy is far too still, his eyes too wide, and Karim already knows his wrist will bruise—but he can’t. There’s too much broken pottery and glass, and the boy is such a fragile thing.

The boy stares up at Karim. He is kneeling wide-eyed at Karim’s feet, and Karim can hear his shallow too-fast breath and his hummingbird heart, and it is almost more than he can bear.

The boy doesn’t scream, though; he doesn’t even call Karim a monster, or any of the other things Karim deserves. What he says, his voice tight, is, “They’ll find me,” and then, soft and desperate, meeting Karim’s light bulb eyes with his pretty dull alive ones, “Please.”

Karim doesn’t let go of the boy’s wrist. He gets carefully to his knees beside him, instead, meeting the boy’s gaze like it doesn’t even hurt.

“I’ve been killing in this city for nine years now,” he says, and there’s fear in the boy’s eyes, but still no fear of him. “They’ve never caught me.”

The boy’s eyes flicker. Karim has no idea with what. But this is the moment. He throws caution to the winds.

“Give me a week,” he says.

The boy stares at him.

“I like you,” he says again. The boy’s pounding heart hasn’t sped or slowed, so Karim keeps going. “You’re—I’ve never met anyone like you.” That’s true, like everything else he’s said, but he knows the boy won’t like it, so he presses ahead, fighting hard not to trip over his words. “I want to spend a week with you. Not to—we can do whatever you want. I won’t touch any way you don’t want me to. I know how to hide in this city better than anyone, no one will know where you are. And at the end of the week—” He swallows; he doesn’t want this to be a lie, but also the thought of it turns his stomach; he makes himself say it anyway. “And at the end of the week, I’ll kill you any way you ask me to. I promise.”

There’s a too-long moment of silence. The boy’s heart flutters painfully, and neither of them blink.

“…a week,” the boy says slowly, after an eternity.

Karim nods, maybe frantically.

The boy pulls his hand delicately out of Karim’s grip; Karim, useless heart pounding, lets him.

“For a week,” the boy says, “you’d better give me the flashiest murder scene in history.”

Karim grins, so hard it almost hurts his face. “Flashy,” he says, giddy and stupid. “I can do that.”

[sumoattack-gooddog]

DBH Hankcon fic - Human!Au where Connor was the other car

Chapter 32 - The Fox

“Have I told you what it was like for me… After?” Connor asked, his voice soft. Not like fuzzy blankets or snow, like eggshells. Fragile. Eyes fixed ahead on the one way glass, fixed on the woman with her head tipped down, cuffed hands resting on the edge of the metal tabletop.

Hank looked at him, shifted his direction just enough to offer his full attention – Connor didn’t budge – and said, “No. I don’t believe you have.”

“It seemed,” he furrowed his brows as he searched for the right words. “Selfish? I suppose. To dwell on such things compared to what you lost. Who.”

The older man hummed, “Sure, but if we compare our hurt to others, we’ll never allow ourselves the space to heal. That’s what my mother used to say.” He didn’t reach out, not with his hand at least, but he nosed the heel of Connor’s dress shoe with the tip of his boot. “So, tell me about your experiences… If you’re ready.”

The brunet sighed, he fixed his blazer. “When I came out of the collision, my life was changed – not like yours–”

“No.” Hank cut him off. “Don’t do that. Don’t discount your experiences, Con.”

“Fine,” Connor inhaled. “When I came out of the collision, things were,” he waved his hand, conjuring the word in his palm. “Different. My whole life, I’d been this emotional child and all of a sudden I was a stunted adult. Verbal emotional communication was never something I had been taught. I had no clue how to speak without my face.” He shook his head, scoffing at himself. “It seems so silly, I often think, in retrospect, that such a thing would be so taxing– No, I’m not downplaying it, Hank. I’m just being honest. I’m baffled by the things I didn’t know that I didn’t know. It was like I was learning a whole new language, or�� Yes! It was like learning how to write without using my hands. I had so much I wanted to say. So much I knew I could say if I figured out how, but it was always just out of reach.” He let his shoulders hunch, allowed the ramrod perfection of his posture to wane, slumping further into the beat up chair. “I mean, I didn’t know how to explain to my superiors, my family, my coworkers why a sudden sound – a scream, a laugh, a fucking sneeze – would have me breathless. A marathon runner on his hands and knees gasping for air. Wailing like a child lost in the mall.”

Hank rolled his chair closer, his hand, broad and warm, settled atop his partner’s knee, thumb stroking gentle, calming circles over the dark denim. 

“When I woke up in the wreckage, it was all a bit of a blur for me. I was pinned between my seat and the steering wheel, and my neck hurt so bad. I went to grip my head, hold my temples for fear they’d burst and when I looked at my hands,” he mimicked the action, eyes boring into his palms, into the crevices, the grooves, the lines of his skin. “They were soaked in blood. I didn’t even know which part of me was bleeding, but I remembered the warmth, the wetness, the itchy grime as it hardened.” Connor paused, swallowing down the bile that seared up his throat for a moment. He closed his eyes as he continued, thumb tracing the tips of his fingers as if they were still slick with moisture. “Have you ever had trouble distinguishing when something is–was real?”

Hank shook his head. “I guess I’ve been lucky to avoid that kind of trauma. I knew that the things that,” he shrugged as if the word was almost too hard to admit, “Haunted me were from the past. They were memories. Things I regretted.”

“For so long, every time my hands were wet it was like I was back there. With that ache in my neck and that red staining my clothes, my car. Snowflakes of glass in my hair.” Connor lifted his hand to the base of his neck, fingers working the dull pain. “Now it’s mainly just this that remains.”

“It, uh, hurt often?” Hank asked.

“It’d be a lie to say no, but less than it used to. The nerves are pinched that’s why,” he waved his hand in front of his face. A silent acknowledgment to the numbness. “But I’d take this constant ache to those moments where I’d blink and find myself back there. Immobile. Covered in blood. A man caught between realities. Dreams. Nightmares. You can never quite be alive when it feels like you’re trapped in your mind. A prison to this wall of red. Immovable.”

Hank didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. The hand on Connor’s knee squeezed, a tender reassurance that he was awake. Alive. Free. 

“I was hardly a person back then. For the first year it was like I ran on autopilot. A machine carrying out tasks, but there was no life in me… And then I met Doctor Stern” He nodded to the glass, to the profile of the woman in all her noble poise. “Well, really, I’d met her quite soon after the accident. I was mandated to, in fact. Deemed a danger to myself and possibly others. A lifeless shell that would burst into an erratic, manic madman? I don’t blame them.”

“Did you ever,” Hank pursed his lips, words slow to leave him. “Hurt yourself?”

“Not intentionally.” Connor replied, “It was more so an issue in which I wasn’t taking much care of myself. I’d forget to eat until I’d nearly faint. A few times I’d think I was stuck in the car, trapped in my seat, and lash out at whatever was around me. I wouldn’t even notice if the commotion broke skin, I was so used to this constant hallucination of my hands dripping, slick with–” He sighed, shaking his head and wiping his hands on his blazer. Clean. As they appeared. As they should be. “Amanda was patient with me. Patient when no one else was or knew how to be. She answered questions I didn’t even realize I had and after the first two years of seeing her, I thought, ‘just maybe it’ll all be okay.’ Funny now.”

“Funny how?”

“Funny… Because I believed she had really cared. I believed she’d been the thing pushing me to get better.” Connor finally averted his eyes from the glass, to the blue ones he so adored. “But it was always me, and the prospect of not having to do it alone… I think.”

“You’re not alone, Con,” Hank promised, his grip growing a bit tighter. “Never again.”

“Never again?” He whispered back. Never entailed a forever of togetherness, and forever was a damn long time. 

“Never,” Hank replied with such surety that Connor was inclined, just almost, to believe him. The hesitancy only a lingering worry in the back of his head at the prospect of disappointing his partner.

“Did you read the notes I photographed?” He looked away again, couldn’t bear to face the emotion that captured Hank’s features – whatever it may be. “The ones she wrote?”

“I did.”

“She’s going to try to argue I’m crazy– Well, her defense will once we get something out of her.”

“But we know you’re not,” Hank said, hand squeezing once more against Connor’s knee. 

He sighed, softly, somberly, “Do we?”

“Of course we do, Con! Are you kidding?” he inched closer, turning the detective to face him head on. “You’re one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met? If not the. Sure, you have some baggage, but fuck, who doesn’t? That hardly makes you crazy.”

“But it’s different, Hank! I’m different. I don’t carry around a little backpack of my troubles. I have three full sized suitcases of mental illness, PTSD, and family trauma. If our superiors care to believe her, I could be done! I’m a textbook case of unhinged according to her notes. The compulsions? The breakdowns? She calls me manic countless times–”

“And half the time she lies!”

“You don’t know that,” Connor insisted. Brows taut.

“Don’t I? But you know what, Connor? Fine! Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say I don’t know that. What I do know is that when we began working together we were assigned a case so clearly reminiscent of our own experiences and despite the triggers it posed, you were a damn good detective. You made sure I was safe and you got justice for Alice.” Each word was deliberate, spit with a sternness Connor hadn’t missed but needed in this moment. “You can’t let that bitch convince you you’re less of an officer, of a person for having shit to deal with. Hell, you wouldn’t be the man in front of me today if not for all you’ve gone through… And I don’t know about you, but I’m happy with who you are. Good and bad. Because it’s you, Con. I wouldn’t want you any different.”

He smiled, delicately. Frost on a leaf. A gentle little thing that he couldn’t stop. “Ditto,” he whispered, a breath in the space between them. “Thank you, Hank.”

“Only the truth, honey.” The older man captured his partner’s hands. “But really, Connor, I am sorry you went through all of that, that you’re still going through that. It doesn’t define you though. The trauma. It’s just a piece to the puzzle.”

Connor nodded, he tightened his grasp on Hank’s hands. Interlocked their fingers as his eyes returned to the glass. He sighed. “I need to talk to her.”

“Excuse me?”

He repeated, “I need to talk to her.”

“After everything you just said about her, you wanna talk to her?”

“No. But I need to. She’s not going to answer our questions. Not intentionally.” Connor nodded at her, “I can get her to, though. I’m certain.”

“Do you believe you can handle it?” Hank asked. “Mentally?”

This caused Connor pause. He allowed his lips to settle into a thin line, his eyes to trace over the form of the woman he once confided in, and his hands to squeeze his lover’s. “I have to try. Even if it might be unpleasant. This is the last thing standing in our way… And you’d do it if you were in my place. Wouldn’t you?” He asked, not that he needed to. They both knew it. “Besides…” He continued, forcing a smile. “We agreed we’d see who could get our first serious interogatee to crack the quickest didn’t we?”

Hank sighed, that kind of sigh that signaled affectionate defeat. Dampened with a hint of laughter, halfhearted but real. “Just… Be careful, Con.”

“Of course,” he nodded and exited the room.

Amanda sat with her eyes closed, hands folded on the table. Manicured and spindly. She wore a loose fitting dress, navy blue and white, likely linen in material. Her hair was pulled back in their intricate braids as always, spiderwebbing from her scalp beautifully. Seemingly untouchable. Royal. 

“Doctor Stern,” he greeted, calmly, as he scanned his hand against the biometric lock.

“Hello, Connor.”

He approached, taking a seat with forced ease, unbuttoning his blazer as he settled in. “We may know each other, Doctor, but this setting is different from those of our past. So, I’d appreciate it if you used my title.” He smoothed his tie. Huh? His tie clip was missing. The thin little strip of metal must have escaped him in the kerfuffle the day before. He hadn’t even noticed with how everything had transpired… So unlike him.

“If you insist.”

He refocused himself. “I do.”

“Very well… Detective,” she complied, but the word was rancid as it left her lips. Disdain for the deference.

Connor couldn’t help the smug pleasure that wriggled in his chest at the petty win. Of course, he didn’t show it. No, he simply nodded, politely, and slid his chair closer, eyes flickering to where the woman’s arms were chained to the steel table. “Well, Doctor, this isn’t looking good for you as I’m sure you’re aware.” 

She said nothing. She only stared back at him with those dark, unforgiving eyes. Studying him as she always did. 

“It is with that in mind that I’d recommend being as forthcoming as possible in answering my questions. You know your rights, yes? As well as that you are being recorded? This was all presented to you when you were brought into this room.”

“I do.” She answered, dully. 

“Do you wish to employ any of those rights now?” He asked.

“No.”

Good. That was good. She wouldn’t be working with a lawyer present. She thought she could maintain herself – her ‘innocence’ – without one. Hubris. It was Connor’s job to call her bluff. “Extortion is a second degree felony, if you weren’t familiar, which can warrant up to 20 years in a federal penitentiary,” he tapped his fingers against the tabletop. “An accessory after the fact can vary sentencing wise, at the least maybe another year if cooperation and a written confession were given.”

Amanda exhaled through her nose, a fragment of a laugh. 

“It’s a good deal, Doctor. I’d recommend taking it. Especially with Perkins–”

“We both know Richard isn’t going to say anything, Connor… Excuse me, Detective. No, he’s too slick for that. He’ll surely get a little slap on the wrists if anything for these alleged crimes.” She smiled, tipping her head. “And if I’m not mistaken the information you obtained from me was… Emails? Three? Four? All about setting up an appointment with Richard. Hardly criminal in my line of work. Is it?”

“If it was really so innocent, then of course not, Doctor. However, neither of us are naive or daft enough to believe that to be the case. The number you gave him was your personal one, the banking information? Private. Hardly seems like a run of the mill exchange to me.” Connor waved his hand, a gesture between them, “And don’t forget, I know how those types of encounters should go.”

“Speaking of which, how are you doing, Detective? I wouldn’t want this situation to damage any of the hard work and progress we’ve made over the past, what is it, three years? All that time we’ve spent managing your hallucinations, manic episodes– the list goes on… I’d hate for all this to render you incapable.”

There it was. The card laid out on the table. An attempt to render his qualifications void. 

“I’m doing just fine. Thank you for your concern.” He blinked, slowly. “As I’m sure you recall from all our meetings, I’ve never failed to do my job effectively. I don’t intend to begin doing so now.”

“Well, of course not. I only worry because I know how triggering the guilt has been for you. I doubt Richard will fail to point out your fault in the matter, after all.”

“Excuse me?” Connor recoiled. He hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t done anything.

“Well, according to him, you were hardly receptive to his signaling. He’d been trying to get your attention, so that he wouldn’t put you or anyone else at risk. Alas, you were hardly an attentive driver as he recalled it.”

He scoffed.

Amanda shrugged, noncommittally, “I detailed his account when we first met so I could refer to it, and I must say there were contradictions to yours… So, I am left to wonder, given just how zealously you seemed determined to condemn yourself to guilt... Did you not tell me the full truth, Connor?” She leaned in, allowing her hands to unclasp and fall flat on the table. “Was your guilt stemming from a place not of survival but of liability? It was your car that crossed into the wrong lane. It was your car that collided with the good lieutenant’s. It was your car that took an innocent life. Or am I mistaken?”

He didn’t move. Didn’t dare. He was fixed to the spot like a rabbit eyeing its stalker. Frozen as it decided to fawn or flee. His hands were white knuckled in his lap just where she couldn’t see them, but from the smile on her face, she didn’t need to.

He swallowed. He reached a hand to fix his tie. The clip still missing. His shoulder’s tensed. He fixed his tie again, fingers gliding down the silk expectantly. Awaiting an elusive cool touch against skin. Nothing. He repeated the gesture again.

Amanda grinned. “Well, Connor?” Her eyes watched the mannerism. A broken machine stuck hitching in repeat.

“I don’t–”

“Don’t what, hm? Have an explanation? What exactly happened that day, Connor?” She rolled her shoulders back, straightening her posture. Rising for the kill. “I’d like to find out.”

“Perkins he–” Connor caught his own words in his throat, shaking his head. “Nothing happened that is not represented in my previous accounts.”

“Interesting,” she tipped her head. “That’s all?”

“Of course that’s all!” Connor scoffed, hands hitting the table. “I have been honest in every account!”

“Do you believe honesty to be subjective?”

“What?”

Amanda waved her hand. “Well, some people believe honesty is a product of one’s perception, therefore, it is unable to maintain objectivity. If such a case is true, then your account is honest, Connor… To you.”

He rose from his chair, fingers wringing the silk strip as if it were a noose about to be hung. His footsteps pacing back and forth. “Honesty is based on fact! It can hardly be subjective. I have told you the facts, and, in doing so, I have been honest.”

“Of course,” she dismissed. Smile worn like a mask. Unshifting. Unbreakable. 

His lungs were filled with holes, his mouth fixed open. A jack clamped against his lips, prying his teeth apart. His throat was thinner than a straw and the air he gasped for hardly filtered through. 

“Connor, perhaps you should take a moment for yourself. You seem… Overwhelmed.”

“How would you even know?” Connor huffed through broken gasps, his hands trembling on full display for the eagle eyed woman.

“Know what? That you’re unstable?” She practically laughed. “You’re hardly hiding it.”

He scoffed, well, attempted to, although the sound that left him was more akin to a wheeze as he failed to regain himself. “How would you know who was guilty? All you have are speculations!” His eyes gleamed as he stepped closer, words a bite in the air.

“As if that isn’t enough.” She followed the movement of his hands, watched him wolfishly as he struggled. “Richard was always very forthcoming when we spoke.”

“I’m sure he was even more so during all your private chats outside of office hours.”

“Excuse me?” She faltered. “We never… We only ever spoke in session.”

Connor smirked. He smoothed his blazer and took a seat. He blinked the tears back and swallowed down the gasps with ease, tossing a calm – somewhat cocky – look to the glass just where he knew Hank would be sitting. Then, he pulled his phone from his pocket. “Interesting you should say that, Doctor,” he pressed play.

“Message three: Richard, Detective Rkay is getting close. I don’t know how, but he is. Be careful.” Beep.

“Now, I’m not infallible, but to me that sounds an awful lot like you revealing confidential information – outside of office hours, mind you – to a Mister Richard Perkins… So, I decided to follow up on the number that called, and, wouldn’t you know it, it was the very same you sent the agent via email three years ago. That’s pretty bad for you from the get go as you’ve become a very unreliable account for yourself.” He fixed his tie – his breath hitched for a moment at the lack of metal, but he kept himself together, swallowing down the discontent – and continued, “So, I did some more investigating, and I can’t say I was terribly surprised to find that after every session the two of us had within the past month a certain agent would receive a call.” He tilted his head, enjoying the way the woman before him squirmed under his sharp gaze. “I would consider your next move very carefully, Dr. Stern, you’ve already dug quite the hole for yourself to climb out of… I’ll give you some time to further consider my earlier proposition.” He stood with a nod, hands clasped before him as he made his way to the door. He scanned the biometric lock and took his leave. 

He turned into the observation room immediately, and found Hank standing with his eyes glued to the glass and mouth slightly agape. The moment the door closed behind the detective, the older man turned.

“Holy shit, Connor! That was… God, you had both of us fooled. You cunning little bastard!” He laughed, reaching out a praising touch to offer his partner– His smile fell, those blue eyes morphed from pride to concern and he inched closer as he took in the sight of his lover’s face. “Con?”

The brunet laughed, that bittersweet laugh that tasted like melancholy and sounded like rain. He accepted Hank’s touch with a leaning weight that implied reliance not enjoyment. His dark eyes burned bright with hot, heavy tears. And his throat, thick with hurt, choked out, “I lost my tie clip.”

“What?” Hank asked. Stunned, surely.

So, Connor repeated himself. “I lost my tie clip.” He didn’t dare say another words as Hank took him into his arms.

The older man only kissed his partner’s forehead, held him close and tight, and whispered soothing little sayings. Nothing more. He understood.

Connor was a melting icicle in Hank’s heavy palm, a puddle practically seeping into the floor if not for the guiding force that enveloped him. His words were a broken record. A deceleration of that which he had lost. A decree of desperation. Of a past unable to be changed.

They knew it. They both knew it. The metal accessory was nothing. It was negligible. It just as easily could’ve been a scuff on his shoe or that same strand of hair that seemed so content to enrage him. The detail was irrelevant… But it was easy. Easier than once again questioning, was it somehow really my fault? Easier than begging, again and countless times more, for forgiveness already granted. Easier than wondering, do I deserve the good tangible in and around my embrace? Easier than a million other things. 

So instead, he lamented the loss of his tie clip. He clutched the fabric that marked his betrayal and he wept for that which he could not change. 

[roseskiesandbutterflies]

Le Démon Déchu - Chapter 2: Réponses Et Plus De Questions

Summary: The summary is kind of long so please check a previous part or my masterlist if you want to read it.

Warning(s): threat, swearing

Word Count: 6.8k+

Inspiration: Do You Know What Eternity Is? by Elderly_Worm on AO3, Great Omens (The Big One) by falsepremise on AO3, Pray For Us, Icarus series by Atalan on AO3, Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm on AO3, wasteland, baby by john1513 on AO3, Not of Us by ShesAKillerQueen98 on AO3, How to Win a Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to Television (and how not to) by GaryOldman on AO3, Doctor Who (don’t ask) and, of course, Good Omens itself

A/N: Okay I took a bit of a hiatus from writing literally anything for about five months so sorry about that but I’m back now!! That’s the main thing. Also, I’ve left high school now which is very exciting! That does mean I’ll have so much more time to write and I’m definitely going to try and use this summer to establish some kind of routine for writing so that when I start college, I won’t get too overwhelmed with both my studies and with updating my fics. That’s the plan anyway so don’t hold me to that lmao. With any luck, now I’ve actually said that it’ll have to happen. (I wrote that part of this note back in May when it was the start of the summer. It is currently September and I’m just about to finally publish this chapter and I assure you, I am cringing at my own optimism.) Sorry this took so long to post. This chapter has been in the works since May (yes, I know I’m terrible) but I actually got a lot more writing done in that time that what you just see in this chapter. All will be revealed soon. I just promise that I have been productive. Once you’ve read this chapter, you have my blessing to translate the title of this fic. Hopefully it will make sense.

