#“all this anger was once love” “the word father rotted in my mouth” what if i start screaming. what then

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

parental relationship moment💀

[vaokses]

How long this love can hold its breath

Series Masterlist / General Masterlist

Pairing: Aegon x Rhaenyra's Daughter!Reader

Summary: It has been years since your mother took you from King's Landing to join her in Dragonstone. Years since you and Aegon have seen one another. Years in which he has refused, time and time again, to marry, even as you tour Westeros meeting suitors in search of a husband of your choosing. That refusal can easily be undone with a few words: it was you she chose, Aegon.

Word Count: 3.1k 

Warnings: Alicent's abuse of Aegon. Alcohol/drunkenness. Mentions of sex/prostitution. Usual Targaryen incest stuff. Arranged marriage stuff. Angst. Hurt and kind of no comfort for now.

Some AU/Setting stuff: Reader is a bastard of Daemyra (claimed by Laenor of course), firstborn child of Rhaenyra and heir to her mother's claim. She rides Vermithor. As you'll figure out thorugh this one shot, she and Aegon had a thing when she was still in King's Landing. How relevant or impactful that 'thing' was depends on who of the two you ask. I've stretched the timeline a bit. Rhaenyra spent a few years more in King's Landing (making Aegon around 16/7 when she leaves, and the Reader, the eldest of the Velaryons, around 14/5). Instead of six years in Dragonstone, the Blacks have spent around three there in this story. Viserys still lives (and is rotting slightly slower), Aegon and Helaena did not marry.

A/N: My first work in this fandom, so i'm a bit nervous. This is a bit of a prologue/alternate PoV for a series I have in the works, but I wanted to share it as a one shot since I think it also works as one. I hope you like this!

Title is from the quote "I've hoarded your name in my mouth for months. My throat is a beehive pitched in the river. Look! Look how long this love can hold its breath." - Sierra DeMulder

It feels as if he has just rested his head on his pillow when he hears the heavy doors being pushed open, and the familiar hurried steps of his mother as she enters his apartments. 

He isn’t sure why he bothers by now in telling the guards not to let her in, since she insists on overruling his orders whenever she wishes. 

Still half-asleep, Aegon reaches for the bedsheet covering his body, wary of any attempt she might make in her anger to pull it off him. Surprisingly, his mother stops a few steps away from the foot of the bed. 

Aegon feels her piercing gaze on him, and aware the choice is between caving and chasing after her, asking her what it is she wants; or waiting for the anger at his unwillingness to follow the unspoken command -and the thrown object, or the stinging hit, that comes after said anger-; he drags his hands over his face in an effort to wake himself further and asks,  

“What is it, mother?” 

“Where in the Father’s name were you? Three days, Aegon,” He winces at the reprimand. In his defense, he truly didn’t think they’d notice. Helaena would, perhaps, but she wouldn’t seek him out either way. “You were gone for three days.” 

“I wasn’t…far. I didn’t even leave King’s Landing.” 

She starts letting out a sigh, laced with disappointment and annoyance, but stops herself short, instead turning her back to him and pacing a few steps away. 

“I know where it is you go to…to satiate your vices, caring not for the shame it brings to your name and mine, behaving most unlike your station.” 

“Then why did you ask?” 

His mother won’t turn to look at him, her back turned to him and her hands joined in front of her. 

“Your sister was here.” 

His brow furrows in confusion. 

“My sister is always here.” 

“Rhaenyra was here, Aegon.” 

“Oh. What for?” 

Alicent turns on her side, considers him with eyes widened in afront and mouth curled in disgust. The question leaves her lips slowly, a threat and a dare all at once. 

“Are you still drunk?” 

He mulls over the question for a few moments, and realizes his thoughts are entirely too calm for him to be already sober. The numb haziness of the night before remains, a comfort. 

“I think I might be,” He admits, eyes darting to the side and lingering on the pitcher of wine on a nearby table. He wonders if it is empty. “Slightly.” 

When it seems his mother is intent on merely staring at him in disappointment, he motions for her to turn away and gets dressed. 

He can’t help but feel unseemly, standing before his mother in rumpled clothes and disheveled hair, while she stands tall with not a strand of hair out of order, not a speck of dust on her dress. Then again, even at his best he hasn’t managed not to feel small, unsuited, by comparison. 

Instead of letting those thoughts linger, aided by the comfortable haze the wine from the previous night -or nights, rather- provides him with, Aegon moves to sit on a table in one of the darker parts of the room. 

Alicent follows quietly, but she doesn’t sit. 

“I come here with news. You are to be married, n-…” 

He shakes his head with a mocking laugh, the defiance as easy as breathing, after four years of holding the same stance. He might not have a say in much, but he does in this. 

“No, I’m not.” 

“Your father has approved of this union. As have I.” 

He shrugs his shoulders. 

“Then you are welcome to marry her yourselves. I shall hope for a long and happy marriage for you three.” 

Sometimes, perhaps in foolish hope, in some hollow fantasy, he thinks his impertinence amuses his mother. He might imagine it, he’s quite certain he does, but sometimes he swears she furrows her lips to hide the faintest of smiles. 

But of course, she shows no give, betrays not a flicker of amusement, of softness, of anything. Try as he might to earn any of them. 

“I did not come here to entertain insolence.” 

“Why did you come here, mother?” He asks, not able to reign in the restless movements of his hands, fingers tapping an irregular rhythm on the table. “My stance hasn’t changed. And it won’t.” 

The restlessness building within her is betrayed in the small movements of her hands that increase in intensity the longer she looks at him. With a sudden movement, she slams a hand on the table between them and leans closer. 

“You cannot go on like this, Aegon, shrinking your duty because of the denial of a caprice of your youth.” 

“It was the one thing I asked for. I haven’t asked for anything since, nor did I ask for anything before.” 

His mother scoffs in response, looking away. 

“And that is reason enough for your wish to be granted?” She asks, derisive, almost jeering. Alicent leans back, straightens her stance again. Not too unlike Aemond adjusting his posture to strike with his sword during training, he supposes. “You have gone through your entire life doing as you please, not considering the cost to your family, to your House, to me, and you expected to be rewarded?” 

But he has considered the cost, has had no choice but to consider it, when every choice, every action, it seems almost every thought, is heavy with the impact it might have on his name, on his family. He has considered the cost, but try as he might no choice, no action, has been enough. 

“It would have…It would have changed things. If you had said yes,” He argues, an argument repeated, in his head if not aloud, a thousand times over in these passing years. And yet restlessness builds within him regardless, and he finds himself grasping at the table to keep his hands from fidgeting. “It was the smart choice. You know father would have been for it. You could have kept Vermithor on our side, and given them no choice but to play by our rules with their daughter here. We might have won this war you want so b-…” 

“All I have wanted is to make sure your lives are not forfeit when your father dies. It is not war I want.” 

“Then why did you say no?” 

She shakes her head as she looks away again. 

“The matter is settled. Long settled.” 

“Yet you never told me why.” 

He wants to hear it. More than an apology for denying him a chance at happiness, more than an admission that beyond the feelings of any involved it was the smartest choice, more than anything, he wants to hear her tell him why. 

She didn’t even hear his reasons, she didn’t even consider proposing the union to your mother, or Viserys. She dismissed him, and denied him, without even a second thought. 

He wants to know the reason why. If it was because she knew of you something he didn’t, and was certain you would have rejected him even at the cost of your home and life as you knew it, he wants to know. If it was because she believes him so monstrous that she wished to protect even the daughter of her lifelong adversary from him, he wants to know. 

If it was because in his weakness and his failings he has made himself into something even his own mother wishes to see punished, or because there was something he did -because it had to be something he did, there cannot be so many that were supposed to love him and refuse to for it not to be something he is doing wrong, something about him that is wrong- that not only managed to make his mother’s love for him vanish, but also earned him her scorn, he wants to know. He thinks knowing that to be the truth would splinter him in a way he isn’t sure he’d be able to recover from, but he is tired, and alone, and he wants to know why. 

He searches his mother’s gaze, desperate for an answer, any answer. She looks back, and yet all that is reflected back at him is contempt, disappointment, and what he fears is disgust. 

“It has been years, Aegon. You are being senselessly stubborn, holding onto this…this grudge against me.” 

He makes a face at her words, and grabs the pitcher in the table before him only to find it empty, the only wine remaining being that still in the half-filled cup. 

“It is not a grudge, I-..”  

“Weakness, then,” She sentences, and he doesn’t bother hiding the flinch at her words. His gaze lowers to the table before him. “You’re being a fool, if you think after all this t-…” 

His eyes are set on the half-full cup of wine before him, and he doesn’t dare move his gaze as he interrupts, “I am not marrying, mother.” 

She considers him in silence, and though for a moment he thinks a hit is to come -he doesn’t usually get away with interrupting her-, followed by her footsteps leaving the room, his mother takes a deep breath and insists, 

“It is not me or your father who request this of you. It is your King who commands it.” 

“The King, or his Hand?” He retorts. He grabs at the cup and downs the remaining liquid, making a face at the taste of stale wine, and presses on, “I’m guessing a Baratheon, to earn Borros’ support? Or a Tully, to secure the Riverlands?” 

For the briefest of moments, when his mother’s lips press into a thin line, hands fidgeting where they rest joined before her, he thinks he finally got the upper hand. That he proved he isn’t as blind to their plots and their increasing panic at Rhaenyra’s influence as he may appear. That he proved her wrong, that he showed he isn’t as incompetent as they’d like to think, that he… 

“A Velaryon,” Alicent admits, and any pride, any satisfaction, die out like flames in a room without air. His lips part, he knows not for what since all that leaves them is a choked breath, the beginning of a question, of a name. Aegon searches his mother’s gaze, attempts to find any truth, any certainty, but Alicent looks away. Her next words sound as if heard from underwater. “To keep you from certain execution when your sister ascends the Iron Throne.” 

“Do not toy with me, mother,” He means for it to sound like an accusation, like a demand, like anything but a plea, and yet that is what leaves his lips. Betrayed by the waver in his voice, by the iron grip on the glass, he goes on, “She’s touring the whole of fucking Westeros in search of a husband as we speak.”  

“She has made her choice, Aegon. It was you she chose,” She promises, and her voice is low and warm and almost comforting, so why does it feel wrong? Why does it make him want to crawl out of his own skin? “As for the tour, it will continue as scheduled. Rhaenyra deserted her own tour before time was due, she knows better than to repeat her mother’s mistake.” 

Breathable air is lacking by this chair, in this room, and he stands up, wincing at the too-loud sound of the chair scraping against the ground. 

He eyes a pitcher of wine in another table, and crosses the distance with quick strides, refilling his cup and draining half of it before turning to his mother again. 

“Why tell me now? I-If the tour is to continue,” If she can still change her mind, “Why tell me now?” 

“Your grandsire and I believed you might take this opportunity to amend your behaviors,” Alicent tells him, “So you might save your future wife the embarrassment, so you might protect her honor, seeing as you do not care for ours or your own.” 

She hasn’t said your name yet, he notices.  

Neither has he, but he has forgotten when it was the last time that he said it aloud. Intentionally, that is, he doesn’t count any time he let it slip past his lips when deep in his cups or buried inside some whore with the wrong shade of silver in her hair -and the wrong eyes, and the wrong voice, and the wrong smile, and the wrong touch-. 

Aegon can’t even remember when it was that he decided he wouldn’t utter your name again, all he knows is that through the years what started out of spite, as a way to deny the wound and the absence; has become something else. It has become to him something like a secret, something to be hoarded, to be kept his alone. 

Because there’s pride, and satisfaction, and something rotten but his, in having known you in ways no other did. In remembering you how he is certain -he has to be, it is of the few things he has left- no one has known you. 

And so he doesn’t speak your name. Lest in sharing any of the warmth of a bond long gone he loses it, dying embers to a strong wind; lest in admitting old truths he is left behind also by the part of you that he keeps safe, a secret only his. 

But now in his head resonate so loudly that they drown anything else -like thunder, like the beat of Vermithor’s wings taking you far up into the sky- his mother’s words.  

It was you she chose. 

Thinking of you has always meant the resurgence of the memory of the goodbye you refused to grant him, of waking to the reverberating cry of Vermithor as he took to the skies with you on his back and flew you away to Dragonstone; or the memory of your disappointment and your sorrow as he avoided your gaze and your words when you met again in Driftmark.  

Yet now the memory that comes forth in his mind is another. 

You smiled at him, daring and entirely too proud. But how could you not be, when you both knew he would oblige? How could you not be, when he hadn’t been able to tear his gaze from your lips since you had asked him for something as simple as a kiss? And your voice was softer than he’d expected -or perhaps he remembers it softer than it was, perhaps he sees something else when desire was all there was-, warmer than it had ever been, when you whispered, I want it to be you. 

And what harm can your name do that his own mind hasn’t inflicted upon him already? What ruin can the uttering of such a familiar word bring that the memories haven’t wrought already? 

So he says your name. Willingly, rationally, for the first time in years.  

He thought the foolish refusal to utter your name aloud kept you distant, kept the memory of you, the idea of you, as something far from him, gone from him. But he realizes now, with the shape of your name parting his lips and the taste of memories staining his tongue like ash; that you have been a distant memory, a distant dream, for a very long time. 

And the knowledge that you chose him, the helpless hope that blooms somewhere in his chest, they cannot do a thing against the horrifying certainty that the future he wanted, the future he mourned, is lost to him regardless of your choices now. 

What can he give you now, that that Tyrell knight the rumors say you were so enamored with cannot? How can he not fail whatever expectations you have of him, as he has failed all others? How could you want him now, as what he has made out of himself in these years you’ve spent apart? 

It was a comfort, he realizes now, thinking you lost. The comfort of knowing he couldn’t fail you, couldn’t earn your scorn when he had merely your indifference. 

A bitter, wretched little laugh leaves his lips then, and he turns his head -to hide, perhaps, the tears brimming in his eyes, the weakness his mother so loathes to see from him- and looks out the window towards the distant skies. 

Alicent doesn’t move, merely stands taller, prouder, and presses, 

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” 

Of course, this is what he fucking wanted, but nearly four years have gone by since he asked to be allowed to marry you and was refused. Even if some part of him wants it, wants you, still, it matters not. 

It is what he wanted, before. Before everything got worse, before everything got louder, harder. Before he got worse. Before you forgot about him. 

His mother approaches him then, and though he jumps when he sees her reach for him out of the corner of his eye, she grabs onto his forearm and speaks again, forceful, determined, 

“Listen to me, Aegon. Your sister has secured her hold on the Seven Kingdoms, both through the strength of her dragons and through her eldest children’s diplomacy with the noble Houses,” His mother tells him, but he cannot hear her, not over the warring thoughts of finally, finally, finally, and too late, too late, too late. “Rhaenyra has allowed for this to happen because she wishes to extend an offer of peace, and you cannot squander this opportunity.” 

He turns to her and asks, quietly, forlorning, “Why now?” 

“What?” 

“Why now?”

Why now, that everything is worse? Why now, that he has become this? 

For a moment, a flickering moment gone in the blink of an eye, he thinks he sees sadness, sympathy, in his mother’s warm gaze. For a moment, he believes she will offer words or touch in the way she hasn’t before, in comfort or in reassurance. 

But her gaze falls from his, and her grip on his arm -too tight, almost bruising, yet wanted, needed, if it is all he can get- loosens as she lets go of him. 

“The betrothal will be announced when the tour is over. The wedding in a week’s time from then.” She tells him, detached, not unlike a messenger delivering a missive. 

And with that she leaves his apartments. The door closing echoes in his mind, and he is left behind with a loneliness he doesn’t know where to put, and a hope he doesn’t know how not to fear. 

Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it, and I would love to hear your thoughts!

I am endlessly fascinated by the greens and their deeply weird dynamics, and I hope I did them a modicum of justice, even when changed in this AU and despite the influence of fanon in my interpretations of them.

[prose-for-hire]

Should I Stay or Should I Go? (Part Two)

Part One // Part Three // Part Four

Pairing: Spike x Giles!reader

Part two of four 💖

Warning: reader drinks, difficult relationship with dad!Giles, reader doesn't like Buffy much.

You did, it turns out, like Spike in a way you hadn’t realised until you had spent some time with him. It made sense now, all the time you had tried talking to him and clinging onto the small amount you had learnt about him while he stayed with you for all those months. The amount of Passions you watched just to spend time with him.

He fascinated you, made you feel at ease in a way that no one ever had, despite the casual threats of death.

You knew, however, that if you stayed where you wanted to be, with Spike, there could be trouble. Not only with the Scoobies. You were still hurt by what had happened with your father. You felt like a failure, you had never meant to lose the jobs or disappoint your Dad.

You just hated the expectations he had and the pressure he had always laid on so thick and it made you want something completely different. What this different thing was, however, you weren’t sure.

You were sitting on a stone tomb, watching as Spike walked towards you, slamming himself down beside you while he waited the last agonising minutes for the sun to rise.

“What’s happening in that mind of yours?” He asked, using two fingers to tap his own temple. He had caught you staring into the distance again, reliving that horrible moment with your father.

“What do you mean?”

“Can tell there’s something up from a mile away” He shook his head adding, “Not that I care much that is”

“I feel like a bad person” you sighed, folding in on yourself.

“You ain’t bad, believe me, I know bad”

“Maybe I haven’t killed anyone like you but if I was a good person, Dad wouldn’t have-” You started to let your mouth run as fast as your thoughts, before he cut you off, a flash of anger behind his eyes at how you had been made to feel.

“Don’t start with all that rot, what dear Rupert did was evil even by my standards. If anything, love, you’re painfully average verging on boring” He shrugged, lighting up a cigarette as he spoke.

“Thanks, I actually really needed that,” You laughed through the tears that had started to well in your eyes. You paused for a moment, before asking, “I don’t think you’ve ever spoken to me this much. Why wouldn’t you talk to me at Dad’s?”

“Couldn’t risk it”

“What do you mean?” Your words caught in your throat as you asked.

“Well, you know, send in the pretty one to play good cop and all that crap” he explained, elaborating that he had thought that you were playing him to get information out of him about the Initiative for Buffy and the others.

You smiled softly at the way he spoke about you. You sat in silence for a while, smiling at him softly, leaning back against the threadbare sofa. He did the same, lying back, his head turned towards you until there were mere inches between you.

He was watching your lips curve in that way he found so pleasing. It made him feel something deep within, a tensing, a fluttering of something he couldn’t describe. God, how he wanted to lean into you, press his lips against you. But he couldn’t let himself go there. He didn’t like Watchers or Slayers. In fact, he hated you. Yep, definitely. Hate. That was what this was.

Later on, after you had stayed for a couple more days, you began to worry that you had outstayed your welcome but he had never actually asked you to leave. It had been confirmed to you as Spike burst through from the lower level of the crypt and kicked some of your old clothes you had set aside to go to a laundromat later.

“Bloody crap everywhere! Can’t move for all your human bollocks” He kicked a bag that was leaking clothes onto the floor. You had sneaked back into your Dad’s place to grab more of your stuff and had overheard him on the phone to someone, once again assassinating your character.

“You’re right. I should probably find something more human-y and permanent” You shrugged, “Thanks for, uh, letting me stay and all”

“Where you gonna go?” He stopped what he had been doing, his brow furrowing in that way that you found so cute. His head cocked to the side as he asked the question.

“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll find something”

“Can’t have that, love, stay until you’ve got somethin’ more proper figured out”

“You want me to stay?”