I just wanted to point out something about the playlist I linked in the previous chapter. I am well aware that there are some rather problematic people in it, namely Sia. I want you all to know that I don’t support her in any way (I don’t like her at all I think she’s a complete ableist twat). Her songs are only on there because of how well they fit with the story (a lot of this will become clearer as the story goes on).

I also wanted to point out that I know that if angels do exist, then their true forms probably wouldn’t look anything like humans. I’m well aware of that, I’m not an idiot, I don’t know if any of you remember when people started googling ‘angel true form’ and some people got scared lmao. The point is, we’ve all seen the pictures. But for the purpose of this story, and honestly just to make it easier for me to describe what the characters are doing, we’re going to have to pretend that they did look like humans. Can I claim creative license with this one? Maybe it got lost in translation because there is probably no way someone could describe how an angel truly looks in any human language? I don’t know, just roll with it.I know that this chapter had so much exposition and explanation in it but I can promise you two things. One, there is still much to be revealed. Two, I promise this isn’t just bad writing on my part. Just trust that I needed to put this all in this early on.

And how is everyone doing after the season 2 announcement? I mean, at the time of writing this specific part of my notes, it only got announced about an hour ago lmao. I’m very fucking excited, oh my god. It’s all I’ve been able to think about since I found out I can’t lie. Catch me trying to finish this before it comes out in case things occur which means I have to change things in this story. I can’t be arsed for that. Oh well. Hopefully it’ll read like those Sherlock fics that people wrote in between series 2 and series 3 if that doesn’t happen.

Taglist: @briarrose26​

Ask or comment to be on my taglist! Let me know if it’s for a specific fandom(s) or series. Full list is in my bio.

Hermit (upright) + Five of Wands (upright)

Conflict. Reflection. Resurfacing memories.

************

Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other.

We know who our enemies are. We know.

– Richard Siken (Detail of the Fire)

************

“Fuck.”

The angel and demon exchanged glances of what could only be described as thinly veiled panic, while the woman in front of them just looked annoyed at the most.

“They couldn’t wait five minutes, could they?” she muttered, pinching at the bridge of her nose in frustration before standing up again, “Look, just stay down here, I’m gonna go sort this out. With any luck they won’t have actually realised you’re here too.”

“Wait, how do you know they’re here for you?” Crowley asked, suddenly curious as to what business Eloise might have with Heaven.

“Just a gut feeling,” she said before making her way to the spiral staircase behind them, muttering to herself, “If they were here for you, I feel like they would have at least used the front door.”

The other two waited until she’d run upstairs before exchanging a quick glance, an unspoken word, and following her up.

Meanwhile, Eloise was hovering outside a room at the end of the corridor which she could only assume was the bedroom. She was strangely hesitant, not out of fear of them, simply out of fear of the unknown. She hadn’t spoken to anyone in that room for millennia, and something told her that this wasn’t going to be a friendly chat. She took a deep breath, even though she technically didn’t need it, letting a wave of faux confidence wash over her, and stepped inside. Don’t crumble now. You’ve come too far to crumble now.

“Ah, Mariel, long time no see,” Gabriel smiled coldly, brushing the dust off his white suit. Flanked by two other angels, he stood in the wreckage of the bedroom without even acknowledging the damage they must have caused when they crashed in. Beside him were Beelzebub and Hastur, who both looked as though they had been dragged kicking and screaming to come here. Beelzebub in particular kept shooting metaphorical daggers at Gabriel, who remained perfectly oblivious. The entire ceiling had caved in from the impact of their crash, the setting sun painting the doorway where Eloise stood in a pale gold and casting a dark shadow over the others.

She’d grimaced at the use of her old name; it was too unfamiliar, too ancient. Mariel was the name of a long-dead version of herself. Once upon a time, she’d embraced it, but that was once upon a time. Once upon a time long gone.

“Almost like I’ve been avoiding you on purpose,” she muttered, leaning against the doorway as she stared intrusively at each person in the room, observing, assessing. She silently revelled in the blatant discomfort in each of their faces.

“No need to be so rude,” Gabriel said, doing anything to avoid her eyes, his previous confident façade now shattered.

Eloise stared at him in disbelief, “What exactly were you expecting? A fucking welcome party? I haven’t seen any of you in over six thousand years and you just crash through the roof of my house, unannounced and uninvited, so yeah, forgive me for being a little irritated.” She couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty. She’d barely been in Aziraphale’s bookshop for fifteen minutes and she was already pretending she owned it.

She watched smugly as he squirmed under her gaze, desperately looking to the others to say something in response. A moment or two passed before Beelzebub’s head suddenly snapped up in confusion, “Are you alone?”

Shit. She’d hoped that they wouldn’t have noticed the presence of the two who were definitely not downstairs like she’d asked. She swallowed, trying not to let any kind of emotion show on her face, trying not to give the game up that quickly, “Yeah, I live on my own.” She watched the whole group of them squint in concentration, trying to sense any other beings in the house. She sighed, changing the subject before they could comment on it any further, “Look, what do you want? I don’t have all day so if you could make it quick then that would be much appreciated.”

Gabriel looked back at her, his suave exterior unfortunately making a return, “Hey, we just wanted to check up on you, see how you’re doing-”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” she snapped. She pushed herself off from the doorway, stalking towards the others, “You have had six thousand years to ‘check up on me’, don’t pretend you’ve only started to care now.”

She was met with only silence as Gabriel and Beelzebub glanced at each other awkwardly, looking very much like chastised children. Suddenly the latter groaned and cried, “You can’t just leave Hell!”

“Oh, here we go,” Eloise muttered, rolling her eyes, bored already.

“You can’t! You Fell from Heaven, so you go to Hell, there isn’t a third option!”

“Well, apparently there is,” she shrugged.

“No there isn’t!” they argued, face screwed up like a petulant child.

“Then what do you call this then?” she asked, unfolding her wings for the second time that day. She studied their reactions closely, scrutinising coal-black eyes piercing through their very souls. She was searching for any hint of shock, of recognition, of anything that could clue her in as to what was going on in their heads at that moment. All she could find, however, was pure, unadulterated confusion. Which was annoying when her wings were supposed to be an answer to their unasked questions.

Gabriel stumbled over his words, “Good Lord, how did you even-”

Eloise cut him off curtly, no longer having the patience to listen to his incoherent mumbles. She instead turned to Beelzebub who at least had the decency to look a little more composed, “That would be what you could sense then. I’ve got both Heaven and Hell in me, that’s a lot of energy to pick up on.” She stared right through them, daring them to say anything else.

“Must be,” they replied slowly, though they didn’t look at all convinced.

Gabriel held up a hand, his eyes darting about as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing, “No hold on, how did you even manage that?”

“I left Hell,” Eloise said simply, “Why should I have black wings? I’m not some demon who ran away from everything. I left. Permanently. I looked Hell in the eye and walked away. You know what? Fuck it, I looked Satan in the eyes and walked away.”

“You what?” he stuttered.

“Yeah, you heard me. You have a problem with me leaving Hell then go on! Take that up with the bloody devil,” she said, staring them down, daring them to retaliate. She smirked when she was met with pure, uncomfortable silence, “Except you won’t, will you? Because you don’t actually give two fucks about me. Just like I said, if you did then you would have chased me up a long time ago. Quite frankly, I think you must have been glad to have me out of your hair,” she sighed, half sad, half amused when they couldn’t even meet her eye. She paused for a moment, wondering how far she could push this, before asking, “You know what I think is really going on here? I think the pair of you are feeling a bit bruised after the absolute shitshow that was Armageddon last year, which, by the way, fucking hilarious. I think your egos are feeling a little sore after a literal child stopped you from ending the world, so you’re thinking ‘hmm, what would be an easy win so that we don’t feel like total shit? Oh yeah, what about that demon who ran away all that time ago? That should be easy to sort out.’. Well, love to disappoint, but you’re not getting me that easily, especially when not a single one of us actually wants me back, and Sandalphon, take one more step further I swear I will dropkick you back to Heaven,” she snapped, glaring at the angel who had been menacingly inching closer while she had been talking. He reluctantly stepped back alongside Gabriel, looking a little more than miffed that his plan hadn’t worked out. “You really want me back? Get your bosses to talk to me because I don’t actually see why it’s any of your business. No middle men. Just God, Satan and me. I’ll see what they have to say about all this. Questions?” she asked, tone snapping from one extreme to another, almost as if she had just been possessed.

Gabriel stared at her, mouth gaping like a fish, “You can’t just boss us around like that.”

“What? Like how you bossed us around all those years?” she replied without missing a beat, real rage, real danger seeping into her voice now, “I think we’re done here.”

“But-”

“I said, I think we’re done here,” she said, leaving no room for arguments. She gestured to the sorry excuse for a room around them, “Now, if you wouldn’t mind cleaning this up.”

“Why can’t you do it? You can miracle things too,” Gabriel said, desperate for any kind of leverage over Eloise.

“You’re right, I could, but I didn’t make this mess, and I personally believe that you should face the consequences of your actions, Gabriel,” she said pointedly, watching as he visibly gulped. In a matter of seconds, the room was restored to its original state and Eloise was left alone in the room, no indicators that she was ever with any other people remaining.

She sighed and all but collapsed into a chair that may or may not have existed a few moments ago, confident façade shattered completely. She breathed heavily in exhaustion, as if she’d just run a marathon; she supposed she had just run a mental one. Her emotions were bugging her to no end. It was strange. She wasn’t scared, per se. There was very little that Gabriel or Beelzebub could do to her that would frighten her anymore. She tried her best to compose herself, writing off the tsunami inside her mind as just plain old adrenaline, before calling out, “You can come in now. I know you guys are outside, it’s okay, you can come in.”

Crowley and Aziraphale walked into the room, one looking considerably more sheepish than the other. Aziraphale perched awkwardly on the freshly reconstructed bed, “We’re sorry–”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, we’re not.”

Eloise and Crowley exchanged a glance, amused looks on both of their faces while Aziraphale simply looked distressed. Eloise turned back to him and smiled sympathetically, “I told you, it’s fine. I would have done the same,” she admitted, looking away before collecting herself once again, “So, I’m guessing you have a lot of questions–”

“That’s the understatement of the century,” Crowley muttered as he took a seat beside Aziraphale, although it was a very loose definition of ‘taking a seat’.

Aziraphale glared at him while Eloise just sighed and reluctantly said, “I think it might be better if I just show you.”

Crowley cocked his head in confusion, “Show us what?”

She brought her chair closer to the edge of the bed and put out her hands, “Take my hands. Brace yourselves.”

Mariel was standing before a crowd of angels, dozens upon dozens of disgusted faces staring right at her. She couldn’t quite remember getting there. She had been in the pitch-dark holding cell and the next thing she knew, she was here. Blinding white light surrounded them, harshly illuminating her vulnerabilities before all of Heaven. She tried her best to keep her chin up even though she absolutely hated the fact that they could see the bruises from when she had been arrested that were now blooming on her face. She frowned as she noticed the lack of measures preventing her from escaping. All that was keeping her there was Gabriel’s presence at her side, cold violet eyes pointedly ignoring her. He really was an arrogant bastard for assuming that she wouldn’t even try to make a run for it. Just because he was right this one time, it didn’t mean that he shouldn’t have come prepared. Mariel sighed and looked up at the angels staring down at her. Michael was sat higher than everyone in the centre of the crowd, face void of all emotion as she said, “The Principality Mariel. You’re on trial today for betraying the will of the Almighty, rebelling against all that is good and light in the universe...”

Mariel blocked the rest of her pretentious speech out as she droned on about all the awful things she’d supposedly done to deserve this. It was all lies anyway. She knew the real reason she was here. There were a few things that stood out to her despite it all, things that nearly made her laugh. She’d known that they’d needed to conjure up some reasons for condemning her, but this was just ridiculous. Gabriel really had gone to extraordinary yet desperate lengths to slander her in her final moments in this Someone-forsaken place. She was surprised that the angels gathered to watch her downfall believed a word of this. She tried her best not to resent them, though. It wasn’t like they had anything better to believe in. Especially considering the amused smirk that had crept its way onto her face.

She returns to reality just in time to hear Michael ask, “What do you have to say to defend yourself?”

“I’ve done nothing I need to defend,” she said firmly, leaving no room for argument.

“Don’t make this worse for yourself than it already is,” Gabriel muttered dangerously from where he stood beside her.

Mariel turned to look at him in disbelief. “How the fuck could this get any worse, Gabriel?” she hissed, fury flaring up in her eyes.

He just looked back at her condescendingly, “Do you really need me to answer that?”

She pointedly refused to reply, turning back to face Michael, determined to ignore him.

The next part goes past in a blur for Mariel. Michael speaks again, though she doesn’t listen. Then suddenly there are shouts of anger, screams of rage, coming from the gathered crowd. They spit with venom as they hurl insults at her. She doesn’t hear a word. It’s as though her head is under water, completely submerged in the stone cold anger that seeps through her body, and suddenly Mariel is drowning in the realisation that this is really happening, oh God this is really happening.

Why? Why is this happening to me? You listening, God? Look me in the eye and tell me why this is happening.

She doesn’t get an answer, and though she wasn’t expecting one, it still hurts. Because she knows that she’ll never get an answer from Her again now.

Eventually she feels a tug on her arm from where Gabriel has been standing, dragging her away from the crowd and out her of current state of mind. She could feel her senses coming back to her as she stumbled backwards, but everything was crashing down on her too quickly, too harshly. She did her best to shove the rising panic as deep down insider her as she could. There was no way she would let anyone here see her in that state. She couldn’t let them think they’d won.

She didn’t even realise she had reached the edge of the ground she was standing on, the edge of Heaven itself, Gabriel no longer grabbing her arm. She nearly found herself peering over the edge, but stopped herself before she could lean too far. It may have helped her in the past but now was not the time to give in to her curiosity. And she didn’t trust Gabriel to not push her the moment he had the chance. She turned her head to glare fiercely at him, piercing holes in his very soul. She could slowly feel her anxiety being replaced by cool rage as she found herself saying, “Any institution that tries to silence anyone who opposes them is inherently corrupt.” She stared knowingly at his discomfort as he forced himself to face her. He knew what she meant by that. He knew.

He took a second to compose himself before practically scoffing in her face, “Don’t preach at me.”

Mariel cocked her head as she studied him. She watched as his eyes subconsciously flicked back to the crowd, to the other Archangels. He blatantly wanted nothing more than to re-join his fellow angels, the only beings who understood why he was doing what he was doing, or were at least supposed to understand anyway. Somehow she doubted they were all as cold-hearted and self-absorbed as the angel in front of her. She considered him for a moment before saying simply, “Your quest for power will kill you in the end.”

He furrowed his brows in somewhat amused confusion, “Is that a threat?”

“No. It’s the truth,” she blinked at him before leaning in and murmuring in his ear, “It will be your downfall.”

“The only one who’s going to Fall around here is you,” he said dangerously. Mariel leaned back and watched the lethal glimmer in his eye wither and die under the intensity of her gaze.

She just smiled. “We’ll see.” She let herself look at him for a moment longer before blinking away the tears and cautiously taking a small step backwards. She could feel where the ground ended beneath her feet and was sure not to step any further. She took one last look of the place she once called home, embracing how it felt for the last time though she knew she wouldn’t miss it.

She closed her eyes for a moment and fell back.

Mariel was Falling. That bit she knew, but much more than that? Everything was happening too fast for her to notice. And yet, it was as if she was existing in slow-motion. She worried for a moment that this was, in fact, her fate; doomed to remain in a perpetual state of limbo, of Falling, for all eternity. The only thing telling her otherwise was the view of Heaven above her, which she realised only too late was slowly shrinking into nothing. Mariel found herself reaching her own arms out, grasping for Heaven. They were opposite ends of a magnet being roughly pulled away from each other by an invisible force.

You hear that God? Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this? And don’t you dare tell me it’s all part of your plan because right now, the only thing I want is to be back where I should be and I can’t even have that.

She pulled herself out of her mind and back into reality; she’d have plenty of time in Hell to yell at a God who’d never listen, let alone answer. She only just started to register her surroundings, the fact that she was actually Falling, who knows how far and for how long, tumbling through the air at an unimaginable speed, plummeting towards a place that could be anything from seconds to hours away. The deafening wind that screamed in her ears, drowning out the screams which may have been coming from her mouth or her mind, who was she to say? Air whipped around her body, icier and more painful than any words that could ever be uttered by the angels above her. It wasn’t until she could no longer see any hint of Heaven on the horizon that she started to feel the tears finally fall, trickling down her face and floating slightly due to the force of the Fall.

Then suddenly it came. She felt it in the very tips of her wings first, a strange tingling sensation, as though hundreds and then thousands of pins were skirting the edges of her corporeal being. It spread over the rest of her wings, and then her body, at a faster pace than she could keep track of until her whole being felt as though it was burning. The pain grew, and it grew, and it grew, and she didn’t think she could physically take any more pain when she looked up in horror at her own freshly blackened wings. Her beautiful, holy wings which had once been the softest, purest white, were now stained with evil and ash. For the first time since she started Falling, however long ago that might have been, she let out a choked sob that racked through her whole body and through the ever-changing air around her. Nobody heard her cries. Nobody heard her screams as the searing pain in her chest grew stronger. She couldn’t even begin to work out whether it was physical or emotional but it was there and it burned a hole, a gaping wound, through her soul, leaving a scar fated to never heal and to forever haunt her-

Eloise was crying. She’d tried so hard to prevent the steady streams that were now running down her cheeks, but that was a memory that she’d never wanted to relive. She looked upwards for a moment, trying to regain control of her emotions and her breathing, before peeling her hands away from the two sat in front of her. She roughly wiped the tears from her face, and suddenly the only thing telling you she had been crying were the bloodshot eyes that Crowley tried to ignore as he said bluntly, “I’m still confused.”

“Crowley, give her a minute,” Aziraphale chastised him, furrowing his brows at the demon before he turned back to Eloise with kind eyes and a kinder heart, “Are you alright, my dear?”

She nodded without much hesitation, “I’m fine, it’s okay.” She certainly wasn’t fine, nor was it okay, but the last thing she wanted was to have to deal with her feelings in front of two people she was trying her best not to scare off. She looked back at Crowley, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

He looked at her in understanding, for if anyone knew her thought process in that moment, it was him. “Right, so you Fell and became a demon. Then what?”

“Well, you know what Hell’s like,” she started, looking pointedly at Crowley. She waited for him to nod before continuing, “Not my scene at all. I just point-blank refused to do anything they asked of me. Naturally they didn’t like that much. Eventually I was called in to see Satan about it. I remember thinking, ‘well, that’s that then. Terrible knowing you all.’, because I didn’t think I was going to survive that. Turns out he was just annoyed that I was being a bloody nuisance to everyone else, but he was too amused to really do anything about it, so he basically just told me to piss off. Leave Hell, don’t come back, and I won’t tell anyone where you’ve gone or that you’re even alive. Not exactly a deal I could refuse, so I left, came to Earth, been here ever since. I think everyone just assumed he’d killed me,” she shrugged as if she hadn’t just destroyed the whole idea of eternal damnation with just a few sentences. She smiled to herself as they gaped at her for a moment, though she doubted they realised they were doing it.

Crowley somehow managed to gather his senses quick enough to hold up a hand and say, “Wait, but when you were talking to Gabriel and Beelzebub and that lot, you said they had six thousand years to check up on you. Why would you say that if they thought you were dead?” He narrowed his eyes at her. He wasn’t altogether quite sure why he seemed to be so keen on finding any gaps in her story, but he needed to be able to trust that she was telling the truth. Or at least that’s what he told himself.

Aziraphale’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Yes, and they didn’t exactly seem surprised to see you alive.”

Eloise grinned. You two are gonna be fun, I can tell. “You’re both very observant, I have to give you credit for that.” She paused in thought for a second before starting carefully, “You see, the trouble with me is that I’m not really one for keeping a low profile. I’m too noisy, so to speak, and I don’t even realise it most of the time. This demon I hadn’t exactly been the nicest to back in Hell saw me in Babylon, gosh, it must have been eighteen thirty something BC? Anyways, he ratted me out to Beelzebub who must have told Gabriel all about it. I had about a decade of this bloody demon trying to discorporate me just to see if it would force me to go back to Hell, then one day he just stopped, and I never saw him again. Beelzebub probably told him to piss off.”

They were both quiet again for a little while. Eloise didn’t even think to say anything. It might be a rare occasion, but she did know when to keep her mouth shut when it mattered. She could see the cogs turning in their heads as if it was projected in the air above them. Eventually Crowley murmured, “I didn’t even know you could do that, you know, leave.”

She shook her head with a strange kind of sympathy that came from recognising an experience you had far too long ago, “Neither did I. It stills shocks me sometimes if I think about it too much.”

A few seconds passed before Crowley cleared his throat abruptly and said, “They called you Mariel. I thought you said your name was Eloise.”

She hesitated before answering. She knew exactly what he was doing, she’d been doing it for the whole of their conversation thus far, but just because she tended to bury her emotions, it didn’t mean that she liked it when others did it. She decided to ignore the hypocrisy of that thought, how ironic, she thought to herself, and instead explained, “It is. Mariel was my angel name. You know how it is,” she looked pointedly at Crowley again, hoping that Aziraphale would be able to put the pieces together. She didn’t actually know how much he knew about what it was like to Fall and become a demon.

“Oh, so is Eloise your demon name?” Aziraphale asked politely.

“No,” she said curtly, instantly feeling guilty when she saw the hurt that flashed over Aziraphale’s face. She grimaced and explained in a gentler tone, “I chose it for myself when I came to Earth. Hell tried to change my name after I Fell but I just refused.” She studied him for a second, watching his eyes dart about, before saying, “You want to ask something, I can tell. What is it?”

He looked a little startled at being caught out, momentarily glancing at Crowley for support, probably subconsciously, Eloise noted with a smile. “I, well, I couldn’t help but notice that you mentioned Armageddon. Back when you were speaking with, um, well, you know. H-how did you know about that?”

“I might have been there.” The words rushed out of her mouth in a much less casual manner than what she’d been aiming for, coming out in a sort of jumbled heap that took Crowley and Aziraphale a moment to decipher.