“’S not that. You could be eaten up tomorrow and I wouldn’t give a toss,” He insisted, slightly more half-heartedly than normal, “Just wouldn’t be right to see you out when you’re perfect bait for anything nasty that walks it’s way in”

It was true, the two instances that a demon had found their way into the crypt, they had made straight for you. Thus, ignoring Spike and letting him gain the upper hand on them both.

His eyes lit up at the way you smiled at his words. Despite the cruel appearance of his words, they made you smile. You had found yourself fond of his threats, his way with words. You had it bad. He drank in your form, eyes lingering first on your lips then slowly along your cheek and before slowly moving to meet your eyes.

He snapped himself away, after spending too long with that unmoving gaze. He snatched up his book and began to read by candlelight sat on one of the stone tombs, again waiting for the sun to set so that he could grab some blood and other necessities.

You stayed on the sofa, lying back and thinking about everything that had brought you to this point.

The turning of the pages and the soft candlelight, the occasional whisper of Spike’s voice as he murmured words that he was reading under his breath. It made you yawn, eventually slipping into a slumber. The atmosphere made you feel so comfortable, comfort in such a way that you had never experienced before. You weren’t afraid of being attacked or judged for your decisions. You didn’t have any pressure or expectations to live up to.

You felt… safe.

After placing a blanket over your sleeping form, Spike decided to make a little trip out. He needed to get a few things, he was starting to enjoy having a roommate. Especially one that he found so attractive. Not that he particularly let himself think on this for too long. He was trying so desperately to stop the feelings from growing, denying it the light of day to bloom.

You hadn’t noticed it to begin with, the way that the crypt started to resemble something not far from cosy. There was a tv set, a little makeshift bar with a fridge and it had been decorated with fairy lights and he had even sourced a real mattress for your room on the lower level. It was split into two, Spike had the bigger room, his explanation was that he deserved it being the only one providing for the house while you tried to find a job. 

After a couple of months, you and Spike had been dancing around feelings that had started to grow, not that either of you recognised that the other felt the same. Spike could be grumpy and still often threatened to drink from your brainstem if you left a mess around the place. He was surprisingly particular about how his home was made, especially considering that you were in a crypt and half of it was covered in cobwebs.

“Fancy a proper drink then, pet?” He asked one night.

 You had grown fond of the pet names and smiled at his words, you would never have thought your relationship with Spike would become something akin to a friendship. You adored him and allowed yourself brief daydreams where you reached for more.

“I haven’t got any money, Spike, you know that”

“On me”

“I don’t like being in debt to people”

“I’m sure we can work out some kind of repayment” He arched his eyebrow suggestively before snatching up his leather duster and gesturing for you to follow him.

Turns out, there was no repayment necessary as Spike stole the liquor and two glasses from behind the bar and topped up your drinks all night. You never thought you would feel so normal drinking in a demon bar. You did get a few suspicious looks but when Spike glared back they assumed that he was just going to eat you later himself.

You sat in a booth, leaning into him so you could hear what he was saying over the music that was playing. He told you all sorts of stories about his ‘glory days’ and you hung onto every word. You could tell he was exaggerating some of them to impress you and it only made you enjoy them more.

“Spike?” You asked quietly after a while.

“Mm?”

“Is this a date?” You asked, eyes not able to meet his. You instead pretended to find the contents of your glass incredibly interesting.

“Depends, love”

“On?”

“If-” He started, never able to finish what he had been about to let slip. Luckily or unluckily, depending on which mood he was in, he didn’t have chance because a gang slammed the entrance open and started to smash the place up.

He immediately got up and positioned himself in front of you, blocking you from the threat. He smirked and rolled his eyes when he saw you get up and stand beside him in his peripheral.

They were clearly looking for someone that wasn’t you, but when their eyes did land on you it was all that they were interested in. It was the Scoobies. They had clearly heard some edited version of why you had left from your father as they looked at you with suspicion.

“I should have known that you would sink as low as this. To dance with depravity like this is truly reprehensible” Your father spoke first as the other three whispered to each other.

“Spike’s done more for me in the last month than any of you put together. These people haven’t done anything to you-”

“Apart from the fact that they’re not people, they’re demons,” Buffy reminded you. You ignored her.

“I don’t care what you think of me anymore Giles, I don’t care that I’ve disappointed you and I don’t care that you think I’m all “evil” now for having a couple of drinks in a demon bar. Surely someone that was educated so well couldn’t be so stupid?!” You rolled your eyes

“Y/n-”

“Take your Slayer and go” You warned. They had just been looking for information anyway, Giles decided to do as you said (for probably the first time in your life). What you had said affected him. He had been visibly taken aback before you watched him walk back with the rest of the Scooby gang.

The bartender announced free drinks for everyone to celebrate their unlife lasting at least another night now that the Slayer had left. You weren’t exactly feeling it anymore though, so you both left.

You assumed Spike was going to say something mean in answer to your questioning that had been interrupted. But he truly had almost said it had been a date. If you had wanted it to be. He would have done anything, so long as it had made you happy. He knew this now. Knew for certain his desire, his love, was a force that could not be curtailed. The way you had stood up for yourself, even for him. He was used to the insults that were hurled his way by Buffy and the others. He had forgotten what it was like to have someone in his corner.

He was doing that thing again, watching you with that look. The one that told you he knew you, could see directly into your soul. The one you would so gladly offer up to him had he asked.

You were grateful for his presence beside you as the adrenaline from the argument still draining from your body slowly. It had still not properly subsided by the time you both arrived home.

Home.

Funny how a place like this could make you feel such relief. It was simple, but you had never felt that way coming ‘home’ before.

You stood close, his face close to yours, so close that you could smell him. Thick smoke and some kind of cologne that you had never noticed before. You leaned in further, not knowing if it was leftover adrenaline or just pure need, you caught his lips with yours.

He had been leaning towards you at the same moment, his hand sliding up your arm, lingering against your neck. He cradled your neck as his lips moved to meet yours. He pressed himself against you, desperate and wanting. Needing your touch, your kiss. Your everything.

His touch made your kiss deepen, you pulled his shirt, balling it in your fists as you tried to pull him even closer. He tasted good. Too good.

You moved away from him, breaking the sweet contact you had been wanting for so long now. You stepped back again, telling him to go and make himself comfortable. You needed to grab a few things and that you would be back.

“Bloody tease!” he called after you playfully as he did what you had said. He’d have listened to anything you had said to do that again. To touch your body so intimately. It had been all he had fantasised about. All he had been consumed by.

You didn’t immediately understand why you did it.

Why you left the crypt and didn’t look back, walking away into the night.

Leaving him waiting for your return.

[jessource]

prompts:　random quotes + excerpts.

“ you are so vulnerably haunting; your eeriness is terrifying irresistible. ” “ we’re not that different, you and i. ” “ you are a child of the cosmos, a ruler of the skies. ” “ you’re just becoming more of what you’ve always been. ” “ i’m not changing, none of us are changing. everything is fine. lets have a picnic. ” “ my father had the kind of anger all fathers do – loud and terrible. it lingers for your whole life. ” “ girlhood rots between my teeth, a sickness so sweet it aches. ” “ i wished so badly to have my own life, but you wouldn’t let me. ” “ parts of me died in the house i grew up in and i visit them in dreams. ” “ today i heard your name and my hands started shaking. please make it stop, make it stop. ” “ i wasn’t even allowed to cry over any of it, anyway! i wish the only thing that i spilled in my life was milk. ” “ this is not fun! it’s just scary! ” “ but if i hadn't fallen, i wouldn't have met you. ” “ have you let go of the ails that anchor you yet? ” “ have you let this marvelous spinning earth pull you into its arms and sweep you off your feet yet? ” “ i dream, i dream, i keep dreaming. one word in my mouth crystallises like sugar: hope. ” “ the nights get heavy like they always do. ” “ heavy wind, cold rain, and yes the stars. ” “ drifting apart always seems to hurt more as it happens. ” “ i am trying to say: look at me. ‘i am weightless. you make my heart grow light.’ ” “ right now, everything without you is almost sticky-sweet. it tastes like nectar. ” “ can you accept help or are you the eldest daughter? ” “ i swallow a bee for each ill deed done. i am a hive walking. i strain to hear you over the regret. ” “ i knew that it was cruel to be so optimistic, but, in my solitude, i couldn't resist the urge and spent entire days basking in idiotic fantasies, sometime verging on prayer. ” “ grief is not a feeling, but a neighbourhood. this is where i come from. everyone i love still lives there. ” “ there is a certain clinical satisfaction in seeing just how bad things can get. ” “ i was once very close to getting out of here. ” “ there is no moving on. only running away. ” “ i don’t love anyone. well, maybe my sister. ” “ i am infatuated with the private life, and with anonymity; perhaps even invisibility. ” “ sometimes you just need someone to tell you you're not as terrible as you think you are. ” “ i opened my mouth, almost said something. almost. the rest of my life might have turned out differently if i had. but i didn't. ” “ she is still inside of me. i carry her with me wherever i go. ” “ being a confessional human being for me is like a defense mechanism. if i can tell you the flaw before you see the flaw, then maybe it's okay. ” “ being a person didn't come naturally to me the way it seemed to for others. people who were sure of themselves awed me. i studied them and tried to mimic their ease. ” “look back at the mess you've made. try your best to pick up the pieces. ” “ not only had my brother disappeared, but– and bear with me here–a part of my very being had gone with him. ” “ i kinda wish i was buried six feet under ground. but oh god i also wish i was buried in your arms. ” “ we tell our stories differently, don’t we, you and i? ” “ you poor thing. sweet, mourning lamb. there’s nothing you can do. ” “ a golden cage is still just a cage. ” “ although i may not be yours. i can never be another’s. ” “ my mother didn't foresee what was going to become of us as a result of witnessing her despair. ”

[asoftepiloguemylove]

this time i gotta know, where did my daddy go?