Crowley, the poor sod, could only think to lean forward and ask a simple, “You what?”

She jumped to defend herself, wanting to avoid the onslaught of questions if she could, “Not actually at the airbase, but I was in the area. I was living in Tadfield at the time.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes, although the hint of a smirk on his face told her it was more in amusement than suspicion, “How did you know it was at the airbase?”

Eloise couldn’t help but chuckle to herself because of course, they’d notice her choice of words, “I knew Adam and his mates. I ran an ice cream shop, would you believe it. He came and told me all about it the day after,” she smiled fondly before suddenly coming alive with excitement, “That’s actually how I found out about you two. That’s why I’m here. Because I thought I was the only one trying to stop the world ending, but apparently I wasn’t. I had to see for myself.”

A moment passed before Aziraphale asked quietly, “You were trying to stop it?”

Eloise, not noticing the newly subdued atmosphere, launched herself into a painfully over-enthusiastic explanation, “Yeah, it was quite clever really, if I do say so myself. I made sure Adam was swapped with the American baby in the hopes that he would have a human enough upbringing to perhaps change things. Seems to have worked,” she shrugged, before finally taking in the two shocked faces that were staring back at her. Her brows furrowed and her face fell as she asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You switched the babies?” Crowley asked blankly, although it came out as more of a statement than a question.

Her face screwed up as she tried to work out how best to explain herself. “Well, I say switched, it was more of a ‘made sure the demon dropping the antichrist off went to the wrong delivery room’ kind of thing. Feel sorry for the poor sod who had to deal with that but needs must.”

Crowley blinked at her and said bluntly, “I was the poor sod who had to deal with that.”

Eloise looked at him for a moment as about five different jigsaw pieces finally clicked in her head, before she threw her head back in realisation, “Oh shit, so you were. I knew your name sounded familiar.”

“You bastard, we spent six years raising the wrong child because of you!” he exclaimed, wagging his finger at her and jumping off of the bed at one point before Aziraphale tugged him back down. Eloise didn’t know whether to laugh or run for her life, for the menace in his words was betrayed by the disbelieving laugh in his voice.

“I’m sorry, you did what now?” she asked, only just processing what he’d just said, and she couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her lips at his dramatic antics. She knew not to push it when Aziraphale just lifted a finger and pursed his lips with the look of someone who’d rather never bring up said event again.

“Oh bloody heaven, I can’t believe this,” Crowley shook his head, chuckling to himself. Although part of him resented it, he couldn’t help but look at Eloise differently now as they laughed like little kids together. Maybe it was the fact that she seemed so much more like them now, so much more human. Or maybe it was the fact that she had been trying to stop the apocalypse and all the implications that came with the fact. Suddenly he just wanted to know more about her, but he quickly silenced that thought. One thing at a time.

She raised her shoulders with a confused look on her face, giggling as she said, “Sorry? Well, I didn’t know, did I?”

They locked eyes for a moment before bursting into laughter again at the sheer absurdity of it all, leaving Aziraphale slightly bewildered and more than slightly exasperated at the pair. It took them a few moments to finally calm down but once they did, Crowley sobered his tone of voice as he asked, “Right, back to what happened before we came in. Anything we need to keep an eye out for?”

Though he didn’t say it, Eloise could see the unasked question in his eyes. Are we safe? She smiled softly, “Nah, you two’ll be fine. Basically I told them if they want to talk to me, then they need to get their bosses involved, and somehow I highly doubt God and Satan are gonna pop down for a friendly chat any time soon. Even then, you two should be fine. I don’t think any of that lot clocked on that you were here.”

Crowley nodded in understanding, and it didn’t escape Eloise’s attention how the remaining dregs of tension visibly dissipated from both of their bodies. Aziraphale and Crowley looked at each other for a moment, the relief palpable from the pair of them. Eloise averted her eyes, giving them the privacy that they didn’t necessarily need but probably did want. She allowed herself a moment to ponder their relationship. They were very in tune with each other, very in sync, that much was obvious. Are they in love? The question sounded ridiculous the moment she thought it. Of course they are, look at them. She’d seen that look time and time again over the millennia. Although when she thought about the way they looked at each other further, that lead to another question. Do they know? The hint of yearning in their eyes was subtle but it was there. No, absolutely not. They’re too comfortable with each other. They’re a unit, that much she could tell. A unit that might not want to be disturbed.

Oh dear.

She looked back up at them hesitantly, unsure of what to say for the first time that evening. Eventually she said, “I’d better go. I think I’ve outstayed my welcome.”

Crowley frowned. Hadn’t she said she’d been travelling for a while? “You got somewhere to stay?”

Eloise paused. She’d definitely not been expecting that response. “Not yet. There is a flat I was going to rent but the people haven’t moved out yet because of the lockdown and it seems rude to miracle them away. I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“Stay here,” Crowley said almost instantly, then pulled a face of confusion at how quickly he replied, “I mean, only if you want to.”

Eloise blinked at that. Surely, they wouldn’t want her there? What reason could they possibly have to want her there? “Wait, are you sure? I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Crowley just shrugged, “It’s not a problem. What are your options anyway? No hotels are open, and you can’t stay with anyone.”

“Only if you’re sure,” she murmured, still wary for a reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She glanced at Aziraphale for confirmation; it was his bookshop after all.

He nodded firmly, “Of course. I’ve been told the sofa is remarkably comfy,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, to which she grinned broadly.

A short while and a few miracles later, the sofa downstairs had become a makeshift bed that was significantly larger and softer than it had remembered it being. Eloise was currently settled on it; all it had taken was ten minutes for her to completely crash out. Aziraphale and Crowley had left her in peace with a chuckle, heading up to the bedroom they shared (that wasn’t out of choice, mind you. Simply because there was only one bedroom in the bookshop. No other reason.) One slightly confused item of furniture aside, all seemed to be well in the bookshop.

Upstairs in the bedroom, an angel and a demon were sitting in the same bed. Neither of them had thought to turn off the lights, so they were sat in thick silence in the bedroom. Aziraphale didn’t usually come up to bed, not as used to sleeping as Crowley was, instead opting to read the night away downstairs. However this seemed impolite considering their new guest, so he’d come up with Crowley. And while Crowley was mulling this over he finally stumbled upon why he felt so uneasy.

Aziraphale hadn’t brought a book up with him.

As bizarre a concern as that may seem, Crowley could always trust Aziraphale to bring a book up to bed with him on the rare occasion he came up at night. That was one of the things he lo- liked about him. Liked. He looked at Aziraphale curiously, noting the slight frown on his face as he stared into space. How deep in his head must he have been to forget a book? “You alright, angel?” he asked as softly as he could so as to not startle him.

He looked at Crowley with wide eyes that darted away almost instantly as he started to play with his hands in his lap, “Yes, my dear, I’m fine. I just realised something, is all.”

Crowley cocked his head in interest, “Oh really? What was it?”

He was silent for a little while before saying in a voice no louder than a whisper, “I think I was there when she Fell.”

Crowley felt his eyebrows raise in shock, looking away for a second to try and compose himself. “Right. Well, that’s a thing.”

“Quite.”

He furrowed his brows as he tried to make sense of what this meant now, “And was she telling the truth? Did all that actually happen?”

“Yes. I remember it perfectly well. Clear as day,” he managed to choke out with a forced smile before going back to his routine fidgeting.

Crowley laid a gentle hand on top of Aziraphale’s, stopping what he was doing and getting him to actually look him in the eye for longer than a second. “You sure you’re alright?”

“I am quite well. Don’t fret,” he said, and despite Crowley’s concern, he couldn’t pretend that the smile on Aziraphale’s face wasn’t genuine, however small it may have been.

He reluctantly let it go, changing the subject quickly, “You alright with her staying here? I know it just sort of happened.”

The smile on his face only grew, much to Crowley’s surprise, “It’s alright. After all, wasn’t it you who said we’re on our own side now? I think she’s the first person we’ve met who might understand what that means.”

Crowley tried not to think too much about the fact that Aziraphale had actually listened to him when he’d said that, let alone remembered it, instead opting for a casual, “Yeah, I suppose so. Right, I’m gonna get some sleep. I, um, yeah,” he stammered out awkwardly, cursing his brain for not thinking of literally any other decent response.

Aziraphale simply smiled fondly at him, “Indeed. Goodnight, my dear.”

*************

Hello my love,

At the time of writing this, I do not know what the future holds. For me it’s an uncertain, unstoppable force, and it’s not one I think I can fend off for much longer. I’ve tried, please believe that I’ve tried. I’ve tried for your sake to prevent the inevitable. But it’s coming. I can feel it. It won’t be long now, I don’t think.

If you’re reading this, it means I was right, and I have Fallen. I know you’re probably confused and scared and that there is a biting anger bubbling inside you. I wish I could tell you why this is happening. I wish I could tell you that this is all a huge misunderstanding that will be resolved soon.

I wish I could tell you I love you one more time.

But I can’t. There are many things I can’t do now, and it’ll do me no good to dwell on this any longer than I have to. To survive we must focus on what we can do, and that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.

If I know myself as well as I think I do, there are many things I would have liked to have said to you upon our final farewell, but didn’t because I wanted to make sure you were alright. Don’t feel guilty about this, my love. Think of it as my last debt to you being repaid.

I have a plan. Well, it’s more of an idea, and it might not work. And it’s because of this that I shan’t tell you exactly what it is. It seems cruel to allow you to hope for something that might never come into fruition. But please put your faith in me, and in our love, for we will prevail. One way or another.

I hope that you didn’t wait to read this letter because you were scared of its contents, though I’m sure this isn’t the case. You were always brave. It was always something I loved about you. Your quiet, beautiful, roaring courage in the face of such turmoil and anguish. You always had the courage to be kind and to love with all your being, even when everything was against you. No one would have blamed you if you had turned cold and bitter, and yet you chose not to. I admire you for it every day. My idea, should it work, will require us both to be incredibly brave. But more on that another day. It’s that bravery and that strength that you will need to rely on now. That, and the thought of me. Though I may not physically be with you, but I hope that my love’s own soul is enough.

I won’t sign off this letter, because this is not where our story ends. There is much left to be written. And I need you to remember that each day we are parted. Until the next time, my love.

[wherevermyway]

beside you in time // seungbin // horror // 16+

❄ part of yuki’s favourites! ❄

⚠ POTENTIAL TW: READ WITH CAUTION! ⚠ pairing: seo changbin x kim seungmin rating: mature! 16+ warnings/tags: major character death, mental instability, paranoia, insomnia, suicide, character study.  word count: 2,148 also on AO3

originally posted: 17 february 2021

"Come back to me."

Things always got bad from hours twenty-four to thirty-six. From thirty-six to forty-eight, however, was more akin to running a chainsaw through an industrial-sized tin of diced tomatoes.

There was always one person that kept Changbin grounded, however.

"Come back to me, Changbin."

And that person was Seungmin. Seungmin was always there to guide him back to some semblance of normalcy.

disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are  interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do  not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of  the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable,  please stop reading now.

“Come back to me.

I just want you to come back to me. Not this shell of you, but the whole you.

The entirety of you. The old you.

Come back, Cha—”

31 October 2005 Monday

—

It was Monday. Monday at midnight. Changbin stared at the bright red of his alarm clock, staring the 00:00 directly in between the empty spaces of the square zeroes.

It was the staring contest he had every night.

Right on schedule, he lifted himself out of bed, sliding his feet against the cold wood of his bedroom floor, careful to not make any noise so that he didn’t disturb his boyfriend. Quietly, he slipped his way around the floor, out of the open doorway and into the kitchen. He flipped the switch on the wall, the halogen lamp flickering four times exactly before its sickeningly bluish rays illuminated the off-white kitchen walls and the grey cabinets.

Changbin took a step forward: the sink on his left-hand side, the stove on his right-hand side. He stared at the white wall in front of him, his expression empty as he stared at twenty-nine red Xs marked through each day prior. His left hand reached out to the drawer, not breaking his gaze from the calendar as he rummaged through until he recognized the way the red permanent marker felt in his hand. He continued to eye Sunday, as if it was prey, and his permanent marker was the hunter.

He licked his lip, biting it as he removed the cap from the marker, taking a few steps forward until he was face-to-face with his archnemesis: the constant reminder that time was limited, that he couldn’t even fucking remember what day it was without the stupid fucking calendar staring at him in the face.

Two diagonal lines from end-to-end of the damned square.

The 30th of October could join the twenty-nine days prior in hell.

Changbin paced around the living room, his footprints brushing over the rug in the middle of the room, leaving worn treads in its fabric. This was his routine as he waited for Seungmin to come home. He wasn’t able to focus on anything for too long before—

Time, time, time.

“Would you fucking shut up? I just told you to leave me alone.”

Before the voices came back.

Changbin knew he sounded unstable as he shouted to himself in the empty living room. He couldn’t stop it, though. The words always left his lips before he could stop himself from saying them.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Things always got bad from hours twenty-four to thirty-six. From thirty-six to forty-eight, however, was more akin to running a chainsaw through an industrial-sized tin of diced tomatoes.

“Just stop, just fucking stop.”

He knew eyes were watching him, he could feel the stares boring into the back of his skull, eyes running all over him. Changbin gripped at the tops of his shoulders, repeating to himself that he wouldn’t turn around — he couldn’t turn around.

“Go away,” he whispered into the crooks of his elbows as he embraced himself, “go away, just go away.”

Why are you here? Fade away, Changbin.

The creaking of the floorboards startled him, unsure if it was his mind lying to himself, creating something that wasn’t there.

Tick—

“Changbin.”

But there was someone there. The energy that came from the words was different, warmer than the way the other voices that circled his mind. The voices floating in his head were never so—

“Come back to me, Changbin.”

There he was, right in front of his face. Seungmin was tangible, unlike the hallucinations in his head. Changbin hadn’t slept in days, yet Seungmin somehow looked far more fatigued than him.

“I’m so sorry, Seungmin, I just—”

“I know,” Seungmin sighed, gently dancing his fingertips against Changbin’s clammy skin. He was gentle as he pulled the shaking man into his arms, and even gentler as they sank to the ground together. “We need to get you back on your medication. Get you back to who you used to be before everything got bad again.”

“No,” Changbin shook his head against the younger man’s chest, “you know what happened the last time they put me on those fucking pills. I can’t lose myself again.”

Seungmin gently stroked the top of Changbin’s head, shushing him and rubbing small circles in between his shoulder blades. “Okay, okay,” he relented, his voice quiet and calm. “We can talk about it more later. Does that sound okay?”

Changbin nodded once, grabbing at Seungmin’s woollen sweater, hiding his face away from the world. “I just don’t want you to leave me because I’m losing it.”

A quiet chuckle came from Seungmin before he pressed a quick kiss to the top of Changbin’s head. “I’m never gonna leave you, baby. I love you. I’ll be here with you until the end of time.”

“You promise?”

“Always.”

14 November 2005 Monday

—

Until the end of time. Always.

Seungmin’s voice was soft as it echoed in Changbin’s head, pulling him from the darkness.

It was Monday. Monday at… nine in the morning?

Time, time, time.

Changbin rubbed his eyes, starting to hyperventilate as he stared at the clock. He turned to the side of his bed, expecting to see Seungmin there, but there was nothing but wrinkled sheets in his place.

“Work,” he muttered to himself. Seungmin had to be at work. It was Monday, which meant that Seungmin was back in the clinic. His breathing calmed down as he mentally prepared himself for another day. He would get through the next few hours until Seungmin got home.

Changbin haphazardly made his way to his feet, his footsteps padding against the cold wooden floor. His footsteps were so loud, echoing against the empty walls of his apartment. He flipped the light switch at the entrance of the kitchen, letting the halogen lamp flicker four times before it steadied itself.

No.

Changbin’s eyes went wide as he stared at the calendar, red Xs missing from the days prior. He stared over the entire month of November before he ripped the calendar off of the wall, rapidly flipping through every page of every month, trying to check for the marks through his days.

Nothing.

From January to November, there were no marks, not a single mark through any of the days he had lived through.

Tick, tock.

Changbin dropped the calendar, letting it collide against the floor as he ran to the landline they kept in the living room. Seungmin would reassure him that, yes, the marks were on each day, that this was just his brain playing tricks on him yet again.

His fingers trembled as he entered seven digits into the phone, the number of Seungmin’s clinic the only thing he could keep memorised after all of these years. Changbin called him at least twice a day whenever Seungmin was at work, often many times more.

The number you have dialed is no longer in service.

“What?”

Changbin shook his head, staring down at the phone as a dial tone filled the air. It was possible he had made a mistake, sure, fumbled with the wrong numbers since his hands were shaking, but—

The number you have dialed is no longer in service.

It had to be a lie.

The number you have dialed is no longer in existence.

The tick you have tocked is—

He threw the phone at the wall, the cheap plastic shattering as it collided against the drywall. Changbin screamed at the top of his lungs, tears falling from his eyes as he tugged desperately at his hair.

Why wasn’t Seungmin’s line working?

He needed Seungmin, but he couldn’t—

“I love you, Seungmin,” his own voice echoed in his ears, the voice trembling and shaking like a small child.

“Seungmin, come back to me.” Changbin blinked once and saw a wrecked car in front of him, blood splattered against broken glass.

He stared at the accident, the car totalled up against a brick wall, another severely damaged car in the distance. The car he was staring at was familiar, the shouting of the voice haunting him as he approached. With his breath hitched in his throat, he stepped closer and closer to the front of the car, each step allowing him to make more and more sense of the wreckage behind the spiderwebbed windshield.

“Come back to me,” the voice pleaded again.

Changbin’s voice. Changbin’s very broken, raw voice.

“Seungmin, please, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see—”

Blood. There was so much blood all over the inside of the car, all over Changbin and all over Seungmin. He stepped backwards, nearly colliding against the asphalt as he recoiled in terror, the memories of that day flooding his head.

Can’t go through this again. Can’t.

Changbin looked down to his hands as he shook in fear, his hands caked in rapidly-drying blood that was turning from crimson to brown. The scent of copper lingered in his nostrils as he shook his head, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Again.

Come back to me, Seungmin.

Let me go, Seung—

Changbin blinked his eyes rapidly until he was back in his apartment, warm arms wrapped around his torso. He stared at the broken plastic littering the floor and simply felt nothing, like the switch to his emotions in his brain had been turned off.

“Come back to me.” Seungmin’s voice was so gentle, so soft in his ear. “It’s time for you to wake up and come back to me, Changbin.”

The switch was ripped off of the wall, there were no emotions to feel anymore.

“Let me go, Seungmin,” he weakly whispered, reaching up to the arms that weren’t there, yet still felt so real.

“Come back to me,” the voice was louder as Changbin lifted himself up off of the floor, haunted by the way that the ghost of Seungmin’s touch lingered on his skin.

He slid his feet against the bare wood floor, unable to register that the smooth texture was cold, only recalling it in memory. Like an empty shell of a human, he drifted into the kitchen, where Seungmin stood in front of the wall, calendar in his hands.

“It’s Monday,” he whispered, pointing at the date. “The thirteenth of November. You wondered why there were no marks, right?”

“Leave me alone, Seungmin,” Changbin’s voice was weak, his voice expressionless as he stared forward.

“It’s time to wake up, Changbin. It’s not 2005.”

Can’t go through this again.

“You know it’s not 2005. You’ve been wading through this year like it didn’t exist.”

Life and death, teetering on the edge of it for a year straight. It was ironic, really, that Changbin only slept on the anniversary of the day that he killed Seungmin.

It was an accident.

“It was an accident. You should have been on your medication again.” Seungmin repeated, as if he could hear Changbin’s thoughts. “But every action has a reaction. You know this. You cost me my fucking life.”

Changbin snatched the calendar from Seungmin’s grasp, ripping each page from the calendar and letting them scatter about the floor. Alone he stood, like some fucked up sculpture in the midst of chaos — the chaos of three hundred and sixty fucking five days staring right back up at him, laughing and taunting and driving him insane.

“Come back to me,” Seungmin took a step forward, grabbing the sides of Changbin’s face and pulling him in to kiss his forehead. “Wake up and come back to me, Cha—”

Changbin reached his right arm out, until his hand wrapped around the handle of his chef’s knife, pulling it from the block.

“Make it all stop,” Seungmin taunted. “Come back to me, be with me forever in time, right where you belong, and it’ll stop.”

A tear rolled down Changbin’s empty face as he stared forward, at the empty wall. Seungmin wasn’t there, but it felt like he was there. “I’m so sorry, Seungmin. I loved you so much, I loved you and I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

A cold hand wrapped around Changbin’s hand, helping him bring the knife to his own throat. “I know you are,” his voice was soft, soothing. “And I still love you. So, make it stop. Your time is running out.”

Time, time, time.

“Tick, tock, Changbin. Make up your mind.”

Sweat started to bead in Changbin’s palm as he whispered endless apologies. Tears streamed down his face, his eyes clamped tightly shut as he quickly undid the flesh of his throat with the knife in his hand.

Come back to me.

There was a thud.

Come back to me, Changbin.

The white wall of the kitchen was stained in splatters.

Come back—

The days of the calendar were finally marked in red.

“Changbin—”

Keys fell to the floor.

[embretheworld]

Cole is pissed off at Wu, but honestly? He should be

Words: 4022 

Takes place after season 13

It had been a day or so since they left the Kingdom of Shintaro and the atmosphere was fun, not a care in the world and everyone's happy since they're going on another adventure, or it's supposed to be if it weren't for what happened. There's an unnormal veil of tension on the Bounty, no one knows why it's there but it just is and no one addresses it either. That's until someone finds the source of where it's coming from, why everyone's walking on eggshells for seemingly no reasons. Jay spots it, but he isn't afraid to point it out.

"You're angry for no reason, that's the problem, Cole! We just got back from a Kingdom most people don't get the chance to go to which you just so happened to save! How the hell are you mad?" Jay snaps at him, he's angry, and rightfully, or at least he thinks he is.