Ocean Vuong Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong / Catherine Lacey Cut / Agustin Gómez-Arcos (tr. William Rodamor) The Carnivorous Lamb / unknown / Kellin Childhood trauma / Nguyệt Lê Girl Memories Drawing / Reynier Llanes Stay / Nicola Yoon The Sun is Also a Star / Clementine von Radics

i. Ocean Vuong, Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong

[ "Don't worry. Your father is only your father until one of you forgets" ]

ii. Catherine Lacey, Cut

[ "if you're raised with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house. you will find him even when he is not there." ]

iii. Augustin Gomez-Arcos, The Carnivorous Lamb

[ "The word 'Father' rotted in my mouth" ]

iv. unknown

[ "LET YOUR DAD DIE: IT'S FINE / IT'S FINE / IT'S WHAT HE DID TO HIS DAD / IT'S WHAT HE WOULD DO FOR YOU" ]

v. Kellin, Childhood trauma

[ "My father had the kind of anger all fathers do. / Loud and terrible. / It lingers for your whole life." ]

vi. Nguyet Le, Girl Memories Drawing

[ Drawing of a woman with long, straight black hair and a somber expression reaching out into a white void shaped like a man. Her hand pushes straight into his torso. ]

vii. Reynier Llanes, Stay

[ Painting of a brunette woman wearing a pink dress with her back turned towards the viewer. She rests one hand on the balcony and holds another up. Beside her is the transparent form of a person sitting on the balcony looking down at her. ]

viii. Nicola Yoon, The Sun is Also a Star

[ "I wish I still felt that way. Growing up and seeing your parents' flaws is like losing your religion. I don't believe in God anymore. I don't believe in my father either." ]

ix. Clementine von Radics

[ "Every time a man yells / you are seven years old again / and he is packing that suitcase / once more. Picking you up by the neck, teaching you obedience. To be soft, / like the belly of a fish / exposed to a knife." ]

[randomfanficsig]

“I was 15”

Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Summary: You were interrogating your unsub who raped and murdered 7 teenage girls, until it gets to personal for you and Reid has to physically pull you out the room. The team soon learns a lot about your past.

Tw: mentione of rape, sexual abuse from parent. Mentions of murder. Teenagers.

—— ——

“They were 15 years old!” You shouted at the criminal sat in-front of you, trying your absolute best to hold back tears.

He simply just stared at you with a sadistic smile. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he was thinking and that truly made you sick to your stomach.

“15.They were 15. And you degraded them and took away all their innocence and control” you began shouting again, tears streaming down your face.

Reid, Morgan and Hotchner all sat behind the glass, questioning looks on their faces. Why was this so personal to you?

Once again, the unsub stayed quiet, same nasty smile on his face. Now was the time to try and hit a nerve.

You walk round behind him. “Was it because you couldn’t get laid when you were younger or because you were so weird to the other kids? Or maybe it was the fact you could never get it up?”

His face dropped, anger taking over.

“Did I hit a nerve there? Did I hurt your itty bitty feelings?” You mimick with a teasy babyish tone.

He stares at you, the smile back on his face. “And if you were 15, I would do the exact same to you, listening to how you’d beg for me to stop, how tears would run down your face just like theirs did. God they felt so good” his laugh makes you feel sick, bringing bile to your throat. “Maybe I’d even slit your throat just like I did theirs” he finishes.

Anger quickly took over, causing you to smash his head directly into the metal table, and wave of satisfaction hitting you as you listen to his nose crack under the pressure.

“THEY WERE 15 YEARS OLD. 15! YOU TOOK THERE LIVES FROM THEM. THEY HAD DREAMS,ASPIRATIONS AND YOU CRUSHED THEM UNDER YOUR FEET LIKE A CIGARETTE. I HOPE YOU ROT IN HELL!” You screamed at him, tears uncontrollably streaming down your face.

You didn’t even notice Reid and Morgan come into the room, until a pair of skinny arms wrapped around your waist and pulled you out the room.

“THEY WERE 15! I WAS 15!” You cried to Spencer, bashing your fists into his chest. He quickly grabs your wrists stopping your outburst of anger .

Next thing you know, his arms are wrapped around you, one holding your head into his chest the other around your biceps, holding you in place while you broke down in his arms. He just holds you, comforting you.

Derek walks out the interrogation room, heading to Penelope.

————

“Hey baby cakes” Derek starts, walking into Penelope’s office. “I need you to do a favour for me”

“Of course hot thing, what is it?” She quickly replies, playing into Dereks flirty behaviour.

“I need you to look into y/n’s past for me”

Garcia quickly looks up at him. “What happened to not profiling or not digging into each others pasts”

“I know baby, but this is really important”

With hesitation, she turns to her computers, typing magic into the keyboard. Not long after, a gasp leaves her mouth.

“Y/n y/l/n, raped at 15 by her father. Sexually abused from the moment she hit puberty. Sent into the system after her father died of ‘unknown reasons’. Mother died during child birth, meaning she was never around.” Garcia repeats from the screen. “Not my y/n, I love that girl” she finished looking back at Derek.

He leaves the room as quickly as he came in, this time anger filling his veins.

“Hotch, i need a word” he demands, walking into Aaron’s office.

Aaron looks back at him knowingly. “I already know, Garcia just sent over the report”

They both walk out, heading over to west Spencer and you stand. Derek joining in on the hug, not long followed by Aaron, which is a surprise as he doesn’t hug.

Penelope soon joins. “We love you y/n you know that right?”

You look up at them all. “You know don’t you?” You question, tears staring up again.

Your questioned was answered by the sympathetic looks starring at you.

“It started after I got my first period; the touches, the groping, the walking in on me while i showered. It only got worse as I developed more. He constantly made me try on bras to ‘make sure they fit correctly’ while he watched. My own father” you began explaining. “And not long after my 15th birthday, his best-friend, someone i considered my uncle, took me out for a ‘late birthday day dinner’ but ended up raping me in his car in an empty parking lot.” You continued explaining. “When I was 17 my dad and his best-friend killed them selves, but it was ruled out as unknown circumstances” you finally finished, the tears much more heavier this time.

Everyone hugged you again.

“I love you all, I really do” you stated one last time.

They all simultaneously tightened the hug; and that’s when you knew you found the family you always wanted.

————

[sunsblaze]

Over the years the younger brother had worked himself to the bone, despite being exiled from the demon slayer corps he still spent his nights raging war against demons, seldom allowing himself rest. The anger inside, the hunger for revenge, it was almost insatiable for there was only one thing that would satify his cravings. The head of Kibutsuji Muzan. These intense feelings left a bitter, filthy taste in his mouth, he knew such thoughts would only rot him from the inside if he didn’t keep a tight leash upon them so he would hold onto them til his hands bled, fingers cut down to bone. If he gave in, he would be no better than the demon he despised. Instead he would turn his mind towards love, towards mercy, each demon he dispatched he would see as a trapped soul being freed of the binds of demonic blood, he would fight to ensure no more human lives were trampled upon. Yoriichi knew very little of the time between him leaving their childhood home and that fateful day when they would be reunited once again. He know not of everything Michikatsu had left behind to pursue the path of a demon slayer- to reach anf try to take the power he himself held. A part of him wished he could simply hand his skill with the sword over to his brother and trade it for the life Michikatsu had left behind. Then they both could have had what they desired. “That could be, even gods are capable of mistakes…” While Kokushibo was correct about overflowing compassion, Yoriichi was not soft- he was a gentle man, caring to those around him, but any who stepped on the lion’s tail was to be bitten- that was something Kibutsuji had learned first hand. He was simply a pacifist, he would rather talk through conflict than raise his fist, but if push came to shove he would spill blood for the ones he loved. “It seems that path sought out my hand and forced itself upon me, it has ripped the ones I cared for from hand hands- it created a chasm between you and I, brother.” Never had he thought his brother weak, no, he had always looked up to the elder twin, his brother was brave, kind, and thoughtful. If not for Michikatsu he would have simply rotted away in that room, victim of their father’s ignorance. He wanted to be like his brother, a hero- like the samurai Michi had told him about from stories he read.

He left because it was the only thing he could think of to correct their father’s foolish decision.

“I am sorry…though you are wrong about one thing, you are not weak, you never were. I had to leave because of our father was a fool who only saw us as tools, he based our value on what he thought he could gain from us.”

The old man before him still shed tears, his broken heart bleeding and spilling out to the demon before him- it hurt to hear his brother’s true feelings, but he would take in every little word, he would not interrupt nor would he invalidate the other’s feelings, he had every right to feel as he did. Still, sorrow bled from his every pore, everything he had held in for all these years rushed out like a tsunami, unstoppable and destructive. It put strain on the heart of the gentle old man.

Though he could not see, he could hear the change in the demon’s breathing, he could feel the way his resolve had started to crumble, how the lingering pieces of his humanity were beginning to resurface. His Michikatsu was coming back to him, after all these years apart. After all these years maybe he could find some semblance of peace, all it would take is one decision.

It was made.

In a mere second, the blink of an eye, Yoriichi found himself in an embrace, it was warm, welcoming. A long awaited moment, the younger brother’s salvation from heartbreak…yet- As thin arms raised to embrace the demon, they found themselves weakened, sluggish- just as his heart had become. This fire, this purpose that had burned within him had been extinguished.

He was at peace.

Not yet- he didn’t want to go yet, not now, he had only just been reunited with his beloved Michikatsu, but his body was screaming for rest, for his long awaited retirement. His heart was failing him, he could feel the squeezing pressure in his chest, the way his heart was beating irregularly, the dizziness that took over as he began crumbling in his twins arms, hands gripping at violet silk.

“Michi-” his voice would be cut by a gasping, pained breath, he could feel the hands of rest tugging at every inch of his being, trying to coax his eyes closed. He would fight, there was still so many words to be said, so much time to make up for. Was this really how things would end? Would he not be offered the kindness of spending even a few hours with his brother?

How cruel fate could be.

cont. || @the-moonbreather-rp

His childhood was something he did not speak freely about, very few knew much at all about Yoriichi’s past, his adolesent life, nor the life he had shared with his beloved. It was much to painful to stir up memories of the past and let them leave his lips, especially when it came to her. His Uta. Throughout his life Yoriichi attempted to make his presence as small and insignificant as possible, he dared not breathe too loud nor did he barely even made a sound as she shuffled about in the background of his family’s life, a delicate dance to ensure he would make no ripples in the water, for they turned into waves. One wrong step would lead the Tsugikuni family to ruin- or at least that is what their father had Yoriichi believe. For years he had belived that his mere existance was a fluke, according to father he should have never been born, he was a cursed child and the mark he bore was irrefutable proof. Everything he did was for the sake of his family. The sole reason he began speaking after being silent for so long was to extinguish mother’s worries of him being deaf, she was already in a fragile state at the time, so if he could take this one weight from her shoulders, he would. All he wanted was to be like his brother, he looked up to Michikatsu, the one who would come to him behind their father’s back to ensure he had a full belly, the one who had crafted little toys by hand for his entertainment- the one who kept him from simply withering away in that three tatami mat room. His brother was his hero and in return he wished to serve by his side, saving others as his brother had him. That’s all it was though. A wish. One that would not come true for fate had other plans as Yoriichi’s true talent came to light. Their father would plot, plan to push the elder brother to the side in favor of the younger twin’s natural strength and skill. Michikatsu would be sent off, Yoriichi would inherit everything his brother had been working so hard for. He would not have it. He would leave the very night their mother died, he knew it was coming, her body showed the signs well before, he had already starting mourning before and even as he shared the news with his brother, his heart ached. A simple smile was the only parting gift he had to offer, he had nothing else to give to Michikatsu before he would depart. If only Michi knew the admiration Yoriichi held for him and the sacrifice he had made to unsure his brother had the chance at the life he wanted. Many years had passed since they last laid eyes upon one another, the years apart greater than the years they had spent together as children and as slayers. Still, he vividly remembered the day he found of his brother’s betrayal to not only the corps, but to him. He had taken the head of the master and had become the very thing they sought to rid the world of. The news had stilled him and deep inside this sorrow he held only spilled over, dripping from his eyes. It hurt. It was agony to lose yet another he cared to deeply for and the act of betrayal wasn’t the end of it. Yoriichi would sit before the other pillars and their master’s heir as they discussed his fate, he would be the one to pay the toll of his brother’s sins. Originally, the other pillars pushed for him to commit suicide, to slit his own belly, that would not come to pass, their new master and the flame pillar had argued against such a fate and in the end he was exiled from the corps. Alone once again. He always seemed to find himself alone in the end.

Now the sun user would let his tears flow freely down his sunken cheeks as he stood before the twisted image of his beloved elder brother, his heart aching painfully in his chest. Holding his blade in opposition to his own blood put a strain on his old bones, it was as if his body was trying to reject the truth of what needed to be done. That he needed to cut down his astray twin and let his soul pass to the other side so he could finally be at rest. He knew once this was done his own time would come to an end, even now he could feel his body failing him, yearing for rest. “Every creature that grazes this land will eventually come to the end of its life, so is the way of life and death…though some meet death in an untimely manner, some live well beyond their years.” In the end the Gods sought to reclain the souls of every living being, it was what made life worth living, the separation of life and death, an unpredictable cycle. “I admit I share the blame for it was my teachings that marked you and our comrads for death, that I will carry to my grave.” Yoriichi could not hold the fear of a life cut short against his brother, no one wanted to die, not at such an early age, still full of life and ambition, but becoming a demon, a beast that consumed the innocent, that is what lead to this moment. The moment he would hold his blade against his own kin. “This path you speak of, is it truly what you desire? The strength you speak of has been given to you at a price, a price you will come to pay, you will be shackled to that man until death.” Yoriichi appeared to simply be a frail old man, thin, frail, easily broken, his hair once a fiery-raven color now white, the ends tinged in silver. “My heart breaks for you, brother.”

[lexi-the-demon-69]

Another failure // A New Life AU Oneshot

"I'm sorry, my king... we couldn't find him..."

Those words, that very sentence, are always being replayed over and over. Like a broken record player. But, that didn't shake king Dark Cacao cookie's hope one bit. For months, he's been sending out search parties, watchers, and even Caramel Arrow cookie to find his son. And every time they would return, those words would always be repeated.

"Another failure...?" Dark Cacao sighed.

"Unfortunately... yes... I'm beginning to think that we'll never find him."

"We will find him! We must not give up hope!" Caramel Arrow cookie firmly stated.

"Thank you, Caramel Arrow cookie... now, if you'll excuse me. I need some time alone." The king replied as he stands from his throne.

"Of course, your majesty." The watchers said with a bow. As the watchers fled the room, Dark Cacao was left alone with nothing but his thoughts.

"Those words.... those vile, vile words..." he quietly said to himself.

'In this kingdom, I knew no love or sweetness but rigid cold! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I CARE ABOUT YOU, OR THIS FORSAKEN LAND?!'

....

'I have nothing left for the pathetic traitor, who has given away the last specks of his pride!'

'STUBBORN OLD FOOL! WILL YOU STILL BE CLAWING AT THAT PRECIOUS SWORD OF YOURS, AFTER YOUR KINGDOM HAS FALLEN?! WILL YOU PERSIST, EVEN AFTER HAVING SLAIN YOUR OWN SON?!'

'YOU WHELP! YOUR WICKED ARROGANCE KNOWS NO BOUNDS! So be it! It's my life's greatest regret to have called you my son!'

"If only I could take those words back..."

Dark Cacao clinched his face to soothe his aching head. Filled to the brim with guilt and shame for the poison he spewed from his very mouth. What has he done? The citadel's wall is in shambles, he lost half of his watchers, and Affogato cookie used him as a puppet, causing his reputation to be destroyed in two. His very son hates him! All thanks to his arrogant stubbornness.

"Such a waste..." The king groaned as he got up from his throne. Then made his way to the Shelter of Solitude. A safe space to clear his head, when it's too filled with thought. However, the unsettling scent of a foul incense never lets him put his guard down.

As he looked over the view of mountains, covered by the wrath of the winter climate, Dark Cacao soon covered his face into his hand and sighed deeply. Feeling the cold wind blow against his flowing hair, as his thoughts only stayed, clear as a tropical sunny day. Where could his son be? Maybe, he didn't want to ever hear from his own father again? If only he could see his son's smile once more. And tell that smiling face that he's sorry.

"My king?" a voice called from behind.

"Caramel Arrow cookie..." Dark Cacao sighed while looking away.

"I couldn't help but notice that you've been here longer than usual... is everything alright?"

"No...."

"You're thinking about him... aren't you?"

Dark Cacao sighed. "After everything that has happened... I doupt that we'll ever find him. I don't want him to return... that's the least of my worries. I just.... want to give him a proper apology... an apology that he deserves."

"Indeed, the prince wasn't... the best behaved, nor the most honest... but, he was a very kind, just and noble warrior... until he... you know."

"I let my anger cloud my judgement... how could I let myself do such a thing...? I taught him to never let anger cloud his mind. To be the voice of reason. When even I, his own father... couldn't do neither."

"My king... that could happen to anyone. Not just you. True... you did jump to conclusions too early in time and can't change them... but, that's all in the past now. It's better to try and mend old wounds, rather than to let them rot. The best thing to do is to not give up hope. You weren't there for him in the past. But you can be there for him now."

"You're right, Caramel Arrow cookie. We must not give up hope. Not when he's still out there. Not when we still have a chance in finding him."

"Great. Shall I send out another search party?"

"You may. For now, I have other worries to attend to."

"Understood."

As Caramel Arrow began to leave the shelter of Solitude, Dark Cacao continuing his train of thought. Replaying an old memory, as clear as day in his mind.

...

"My King...!"

"What is the problem?"

"It's the prince! We've tried everything! We just can't get him to calm down!"

"Have you tried feeding him?"

"Feeding, playing, rocking, everything! Nothing is calming him down!"

"Hm... let me see him."

One of the watchers soon brought in a tiny and cranky little freshly baked cookie. Crying for his father's attention. Dark Cacao Cookie only sighed as he picked up his son and held him in his arms. Wiping his little tears away as they only grew in higher numbers.

"Oh Dark Choco cookie... there's no need to cry. I'm right here." He said as he rocked the little cookie to help calm him down.

"Seems you're putting up more of a fight that usual, I see. Well, let's see if this will put your crankiness to rest." Dark Cacao slyly said before singing a little lullaby.

"星　星　星　星体投射... 星　星　星　星体投射... 星　星　星　星体投射... 星体投射　我去看你了"

As the king continued his lullaby, Dark Choco began to calm down. Letting out a small yawn before the song was done. Only a few moments later, the room was silent once more, with a sleeping little cookie in his father's arms.

...

"星体投射　我去看你了..."

(for context, the lyrics are from a song by Kikuo, called “astral travel”. More specifically at time 2:36. It’s in Mandarin btw. Here’s the link if you wanna listen to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHH2KKN0xoc)

[paperpocalypse]

significance.

50 Cliché Tropes and Prompts: 26. Cuddling in comfortable silence before murmuring “I love you” + 47. “I’ve been in love with you for years”

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4,118 words

Warning: Swearing, violence

His head feels like it’s been split open, the rest of his body feels like one giant bruise and the Handler’s daughter has her fancy leather boot on his fucking throat.

Five couldn’t be less surprised by his luck.

“Doesn’t feel so good, does it?”

He forces in just enough breath to answer her. “Eat shit and die …!”