And Cole laughs, he fucking laughs and Jay isn't sure what to think about that. "I have every right to be angry right now Jay, I went to that Kingdom expecting a chance to relax but instead I come out only to know that I was lied to from day one. But of course, my feelings don't matter because we're ninja's we can't go soft, so I guess the fact that I'm angry that I've been lied to really doesn't matter to you, does it, Jay?" His voice is laced with venom, so much venom, and anger that Jay can't form a reply, he didn't mean for this to happen.

And this time, the boy sharply turns towards Lloyd, a fire never seen before in his eyes. "I'm soft, aren't I? Letting my emotions take over my reason of sense is wrong isn't, it Lloyd?" And Lloyd backed up, stretching his hands out in a defensive way shaking his head, Cole was feral at best right now. "Cole, you know that's not what I meant-"

"Bullshit, and you know that Lloyd, we all let you have your time to process your emotions so why can't I have mine? Or is it the fact that I'm not the Green Ninja? Is that the reason why I don't get time to process anything because I'm not the Green Ninja and just some ordinary ninja?!" With that, it starts a back and forth between him and Kai, along with some other ninja's joining in. Zane stands by watching, along with Nya while Lloyd is just shell shocked since the accusation hit him like a slap to the face, Cole wasn't wrong but at the same time he wasn't right either, he just had to ask for help.

Kai and Jay team up and yell at Cole who yells back in response, a fight like this wouldn't be unusual if it weren't for who was fighting it and why they were. It's like a hurricane, it's small at first, building up over time when the temperature is right until a huge storm arises from it, lightning stricks and burns everything in its path leaving disaster in its wake. It destroys anything it can reach until nothing's left in its path but there's a last attempt to survive the wreckage, but of course it's rare that you'll survive it.

"THE SENSEI I LOOKED UP TO LIED TO ME!" With that, the room went eerily quiet. Cole let out a deep, tired sigh, uncurling his fists only to curl them again, shaking like a leaf with anger. "Yeah," He said to no one in particular. "That's what I thought," Turning sharply on his heels he goes to exit but the door to Sensei Wu's room has opened, he's down the hall and now in the room.

"What is going on here?!" Sensei Wu practically yells and the room falls to silence. It's all peaceful for once in the storm since they're all at the end of it, the storm is gone but now that’s all left is the wreckage of it.

Everyone looks at each other, who's gonna say what happened first, they wonder, who's gonna snap back at him and who will defend him. The person who breaks the quietness, that tension, who brings the vicousness of storms raging onto the man is none other than the man who started brewing up the storm himself. Cole turns on his heels and a wave of destruction follows in his path.

"Do you know what it's like Sensei, huh? To have to figure out that your own father and Sensei lied to since day one lied to you about your own mother, and not even be able to process it because you have to save your own friends? And not to mention that the fact you still don't get to process any of it until even on the Bounty because no one will leave you alone about what happened? Yeah, I didn't think so,"

"Cole, your mother, Lilly-" Cole finds out that his mother's name sounds simply wrong coming out of his sensei's mouth now, it's wrong and he hates it, he hates it and someone like him shouldn't be saying her name after what he did.

"Your mother wanted the best for you, your mother wanted to hide things from you, your MOTHER wanted your own Sensei and dad to lie to you thinking that wouldn't mess you up. It's too late for that excuse Sensei- if that's what you even are at this point! Maybe Wu isn't even your real name!" Cole snaps, bitterness and anger building up in his minds. His fists are shaking along with him, he's red face a furious and no one wants to know what's going to happen next.

"Cole this is unacceptable behavior on-" Before Master Wu could finish his sentence Cole cut him off with a scream.

"IT'S UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR THAT I WAS LIED TO BY YOU AND MY OWN FATHER!"

And with that, Cole does a sharp one-eighty and storms off towards he door, loudly slamming it out behind him leaving the room deafeningly quiet. And no one dared to move from their spots but instead starred towards the door with the same expression, shock, and confusion. But Sensei Wu breaks it by letting out an exasperated sigh and shakes his head. "I fear that this is the worst possible outcome that could have happened,"

And Lloyd slowly turned towards Wu, slack-mouthed and all-out surprised. "Sensei Wu?..." The Green Ninja's voice is quiet, faltering, and unsure; Sensei Wu responds by looking towards him. "What just happened?..."

"I fear the worst, I did not mean for this to happen, you can continue with whatever you were previously doing I will deal with this situation myself."

"But Sensei Wu! Was Cole really right, did you really lie to him like that because if he was I-" Sensei holds up a hand that instance shushes him. "I did it because I was told to, not because I wanted to,"

"So, what about Cole? Are we gonna ignore how he walked out and no one's gonna address that or will it just be me? Is no one gonna go after him?" Jay states with a bewildered expression still confused like the rest of them are. "That will not be needed, he needs time to clear his mind or else the reaction will be just the same if not worse,"

"But what if-" But Sensei Wu cuts him off before he can finish his sentence, Jay isn't surprised, he tends to rabble a lot when it comes to the safety of his friends. "He's not going to do that, continue with whatever you were previously doing, I will be in my room if you need me,"

Sensei Wu waves everyone off with a simple command and they continue to do with whatever they were doing before this whole situation started, and no one looks for Cole out of fear of setting him off even more.

-

When Cole enters the main room of the Bounty again no one in the Bounty bothers to approach him, but instead, avoid him. He looks different from what he looked like when he came back, more ruffed up- his hair is messier than usual, his clothes are slightly scuffed up and his knuckles are red- and less angry, but even with the fact he's less angry still deters the ninja. No one wants to talk about it, so no one talks about it and leaves Cole to his own devices. Or at least they were planning to until Lloyd decided not to.

Upon returning from where ever he was in the Bounty the first room he goes to is his room- or the room they all shared- and no one goes into the room for an hour, the first one to go into the room is Lloyd. He looks around the room and spots Cole who sitting on his bed with crossed arm, letting out a huff when he hears the door open. His bed is messy, sheets splayed unruly across the bed, his pillows pushed into corner of the bed; and Lloyd immediately knows that this will be harder than he thinks it will be.

In one swift motion he makes he's way to Cole's bed, sitting down beside the other ninja with a small awkward smile, he was never the best when it came to these kind of things, no one really was.

"Are you doing okay now?" And Lloyd immediately regrets saying that because after an outburst like that? There's no way you can be fine.

"What do you think?" Clipped and short. He's still mad.

"You're still mad, and for good reason, no one deserves to be lied to like that; not even you."

With that Cole goes silent, fists curled in on themselves and Lloyd knows that look of his, devastation and resentment, lips curled into a frown as his eyebrows are knitted together. "I'm gonna hug you, okay? If you don't want a hug just tell me."

So Lloyd pulls him into a hug and the effect is immediate, as a tsunami of emotions crash down onto the other ninja and he hugs him back, tightly. And Cole sobs into Lloyd's shoulder, not the 'I'm just kinda sad kind of sobs', the 'I'm frustrated with everything and I'm so tired of pretending that I'm okay kind of sobs'. As Lloyd holds his friend- no, big brother- in a hug, he notices that Cole is shaking like a leaf, muttering incoherent words under his breath which Lloyd can conclude to being 'sorry'; Lloyd just hugs him even tighter than before.

"It's fine Cole, you didn't do anything wrong," And the Black Ninja just shakes his head and continues to cry. But Lloyd doesn't hold it against him for denying that, he had done that before, he had been in this situation before, he had gone through so many things that he knows that this adventure- that going to that castle and finding out what they found out- was just the straw that broke the camel's back. But Lloyd silently promises Cole that he'll help him through it just like he helped him back then, he promises.

Soon enough, Cole's sob's quiet down until there's nothing left for him to cry, he swiftly pulls away from the hug, turning his body away from Lloyd and looks down at the ground. "'M sorry Lloyd,"

"It's fine Cole, nothing to be sorry about, I'm the Green Ninja, I'm sure I can afford to replace my shirt," Lloyd isn't sure if that's what Cole meant but it gets a laugh out of him and he's happy that he even managed that.

"I'm talking about what I said earlier," A small ache finds it's way in Lloyd's heart, he knows his brother didn't mean it, he knows that but it sill hurts.

"That's fine too, I don't mind," It's a lie, Cole knows that, he knows that damn well and wants to apologize if only Lloyd would let him- "B... But I-"

"Shush, I don't care, you were mad, you said something you regret we've all been there," And Lloyd isn't sure where he got all this knowledge in the first place but he doesn't question in the slightest, it's more helpful than he can ever express it to be.

"I doubt that..."

"Look," And finally Cole looks at him. "I don't care if you need to cry, I've cried in front of you before so there's no reason for me to judge you. You've helped me get through things I needed to get through so I'm going to help you, whether you want to talk about it or not I'll still be there."

"I... Thanks, I'm not good with," He motioned his hands as if to convey his words in thin air. "this, emotions aren't a thing I'm good at."

"Yeah... Emotions are like, really hard to express..." A pregnant pause follows what Lloyd said while the green ninja wracks hims mind around a solution to the problem, a thing he can say to make it all better, but he can't. The pause grows longer but so does the tension, and Cole goes to stand up but is stopped by a hand on his shoulder pulling him back down onto the bed. He gives the black ninja sheepish smile, which Cole returns back, he knows Lloyd is trying and he's glad that he is.

"You like drawing right?" Cole raises an eyebrow at him. "Yeah... And?" He trails off the end part of the word 'and' with a quirked brow.

"Can you teach me how to?" The way he say's it takes him back to when he was learning how to even do spinjitsu and would be so nervous to ask how to learn to do small tedious task out of fear that he might be rejected for it, his school teachers always used to criticize him for asking the simplest of questions like what the directions were again. He considers it for a moment, and for a moment Lloyd thinks he might say no but he doesn't.

With a shrug Cole say's "Sure," and jumps off the bed in which Lloyd follows in suite. No one bats an eye when Cole goes in the storage room to get out some paper's- since he isn't using his sketchbook especially when he's upset, he learned from past experience- and color pencils and goes back to their room. Neither does anyone bat an eyes when there's two new drawings on the fridge but if they did notice they didn't say a word.

-

That night Cole wakes up with his heart beat pounding in his ears and in a cold sweat. A nightmare, it wasn't like it was an infrequent thing for them to have especially after what happened to them in the past. But for him it was a thing he hated, he hated nightmares with the entirety of his being, they always poked something wrong with him and he despised it with the entirety of his being.

He wipes his sodden cheeks and quietly gets up out of bed  pads his way to the bathroom to wash off his face. The cold water splashing on his face makes him shiver if this was a year or so back he'd hate the feeling of water and cold and he'd probably flinch away from it, but he didn't, water was fine now, he wasn't a ghost anymore and it couldn't kill him any longer. Though sometimes he'd still have those dreams they were few and far between now thankfully.

Leaving the bathroom he swiftly and quickly made his way out onto the Bounty and sat on the back of it. Some people would say the silence of the night is eerie, no birds chirping, no sounds of the highway and cars passing by in the late of the night, just pure silence, but Cole would call this a gift after everything he had been through in the past week.

His breath is caught in his throat when he hears the door open behind him, blood running cold he wishes that some of them weren't light sleepers. The wooden floorboards don't creak under whoever's stepping on it like it used to with the old Bounty, it's not like he isn't thankful for it, he just isn't used to it still. Said person finds themselves sitting next to him, long lanky legs hanging over the Bounty's edge and he recognizes that person as Zane; what a surprise that he'd be the one to wake up right after he does.

A once peaceful silence is filled with thick tension, a tension thicker than the heat on a normal summer day and Cole once again hates it. He doesn't want to be tense, he wants to relax but Zane's presence won't allow it. Don't get him wrong, he doesn't hate his friend, he enjoy's his company just like he does with the other but right now he doesn't want to deal with it, and he's pretty sure Zane doesn't catch onto it when he turns his body away from him with folded arms.  

"Cole, are you... Okay? Ever since you came back from that trip of your's you've been unusually quiet," He leans slightly trying to get Cole to look at him but fails, cocking his head to the side with creased brows and crestfallen lips.  "I just... I don't know what to say,"

"That's fine," Zane nods in understanding. "Thanks,"

"...Would it be okay if I sit here and be quiet with you for a while?" Cole smiles, "That sounds nice,"

For once, the silence isn't deafening, for once the quiet is peaceful and welcomed, and for once, once in his life he's happy that it's quiet and not scared. There had been too many instances where the quiet scared him, whether it be in the middle of a battle or at the end of a fight, he was so used to someone cheering or shouting that they won, silence is deafening and it scares him. So used to hearing the sound of Jay playing video games in the background, or Zane cooking and most likely talking with Pixal about something, Kai training, Lloyd training or talking with Nya that he's used to the noise. This time he doesn't want noise, he wants silence and he's thankfully being given it.

"If you don't mind me asking, why are you up this late?" But sadly, Zane cuts through that silence he so desperately wanted to cling to. "I thought we agreed to being quiet?" He bitterly asks, he doesn't mean for it to come off as bitter but it does. He apologizes in his mind.

"Right, my apologizes," Goddamnit don't apologize. "Nah, it's fine Zane I understand,"

"Then if we agreed on not being silent anymore can you tell me why you are up this late?" Good point good point.

"Promise not to judge me or tell anyone else?"

"You have my sincerity," Cole knows that Zane doesn't break his promises but he still hesitates slightly."You know how I had to save the Kingdom of Shintaro?"

"How could I forget? The Geckles and Munce spoke very highly of you along with your mother, when it was all over." And that brings up memories.

The memories of him telling the others he's going to go nap and one Geckle and Munce hearing him saying that and offering a place to stay in their caves, he politely declined them. Or how surprised they were to realize that his mother was gone, and he was her son, and so many other things they wanted to offer him since he was his mother's son. Sure, he loved the attention, he didn't revel in it like Kai but he liked it but he just wanted to go to sleep like right now but he probably wouldn't be able to due to the nightmares he was having.

"Yeah, well they wanted me to stay there too help rebuild their kingdom and solve any future problems too," Which was terrifying for him, he wasn't his mom, he couldn't do that, just like he couldn't rule over the Geckles in Munce at once. He just couldn't stay, he had his friends, they needed him, and he needed them; he also needed some answers. "But you didn't,"

"Yeah, my mom did a lot and I'm not really sure if I can live up to it, after all, she did... A lot,"

"I don't understand?..." Thinking back on it, the only people who know of what happened in that cave are him, Sensei Wu, Vania, and the Upply group. The other's didn't know what he knew, they didn't know what he was lied about, they didn't know about his mother's story. Worst of all they have to be crushed by the fact that they had been lied to by they're own father and sensei, he had to, and he would always be.

"My mom made a mech, crafted two weapons, befriended both the Geckle and Munce, brought down the Griefbringer, found that place before anyone knew it existed and did who knows what else! I probably did half of that. Maybe not even half!" Yes, Zane knows that everyone knows the Geckles and Munce wouldn't shut up about it, and practically raved about her to anyone they could.

"But you're not your mother, you never will be," He knows that, and reminding will only make him feel worse than he already is. "Exactly! Tell me something I don't know!"

"That's not what I meant Cole,"

"Then what did you mean?"

"I meant that no one will ever be able to live up to a legacy, Morro tried that but failed to, no one will ever be able to do the same thing as someone else did since it's impossible to do exactly that." Touche, touche. But that still didn't help his situation, the situation that he'd never live up to his mother's legacy, they legacy he had to uphold that he might never be able to uphold. He probably wouldn't be able to hold a candle to her when it came to what she did. "Is it, really?"

"Unless you wish to go back in time and do those things yourself, then no, it is impossible, but yet again that didn't turn out well for anyone involved in it when it happened."

"You aren't that good with comforting people are you Zane?" The white ninja looks down at his feet and shakes his head, biting the inside of his metal cheek. "No," He answers.

"Comfort is not one of the things I'm particularly good at,"

"Alright," Cole suddenly gets up with a slight bounce in his step and Zane stares at him with his brow's nearing his hairline. "what'd you say I make some hot chocolate you reheat some cookie or something and we watch a movie because right now I just..." He sighs, he doesn't want to talk about his nightmares. "Want to watch some movies to get my mind off of everything that happened,"

Zane simply nods and gets up ignoring the other's ninja hand that was held out, with the roll of his eye's Cole goes to make hot chocolate and Zane goes to make cookies- even though he probably shouldn't. He puts on a random movie and waits for Zane to come and sit on the couch with cookies and they watch to movie, cookies, and hot chocolate to snack on and drink while they watch it.

Cole ends up falling asleep in the middle of the movie and when he wakes up the next morning in his bed even though he can swear he fell asleep one the couch. Did Zane really just-

He shakes his head and doesn't question the logistics of what happened that night and goes to eat breakfast feeling better than he did yesterday, that heavy feeling on his chest lifted slightly. It'll get better soon, he knows that, he just has to work on it.

[celosiaa]

the truth is like blood underneath your fingernails (chapter 1)

Summary: Love, Hunger, pain, anxiety.

Jon feels it all at once in the wake of statement withdrawal, and can hardly bear it.

CW: use of exercise as a form of self injury, fighting, self-hatred, alcohol use, language

this is for a prompt sent in by the lovely @transcendentalbf​, who requested a statement withdrawal fic.  I'm not going to lie, this one got pretty heavy, even for me--and I don't usually skimp on the angst.  be mindful of the tags and the content warnings!  there will also be a second chapter!

Faster. Faster. Faster.

Heart pounding, pulse racing, Jon flies through the Highland countryside, hair streaming behind him from where his ponytail has come undone.  There is no feeling quite like this—the shaking of effort in every corner of his body, every nerve alight, lungs heaving and overburdened.  No matter the hurt, no matter the discomfort, Jon has yet to find anything so wonderfully distracting as running.

Even so, the constant static of Hunger still hums in the background, buzzing somewhere between his skull and his spine.  He’s learned over the weeks of refusing it statements that he cannot run into town, cannot risk looking anyone in the eyes without being overcome by Want.  The Beholding is not pleased with him, and Jon knows it—feels it in the way that his every action has been poisoned by the relentless desire to Eat and to Know. 

Martin has undoubtedly gotten the worst of it.  When Jon had first announced that he was going to be running in the afternoons, he was elated—chuffed at the idea of doing something together other than their routine of cooking, eating, sleeping day in and day out.  Jon had even let him come on his run that day, and knows that he would have loved it, were he not prevented from applying his usual method of quite literally running himself into the ground.  Their average pace was not nearly enough to distract him, or even to burn out the anxiety that’s taken hold of his chest, and so Jon had told Martin he’d prefer to be alone.

Poor choice of words.

This had caused somewhat of a row, with Jon’s sudden inability to articulate exactly what he meant providing most of the fodder.  Martin was upset, thought that he had done something wrong, thought that Jon didn’t want to be with him anymore—all things that Jon knows are the fragments of the Lonely still residing in him, still marked by the faded white of his naturally dark curls.  With difficulty, Jon had managed to break through, explaining that he had always liked to have some time alone.  That he needed a few moments just to think and process and enjoy the peacefulness on his own. 

This wasn’t entirely a lie—but it wasn’t the truth either, and it left a foul taste in his mouth all the same.

Martin had believed him, of course.  He’d even apologized the next day by going down to the village and buying him a phone holster he could strap onto his arm while he runs.  With a plastered-on smile, Jon had accepted the gift.  He will never tell Martin that he can’t bear the way it sticks to his skin, or that playing music is completely out of the question.  He will never tell him that none of this is about health or exercise—it’s about the hurt, it’s about the distraction, it’s about the punishment that Jon knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he deserves.

He’s thirty minutes into the run now, and he’s reached the point at which singular thoughts can no longer filter across his mind.  Pushing constantly further, faster, harder strips all of this away, and he’s left with the blessed silence of a clear mind.

That is, until his foot lands a bit funny on a rock, and it sends shooting pains through his knee—old injury reignited in an instant.

Fuck.

He stumbles, hands reaching forward as he begins to lose his balance.  Through luck, or skill, or perhaps sheer determination, he manages to stay upright and moving forward, knee throbbing in protest at every step.  But he cannot afford to stop now—refuses to give in to the building static.

Breathe through it.  Just breathe through it, a kind teacher had once told him in the wake of losing his parents.  He does his best to follow that advice now, the pain at least giving him something to focus on, pushing the Hunger to the back of his mind.  Even so, the incessant pulling at his injury is enough to plant a permanent wince on his face.

Martin is not going to be pleased with me.

---

Upon entering their little home, Jon’s senses are immediately overcome with powerful-smelling spices, floating through each and every dust-laden corner.  From where he stands, he can see just a bit of Martin standing at the kitchen counter, carefully chopping an onion using the knife skills Jon had so recently taught him.  In spite of himself, Jon’s chest swells with pride, pulling the corners of his mouth into a small smile, before the reality of his situation overtakes him again.

Perhaps I can sneak past, get in the shower before he notices.

Setting out to do just that, Jon silently pulls of his trainers and begins to cross the room—heel-toe, heel-toe, ever so careful of the creaking floorboards of their kitchen.  But of course, Martin would choose to glance over his shoulder at this very moment.

Of course.

“Oh there you are!  How was it?” he asks, voice light and jovial as he stirs something in a large pot.

“Good, good,” Jon replies hurriedly, trying to take advantage of Martin’s distraction and hobble as quickly as he can toward the shower.

“Wait, wait, before you go—come taste this and see what you think.”

Damn it.

With steps as measured and careful as he can manage, Jon walks toward him, keeping a smile firmly plastered on his face.  Of course, his efforts are in vain—the second Jon begins crossing the room, Martin’s face falls.

“You’re limping.  Why are you limping?” he asks, brows knitting together in concern.

“Erm—got a little carried away.  I’m fine, it’ll loosen up in the shower,” Jon assures, dropping his eyes, and attempting to walk away.

Martin grabs him by his forearm—with no real force, but the pressure on his overly-sensitive skin is enough to send lightning bolts of agitation through him.  Static begins to rise.

“That doesn’t look fine.  Here, why don’t you sit down—”

“I’m fine, Martin—”

“Just put some ice on it for a bit—”

“I said, I’m FINE, for god’s sake!”

Jon’s words bend and twist into a seething shout as he yanks his forearm from Martin’s gentle grasp, the static flaring from him like a beacon.  The eyes that meet his are no longer the loving concern of a just a few moments ago—turning hard and angry at this undeserved outburst.  Staring at him coldly for a moment, Martin simply pivots on his heel and begins heatedly stirring at the large pot, head bowed.

Seeing Martin this way dissolves the fire of anger in Jon’s belly at once, replaced instead with the cold bitterness of shame.

God, what is wrong with me?

“I-I’m sorry, Martin, you didn’t…you didn’t deserve that,” he mumbles, running a hand over his wan face.

“No, I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

Martin does not turn around, continuing to stir agitatedly at his pot, and Jon can hear him taking deep breaths in through his nose, out through his mouth.  He hates that he’s the cause of this; hates that Martin has to resort to these things just to deal with the frustration he brings to the table.

And the Eye drinks it all in.

…I can’t let it.

Resolved to at least try to make things better, Jon moves slowly around the kitchen table and to the freezer, taking Martin’s advice and grabbing a bag of frozen vegetables.  Sinking down painfully into a chair, he undoes the Velcro straps of his brace and plops the pack down onto the swollen wreckage of his knee.  Admittedly, Martin had been right—the coolness immediately begins to pull some of the pulsing, swelling ache from his limb, drawing a long sigh from somewhere deep in his chest.

“You need to prop it up too, here—”

Martin has turned back to him at last, reaching around behind Jon to grab a pillow from the sofa and set it on the chair in front of him.  As Jon begins to lift his leg up and onto it, he cannot quite bite back a groan of pain, nor hide the wince that floods his face.  Concernedly, Martin watches him, hands on his hips in consternation.

“You really did a number on yourself, didn’t you?” he mutters softly, brows knitting together.

Jon cannot bring himself to answer, too ashamed even to look up.

Don’t worry about me, he wants desperately to say.  I’m not worth it.

I’m not worth the hurt that I cause.

When Martin turns away again without a word, Jon’s chest aches in a way it hasn’t in quite some time.  Certainly not since he heard those devastating words in the Lonely, from Martin’s own mouth—

“I really loved you, you know?”

Perhaps the same is true now.

“Loved.”

Jon squeezes his eyes shut against the rising tide of emotions, threatening to burst from him when—

Martin kneels in front of him, placing a second frozen bag beneath his knee before carefully wrapping an ace bandage around both, holding them together around the joint with a wonderfully relieving pressure.  At once, Jon’s eyes begin to sting.

I don’t deserve this.

“Thank you,” he whispers, full of shame.  “I’m sorry.”

From where he kneels in front of him, Martin lifts his head to search Jon’s eyes for a moment, worrying at his bottom lip in consideration.  At last, he stands to his full height, taking a deep breath before removing the dish towel from where he’s draped it across one broad shoulder.  He swipes it gently over the beads of sweat that are still rolling down Jon’s face, and to his utter surprise—kisses him tenderly over the temple.

Jon’s cheeks flare with heat at this, warmth immediately pooling in his stomach.

He is utterly, hopelessly smitten with the man in front of him.

God help him.

“It’s alright, Jon,” Martin says at last, voice returning to something approaching his normal volume. 

“Look, I’m really proud of you for running, alright?  It’s good for you.  But not when your hurt yourself like this,” he continues, tapping lightly at the packs encasing Jon’s knee, forcing Jon to meet his eyes with the intensity of his stare.

“It’s not worth that.  Okay?” he ends in a whisper.

Jon merely nods, overwhelmed and embarrassed by the entire situation.  Martin, gentle as always, reaches a hand up toward his hair, pushing down the frizzled locks that had been blown wild by the Highland winds.

“Alright, then,” he adds simply, turning back to their dinner with a lopsided smile.

---

The next day, Jon finds himself scarcely able to bear this particular combination of pain and Hunger.

Martin had made him promise the previous evening that he would take the day off from running, allowing his knee at least the chance to heal up a bit before he began abusing it again.  While he knows Martin is right, knows he’s trying to look after him—Jon cannot bear the roiling anxiety of inactivity, his body screaming at him to run run run just to escape his own mind.

Once again, Martin bears the brunt of it all.

He knows he’s being impossible; knows that Martin is nearly at his wits end, yet the relentless static fuzzes out whatever words he’s snapping at him now—and for what reason, Jon is no longer sure.  The anger tumbles out of him like ink over parchment, pulling all his pain, frustration, and Hunger from his shaking form and placing it on Martin’s shoulders.

And Martin is beyond overwrought.

Turning toward him sharply, Martin bears down on him with cold gaze.

“You know what?  I’ve had enough!  I’ve had enough,” he shouts, voice melting into a laugh that holds no humor.

Jon’s mouth snaps shut at once, the static fading to nothing now that it’s work has been done.

“I consider myself a patient person, Jon, I really do—but this has pushed me quite to my limit, so congratulations,” he spits, grabbing his keys from the table.

No no no no no

“I’m going to the village.  Don’t wait up,” he mutters with finality, striding across the room and out the door with a BANG.

Oh god oh god oh god

Left alone now in the quiet emptiness of their—of Daisy’s house, Jon stumbles backwards, burying his face in his hands.

Why did you do this why did you do this why did you do this

He begs the Eye to answer him, beating his palm into his own chest, and cannot hold back the flood of Knowledge seeping across his mind.

His love, leaning against the side of the cottage, chest heaving with sobs.

His love, striding angrily down toward the pub, tears still streaming down his face as it begins to rain.

His love, getting sloppy-drunk alone, all alone—with no one to walk him home, to make sure he’s safe—

Please.

I can’t bear it.

Please.

Jon folds forward over his legs, sick at the thought that he caused this, that he’s the one who so severely hurt him—and promptly falls to the floor in a wave of dizziness.

God, Martin.

I’m so sorry, my love.

Even now, he cannot bring his tears to the surface, simply lying on the floor until his chest no longer feels as though it’s been pinned to the earth’s core.  At last, he forces himself to get up, to move forward—shirking the thought of dinner and moving directly up the stairs toward their bed.

Daisy’s bed, he corrects himself internally.

God knows if he’ll ever come back to make it ours.

---

Jon cannot bring himself to any semblance of sleep until he knows Martin has returned.

The Eye constantly pulls at him to look, to see where he’s gone and what he’s doing now, but Jon refuses.  He will not invade Martin’s privacy like that—not if he can ever help it.

Please come home.

Please.

Please.

Lying silent and still beneath the covers, the room around him is illuminated only by the light of the moon peeking in through the window.  Even in the stillness there remains the static, though pushed down considerably now by the weight of Jon’s own sadness.  Of his regret.

Drink it.  Drink it all, if that will satisfy you, Jon thinks bitterly, wishing to god that it would be enough.

At last, he hears the unlocking of the front door below—a bit clumsy and heavy-handed, telling Jon immediately that he’s still a bit drunk.  Relief floods him at the sound all the same, and he turns away from the bedroom door to feign sleep, wanting to give Martin some privacy.

Though his movements are somewhat sloppy with alcohol, Martin does his best to tiptoe quietly around the room, undressing to his boxers and replacing his jumper and binder with a t-shirt.  Slowly, ever so slowly, he crawls into bed, making every effort not to disturb Jon at the other side.  Jon feels as though he could cry with the obvious love he pours into every gentle motion, before—

He can sense Martin’s arms reaching for him, hovering over his back to pull him close, as always—before dropping them.

God.

He settles instead for pulling the blanket further over Jon’s shoulders, muttering as he does so, words slurring—

“Don’ understand.  Jus’ don’ understand.”

Oh, Martin.

Jon’s heart crumbles to pieces.

He cannot bear to leave this the way things are—not tonight, nor any other.  Flipping around at once to face him, Martin’s eyes snap back open—wide with concern and anxiety.

“I know you don’t, Martin.  I know, and I’m so sorry,” Jon whispers, cupping his cheek with one scarred hand, tears still burning painfully in his throat.

Martin’s tears seem to have no trouble reaching the surface, spilling over at once in rivulets down his face and off the tip of his nose.

“I don’t understand, Jon, I don’t understand,” he sobs, clapping a hand over his mouth in an attempt to stem the flow, inhaling shakily behind it.

Look what you’ve done look what you’ve done

“I’m so sorry, darling, none of this is your fault, I’m so sorry” Jon murmurs over and over, pulling Martin into his chest—an invitation for him to let go of all his anger and sadness in the crook of his shoulder.

Martin does so, clutching at Jon’s back until the drink-induced drowsiness pulls him under at last.

Jon lies awake—still in the silence, still in the rising static.

I’m sorry, my love.

I’m so sorry.

(chapter 2 here)

[thisissirius]

CAN TUMBLR STOP FUCKING UP MY READ MORE PLEASE AND THANK YOU

WRITTEN FOI AN ANON. AGAIN.

Siri I have a plot for you if you want to take it. In the episode Buck was on the outside of the train and Eddie was inside while Bobby was outside (Sorry haha this is complicated but i'm trying to explain) Would you be able to write a story where while Buck is saving Rumer Wllis and they get Sam out Eddie is still in the train. Buck manages to get out of the way but the train crushes Eddie.

Sorry second part. So now Eddie’s trapped in the train and Sam’s safe and Abby comes over. Buck gets mad at her because Eddie’s in the train. I like Abby so please don’t make her evil I just want Buck to get mad at this. If you cant thats okay too. I love your stories

NGL anon, this post was a BALM and i spoke to @hearteyesforbuck and this happened. oops. so as an aside, i LOVE abby and want her to be happy, so the views expressed by eddie are not all my own.

face the wind [AO3 LINK] eddie/buck, abby, firefam. spoilers for what’s next? and some injury TW.

Buck makes the mistake of thinking everything’s going to be okay.

The rescue is almost complete; they’ve got the young woman out through the panel Buck cut through and she’s gonna be fine. Buck trusts Eddie on that diagnosis; though he’s less certain how they’re gonna get Sam out. Eddie assures him they’ll both fit through the panel as well, careful considering Sam’s crushed chest, but the basket is the best option of getting Sam to solid ground without more injury. It’s still risky, especially as Buck’s not convinced they’re as secure as they need to be, but the winch is working well enough and they’ve come this far; they’ll get it done — and Buck thinks yes.

There’s a steel beam between Buck and Eddie when the train starts to rumble at the base of the car. Eddie looks at him with wide eyes and Buck snaps, “go!” before rappelling down as fast as the harness allows. He holds his  breath the entire way down, fear settling low in his belly as the car starts to move, and he hits the ground the same time Sam does. The paramedics are startled, looking at the falling car, and Buck shoves at them. “Go, go!”

The words are barely out of his mouth before the car picks up speed, toppling away from them. Buck’s on the wrong side of the basket, away from Eddie, and he can’t move out of the way, can’t get free as they’re shoving Sam forward, away from the car. Buck needs to get free, to help Eddie, but he’s being propelled away from the scene.

“No, wait,” he cries, caught up in his harness. He waits to be wrenched from his feet, but it never comes; the winch snaps, hitting the ground with a vicious crack. Buck’s heart goes with it as the car comes to a sliding stop halfway down the hill, still tilted and unsecure. Bobby appears before Buck can finish unhitching himself. Buck needs to get untangled and away from Sam so that he can help Eddie. His hands are shaking as he tries to get out of the harness, and he can’t bear to look at the train, at the wreckage, but he needs to get there and—

“Buck.”

Buck tenses, head snapping back so fast he feels something wrench. Ignoring the dull throb of pain, he stares.

Abby’s just letting go of Sam’s hand as the paramedics remove him from the scene, but she remains, her hands falling by her sides when she looks at him. Her expression is hopeful, if a little awkward. “I wanted to thank you.”

Feeling what little control Buck’s got on his emotions snap, he takes an aborted step forward. Aborted, because Bobby grips his upper arm tightly. Buck can’t hear anything through the rush of blood in his ears, but he laughs; it sounds a little cruel. “Thank me for what? Promising you something I shouldn’t because of some strupid left over feelings? I’ve lost myself twice because you couldn’t just tell me what you were feeling, Abby. because you couldn’t not rush into a vertical train car!” 

“Buck,” Bobby says.

Buck ignores him, knows he’s shaking from something other than adrenaline. “Eddie’s in there,” he says, waving a hand towards the train. “Sam’s got two daughters, but Eddie’s got a son, our son,” the words twist on the way out, getting choked, and Buck can’t think about it, can’t— “I don’t wanna have to tell him—”

“Buck,” Bobby interrupts, and while Buck can’t look away from Abby, from her stunned expression, he closes his mouth. Bobby continues, “Abby, I need you to leave.”

“I,” Abby starts.

“Now,” Bobby snaps, and there’s a hard edge to his tone that Buck doesn’t know what to make of. Ignoring Abby, Bobby tightens his grip on Buck’s arm, forcing him to look Bobby in the eye. “You need to get you head together, Buck. Eddie needs you. They’ve got eyes on him, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s not an easy fix.”

Buck immediately comes back to the moment. He doesn’t wait to see if Abby listens to Bobby or not, because he’s scrambling back towards the train car. He’s wasted time yelling when he needs to be focused on Eddie. His heart almost stops when he sees the wreckage; the train car is completely buckled on one side, the end warped and twisted, and Buck can see only a window that might give enough for him to jam his head in. There’s still no security in the way it’s leaning, and Buck doesn’t want to think about another topside rescue.  

“We have ears on your guy.” Rodriguez from the 153 is already on scene. “He’s jammed between the beam and a couple of seats; didn’t get far before it went. Slightly disoriented with possible concussion. Can’t get anything else out of him.”

“Fuck,” Buck mutters. He doesn’t wait to hear anything else. Eddie doesn’t know Rodriguez and Buck knows when he’s out of it, the last thing he wants is someone unfamiliar. Approaching the window, Buck breaks it gently, shielding himself as he sticks his head through. “Eddie?”

“M’stuck,” Eddie slurs. He sounds far away.

Blowing out a breath, Buck maneuvers so he can fit a hand through. “Eddie? I’m just gonna shine my flashlight, so I need you to close your eyes for me, okay?”

Eddie makes a noise that Buck takes for assent and flicks on his handheld. He sees the beam, Eddie flinching away from the light, which concerns Buck. He bites back on saying anything and follows the line of the beam. Ignoring the cold trickle of fear down his spine, he sees the way Eddie’s leg is twisted under steel, bloody already, and calls back up.

“I see you, buddy, but I gotta talk to Bobby a second.”

“Go,” Eddie says.

“To talk to Bobby,” Buck says firmly. “I’ll be back.”

Eddie says something else, but Buck can’t make it out. He’s not sure he wants to hear it. Bobby’s at his elbow when he pulls back and Buck makes a face. “Trapped,” he affirms. “Steel beam on his leg, slurring his words, thirty feet up.”

Bobby goes pale. “Shit.”

Buck focuses on Eddie, the things he’s seen, and the rescues they’ve already performed. “I don’t like it,” he starts, “but we gotta cut through that beam.”

“He’ll fall,” Rodriguez cuts in.

“I’ll be right there,” Buck says firmly, giving Bobby a look. “We’re not getting him out any other way, Cap. That’s thirty feet and he’s stuck in there. We can cut through the top, but it’s the same problem. We don’t have any winch security again, and I don’t know if the car will withstand a lot of wait up top.”

Bobby stares at the train car, working things through, and Buck waits him out. They don’t have time, he knows it, but he’s pushed Bobby once and he doesn’t want to do it again.

Rodriguez is watching the train too, and he sighs. “I don’t like it, Nash, but the kid’s right. The only way I see this going well is if we cut from beneath. We need to move fast before we lose your guy for good.”

“Not an option,” Buck says, and Bobby finally looks him in the eye. “Bobby, I promise. I’m not being foolish about this, not with Eddie—”

“I know.” The faith in the words stuns Buck for a minute before Bobby rests a hand on his arm. “Alright, we’ll do it your way, but I need two more firefighters under you—”

There’s a commotion behind them, and Hen and Chim are running up, looking out of breath but panicked. “Cap?”

“Shit,” Chim says. “Eddie’s in there?”

Buck doesn’t have time to explain. “Hen and Chim can come in, Cap. they’ll be there to make sure Eddie’s not injured beyond—”

Bobby nods. “Hen, Chim, Eddie’s trapped thirty feet up. Buck’s gonna cut into the beam and bring him down.”

Hen and Chim share a glance and Buck expects them to disagree or argue. Instead, they nod, and Buck blinks back blurred vision, swallows thickly. Bobby nods towards the car.

“Go,” he says.

“We’ve got you covered on the outside,” Rodriguez promises.

Buck doesn’t wait around to hear anything else. He starts off for the window and grabs the cutters. “We have to make this bigger,” he says, getting much-needed help from Chim. “Eddie’s slurring, blood on his leg, and he flinched from light.”

“Doesn’t necessarily mean anything’s wrong,” Chim is saying as Buck cuts through the metal siding. “It’s pretty dark in there, so we’ll make an assessment once he’s adjusted. Worried about the slurring. Did he hit his head?”

Buck grunts as the metal peels back from the car and drops to the ground. It’s wide enough for him to climb through and he does so. “No harness,” he says when Hen opens her mouth. “Gotta have the basket ready, Eddie’s gonna need it with that leg.” Once he’s cleared the hole, and confident Hen and Chim are following, Buck clambers back inside. “Eddie?”

There’s nothing. Then, “Buck. M’here.”

“Good,” Buck says, levering himself up between the seats. “Flashlight’s going on again, alright?”

“Kay,” Eddie says, and Buck doesn’t like how faint his voice is.

The light goes on and when Buck shines the beam across Eddie’s upper torso, Eddie flinches again.

“Bright.”

“I know, buddy,” Buck says, managing to get a foothold on the seat beneath Eddie. Eddie’s in a similar position to Sam’s, except with a leg jammed between a beam, and he swallows down bile at the state of Eddie’s leg. He doesn’t react this way at scenes and knows it’s only because it’s Eddie. He’s not squeamish, it’s just Eddie. “Chim?”

“On it,” Chim says, directly below Buck. “This is gonna hurt, Eddie.”

“I know,” Eddie says, and he sounds a little more alert. “Do it.”

Buck wants to close his eyes against the pained moans Eddie lets out while Chim checks he’s got a pulse. There’s so much deja vu here, a cruel twist of irony that Buck hates, but he manages to get a grip on the beam.

“Oh, don’t do that,” Eddie groans, whimpering, and Buck rocks back on his feet.

“I have to cut it,” Buck says. “I know it’s gonna be weird because you’ll have to fall, but I promise I’ll catch you, okay? I’ll be right here, Eddie, and I’ve—”

“—got me, I know,” Eddie says, and his eyes are a little more clear when he looks at Buck. He quirks his lips up into a smile and then winces as Chim releases his leg. “M’safe.”

Buck nods, because he doesn’t trust himself to speak. “Okay, I’m just gonna go grab the jaws and we’ll have you out of here.”

Eddie nods again, mouth opening but nothing comes out, and Buck reaches over, rests a hand on Eddie’s hair. Eddie pushes into the touch a little. “You’ve got me.”

“I do,” Buck promises, and pulls back, dropping down a seat or three. Chim looks serious. “He okay?”

Chim nods, all business, and looks between Buck and Hen. “He’s got a pulse, so I’m not worried about that. Blood loss might be an issue. Was he tracking?”

“Eyes seemed clear,” Buck says, “but he’s still wincing at light. A concussion is almost certain.”

“Crush injuries?” Hen asks.

“Breathing rattled,” Buck says.

Hen nods and she and Chim share a thoughtful look. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” Hen says eventually. “We free him, we’ll be able to make a better assessment.”

Buck looks up at the beam. “Spinal injury?”

“Won’t know until he’s out,” Hen says. “No other way to do this.”

It’s not the best outcome, but Buck swallows around the lump in his throat. “I’ll take life-altering injury over death and I hope he will too.”

“I can hear you,” Eddie says, voice carrying well through the train. “M’not deaf.”

Buck lets out a shaky laugh and climbs back up.

“Just do it,” Eddie says, wincing. “Can’t stay here forever.”

With that prompting, Buck, Hen, and Chim get to work. Buck cuts through the beam, Chim keeping an eye on Eddie from below, and Hen getting ready with the basket. Eddie makes soft, pained noises throughout the process and Buck does his best to block them out; he doesn’t want to lose concentration and cut through something he shouldn’t. He feels something give beneath the jaws and there’s a creak.

“Shit,” Buck says, and hands off the jaws to Chim. “Okay, Eddie, one more shove okay?”

Eddie grunts again, eyes lifting slowly to Buck’s face and then the beams cracking, a high whine as it splits and Eddie’s letting out a pained noise as he starts to slide down the gap. Buck winces, shoves at the steel beam.

Hen and Chim have moved to the side, away from the path of the beam, and Buck gives it a kick; at the same time it goes tumbling down the train, Eddie starts to fall. He slams into Buck with a cry, and Buck wraps his arms around Eddie, almost losing his balance in the process. He’s got a leg on each seat, arms full of Eddie, and a back that’s gonna protest later.

“I’ve got you!” Buck adjusts his stance, trying to stay level. Eddie shifts, another pained grunt, and then he’s looking at Buck. His pupils are tracking, and he looks fine, but he makes a face.

“Think I’m gonna throw up,” Eddie says, burying his face in Buck’s neck.

Buck winces. “If you have to, do it. I’ll get you out of here.” As he talks, he starts to work his way down the seats, Eddie clinging to him. His weight is heavy, arms weak, and Buck knows he’s trying his best, but it’s awkward at best. There’s still half a beam above them, but it still seems wedged well enough; Buck’s not about to take unnecessary chances.

Chim’s watching their descent, clambering over one of the seats, and gets a grip on Eddie. Eddie says, “no,” and tightens his grip on Buck. Chim holds up his hands, a rope in his fingers. “I promise I’m just keeping you attached to Buck. We can’t get the basket up here, Eddie, you need to be secure.”