The reaction is worth it. Lila lets out a furious cry, gritting her teeth and bringing her foot down even harder – and in doing so, changes her center of gravity. Opportunity. Five digs his nails into that damned shoe and pushes upwards. The sudden force sends her flying, and he can breathe again.

Fighting the ache in his bones, Five stumbles to his feet as she does the same. “Come on,” he pants, readying his stance as the woman turns to face him again. “What are you waiting for? Let’s finish this thing.”

She shakes her head. “No,” she whispers, sniffling. “This isn’t gonna be quick. You are going to suffer for what you did.”

Suffer? For Christ’s sake – Five scoffs and drops his hands. “Lady, I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Ronnie and Anita Gill.”

“Mean nothing to me.”

“1993, East London.” Lila continues to stare at him like he knows what the hell she’s talking about. “You hog-tied them and you shot them in the head.”

Five narrows his eyes; it’s very possible that she’s just bullshitting him. But despite the rationality of just ignoring her and going for the kill, he searches his memories anyway. 1993, East London. Hog-tied. Tables overturned, the pleas of a couple inside a tiny flat in the middle of the night. Yes, wait – he does remember. 1993, toys strewn everywhere – he told you to close your eyes but you didn’t – East London, two quick shots –

“We had no choice.”

“I know. But …”

“The flower merchants,” he murmurs. Five looks at her with wide eyes. “They were your parents …!”

“And they never did anything to anyone. They didn’t deserve to die like that.”

The Handler ordered him to kill Lila’s parents. Lila, who has powers like them. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.

Absorbing this newfound information, Five attempts to talk the woman down as he fills out the rest of the picture. “You’re right, alright? I killed them. But I killed a lot of people over the years. It was all just a job. Alright? That was never personal.”

At that, Lila laughs. “‘Never personal,’ my ass,” she sneers. “Yeah, I’ve killed – it’s always, always personal.”

“That’s why you’re not cut out to be an assassin.”

She yanks a knife out of her boot as soon as the sentence leaves his mouth. “Bet your life on that?”

Right then, a shadow moves in the doorway to the barn. Five immediately knows who it is, and his heart seizes in his chest.

“Lila!” Your voice is firm and taunting.

Shit. Shit!

Without hesitation, Five lunges for the knife, only to find himself grabbing at air as Lila reappears behind you. The blade is pressed against your neck before he can even shout your name.

Five clenches his fists as he meets your eyes. Your expression is stony, hands stiffly grasping at Lila’s arm. Jesus Christ, just a little energy to blink – nothing –!

Fucking shit!

“Let her go.”

—

The bearded man smiles. “Sorry, no can do.”

The alley is frigid and dark, the air damp and rotting. He doesn’t move a muscle. In front of him, you breathe steadily, in and out, not saying a word. The steel barrel pressed flush to your temple mirrors the one against his.

“Just hand over your valuables and that briefcase, and we can be on our way.”

“Sorry,” you say, voice steady and cold. (It makes him proud.) “Everything stays with us.”

He looks at you. You blink.

Within the next half-second, he’s knocked your captor to the ground and the two of you are aiming the guns at their previous owners. They raise their hands almost immediately. Exactly like the exercise from his youth.

Another half-second, and both of you pull the triggers.

Five stares down at the corpse now lying on the ground. Then he straightens his tie and turns to you.

You’re still pointing the gun at the other target. His frown softens.

“[Y/n].”

Putting a hand on your arm, he notes how you stiffen, snapping out of whatever zone you had been in. You meet his eyes and breathe in sharply, then relax.

“We’re done.” You frame the question as more of a statement as Five takes the former thief’s gun from you.

“For the night,” he affirms, holding your gaze curiously. “You good?”

You wet your lips and tuck your weapon away. “I’m okay,” you eventually reply. He raises an eyebrow; your mouth twitches. “I just – well, you’re taking this whole assassin thing a lot better than I am. Pointing guns and shooting and killing for real, and – and all that pizzazz.”

“I was a member of the Umbrella Academy,” Five points out dryly. “Thirteen more years of formal training and being able to spatial jump gives me somewhat of an advantage.”

“… That’s true.” Still, you seem unsettled. “Five, you’re okay with this? We’re … killing people.”

“No. But we have no other option,” he says. “It’s only until I figure out how to get us back, alright?”

You hesitate, then nod. “Alright.”

The pair of you leave the alley, leaving the targets there to be found by the police. The fact that they had a gun pointed at your head should make him feel better about it. They were already criminals, too. Self-defense instead of cold-blooded “corrections.”

There’s still a bitter taste in his mouth anyway.

“You hold your own pretty well,” he murmurs after a while, trying to distract himself.

You grant him a small, knowing smile. “Thanks,” you say, taking his arm as the pair of you walk the rest of the way to the motel. “I had a good teacher while I was stuck in the ruins of the apocalypse.”

He hums. “Weren’t you lucky?”

Your hand tightens around the sleeve of his tailored suit.

“The luckiest.”

—

He’s going to kill her.

Teeth bared, Five starts toward her, only to stop short when Lila presses the blade harder against your throat.

“Not another step, Five,” she warns him, her grip tightening. “Or you’ll both regret it.”

“She’s not responsible for what happened. I was the one who killed them!”

“But she didn’t stop you, did she?”

Five struggles to control his rage. The knife is sharp and black underneath your jaw, ready to draw blood at a moment’s notice.

You inhale shallowly. “Lila,” you rasp.

“Don’t speak.”

“Look,” Five forces out as evenly as he can, catching the woman’s attention again. He can’t take his eyes off that goddamn knife. Five can almost feel the edge cutting into his own skin. “You wanna blame someone, blame the Handler, alright? She faked the kill order.”

“Bullshit! I saw the kill order. AJ Carmichael ordered it, and you and [Y/n] carried it out.”

“Lila, listen to what I’m telling you, alright? The Handler gave us the kill order. She came on the job, which she’d never done before.” He unclenches his fists with unwilling, trembling fingers. His mind is reeling. “You’re Commission. You know execs never go on jobs, but that day in London, she was there. Ask yourself why –”

“Stop trying to muddy the waters.”

Five swallows, pulse racing. He rips his eyes away from your neck to gauge Lila’s expression. Doubt is beginning to bleed into it, and he manages to keep his tone level.

Focus on completing the picture. No sudden movements.

“Think about it, Lila. It all makes sense.”

Lila’s grip on the knife relaxes by the smallest amount. She hesitates for a moment before speaking. “What?”

“She never cared about your parents. She was looking for you.”

What little is left of her anger melts off Lila’s face. For the first time, the girl looks completely vulnerable. And it’s not a farce.

“Why?” she whispers.

Come on …

“‘Cause you’re one of us.”

Lila whips her head around when Diego cuts through the silence, holding you even more tightly against herself. Five’s gaze snaps back to the knife again and he swears internally.

Dammit, Diego, you better have a plan!

“The Handler stole you, Lila. Just like our asshole father took all of us,” his brother explains carefully.

“No. It’s not the same thing.”

“You’re right. Because he didn’t have our parents murdered.” Diego approaches her, staying low to the ground, hands outstretched. “Listen to me, Lila. You were born October 1, 1989, the same day as all of us.”

The rest of his siblings close in on Lila, slowly, warily. The movement sends her into a panic, and she cuts a little into your neck. You let out half of a gasp and swallow the rest of it, but it’s enough.

Five sees red.

“Get your fucking hands off her!”

“STAY BACK!”

“Five! Back off!” Diego shouts. Chest heaving and blood roaring in his ears, Five looks at him and then at your sweaty, frozen face – and against every fiber of his being, he listens and backs off, glaring venomously as his brother then turns to Lila again. “Lila? Lila, stop. Let her go.”

She turns her head from side to side, knuckles white as she keeps the knife against your throat. “No,” she chokes. “Diego, you don’t understand. They killed my parents. They took my life away from me.”

Five seethes. “For the last time, it was nothing personal –"

“And it was wrong. I know.” Diego’s eyes flit to Five’s, silently reprimanding. “You want to make them pay for what they did. But killing [Y/n]’s not gonna bring your parents back. You know that.”

“It’s not about bringing them back.”

He nods once, softly. “You’re right. It’s about justice. Honoring their memory.” Diego’s voice is gentle. “Trust me, Lila, I get it. I lost someone to the Commission too. She wasn’t family, but she was my friend, and I cared about her. She wasn’t supposed to die. She didn’t deserve to die. But she did.”

As Diego continues talking, Five keeps his guard up on the other side, watching and waiting for a contraction of a muscle, a single forewarning of violence. If another drop of your blood stains that blade, shit, he’ll kill the woman with his own two hands, Diego’s feelings be damned.

Tightening his jaw, Five shifts on his feet as he looks at you. You stare back with calm eyes – just like that night in the alley, but this time, with no signal for him to make a move.

Goddammit, they should’ve gotten you to safety by now!

“… Just think about whether taking another life would honor their memory. [Y/n] deserves a chance to start over, live a peaceful life with people she cares about. And so do you.”

Lila’s trembling. Yet, she refuses to budge. “If it weren’t for her and Five,” she whispers, “I wouldn’t need that second chance. I would have been all alone if Mum hadn’t found me that night.”

“But there’s a reason she found you. She’s using you, Lila. The Handler.”

“You’re wrong. She raised me.” Lila pauses, then asserts, “She loves me.”

“She’s dangerous,” Diego emphasizes. “And you’re scared of what she’ll do with all that new power. That’s why you dragged me to the Commission. Because I know what it’s like to love dangerous people.”

—

“Oh, my.” The Handler puts a hand on his shoulder, hovering behind him. “One hundred and forty-three kills on the simulation? That’s a new record. Very, very good, Five.”

Five bristles at her closeness, but he doesn’t move away, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of unnerving him. “Thanks,” he says tersely.

“Tell me, Five. From what I’ve seen during your training, you’d be a lot more efficient in the field if you were a one-man team. Working alone is when you work best.”