“Kay,” Eddie says, and Buck waits for Chim to support them both, and the three of them make their way down. Chim’s going slow enough to keep Buck steady, but with enough speed that before Buck knows it, they’re taking the last step down, the basket right there.

Buck shifts his grip. “Just gonna get you on the basket, okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Eddie manages, going limp in Buck’s arms as they settle him on the stretcher. Hen and Chim immediately set to work stabilizing him as best as possible. Eddie’s eyes are on Buck, though, his fingers twitching. Buck reaches out, squeezes them gently. “Thanks.”

“Idiota,” Buck says, and he doesn’t know much Spanish, but it makes Eddie’s lips curve up. He looks tired, eyes closing in pain as they lift him up, and Buck’s heart lurches. “Let’s get out of this damned thing.”

“You don’t have to tell us twice,” Chim says, and the three of them manage to get Eddie out of the gap in the train carefully. The train is still precarious and Buck doesn’t trust it to hold with all the moving they’ve done inside.

Outside, Rodriguez is true to his word; he’s got an ambulance waiting, and Bobby’s there to help them load up Eddie. Outside, with lights flooding the area, Buck gets a better look at Eddie. His leg’s a mess, and there’s blood matting his hair that Buck doesn’t like. Eddie’s got his eyes closed, still mumbling about wanting to throw up, but he’s being put in the ambulance so Buck trusts he’s in the best hands.

Bobby’s at his elbow, hand on his back. “You doing okay?”

“No,” Buck says honestly. “I need,” he starts, swallows. “Get to the hospital.”

“Come on. Let’s get you changed and then you go and check up on Eddie, alright?”

Buck nods, itching to be where Eddie is, but he’s exhausted, dirty, and needs to check in with Abuela and Chris before going to the hospital. Not that he thinks Eddie’ll wanna see Chris when he’s half-conscious in the hospital, but Buck needs to reassure himself that Chris is okay, that they’re going to be okay.

Eddie wakes up slowly. His leg aches, his head is thumping, and he wants to go right back to sleep again. There’s someone in the room with him; he can feel their weight against the bed, and his sense of the room’s been magnified since Afghanistan. “Hey,” he says, shifting in the bed. “i knew you had me. Never let me down.”

Opening his eyes, he’s startled when it’s not Buck sitting next to him, but Abby. Immediately, his heart hammers in his chest, and anger unfurls, harsh and sudden in his chest. His lip curls up into a sneer, eyes narrowed.

“Never let you down either.” Abby’s lips pursed together, but Eddie’s not done. “Can’t say the same about you.”

“You don’t know me.” Abby’s soft-spoken, he realizes, but it doesn’t change his opinion. “I wanted to say thank you.”

Eddie doesn’t have the patience for this. He’s never met Abby but he doesn’t like her. He thinks he’s entitled not to like her; when someone breaks your best friend’s heart and ghosts him for the better part of a year? Eddie’s not inclined to give you the time of day.

“Don’t bother,” he says, looking up at the ceiling, then back at her. “I’m not the one you should say thanks to.” Abby at least looks contrite. “He wouldn’t leave. Wouldn’t let us until we’d saved both Sam and-”

“I know,” Abby says quickly. “Sam told me and I appreciate what you did. I know you didn’t have to.”

“Buck did,” Eddie snaps. “Because for some stupid reason, he still wants you to be happy. Which, good for him because he’s a better person than either of us, but I don’t have to want that for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Abby says. She sounds sincere and Eddie wants to temper his tone, but he’s in pain and she came to him.

“How did you even get in here?”

“I saw Captain Nash leave,” she says. She puts her hands in her lap and looks out of the door for a moment, then back at Eddie. “I just wanted to thank you for what you did for Sam.”

Eddie nods, takes a moment before he replies. His anger is receding and he’s just tired, wants to get the heck out of the hospital. “I want to thank you as well.” Abby looks surprised and Eddie huffs a laugh. “You couldn’t see what was right in front of your face. It means I get him instead, my son gets him, and we’re damned lucky to have him. There’s no way we’re ever giving him up.”

Finally, Abby’s expression shifts to anger. “I’m entitled to want something better for myself.”

“Yeah, you are,” Eddie allows. “But you don’t have the right to drag this on for Buck for so long. He’s a good person, trusts implicitly, and I hate that you damaged some of that faith he has in people.”

“I’m glad he’s happy,” Abby says, and Eddie hopes she’s hearing him. “I want to speak to him.”

“He’s happy now,” Eddie says, choosing to focus on that first. “He wasn’t then and he still isn’t, not about you. I hope I—and my son—have done some good.”

Abby nods. “He called your son our son.”

Eddie’s breath hitches and he wants Abby gone, wants privacy so he can work through that. “You should talk to him. He needs that, I think, needs to hear whatever you’ve told yourself to justify it, but if you hurt him again.” He almost leaves the threat hanging. “I might be in a hospital bed right now, but I won’t let you near him again if you do.”

There’s a drawn silence where neither of them says something. Eddie looks at the clock, knows Buck’s due back soon, and he doesn’t want Abby here when that happens.

“I’m sorry if this isn’t what you wanted to hear,” he says because his Abuela would kill him if he wasn’t at least a little polite. “Please go. I’m glad Sam is okay, I am, but Buck’s coming soon and I don’t want this,” he says, gesturing between them, “to get in the way of us going home. Please.”

“Bit late for that,” Buck says, and when Eddie looks up, he’s standing in the doorway. Eddie’s stomach swoops.

“How long have you been there?”

“Long enough,” Buck snaps, and his expression is angry. Eddie can feel his own anger fade beneath the shame pooling in his belly.

Taking a deep breath, he tries to sit up, grunting when his head pounds, his leg spasms and he gasps, “Buck-”

“Stop it,” Buck says, and between one of Eddie’s breaths and the next, he’s on the other side of Eddie’s bed, hand in his hair. “Stop moving.”

“You’re not mad?” Eddie says, slurring his words a little. He really needs to stop moving.

Buck blows out a breath and drops a kiss to Eddie’s forehead. “Not at you. Idiota,” he adds, and Eddie gives him a weak smile.

Abby stands. Her clothes are still dirty and she looks like she could do with a night of good sleep, but Eddie’s watching her face, the look she gives Buck’s hands, then his face. “Can I speak to you?”

“Later,” Buck says firmly.

“I don’t know how long-”

“Abby,” Buck says, straightening up, and he still has a hand on Eddie’s hair, scratches his fingers, but Eddie doesn’t know if it’s intentional. It feels good anyway. “I want to talk to you. I want to clear the air between us, but I’m still mad. About you, and the fact that you indirectly put Eddie in danger.”

Another pause. “I’m sorry I made you promise me.”

“You didn’t,” Buck says, squeezing Eddie’s hand. “I made that promise myself because yeah, I still care about you. I want you to be happy, and I don’t want to be angry with you, but I am. I could have lost Eddie for the sake of your fiance and I can't—I can’t look at you and not think about that, so I need you to go.”

“Buck—”

Buck lets out a slow breath. “Abby. Think about Sam; if I’d come out and told you I’d saved Eddie and left Sam to die, how would you be feeling?”

It must land; Eddie can see the moment she realizes, and it’s probably about the same time Eddie does. They’ve been heading for this thing for a long time. Slow burn, gradual leaning towards each other, whatever anyone wants to call it, Eddie’s got enough love for Buck burning in his body to power LA for a lifetime.

“I’ll call you. We can arrange something.”

Eddie turns his face into Buck’s wrist, closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Abby leave, or the look on Buck’s face when she does. He doesn’t open them until Buck moves his hand, tilts Eddie’s head up.

“Look at me?"

Eddie does, wincing at the light. Now that his anger’s gone, now there’s nothing left but Buck and the pain, Eddie feels the throb in his head turn into steady drumming, the ache in his leg becomes a burn, and the warmth of Buck’s hands is a balm against the hurts. "M'okay.”

Buck laughs, and there’s a little bit of lightness there. “Liar. You have a concussion and a laceration as deep as my love for you.”

Eddie laughs, groaning when it causes his headache to flare, but he wraps his fingers around Buck’s. “Don’t make me laugh, asshole.”

Buck’s flushing, a grin on his stupid face, and Eddie loves him so much.

“I wanna go home,” Eddie says, closing his eyes.

Buck hums, resumes stroking his fingers through Eddie’s hair. “Doctors are discharging you soon. We gotta wait for them, Eds, then I promise we can go.”

“Chris?"

"Gave me a card for you,” Buck says, his voice low. He shuffles around some, dragging a chair over to the bed. “You can read it when the room stops spinning.”

“I’m fine.”

“Shut up,” Buck says. Eddie feels a press of lips to his temple. “We’ll get some painkillers for your concussion,” Buck says gently, the motions of his hand in Eddie’s hair soothing. Everything about Buck is soothing. “You’ll go home, spend some time recovering, probably worrying about Chris-”

“M'not worried,” Eddie objects and opens an eye. “You are.”

Buck glares at him. “Of course I am! We haven’t even vetted this place, Eddie. What if Chris hates it and wants to come home? What if we wanna talk to him and-”

Eddie snorts gently, feels the tug of sleep pull at his consciousness. Chris is gonna be okay and so is he; Buck has them both.

[remusownsmyuwus]

Perfectly Real Chapter 7

Read Chapter 1, Chapter 6, Chapter 8 - or on AO3

Word count: 1171

Genre: Fluff and angst

Pairings: Loceit 

Warnings: Morally gray sides, anger, yelling, caps, self-deprecation, depression, food misuse, shattered glass/glass breaking, weaponry, alcoholism mention, suicide mention, death mention, discussion of morality, fire mention, weaponry, pining, crying, swearing

 ____

Thomas was getting weaker. It wasn't a subjective thing, Remus knew how it worked. There was… brainspace. And when something cleared up all the emotion taking up that space (Roman's passion, Patton's caring, Virgil's stress); it left room. Left room for Remus to play and to do what he wanted. Gave him… freedom. And with every thought that Remus shot through Thomas' stagnating mind filled more of it with disgust, which Hammy then dealt with, leaving oh-so-much-room for Remus. It was a vicious cycle in the best kind of way, and Remus loved it.

And well, when Roman wasn't creating, Remus was more than happy to pick up the slack-- the next video or project was sure to cover something a little more sour than Thomas' usual flavor. Sour? Bitter? Remus despised the typical, Western idea of morality as a black-to-white scale. Roman and his "dark" and "light" sides. Haven't we as a society and Thomas as a creator come far enough to know that having "bad"-- Remus chuckles at the idea of him, Deceit, and Hamlet being bad. --as dark and "good" as light is flawed and boring? Where was the subversion? The varied texture of writing?

Remus blinked a few times, sighing. He snapped his fingers, summoning a jar of steak sauce, which he unscrewed and began to pour carefully over the shelves of food in the light sides' food cabinets. Remus scrunched his nose, the smell of the steak sauce pungently sweet. It had a unpleasant viscosity, and with Roman down for the count-- thanks again, Hammy!! --it would be difficult for Virgil and Patton to clean.

Remus couldn't truly say that there was no fraction of vengeance in his actions. The way that the "light sides" perhaps there was subversion? It seemed the "lights" were far more… morally unclean than the "darks"... had treated Hamlet put a little more fire in Remus' blood. They had mistreated him to the point of alcoholism and suicidality! Ludicrous. We should use the ancient Egyptian color meanings. Dark was clearly the side in the right.

Remus threw the empty jar down to the floor, enjoying how it shattered. He summoned more jars, hurling them down one after another until the room was covered in a turmoil of shattered glass. Remus leapt over the wreckage, landing outside of the kitchen. He summoned glass barriers which stuck to the wall outside of the kitchen, which were about two feet high. 

Rushing back to his room, he picked up a massive sack- throwing in over his shoulder and running back. He crawled on top of the counters to avoid the glass and tore the sack open, watching as the pounds and pounds of Jell-O powder spilled onto the floor. Walking along the counter, spreading it out as best he could, Remus stifled a giggle. 

He summoned a small fire, in the center of the room, which was water resistant. He reached down, turning the sink onto full blast and pulling the head so it sprayed out across the floor, quickly filling up the now sealed-off kitchen. Remus summoned his morning star, extending the handle so he could gently stir the ~4488 gallons of liquid Jell-O mixture. 

Eventually, he snapped his fingers, stopping the fire. He lowered the temperature in the room, skipping away while the giant glass & pizza flavored batch of Jell-O cooled.

~•°^•^°•~

Hamlet hated the anger. Almost as much as he hated himself. And oh did Hamlet hate himself. There was so much heat. It was burning Hamlet alive, his cheeks flushed and his veins filled with fire. Roman's anger was so different from Patton's sadness, it made Hamlet so…. Incoherent. And hot. Hamlet tore off his tie and blazer, throwing them angrily against the wall of his room. He fumbled for a few moments with the buttons of his dress shirt before just ripping them off, leaving a horizontal stripe of his chest exposed.

"FUCK!" he yelled, just because it felt good to be loud. "FUCK IT! I HATE EVERYTHING!" It felt good to scream, and Hamlet pushed up his sleeves. His room was burning with heat. It felt so bad and so good and Hamlet felt so alive, with all that fire in him.

"Hamlet?" There was a gentle knock on the door, slightly muffled as if the knocker was wearing silken gloves (which he was). "May I come in?"

"Yes, Dee, come in! COME IN!" Hamlet wasn't mad at Deceit, he was mad at the door, and his room, and Roman, and Thomas, but most of all himself. 

Deceit opened the door, stopping once he caught sight of Hamlet's chest. He swallowed. "Hamlet, you're… you've been sscreaming for a while, I came to check on you. Make ssure you're okay."

"I'm so fucking mad! I hate myself so much!" Hot tears started falling down Hamlet's face. He really couldn't bear feeling so much all at once. How the others managed it, he didn't know. 

"Hamlet," Deceit's voice cracked slightly, and Hamlet felt slightly sick hearing it. "Hamlet, can you lie down for me, pleasse?"

"Yes! Fuck!" Hamlet flopped down on the bed, the springs groaning with the force of the impact. Tears still ran down Hamlet's face in tiny rivers, dripping down onto the bed sheets beneath him.

Deceit walked closer, the heels of his boots subtly clicking against Hamlet's floor. He wasn't wearing his full outfit that day, that morning he had opted for a soft yellow sweater over a loose fitting tank top and yoga pants. He pulled the sweater over his head and tossed it to the side, then pulled off the beanie he'd been wearing, feeling how hot the air around Hamlet was. 

"You're…" Hamlet trailed off, incoherent. He was… he wasn't able to form sentences at the moment. Everything hurt so much. Feeling hurt so much.

"I'm only here to help, I know how you are after you… transsfer emotions. I wissh you would sstop doing thiss to yoursself." Deceit sat down on the bed next to Hamlet, pulling off his shoes and setting them carefully by the bed. 

"It's my duty, Dee. It is!" Hamlet felt awful for yelling like that. Stupid stupid stupid, his brain supplied.

"You sshould help them manage their emotionss, not take them away. You're ussing them ass toolss to aid in your sself disstructive behaviorss. I know you don't believe me, but it'ss true." Deceit rested his head on Hamlet's shoulder, looping an arm around Hamlet's waist. He breathed deeply and evenly, leading Hamlet to do the same. Some forbidden part of him wished that this was… more. That Deceit could hug Hamlet like this when Hamlet wasn't having a breakdown. He shoved that part of himself away, it was too complicated to process now, in Hamlet's arms.

Hamlet drifted to sleep, the knot in his brows smoothing. Deceit watched him, the heavy blush on Hamlet's face, and smiled. He was glad that he could help Hamlet, that he could be there when he needed him.

____

Taglist: @gay--insomniac @power-in-plain-sight @thiaholimon @djpurple3 

special thanks to @aleiimm​ for beta-ing this fic! 

[kacchanislife]

Could you write a story about the S/o so she’s a hero (still a student tho) under cover in the league of villains, and when they capture bakugou she has to pretend that she’s been evil the whole time and not actually loving him and he’s just sitting there saying that she’s lying and to tell the truth. And with a nice happy ending maybe? Also I LOVE your work especially the tattoo/piecing headcannons

Hi! Thank you so much for this request and I’m so sorry it’s taken me this long to get to it. I accidentally made the ending sad, but this is only part 1 of 2 so look forward to a happy ending eventually!

Requested: Yes!

Warnings: sadness, some self-decrepitation, canon-typical violence

Pairing: Bakugou x reader

Bursting Stars (Bakugou x Reader)

You were the mole at UA, not because you wanted to be and that you were evil, you were simply undercover and that was the role you were given. Doubling as a student at UA  and a member of the League of Villains? Just a day in the life of you, underground Pro-Hero Stardust, not that many people know that about you or anything, but that’s what you do. As a previous vigilante, you were cuffed and about to be thrown in jail until a detective realized your potential as an undercover agent. And hey, it got you out of trouble and gave you the opportunity to live a more straight and narrow life. One that is much better for a young girl than what you had been doing previously.

Unfortunately your role has left you in a very precarious situation. You were told not to fall in love with anyone, not to get too close to anyone while at UA or with the LOV, but you’re young and folly to your emotions. Which is why you ended up starting a relationship with a certain exploding boy who was somehow able to figure you out enough to get close to you. Who made you feel things you thought were unnecessary to life. And that makes the situation you’re in all the more painful. How do you lie even more to someone you’ve spent so much time with? Who’s seen you cry because you didn’t know if you were a good person or if you were deserving of love?

You have to swallow down what feelings you had and to put on your villain persona. Just because Bakugou is your boyfriend and someone you love, doesn’t mean you have to give that away to everyone here. That would be bad for the both of you and besides, you have a mission of your own to complete. Your mask is up and it’s time to play you LOV act well.

“A pity you actually thought I had feelings for you Bakugou,” you recline agaisnt the bar counter perched in one of the stools. “But thankfully you bought it and made my job of lowering your guard so much easier. Now, be a good boy and join us, won’t you?”

You could feel the rage and burrowed sorrow rolling off of him in waves, the mask on his face was gone and he cursed, “Shit, you really think I’m going to be a villain after this? Fuck that, and fuck you for fooling me. This is why relationships and other people are useless. I don’t love you anyway.”

The sting of his words hit home and you’re left wondering if this is really the right choice to make, if you should just swap sides and admit you’re an undercover agent for the police and take the LOV on with Bakugou by your side. But that’s a susicde mission and you know backup is on the way, with him being kidnapped, you finally gave away the location of their hideout to your superiors. Your superiors wanted to you to be as immersed in the experience as possible so you could get more information and evidence out of the LOV before they raided the place. However, this was perfect timing and good evidence to raid, but now you had to play the waiting game until they got here.

But even then, were you suppose to continue being undercover with the LOV? Would this mean not returning to UA and making Bakugou resent you for all of eternity? You weren’t sure you could handle that after everything. How could you after all? You love Bakugou and you couldn’t imagine a life without him now, but after this you were sure he would never forgive you even after you came clean about everything.

His voice breaks up your thoughts, low and nearly begging, “How could you do this (Y/N)? Does being a hero mean nothing to you? Justice? Winning? Being the best version of yourself you can be? Did… do I mean nothing to you?”

The tears well up in your eyes before you can stop them, of course he means everything to you. You fight for justice every day and you are a hero, but how could you say that without compromising your mission and your job. The words get jammed in your throat as you refuse to look at or speak to Bakugou, you just can’t without breaking. This you manage up until you’re outside surrounding him with the other members of LOV and One for All floating above a wrecked building. And never in your life have you ever felt so weak-kneed before.

Bakugou’s expression is of betrayal, pain, but most dominantly determination. You know what he’s thinking, he’d rather fight and possibly die than ever join forces with the bad guys. You’re right there beside him as Toga attacks, slamming her into the ground with your own quirk. Some of the members of LOV are surprised to see you betray them and team up with Bakugou, but others expected it. Like Dabi, who sends a jet of blue flame towards the two of you. However, you’re not just some student in training, no offense to Bakugou, and deftly protect the two of you and look for escape routes- at least for Bakugou.

As a hero you couldn’t exactly leave a scene like this unattened while fellow heroes are incapacitated. Just as you think all is hopeless, All Might shows up and you seem some of your UA classmates streak across the sky calling for Bakugou. There’s tears in your eyes as you see him look at your with stone cold red eyes, but you don’t let the opportunity presented to you go to waste. You summon your quirk and help send Bakugou flying towards the other three while you’re left on the ground fending off Dabi, Spinner, Toga, and the others.

You have plenty of cuts and burns on you as you keep them away from the fleeing teens and away from All Might facing off against All for One. Your reprieve finally comes when AfO sends the LOV members away and Endeavor comes to pull you away from the wreckage. You have to be taken to the hospital due to your wounds, although they’re not as extensive as All Might’s or Best Jeanists, you do still have to get checked out and stay there for a bit to recover.

The detective who originally vouched for you and was sort of your handler comes to see you, “Is he worth it, (Y/N)?” you’re asked as you lay in the bed, knowing you just gave up your identity all over media and no longer have to obscurity to do undercover work.

You look back at your handler, tears starting to form in your eyes again, “Yes.”

[etherealwaifgoddess]

What He Wants (Pt. 10)

Main Characters: Bucky Barnes x Enhanced Reader

Summary:  On going series of Bucky getting his shit together and falling in love with you.

Warnings/ Content: Nothing major. Our boy is still a little sad but he’s doing better. 

Word Count: 1518

Author’s Note: Hello again lovelies! Like I would really leave ya’ll with a short little 700 word installment on a Friday?? Pffft. It’s a double post day! Mainly because the last part was super short, but it’s also Friday, and honestly I’m in a really shitty head space right  now and making ya’ll happy will make me feel a little better. 

If you missed the previous parts you can find them here: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine

XOXO - Ash

What He Wants, Pt. 10

The next morning you wake before Bucky and take advantage of being the first to grab a shower. You are squeaky clean having used almost all of the complimentary bottles in the bathroom and know you’ll have to get new ones so Bucky can get a shower too. You slip down to the lobby and procure the extra supplies as well as two cups of coffee. Bucky wakes up with a start, you are beginning to suspect this is a habit with him. He sits up in the bed, eyes darting around wildly for a moment until he catches his bearings. 

“Morning Bucky.” You say to him over the rim of your coffee cup. 

His eyes fix on you and he groans, rubbing at his face. The sight of you in a pair of little grey shorts and a T-shirt, wet hair falling around you in waves, is the last thing he needs to see right when he wakes up. He is already dealing with morning wood from hell and the sight of you makes him want to double over. 

“Not a morning person?” You continue, assuming he is grumpy. “I brought you coffee, black.” You point at the mug next to the night stand. 

Bucky’s issue remedies itself when he goes to reach for the cup with his left hand and realizes he is not waking up as he had fallen asleep. His shoes are off and so is his left arm. He wants to vomit at the idea of you having to do that for him. Your delicate, perfect fingers having to navigate the wreckage of his left arm; where the scars and metal still riddle his skin from HYDRA using him as their own Frankenstein’s monster. It is a never ending reminder of how fucked up he is both inside and out.

You watch his distress and feel guilty at having been so bold. “I’m sorry.” You blurt out, unwilling to wait for him to start berating you, “You fell asleep so fast and I wasn’t sure what to do. You’d had it on all day and I figured it would be more irritating to leave on and I just wanted to help so you didn’t have one more ache to deal with today.” You take a breath finally, waiting for him to start in on you.

Bucky watches your rambling efforts and how you brace yourself, ready for him to do his worst tongue lashing. Of all the emotions running across your face Bucky doesn’t see any pity or disgust and he’s grateful. He can’t bring himself to reprimand you. As much as he wants to keep you from that ugly part of himself, you had only been trying to help and he’s impressed you figured out how to get it off without waking him. “You were right. It would have hurt like a bitch today if I left it on that long.” 

Your eyes widen and you try not to smile, taking a quick sip of your coffee instead. Bucky slides himself to the edge of the bed, testing his right left and finding it still too tender to stand on. He carefully slips on his prosthetic and grabs the crutch to help himself up and to the bathroom. He knows showering is going to be a challenge but he has to at least attempt it. Carefully he maneuvers himself, balancing on his uninjured leg and quickly scrubbing himself clean before he needs to sit back down on the edge of the tub. It takes longer than he wants it to but in the end he is clean and smells like a human being again. He stares at his reflection in the large behind the sink mirror and cringes. He knew he avoided mirrors for a reason. Bucky runs a towel through his hair once more before popping his head out of the bathroom to ask you to throw him his bag. You hand him the black duffel through the crack in the door, careful to avoid seeing anything you don't need to. Dressing is awkward but he manages and he changes his bandage noticing the wound was already looking better. 

By the time he is done in the bathroom he is desperate for coffee, already a little worn out. You are sitting at the small table still drinking yours and flipping through a newspaper. He notices you had gotten changed for the day into a baggy white T-shirt over faded blue jeans. Bucky settles in on the edge of his bed to enjoy the coffee, watching you read. Curious as to how someone so young could be so wrapped up in SHIELD, he asks you.

You look up from your paper, amused he thinks you are so young and glad he is making an effort at conversation. “I’m thirty two.” you inform him, “Though I guess compared to a hundred something that is pretty young.” 

Bucky is surprised, he wouldn’t have put you past mid twenties, “You look a lot younger.”

“I get told that a lot.” You shrug. “Just one of those faces, I guess. SHIELD helped me out after the attack on New York. I didn’t know how to control my ability and I probably wouldn't have made it if they hadn't found me. So after all their help I signed on as a freelance agent” 

“You got lucky. That’s good.”

“I don’t know if it was luck. I watched my best friend get murdered in front of me and then the thing turned on me which is why I ended up with this ability.” It is a painful memory and it stings to think of it.

Bucky wishes he could swallow his words back up, knowing he caused you pain from the memory. “I’m sorry, doll. I didn’t know.” 

“And now you do.” You stand up, ready to move past the somber topic and start your day. “Are you up to grabbing breakfast downstairs? They have a decent restaurant that makes pretty much everything.” 

“Lead the way.” Bucky says, grabbing his crutch and pulling himself up. 

You are impressed with how much better he is moving after a good night’s rest. In another day or two he would be almost as good as new at the rate he’s going. You slow your pace down to walk with him down the hall to the restaurant, thankful for your first floor room. 

Bucky eats like a starving man and you have to keep yourself from chuckling a few times. “Do the Avengers not feed you?” You tease as he tears into his second plate of French Toast. 

Bucky looks up at you and then down at his plate, “Super soldier” he says simply between bites. He sets his fork down after a moment, “You should have seen Steve. Or Thor. I thought Pepper was going to faint at our first grocery bill.” 

You do laugh then, trying to imagine that situation. “Good to know. I’ll have to set up another grocery delivery then. I only have my usual stuff coming tonight.”

“You can order groceries? Why not go to the store?”

“Normally I’m just too busy. By the time I’m able to go out I’m exhausted from work and it makes it harder to turn off my ability. With so many people around, it’s just… a situation I’d rather avoid.” 

“Makes sense. I’ll try not to eat you out of house and home.”

“It’s fine, I can place another order. I have a feeling that a week of stuff for me is going to last about two days.”

Bucky grins, “If we’re lucky.”

You shake your head and start back in on your omelette. Breakfast with Bucky is strangely normal. He seems at ease after he’s eaten something and it’s like he forgets that he is supposed to guard himself around you for a minute. You pay the bill once you both finish and slowly make your way back to room to grab your things. The taxi you arranged arrives right as you are turning over your keycard to the front desk and Bucky loads your bags into the trunk while you take care of checking out.  

The bright October sun blinds you for a moment when you step outside and you remember why this was your favorite time of year. The air is starting to lose the humidity of summer but isn’t cool enough to be uncomfortable yet. You hop in the taxi next to Bucky and hand the driver your address on a slip of paper. The man looks at it for a moment “This is a two hour drive, lady.” He says, concerned. 

“Here, take my credit card and run it. I know it’s far but my car broke down.” You tell him. 

Bucky gives you a look, wondering if the bit about your car is a lie. You raised an eyebrow at him, it is a lie but covering your tracks on the location of your home is critical. 

“It’s your bill.” The taxi driver grumbles and pulls away from the curb into the busy city traffic. 

Tag List Lovelies: @my-current-fandom-is @blacklightguidesnic @amazonianbeauty @ladyemofhousestark @abswritesfandoms

[daedriclorde]

A Thief In Wolf’s Clothing, Part II: Chapter 8, “Feed The Wolf”

This is it folks! Last chapter of Part II! I hope that you’ve enjoyed it. Part III is in the works, but I’ll be honest, I just started, so it’s gonna be a minute. 

Read here on Ao3, and enjoy the full chapter below!!

Summary: What Kjolti finds in the Imperial camp has her losing her grip on humanity. Can Farkas bring her back from the brink?

Farkas had hunted with his shield-sister countless times, and he was familiar with her hunting patterns. Kjolti was a fierce hunter, but this aggression was beyond her normal tactics. Something was wrong.

Kjolti was terrorizing her prey. This was unlike her. Kjolti didn’t waste time playing cat and mouse with her prey when in her beast form. She was a highly efficient hunter.

But as Farkas watched her systematically disable her prey, Farkas knew that something was very wrong. 

Farkas circled around, hoping not to see what he suspected. He caught her eyes, and was filled with dread. Where he normally saw sharp, intelligent eyes, Kjolti’s silver moon eyes were wild.

Farkas felt his heart sink to his stomach. He had seen this happen once before, when he was new to his beast form. It had not been a member of the Companions, but they had been hired to hunt down the feral werewolf. When he saw the beast, it was clear they had lost grip of their humanity. It’s all in the eyes.

And Kjolti’s eyes looked nearly feral.

Farkas knew he didn’t have much time. He let his beast form fall away, begging to change quickly. His blood was pumping so fast that it didn’t take long for his wolf blood to filter out. Farkas was returned to human form, but he still felt the power of the wolf surging through his veins.

“Kjolti!” she either couldn’t hear him, or chose not to.

“Kjolti!” He bellowed. “Kjolti! Come back! Kjolti!”

She ravaged the Imperial before her. Blood and gore didn’t bother Farkas, but the pure rage Kjolti released made him turn his head away slightly. She sprung away, searching for more enemies. Farkas chased after her. 

“Kjolti! Come back to me! Kjolti!” 

She was upending the tents when he saw her ears prick up. Slowly, she turned to him.

If Farkas had been a lesser man, he would have likely run at that point, such was the wild rage in her eyes. He searched for a sign of his friend, of Kjolti in them. He couldn’t see her.

“Kjolti, it’s me! Farkas!” She snarled and stepped toward him.

By Hircine, no. 

“Kjolti!” he shouted. “That’s who you are! You have a name! And friends!”

Her eyes wavered then, releasing the beast for a heart’s beat, but fell back to the wildness that had overcome her.

“Fuck,” he muttered, and Farkas charged at Kjolti.

The brash move startled her, and she was unable to stop him before he reached her. With all his weight and the element of surprise, Farkas managed to knock Kjolti down. She snarled at him, but Farkas summoned every scrap of courage he could and gripped the midnight fur on either side of her violent face in his hands. Sinister teeth were poised to sink into him, just inches from his face.

“You are Kjolti of The Companions! You are my friend!” He shouted at her.

For a moment, nothing changed. Farkas thought all was lost. But then her eyes softened, and her maw closed. Farkas could see Kjolti in her eyes again, and then she began to shift. He released her and stepped away.

Kjolti, returned to her human form, lay prone on the ground. 

***

Farkas stepped forward, his heart racing. “Kjolti?”

She moved slightly. He hesitantly sat next to her. “Kjolti, it’s okay. You’re back.”

Sniffling, Kjolti sat up. Human as they were, her eyes looked like she hadn’t slept in a week. She was looking around the destroyed camp, her expression vacant. 

“Kjolti? What is it?”

She swallowed. “Did…I did this?” Her voice was cracked.

Farkas scooted closer. “You…yeah.”

She finally turned to look at him. She looked scared, and that frightened Farkas more than her werewolf form. “What happened to me, Farkas?”

He swallowed. “You almost went feral.”

Kjolti’s eyes went wide. “Feral?” Her voice trembled. 

“It’s okay, though, you didn’t. You’re back.”

Kjolti rubbed her head in her hands. Suddenly she froze, her eyes latched onto something on the other side of the camp. Wobbling, Kjolti rose to her legs and made her way over to an upset tent across the way.

“Where are you going?”

She knelt beside a worn leather pack. Farkas could see tears well in her eyes as she reached out to grab it. Kjolti felt the leather between her fingers before she opened it, holding her breath.

Whatever she saw inside, it brought her to tears. She rummaged through it for what felt like hours, sometimes pulling an item out and holding it close to her. Farkas watched as Kjolti pulled out a black leather garment that as soon as it was removed from the pack, seemed to disappear into the night. It brought Kjolti fresh sobs. 

Eventually, Kjolti sniffed and stood. She walked over to the last Imperial she killed, bent down, and took the ebony sword he had held. Kjolti opened the pack and slid the sword inside.

Farkas couldn’t believe his eyes. The sword had been larger than the pack; how did she make it fit inside? Especially with everything else there?

Kjolti wandered around the camp, picking up items here and there from tents and bodies. To Farkas’s continued amazement, she managed to fit item after item into this pack of hers. It’s enchanted, dumbass, he finally realized.

Finally, she returned to Farkas. He stood, towering over her. Kjolti stared up at him, unfazed by his height. 

“Farkas, promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“Don’t tell anyone about what happened tonight, and ESPECIALLY don’t tell anyone about this pack.”

He squinted. “Why?”

“Please, Farkas. Just don’t say anything.” Her eyes were pleading. 

Farkas held his breath for a moment. “Kjolti…” He knew there was more here than she was letting on. He crossed his arms. Kjolti was still visibly shaken from her experience. “Let’s get back to Jorrvaskr.”

***

He didn’t answer my question, Kjolti thought. But she didn’t press it for now. She slung her enchanted pack over her shoulder as they began to walk away from the wreckage of the Imperial camp.

The pack slid so comfortably over her back. Having it returned to her almost felt like a friend returning from the dead. Kjolti teared at the thought and bit her lip. Pushing the grief aside, she tried to focus on the positive: she had all her things back.

When she and Brynjolf, Gods, Brynjolf, had been captured in Falkreath, the Imperials took all her belongings. Including her armor, as she had woken up in rags. This enchanted pack held basically everything she owned. All the Stones of Barenziah she had found were still there, thankfully. The Imperials probably didn’t even know what they were worth.

But what made her heart lodge itself in her throat was her Nightingale Armor. Just seeing it brought back a wave of emotion Kjolti hadn’t been prepared to deal with. The mysterious folds of onyx leather called to her, called to a different version of her. Kjolti felt like her old life had slammed into her, and it made her head dizzy.

How long had it been since Helgen? Kjolti strained to count the moons. Shor’s bones, its been more than a year. 

Kjolti walked onward, her head fuzzy. She became aware of Farkas walking beside her. He was silent, but every sense she had told her he wanted to say something. 

“Farkas?”

He didn’t answer, but turned at looked at her strangely.

“Something on your mind?”

He blinked. “Something on my mind?” Kjolti couldn’t read his expression. “You’re the one that goes nearly feral for no clear reason, then picks up some strange magic pack, and then asks me to keep quiet about it? And you want to know what’s on my mind?”

Kjolti stopped in her tracks. This wasn’t like him. “Farkas,” she started.

“Forget it,” he snapped as he stomped ahead.

Kjolti blinked. What’s gotten into him? She hurried after him. They were nearly at the Whiterun gates now, and the watchfires lit the night with a soft glow.

“Farkas, wait,” she called. He didn’t even turn around.

What the fuck?

Summoning the last of her strength, Kjolti ran as fast as she could till she was once again beside Farkas.

“Farkas, talk to me.” She lay her hand on his shoulder and he shrugged it off.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Kjolti was taken aback. “What?”

Farkas’s expression was stormy. “I’m not stupid. I know there’s some big secret you’re keeping from me. You ask me to keep all these secrets, about our transforming and hunting, about your thievery, now about this magic pack. But there’s something else. I know it, and you know it.”

Kjolti’s mouth was agape. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered.

“No? Well why don’t I go ask my brother? He sure seems to know, to be your favorite secret keeper.”

“Farkas!” Kjolti was indignant. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You know I trust you!”

Their shouting had drawn the attention of a guard, who ran forward. “Who goes there? What’s going on?”

“Oh, fuck off!” Kjolti snapped at the guard. The guard drew her weapon until she recognized Kjolti, then immediately sheathed it and backed away.

“Oh, sorry. I—I’ll be on my way, my Thane.”

Kjolti winced as she said the word.

Farkas turned to her slowly. “Thane?” his voice was a whisper, trembling with frustration.

Kjolti turned away. “Yes,” she said. She didn’t meet his eyes. 

Farkas snorted. “You’re a goddamned Thane, and didn’t bother to tell me?”

Kjolti was still looking at the ground. “Yes,” she said in a small voice.

“For how long?” His voice was like low thunder.

Kjolti sighed. “Since I got to Whiterun.”

“Since you—“ Farkas cut off in anger. He clenched and unclenched his fists. “You’ve been a Thane since before you even joined the Companions, and didn’t share that with me? You ask me to keep all these secrets, tell all these lies, but you won’t even tell me that you’re a Thane of the hold!”

“I have never asked you to lie!” Kjolti found she had some thunder in her own voice.

“Yeah, well you sure haven’t asked me to tell the truth!”

“I don’t owe you anything! You don’t get to know everything about me, just because you want to! Just because you have no secrets doesn’t mean I can’t have mine!”

“Have no secrets?” Farkas raged. “You think I have no secrets?”

“Everything you want, everything you think, is just written on your face for all to see!” Kjolti knew she would probably regret that later.

Farkas’s eyes widened. “That’s what you think?”

“It’s true!”

Farkas scoffed. “You have no idea, Kjolti. What I keep to myself!”

“What’s there to keep! You’re an open book!”

“Then you must be very bad at reading, if you can’t tell.”

“Tell what?”

“Tell how much I—“ Farkas stopped himself short. He flushed.

“Tell how much you what, Farkas?” Kjolti’s voice was sharp and angry.

Tell how much I love you, Farkas thought as he sunk inward.

“Companions! Quick!”

Both Kjolti and Farkas snapped their heads toward the sound. A guardsman was waving frantically at them.

“There’s been an attack on Jorrvaskr! Hurry!”

The pair raced onward, argument forgotten. Whiterun blurred past them as they spent the last ounces of stamina sprinting to the hall. Bodies lay strewn about the steps leading to Jorrvaskr.

Silverhand, Kjolti recognized with dread.

They burst in through the doors. Combat had ended recently, the smell of blood still fresh. Athis lay prone by the fire, clutching his abdomen.

But even worse, was the crowd surrounding a body laying too still on the ground. The standing Companions parted when they entered.

It was Kodlak. He was whiter than snow, and drew no breath.

Kjolti stumbled. She felt her breath leave her too as she fell to her knees. She wanted to run. Her blood raced and raged but had no more power to transform, no fire to feed the wolf. She was empty.

All she could do was crumble. 

[antique-teacups]

a liar and a protector pt. 2

word count: 2k

              It hurt to feel. The lie was a hollow point sent right through your chest. Left to pick up the pieces in a town the world had forgotten. It had been two weeks since you left LA, but it felt like a life time ago. In the days closely following, you thought you might implode with the emotional trauma you were sorting through. The vlog squad reached out to you, each apologizing and wishing you would come back home. Home? Was LA home anymore when the person you loved the most there crushed your heart?

              You didn’t respond back to most of them. Jason was the only you were speaking to out of the group. You knew none of them were to blame expect David himself, but they were are still a reminder of the fresh wound. Part of you wondered if your emotional isolation was a form of self-punishment. Sticking your fingers in the bullet hole to remember how to feel.

              You wished you could feel anything expect the sucking pain in your chest. It climbed from your stomach to your throat. Settling, suffocating. It was like feeling hollow and heavy at the same time. A lump you couldn’t swallow, blocking your breath.

              Your mom was worried, but who wouldn’t be when their twenty-year-old daughter shows up unexpectedly, adorned with a stricken look on her face. You gushed as soon as you were ushered into the house you grew up in. David had only visited once, it was before you two had started dating. You could still picture him standing in the tiny entry way, a small smile on his face as your siblings bombarded you with stories of your time gone.

              You had taken refugee in your childhood bedroom for a couple of days before entering everyday life again. Once a week passed, you put your phone in your desk drawer and left it there. He wouldn’t stop texting, but the rest of them had gotten the hint you weren’t responding.

              “Please, talk to me. Let me explain.”

              “Jason won’t tell me where you went. Just tell me you are okay.”

              “I love you.”

              The last one stung the most, which is what prompted you to leave it in the drawer. You needed to get your head on straight before you talked to him. What would you say? That you forgive him for being so weak. That it wasn’t his fault. As much as you wanted to pin the whole thing on Rylee, you knew that wasn’t fair. He was equally at fault.

              Ergo, here you sat on the hood your beat down blue Subaru Outback as the snow sunk slowly to the ground. You parked out on a back road, the traffic was non-existent. You could have been the last person on earth and not have known. The temperature was just barely above freezing, but you didn’t notice. The pain reminded you this was real. Just like when your skin screamed from the searing water in the shower. Or when you pulled on the roots of your hair so hard you thought you would cry from the pain. The pain meant this wasn’t all in your head.

              This wasn’t a bad dream you could stop living at any minute.

              It was a constant loop in your mind, a broken record of a broken time. You remember exactly how the conversation went between their text messages. You wanted to confront everyone in the group, see who else had known. Why hadn’t they told you to save you from some of the hurt? Why didn’t he love you as much as you loved him?

              The sun was sinking and you knew you should head home. The days were blending together as most of them were spent driving around aimlessly. It gave you time to think. That, and your parents didn’t have to see how broken you truly were when you weren’t at home.

              Everyone says that heartbreak is a right of passage. Something everyone must go through in their pursuit of happiness. You were certain your happiness was fully encompassed around David. He meant the world to you. How many times did you say I love you? How many times did you say it without the words but with your actions? He knew were irevocablity in love with him. You thought he loved you just as fiercely.

              You weren’t sure your heart would ever become whole again.

              As the sun dipped behind the horizon you climbed slowly off your hood. Toes were numb but so was your heart. Climbing in, you started the car and pointed it towards home. The radio was off and the night air was still crisping your hair through the open window.

              The drive home felt quicker then the drive out. Your mind held the map of the whole town, you could have gotten anywhere. As you pulled into the driveway, you noticed a car you didn’t recognize. Shutting the headlights off you watch the movements in the kitchen through the window. Slowly your mother comes into view followed slowly by Jason.

              Your heart was in your throat and you were out of your car in a flash. Slamming the door and turning to the house, you notice someone else in the entry way through the glass door. You didn’t have to see his face to know. He still was hunched in the corner, just as when he had visited before, but you knew there would be no smile.

              You could have gotten in your car and left. Drive off into the night and you will never face your dragons. You were going to slay this dragon.

              Confident strides covered how cowardly you felt. Your body was ice cold, your mouth totally dry. Grabbing the door handle you pull the front door open. David turned to face you as the wind was knocked out of your chest. His face looked like he got in a cage fight with a boxer but his eyes were the saddest you had ever seen them.

              He sported a gnarly black eye and a split eyebrow. His eyes were lined red and his lips were desert dry. David looked like a walking corpse. You immediately felt contrite. However, as quickly as it came you pushed it away. He made the bed, now he gets to lay in it. Before you could say anything, Jason appeared behind him, a look of regret on his face.

              “I am sorry Y/N, I just couldn’t stand to watch him destroy himself anymore.” Jason apologized. Destroy himself?

              “It isn’t your fault Jason, none of this is. Though, I would appreciate it if you would both leave.” You responded curtly, eyes flicking to David’s reaction. He shut his eyes, a shudder passing through his shoulders.