“I’m partnering up with [Y/n].”

“And you’ve filled out the paperwork and everything, I know. I know. But I implore you to think about it logically,” the Handler tells him, leading him down the hallway. “[Y/n] has highly marked assessments, but frankly, they’re nowhere near your level.” She raises her eyebrows at him and blows out a stream of smoke. “Forgive me for assuming, but perhaps this is less about a partnership that would benefit the Commission and more about your personal … relationship.”

Five smiles thinly at her. “With all due respect, we’ve worked together for years. Almost forty years, in fact. I can assure you that our partnership will deliver more than satisfactory results.”

The woman just hums serenely, eyebrows still raised and cigarette holder between her lips as he faces her. Behind her, he sees you approaching.

“Excuse me,” he says politely.

As he sidesteps the Handler to meet you halfway, your shared employer calls out to him, voice ringing through the sparse crowd of Commission drones. “You’re a dangerous man, Five,” she drawls, “and this is a dangerous job. If you want to protect someone, we won’t stop you, but don’t let it endanger this opportunity we’ve so generously provided. To the both of you.”

“Duly noted,” Five replies over his shoulder, walking away with you. He can hear the Handler’s heels click against the floor as she goes on her way as well.

“She’s suspicious about us partnering up, isn’t she?” you ask him lowly.

He frowns. “I would be too if I were her. But we have to stay together.”

“Well.” You reach up to adjust his hat, tilting it slightly. “In any case, I’m pulling my own weight in the field. Just like in the apocalypse. No one-sided protection.”

“[Y/n], this is different from the apocalypse. We’re not dealing with food shortages or bad weather – we’re dealing with people.”

“All the more reason for you to trust me.” Despite your usual controlled tone and mien, he sees the way that your eyes glint. “I’m kinda dangerous myself, Five. Especially for the people I love, and I’ve been in love with you for years.”

Five sighs.

“You’re so sappy, you know that?”

(Nevertheless, he finds himself mumbling those four words, just loud enough for only you to hear.)

—

“Difference is …” Diego glances around at their siblings, then looks down, “they love me back.”

“Shut up.”

“The only thing she loves is power. Now, the minute she can’t use you, she will turn on you, and deep down, I know you know that.”

She tilts the knife against your neck. Five sucks in a breath, his heart pounding.

“You don’t know me, Diego.” Lila’s voice is hoarse.

Diego steps closer. He lifts a hand to cover hers over the knife.

“Don’t I?” he whispers. “I know that we can be your family. If you just let us.”

Lila’s eyes are glossy with unshed tears. Hesitantly, she turns her head to look around at his family, and in that moment, Five has a cautious inkling that Diego’s words actually got through to her. She doesn’t resist when Diego pulls her hand gently.

When she releases you, he almost feels weak with relief.

Five murmurs your name as you stagger over to him; you grab his arms, and he raises his hands to hold your face between them.

“Shit,” he breathes, “[Y/n] –”

“I’m okay,” he hears you say, but his ears are ringing and your skin is cold and shit, your neck – delicately, Five tilts your head back, and you attempt to brush his hands away. “Five, it’s – it’s just a scratch …”

His fingers brush against a wetness on your skin. You wince, almost imperceptibly. He draws back to look at his hand, and when he sees the blood on his fingertips, your blood, the wave of relief crashing onto him abruptly morphs back into rage.

Before you can pull him back, Five lunges at Lila.

Gunshots echo throughout the barn.

—

You’re smiling.

—

He wakes up, gasping for breath.

“Oh, good! You’re still alive,” the Handler says, looming over him. Her lipstick is bright red through the dizzying blurs. “Lucky you. You got to see how this all played out.”

Grappling for air, Five tries to speak – tries to give one last word, to finally tell the damned snake to fuck off as he stares into the barrel of her automatic. But it hurts to breathe and he can’t. Fuck, it hurts. It hurts. His tongue feels like lead and his throat is closed up. All he can do is look.

But before she can pull the trigger, he hears gunfire.

Bullets rend flesh that isn’t his. Five’s eyes widen, stunned; the Handler gasps sharply. She turns. More gunfire.

She falls.

Shit, that could only mean.… Five struggles to lift his head, almost blacking out from the pain as the gunman approaches, crushing straw underfoot. A shadow falls over him.

The Swede silently tilts his gun down at his face, and he realizes: they are both the last ones. Everyone else is dead. The Swede’s brothers. The Handler. Lila. His siblings. You.

This is the end.

(This doesn’t have to be the end.)

… Five blinks, numb.

(You’re the one who got us stuck here.)

Unless …

(Seconds. Not decades.)

Seconds.

His lungs burn. Hope blooms in his chest.

(C’mon, Five.)

Concentrate. Hands clenching sluggishly, Five focuses on gaining back the feeling in them. Seconds, not decades. A familiar, electric buzz thrums through his bones, warm, crackling with energy. His hands begin to glow. Blue envelops them like they had so many times before.

It happens slowly, time reversing itself like molasses oozing back into a jar. The Swede lowers his arm and retreats. Bodies begin to rise. Five feels himself getting pushed up, and his feet touch the ground; he presses forward, running, refusing to look back. The sharp pains recede to a singular ache.

Seconds.

Seconds.

He breaks through behind the barn door with a gasp. Air fills his chest, full and crisp.

Immediately, Five looks back at you and everyone else, standing and breathing, and pats himself just to make sure.

Holy shit.

Spotting movement outside, Five leaps at the Handler just as she walks in, seizing her weapon and turning it on her. His finger curls at the trigger. She raises her hands in surrender, lips pursed.

Got you, you son of a bitch.

“It’s true, isn’t it? What Five said,” he hears Lila ask. He doesn’t dare look away from her mother, meeting her poisonous glare with an equally cold one. “Answer me! Is it true?”

The Handler takes in a breath. “Well –”

Before she can finish her sentence, blood sprays out from her chest. She collapses. Dead.

The Swede. Five stares at her body, gun lowering. There’s a pregnant pause, void of any air – and then in his periphery, Lila shoots forward.

Luther charges after her. “The case!”

“No!”

Diego tackles him to the ground. Lila disappears in a flash of blue.

One dead, one missing. Neither of which are you or his siblings. There might be hope for them yet. Rolling his shoulders, Five turns his attention to the rogue assassin, cocking his gun and pointing it at him. The Swede reciprocates.

Nobody utters a word, for fear that it may be their last. But as Five feels the weight of the automatic in his arms, he wonders, suddenly, just how much he has in common with this man. A forgotten humanity. The death of their families. The force of a person with nothing to lose.

Except in the Swede’s case, he has no chance of gaining back what he had lost.

This is the end.

Five takes his finger off the trigger, then after a brief hesitation, lets go of the gun.

“Enough,” he says.

Nothing happens at first. The only sign that the man heard him is how he looks away from Five, surveying the rest of the barn’s occupants.

Five returns his gaze firmly, muscles tense, when he meets it again. The Swede regards him for another moment, then finally speaks.

“Inte mer.”

He drops his weapon. No more killing.

—

After Vanya helps the kid and calms him down, she goes with him and Sissy to help them pack up. Everyone else exits the barn as well to rest up and say their goodbyes before leaving, save for Diego, who talks to Herb and Dot with you and Five before joining the rest of the group at the house.

As soon as everything seems like it’s on track, Five brings you straight to the bathroom before you can protest.

“Five, it’s just a scratch.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

In a familiar turn of events, you’re sitting on the edge of the bathtub, sulking as he cleans the rest of the dried blood from your neck. Five scowls as he inspects the thin, rough scab underneath your jaw. For shit’s sake, it’s more than a ‘scratch’ – but at the very least, the cut wasn’t deep enough to cause too much bleeding.

Obviously, he’d have preferred it if you hadn’t gotten cut at all.

“She could’ve killed you.”

“I know,” you murmur. He glares at you softly, and you reach over to hold his hand. “Sorry for worrying you.”

Five scoffs, shaking his head. “Worrying me? I was damn well past worrying when she –” At that moment, he makes the mistake of seeing the guilt in your eyes, and he sighs. “What the hell were you thinking?”

You shrug quietly as he opens a large Band-Aid. “That I had to do something to keep you safe.”

“At your expense?”

Your miniscule smile changes into a grimace for a split second when he sticks the bandage on, but it returns immediately after. “You would’ve done the same thing, Five.”

All he can retort with is a displeased huff.

Silently, you stand up and turn him around, urging him to sit down this time as you pluck another hand towel from the stack that Vanya had given the two of you. Five sits still, mouth shut and eyes watching, as you start cleaning his face. Your expression is tender. A familiar feeling wells up inside of him.

Suddenly, you chuckle.

“What?”

“It’s just – if I didn’t know any better,” you say, scrubbing at a particularly grimy spot on his cheek, “I’d think that you were a schoolboy that just got into a fight and lost.”

He rolls his eyes. “Well, good thing that you do know better, because I obviously would’ve won.”

“Obviously.” Your eyes glint, like they have so many times before.

—

“How bad does it hurt?”

Your hand is soft in his as he glances at his wrist, propped up on a stack of books, then into the small fire burning a few feet away. “Not that much,” he answers. “Thanks for splinting it.”

“Thanks for talking me through it.” You breathe in, head on his shoulder, testing the words on your tongue before you continue. “I was worried. I’m glad it’s feeling better.”

A wrist sprain is nothing to write home about, figuratively speaking. It’s more of an inconvenience than an actual concern; Five figures that the injury will heal in a week, a week and a half at the most. Frankly, he’s more concerned about how much longer it’ll take to complete daily tasks in the meantime.

… You, on the other hand – well, he wonders if you’ve ever gotten anything more than a few cuts and scrapes growing up. The closest he had ever seen you get to panicking was after he fell today, and you’ve been wandering around with him for years.