              “Please don’t make us leave.” David sobbed, opening his eyes. He was on the verge of a total breakdown, but you weren’t going to catch him. Instead, you intended to catch yourself. You refused to cry, hadn’t in the last two weeks. After that night, you didn’t think he deserved anymore tears. But that didn’t stop the hurt from festering in your chest. A growing monster you could hardly contain it.

              “Y/N please.” David howled, he was breaking down. Tears slipped down his face as he took ragged breaths. He was trying hard to hold at onto at least a semblance of control. He wasn’t doing that great of a job. “I just needed to see you, to make sure you were okay. Please let me explain.”

              The lump in your throat was growing with each passing moment. You could feel your shell breaking. The boy you loved looked like had been through hell and back, but hadn’t you? You were forced to watch the life you built crumble around you.

              “Explain?” You sneered. Hurt was quickly replaced with anger. “David, no amount of explanation will help me understand why you fucked Rylee. You decided I was no longer top priority to you in that moment. As if that wasn’t enough, you kept texting her! You kept lying! There is nothing to explain.” Your breath was coming in gulps. Face hot with rage as your eyes bore into his.

              David visibly deflated. He wasn’t expecting you to reject him when he came all this way. Time to cool off was what he thought you needed. Time would heal all wounds. You watched countless emotions flash across his face before he settled on regret.

              “Y/N, I am so sorry. I love you so much. I know I fucked up the best thing in my life. I don’t what to do without you. Please, I am begging you.” He cooed. He wasn’t going to let you slip away. “The entire vlog squad is worried about you. I am worried about you.”

              “Worried about me? Which one of us is sporting the black eye?” You turn to Jason. “You want to tell me how he got that, or should I let him feed me a couple more lies?”

              “The night you left David got drunk, way more drunk then he has been in a while. Decided to pick a fight with the biggest guy he could find. It seems to have turned into a trend.” Jason explained, embarrassment in his eyes.

              Your emotional isolation was your punishment. David was picking fights as his. You knew he loved you, but you couldn’t, shouldn’t, go back to him. You fell in love with the way he hunkered down in the blankets editing. The way he could almost sense you needed hug. The way he seemed to know what you were always thinking. You two were the best of friends before you started dating. You thought you had the strongest relationship around.

              Clearly, you were wrong.

              You let out the breath you didn’t realize you were holding. You look at the two guys standing in front of you. They both loved you in their own way, but you didn’t feel that right now. This was becoming too much to handle. Defuse the situation and deal with what you are feeling later. Rip the band aid off.

              You turn to walk out the door as your heart hammered a million miles an hour. Stepping out into the night air, you waited to hear his footsteps behind you. His breath was uneven and hot. Regaining composure, you turned to him.

              “You have hurt me more deeply than anyone else ever has. You have hurt me more deeply than anyone else because I loved, love, you. You will never know what this tsunami tide feels like. You will never know what it’s like to slowly watch the world around you crumble while you stand motionless and unable to save even yourself.

“You will never know how deep my love ran because you were to shallow to accept it. I mean, you went behind and back and kept lying to me! I wish I could hate you, I know I should right now.

“I have been trying to figure out ways to salvage the wreckage, to make sure the survivors had a fighting chance, because, fuck I don’t think I do. You just kept lying. That’s what hurts that most. You kept saying you loved me at same time you kept lying.”

By the time you got the words out, you were gasping for breath. It should be the end of it. But that’s not what you wanted, you knew that. Deep down, you could never stop loving him.

“I know I was a terrible person. There hasn’t been a moment since you’ve been gone that I haven’t thought about that. Please, just give me another chance. I will do anything.” He said. There was a look in his eye that you recognized.

Love.

“Give me some time to myself, then we will talk. I’ll call you.” You said, sneaking one more look at him. Turning your back to him, you climbed into your car. A redo of that night ran in your mind as you back out of your driveway. David stood there with pain marring his beautiful features. By the time the house drifted out of sight, tears poured out of your eyes. Why did it have to hurt so bad to love someone so much?

[lovemesomerafael]

El Amor Todo Lo Puede            Chapter 51:  Adrift In The Wasteland

Source:  Barbaoutfits

Chapters 1-50

************* Important Note **************** Just a reminder:  The happy ending for Rafael and Laura was in the last chapter.  If you can’t live with a different ending, please accept my most sincere thanks for reading and take my advice: don’t read further. 

*********************************

Rafael took a long, satisfying drink of coffee that was probably a little hotter than was good for him, but he didn’t want to wait.  He felt good.  He’d just won a trial that was the beginning of the end for a hate group that had intended to bomb the Mayor’s office.  The three defendants he’d tried were all going to prison for years, which did not bode well for the other five people indicted in connection with the plot.  It wasn’t the whole group, but it was a start.

He had to smile to himself, now that this first trial was successfully over.  He would never have admitted it, but he’d been concerned about what Laura would say if he botched a trial based on evidence it had taken her and Carisi a month undercover to gather.  Of course, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force had been working on the case for much, much longer.  But he wasn’t concerned about answering to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Rafael had never liked Laura going undercover.  It was dangerous, unpredictable work without a net.  He trusted her ability to think on her feet and defend herself if she had to – which she had, on more than one occasion. But he didn’t trust the situations the detectives put themselves into, and he damn sure didn’t trust the suspects.

But this assignment – working with the Joint Terrorism Task Force – had been by far the worst.  He had hated the danger to her, he had hated their inability to communicate and, if he was being honest, he had hated having their home life disrupted.  He didn’t mind long, irregular hours.  He did mind sleeping alone for weeks at a time.  

That actually caused him to smile into his coffee cup even more than he already had been.  There had been a time when sleeping alone had been a point of pride with him.  Now, after celebrating three anniversaries with Laura, he barely recognized his life or his priorities, and he wondered how he had survived the long, lonely years before she came into his life.  That thought reminded him of the time, over a year ago now, when he had thought he would lose her to a bullet aimed at him.  Once her hair had grown back, she hadn’t thought much about it.  But he had. The anguish he’d felt then was a big part of why he had such a hard time when she went undercover now.

At least this assignment was over.  He remembered the night she had come home.  He had been laying on their bed, still in his dress shirt and slacks, reviewing reports on the case while Laura took a shower.  He had just begun to feel the weight of responsibility for getting indictments and convictions after all the investigative work.  But as Laura came out of the bathroom, her hair freshly dried and a short, silky robe loosely tied around her waist, he decided that responsibility could definitely wait at least another night.  From her mischievous grin, and the way she crawled onto the bed and began kissing him, she’d missed him as much as he’d missed her.

“Let’s never do that again,” he said against her lips as he pulled the robe from her body.

“Amen,” she agreed.

“You have no idea how much I missed you.”  

“Then why aren’t you helping me get these clothes off of you?  I can’t get you naked fast enough...”

“We’ve been over this.”

“I swear, Harvard, if you say the word ‘structure’, I will…”

“Yes?”  The smirk on his face was as enticing, and had the same effect on her, as the very first day they’d met.

“Probably do whatever you ask me to,” she sighed, smiling up at him.  “Like always.”

Carmen came into Rafael’s office with a package, interrupting a very nice memory of what had happened afterward.  

“This was just hand-delivered,” she said, holding the box out to him.  “It’s heavy.”

Curious, Rafael took the package from her and began to open it.  Carmen stayed by his desk, just to see what was inside.

They never felt a thing when it exploded.

***********

When Fin was very small, his Gran had lived in a building in the projects.  He’d loved that building.  He’d been too young to even see that the building was a ruin; to him, the building was a place where his Moms knew everyone and they all loved him, and where his Gran waited to spoil him with baking and overflowing love. And then, in the first tragedy of his young life, his Gran had died and, shortly thereafter, the building had been condemned.  He’d watched in horrified fascination as the building had been gutted, first emptied of his Gran and all the people who had always smiled at him and made him feel welcome, then stripped of everything of any value.  It had become an empty, sad, unbearably lonely shell echoing with the sounds of the lives that had once been lived there.

That building was the only thing Fin could think of that remotely came close to the way Laura looked.  Her expression had been one of stunned horror since that very first, cursed moment in Liv’s office, and that hadn’t changed.  But now there was absolutely nothing behind her eyes.  He felt sure that if he could look inside of her, she’d be entirely hollow. Maybe with a freezing cold wind blowing a few scattered ashes around.  Laura Parker was gone.  She’d just… flickered out.  He had watched it happen the moment she had finally accepted that Olivia was telling her the truth about the bombing.  

And Rafael’s death.

Fin hated hysterics.  He was the first to run the other way when someone got emotional.  Especially when he, himself, was also feeling the full weight of that emotion.  But now, today, he would have given everything he had to see his partner shed even one tear or, better yet, fly into a howling, sobbing, keening lamentation with an all-engulfing tsunami of tears.  He wanted her to scream and rage and destroy things, hurl vile words and swear vengeance.  Or even just weep a little.  He just wanted her to do anything to let him know that she was still in there somewhere.  

As it was, it looked like the squad had lost both of them.  Rafael was dead, and Laura was… gone.  

Fin was the only one who could get near her.  With anyone else, everyone else, she was grim and silent, just gazing through them with that lost, broken stare, as though they were ghosts.  Or she was.  Only Fin could get a response from her, whispered and vague though it might be. She would say ‘yes’, or ‘no’, or ‘OK’. ‘I don’t know’ was beyond her; even saying that many words was too much effort.  If he asked her something she couldn’t answer, she just remained silent, looking confused and indescribably lonely.  

He had absolutely no fucking idea what he was supposed to do.  Fin had thought that, once they’d become desperate enough to fly him out for a day, Dr. Charles would take over.  He was the trauma expert.  He was her psychiatrist.  He was the one who had helped her reclaim herself after she’d endured an attack so vicious and devastating she still had night terrors as a result.  Nothing.  She hadn’t seen or heard Dr. Charles any more than she could see or hear her parents, or her brothers, or her friends.  The best that Dr. Charles had been able to tell them was that there was a name for her condition – catatonia – and that she would probably find her way back.  Probably.  

In the meantime, the people who loved her kept her alive.  They put food into her hand and told her to eat it.  They held articles of clothing up to her and told her to put them on.  Her mother led her into the shower and bathed her.  They led her to her bed and told her to lie down.  She would stare blindly at the ceiling until, at some point, her body’s basic needs would take over and she would sleep.  

The only time she was remotely responsive was when she was asleep, and her family could only imagine what kind of hellscape she was responding to then. She moaned and thrashed, called out in terror, and would eventually wake herself up with her screams.  

For whatever reason, that was the part that her older brother Steve found absolutely intolerable.  He refused to leave her alone at night, and had moved into her apartment with her rather than stay in a hotel, as originally planned.  Once he did, the rest of the family followed suit.  It was the first time in many years that all five of them had lived together.  Steve slept in a chair next to his little sister’s bed, ready to spring up whenever she screamed, which happened several times a night.  When it did, he talked to her until she was calm enough to lay back down. Even as she shouted and screamed through the nightmares, she never said a word.  And even then, she didn’t cry.

***************  

The bomb had damaged two floors of the D.A.’s office building at One Hogan Place. It was a miracle there had been only two deaths, although quite a few people had been injured, some of them severely. All of them were expected to survive. Only Rafael and Carmen had not.  

The FBI combed the wreckage and gathered evidence, although everyone knew who was responsible for the explosion.  The remaining members of the group had decided to go through with the bombing, they’d just chosen a different target.

Randolph had pushed the plan to bomb Barba’s office, and he got wood every time he thought about it.  Not only did they get rid of him, but they had also struck back at Kevin and Susie White – apparently really some fucking NYPD detectives named Carisi and Parker.  Randolph very much enjoyed thinking about their pain at losing their husband and friend.  

So far, Randolph had been able to keep entirely under the radar.  No one in law enforcement had any idea he was the group’s leader.  Most people in the group didn’t even know that.  

********

“It’s fucked up, Pete.  She just sits there.  Doesn’t do anything, doesn’t talk.  Except when she’s screaming at night, of course, which is the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever seen.”

Carol Parker looked up from what she was doing in the kitchen.  “Steven, I don’t disagree with you, but can we please have a little variation in descriptions?”

“Sorry, Mom, but damn!”

Carol gave Steve a sympathetic look.  This was a nightmare for all of them and, truth be told, she wouldn’t mind using a few choice descriptions herself.  But she knew Peter Stone was having a rough time not being here in New York with Laura, and she didn’t think it would help having Steve’s feverish narration in his head.

“No, still only her partner,” Steve answered whatever Peter had asked.  “The doc said they sometimes do that, latch onto one person they trust.  But we’re talkin’ about ‘yes’ and ‘no’.  It’s not like even he’s gettin’ conversation out of her.  Today she, like, touched his arm, and you’d’a thought it was the fuckin’ Second Coming.  It was the first spontaneous thing we’ve seen her do.  Except, of course, the screaming…”

Steve listened some more.  

“I don’t think so, dude.  But don’t feel bad.  They tried takin’ her to church, see if that would do something, but apparently she’s not even talkin’ to Jesus right now.”  It was a weak joke, but he needed it. 

“So, anyway, I called to tell you the funeral’s Friday.  The Moms talked about it, and they have to go ahead, even though my sister’s a fuckin’ zombie.  I mean, how long are they supposed to wait?”

At the other end of the phone, Peter asked another question. 

“Who the fuck knows?”  Steve answered.  “Her partner told her the funeral’s Friday and she said ‘OK’.  No way to know whether she even knew what he was talkin’ about.”

Carol could hear a very faint, tinny sound as Peter’s voice came through Steve’s phone as he held it to his ear. 

“I know, right?  It’s not like I got to know the guy very well, but he was really cool, and he for sure had her number.  I’m still tryin’ to wrap my head around the whole thing.  And my sister bein’ a fuckin’ vegetable is not helping.”

There was another pause while Peter said something. 

“Yeah, bro, text me your flight.  We’ll pick you up.  Just… be ready.  It’s hard lookin’ at her like this.” 

*************

Some of her friends had made the oblique suggestion that Lucia Barba should be angry with her daughter-in-law for making her do all the work.  Lucia didn’t see it that way.  Rafi was hers.  Always had been.  Although it hurt worse than Lucia had known anything could, she was constantly remembering him as a baby, and a chubby little toddler extraordinarily pleased with himself when he learned to walk, and all through his life where he had been a constant source of comfort and happiness and overwhelming pride.  Rafi was hers.  They had a huge family, on both her side and Rafi’s father’s, but there had always been an element of the two of them together against the world, even when Mateo had been alive.  Of course, Lucia had recognized the sizzling connection between her son and Laura, and the deep love that had even then already begun to grow, and she’d made sure it did.  But she hadn’t done it for Laura, much as she liked her.  She’d done it for Rafi.  Because he was hers and, despite his stubborn insistence that he didn’t, he had wanted a wife.  And Lucia had wanted him to have someone to take care of him.  Her Rafi.  Hers.

So making his funeral arrangements was something that Lucia, and no one else, should be doing.  In the three years Rafi and Laura had been married, Lucia had become very close to Laura’s mother, and she appreciated that friendship more than ever right now. Carol understood.  She had her own child to worry about, and all she had done was offer – once – to assist with the arrangements on Laura’s behalf.  When Lucia had explained that this last opportunity to care for Rafi belonged to her alone, Carol had burst into tears born of her complete understanding.  It was how she would feel if one of her own children had died.  

Lucia was, of course, concerned about Laura.  But that was a very distant second to the jagged, burning agony of losing Rafi. So she let Carol take care of Laura. One day, when Laura began to be able to tolerate feeling her own loss, she and Lucia would spend all the time in the world grieving together.  Their losses had a lot in common; they’d both loved Rafi above all else.  But Lucia selfishly appreciated that Laura was staying out of it for a while.  Everyone wanted to comfort the widow; she’d be the center of attention.  But Lucia knew that her loss was by far the greater.

*************

Rafael’s funeral was held at the church where he was baptized.  The church where he had encountered God throughout most of his life, had received all of the sacraments, and had been an altar boy.  Lucia had thought about St. Augustine’s, where Rafi had married his Laura and had occasionally attended Mass.  But this was Rafi’s spiritual home, and this is where he would have chosen to be committed to his God had anyone known to ask him.

So many people had made the trip to the Bronx for Rafael’s funeral that there was a bit of a panic about there being enough space.  But people had crowded together and made it work. Everyone watched Laura, wondering how she would appear.  Naturally, one of the main questions people asked one another was how she was holding up. Those who didn’t already know learned from the general hubbub in the church that she wasn’t.

She sat between her mother and Rafael’s, blinking blankly and wearing that same shocked, devastated expression behind the filmy black veil Carol had decided she should wear.  Carol wasn’t going to bother with makeup, and she understood the curiosity that would cause everyone to want to get a look at Laura’s face.  Because her daughter wasn’t able to protect her own privacy right now, Carol had decided to do it for her by simply reverting to the old-fashioned tactic of having her wear a veil.  

There didn’t seem to be a face in the church that didn’t wear some variation of Laura’s expression, anyway.  The SVU squad, Olivia Benson in particular, looked blasted.  Captain Tucker kept an arm around Olivia and had armed himself with all the tissues he could fit into the pockets of his suit.  Fin didn’t do much to try to hide his tears, and Carisi and Rollins wept openly.  Rafael’s friends and colleagues from the D.A.’s office were more discreet about their feelings, but then they had only know Rafael Barba’s prickly, snarky public persona. They had liked and respected him, but he wasn’t family to them as he was to the SVU squad.  Rafael’s immense family, men and women alike, wore their grief plainly.

Peter Stone had declined the invitation to sit in the front pew with the family, but had staked out a place two rows behind them, where he could see Laura’s face.  He watched her the entire time, a hideous snarl of emotions making him feel sick as it slithered around inside him.  What he really wanted to do was go to her, pick her up and carry her away from this disaster, somewhere he could protect and care for her forever.  The idea that she was in pain so overwhelming it had shut her down completely broke Peter’s heart.  One of the emotions in the snarl was guilt.  Guilt that his sorrow for Rafael Barba’s murder could only be that of a near-total stranger being saddened by a tragedy, whereas he felt a towering sorrow for Laura’s loss.  He hadn’t been able to hold back tears any more than anyone else at the funeral, but all his tears were for Laura.  

Maggie Lockwood was glad that she had called Peter and arranged for them to fly out together.  She was a mess.  She hadn’t known Rafael, having met him only once, but she and Laura had been extremely close since they met in Nursing school.  Which meant that Maggie had been there when Peter and Laura met, and throughout their whole relationship.  She knew Peter very well, and she knew what he must be feeling.  It had been a very good idea to be on the same flight, so that they could share their mutual grief for what had happened to Laura.  Not that Peter was particularly forthcoming about his feelings, of course, but Maggie didn’t need him to be.  She could plainly see that he was as much a mess on the inside as she was on the outside.

Hank Voight had come from Chicago with Trudy Platt and her husband Randall McHolland, along with Kim Burgess and Kevin Atwater.  Voight was going to be there for Parker no matter what.  While Trudy didn’t love Laura as a daughter the way Voight did, she still felt she had to be there, and Randall – Mouch to his squad – had volunteered to go to represent the firefighters of Station 51.  The Intelligence team had all wanted to be there for her, and had settled for pulling together enough money to send Kim and Kevin, who had been closest to Parker.  Their grief was evident on all of their faces.  

*****************

It had been an impulse born of cruelty for Randolph to stake out the funeral. He couldn’t help it.  He wanted more of the glorious high he got thinking about how much pain he had caused.  He wanted more confirmation of his immense power, and the fact that it was his to wield without consequence.  He was invisible.  Untouchable. And he loved seeing all the tears as people shuffled out of the church.  He had especially been eager to see the widow’s grief.  He was pissed that the little bitch had worn a veil so he couldn’t see her face, but he got a great deal of satisfaction seeing her being led around like a blind person.

She wasn’t blind.  She was bewildered, and terrified, and in agony beyond endurance, but she wasn’t blind. She saw him.  Something changed behind her veil.

*******************

The gathering in the hall next to the church was attended by just about everyone who came to the funeral.  Lucia had stood alone at the door, a one-woman receiving line, and to her it felt right.  Laura was nearby, at a table with her family and a few other people, but in no condition to do anything as complex as receive condolences.  When people asked, Lucia tactfully told them that she was having a hard time, and just wasn’t up to talking to anyone.  

The few people who tried to speak to Laura didn’t stay long.  They would touch her on the shoulder or the hand and murmur their sympathy but, receiving no acknowledgement, would awkwardly step away.  Laura’s family gracefully acknowledged their kindness while she simply sat, looking apparently into oblivion.  The family had decided that she should be at the gathering for a little while, so that they could tell her she had been there.  After that, Steve and Peter would take her home.  

Until Hank Voight stepped up to her, and she saw him.

At first, she moved so slowly that those at the table didn’t even notice it happening. But as Hank introduced himself to her family, Laura looked up at him.  When he leaned down to speak to her, he found that she looked him in the eye. It was perhaps less disconcerting to him than it would have been to anyone who had been with her over the past days, because he was used to her acknowledging him when he spoke to her. But he was aware of her condition and so recognized that something was happening.  

He knelt down on the floor so that he was eye-to-eye with her and waited as she slowly, fumblingly, pulled the veil up from her face.  She looked like a wraith, if wraiths themselves could be haunted.  

“Hank,” she rasped.  

“I’m here.  I had to be here for you.”

“You could do it.  You would help me.”

He had no idea what she meant, but he would do anything for her, so he just looked into her eyes and waited.  

“Randolph.  His name is Randolph.”

Hank looked up, scanning the table for a clue.  He instantly saw the recognition in Carisi’s face.  

“You know what she’s talking about?”

“Yeah, I do,” Carisi answered, looking around.  “Maybe we should… go somewhere.”

Trying to swim back to the surface was painful and frightening for Laura, and it was a difficult, arduous task made more difficult by the fact that she didn’t want to get there.  She would much have preferred staying where she’d been, where there was no sound, and no feelings, and she could watch the world from a million miles away.  She knew what was waiting for her in that world. But she had to go back, now that she knew who had killed Rafael.