In a strange way, Five thinks, he was glad for it. He is glad for you. Glad for your presence, your level head. He is glad for the way you hold his hand and talk to him during the day and after dark. And he is glad, secretly, that you want to protect him just like he wants to protect you.

“I love you.”

The words slip out, rough and unbidden.

Five holds his breath when they echo in his ears. You stop tapping your fingers over his skin. Perhaps that’s a bad thing. It was not a mistake, of course, and he isn’t going to take it back, but if that wasn’t what you were saying this whole time – shit. He lets go of your hand, his throat scratchy and strangely closed up.

But then – your fingertips brush his face. He swallows.

“I love you too.”

[burndownyourparade]

Dabi x Reader - Crossed My Heart

This literally had zero direction. It’s my first reader insert piece and it has nothing to do with the Olivia Rodrigo song, the lyric was mainly used as a loose prompt inspiration. It’s also been a long as heck time since I’ve sat down and really written anything so oof. But, I do plan on writing some more drabbles here and there. I’ve got Dabi/Touya brain rot bad. So expect a lot of him.

You used me as an alibi. I crossed my heart as you crossed the line.

pairing: dabi x reader (gender not specified)

length: 2k words

genre: angst, fluff if you squint real hard

warnings: mentions of death, the burning at sekoto peak. nothing detailed.

You’d been there. You had watched him go up in flames. The beautiful bright blue dancing across your eyes and you knew you’d never see him again. He’d be lost to you forever, but you promised.

And you were willing to do anything for him. Even if it meant breaking your own heart. 

So when you’d sit up at Sekoto Peak every year after his disappearancedeath you’d curse his name. Curse him for leaving you behind, for not coming back to you. Not even a single sign of if he was okay.. If he was still out there. 

When you’d seen this new villain on the news, just a few years ago, you had an inkling. A thought that maybe it had been him. He talked big about getting back at his father. Dishing back out everything he’d had to endure as a child. And at age 15 when you encouraged him, you never thought it would come to this. 

So today, when you sat up at Sekoto Peak, ten years after the incident, the spiteful, “Fuck you, Touya.” That left your lips didn’t go unheard. 

In all honesty he’d planned on coming clean. He had planned on coming back to you. After all, you were the only person who really meant anything to him. But then he got way too involved with Stain’s cause and the league, there was no way he was going to risk putting you in any danger. If that meant having to write you off, then so be it. 

Eventually you’d find out that Dabi was Touya, eventually you’d know that he was still alive after all these years. No more doubt would cloud your mind, but he had a feeling you’d come to hate him for waiting so goddamn long. 

It was when he’d heard his name, the anger dripping from your sweet voice that had him moving his feet towards you. He wasn’t planning to reveal himself, but he needed to at least try redeeming himself before even thinking of continuing his plan to bring down Endeavor. None of it would have meant anything if he couldn’t come back to you. If he wasn’t going to be able to run away with you like the two of you had planned.

“You have to promise you won’t tell anyone about this.” Touya held your hands in his, begging you. He was tired and run down. Bandages wrapped around his arms from his most recent burns. He didn’t know how he was going to do it. But he was going to fake his death. He was going to run away. 

You stared at him, wide eyed and reluctantly nodded your head to his plea. “Will I see you again?” The fear was evident in your voice and if that quiver didn’t give you away, then the way that your hands shook in his would. The tears in your eyes blurred your vision, but you could still see him. You could see his messy white hair fall into his bright blue eyes. You could see the bruise that was forming under the left eye, no doubt a result of training. And you wondered if this was his only solution. If this was really the only way that he’d be able to outrun this.

He could practically feel the pain reverberating off of you, it bounced off of him too. He didn’t want to leave you. But he had no other choice. He was trapped and all he wanted was to make something of himself. To prove to his father and everyone around him that he wasn’t worthless, he wasn’t a lost cause. He could do it, too. He was powerful just like Shoto. 

Touya was torn, he knew that this hurt you… Leaving you hurt him too, even if you couldn’t see it. Even if he was acting selfishly. “Of course.” He nodded, snow white hair moving wildly with the frantic nodding of his head. “I’ll come back for you and we’ll run away.” He promised, you could see the makings of a plan in his head. The way that his eyes moved when he was deep in thought, “We can start a life together. Build a house and adopt all the cats and dogs you want!” His hands moved to your shoulders, shaking you lightly with excitement before pulling you into him. His arms wrapping around you tightly.

He never cried in front of you, but today was different. He didn’t know when he’d see you after today, but he did know he refused to break his promise to you. A single tear slipped down his cheek.

“I love you, Touya.” You murmured into his shirt, breathing him in. If this was the last time in a while, then you were going to make the most of it. You tilted your head, looking up at him. Sadness washing over you and feeling your own tears begin to slip. You leaned up on your toes, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth and felt the way his lips turned upwards in a soft smile. An almost dreamy looking flashing across his face. 

“I love you too, (y/n)... I’ll come back for you, I swear.” His hands shifted again, this time to cup your cheeks and bring your lips to his. This kiss was soft and sweet, not unlike ones you’ve shared before but there was a sense of urgency to this one. Almost like he had been trying to convey every single thing he felt for you in this brief moment. He didn’t want to pull away, but when he did he felt your hands tighten around the fabric of his shirt. Just barely hearing your whisper begging him not to go, but he shook his head, gently moving your hands to take a step back from you.

“Please don’t watch…” Touya asked, giving you a gentle shove away from him. “Once you see my flames run… Run and tell someone about the fire and then go home. I’ll see you again soon, I promise.”

You bit your lip and nodded your head, running a safe distance away into the trees. Waiting to watch his flames burn around him. You stuck around a little longer than he’d asked you to, only to make sure that he was safe… That he was still okay. But you couldn’t make out anything other than the heat and Touya’s screams. 

At fifteen your heart shouldn’t have shattered that hard.

He didn’t know how you’d react to this. Hell, he didn’t even know what he was doing. Dabi had never planned on this. He was merely moving on pure emotion now. On things he thought he had forgotten, but when it came to you he was always weak. The only reason his resolve had even broken in the first place was because of how angry you sounded. The villain hated the thought of him becoming nothing to you. Ironic, when he was practically nothing to everyone else.

You stood in the same place where you both had parted ten years ago and he was quietly standing just a few feet behind you. He was uncertain of if he should reach out to you or just turn and run, was this even a good idea? But his feet wouldn’t stop and then his mouth started moving and before he knew it, he was speaking. 

“This Touya guy must have really fucked up, huh?” He cringed, ten years and this was the first thing he was saying to you? Ideally, in his head, whatever he’d dreamt up in his spare time was grandiose plans of sweeping you off your feet. He’d be done with the league, ready to pack up and start brand new. He’d have taken down Endeavor’s credibility and shattered Enji’s entire world. Yeah, that son of his who wasn’t going to amount to anything? He was something now. He was his greatest nightmare and deepest failure. And the consequences of his actions were coming back to bite him in the ass. Then, he’d be there for you. In the night he’d have found you, confessed his deepest feelings and that nothing had changed. Then you’d run away like he promised.

Your fists clenched at your sides, you recognized that voice, of course you did. How wouldn’t you when his promise haunted your dreams every night? His voice was a little deeper, raspier, richer. And for a moment, you hesitated in turning to face him, but when you did you couldn’t stop the way that your heart picked up pace. It was him, in the flesh, Touya was here. But he wasn’t Touya anymore… Not on the outside.

“Yeah, he’s a fucking asshole.” You played along with him. Both of you knew this was just a game, testing the waters to see if anything had really changed. “Promised he’d come back for me, but never showed up.” There was a smile on your face now, a sad one and Dabi felt his heart clench in his chest when he saw it. “Waited ten years for him.” You pressed, watching his reactions.

He deflated, he didn’t have an excuse. He could have come to you sooner and he knew that his whole keeping you safe excuse was bullshit. Dabi was just afraid. He was afraid of what you’d think when you saw him again. Dabi wasn’t Touya. He didn’t look like the boy you’d fallen in love with before. Smooth, pale skin was now rough and charred, the white hair with tufts of red now dyed black and coarse from the years of mistreatment. “I’m sorry.” Was all he could say.

“You could have come to me.” Your voice was soft and he knew that you were hurt. “Why didn’t you come back for me?” The way that your voice cracked made his heart break. He prided himself on being hard, on not allowing himself to feel petty emotions anymore, but unbeknownst to his comrades; you’d always be the only exception.

He was honest with you, “I was afraid.” And it was the first time in ten years that he’d been vulnerable, he was almost ready to run off with you. Dabi was ready to give up on his revenge plot against Endeavor, he just wanted to run away with you. To be just (y/n) and Touya.

“Of what?” You asked, nearly breathless and unbelieving. There was nothing he had to worry about. It didn’t matter who he was now or what he was doing. He would always be Touya to you. A boy who suffered more than he should have. The boy that you were ready to drop everything and run off with. The only boy you had ever loved and would ever love.

“I’m not the same.” He looked at you, uncertain. He still hadn’t gotten any closer to you and his hands twitched with anticipation. It had been so long since he’s held you. Dabi wanted to close the distance, to pull you into him and feel whole again.

“You’re still you.” You countered, shaking your head. You weren’t about to give the villain any room for excuses. He was still him and that’s all he’d ever be to you. You knew that he knew that. 

“I’m sorry.” He repeated, this time Dabi took a step closer to you. Carefully watching your movements, gauging on if he could move any closer. When there wasn’t any move on your part to shift away from him he took another step. And another.. Another, another, until he was wrapping his arms around your waist, pulling you into him. His lips gently touch the crown of your head, inhaling your scent. “Run away with me.”

You returned his touch almost immediately, arms wrapping around his thin middle. Melting into him and letting out a sob of relief, you were home again. “I thought you’d never ask.”

[rax-writes]

Enchanted - Part II

Fandom:  The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Pairing:  Caliban x Reader Warnings:  Violence, death + resurrection Notes:  Part I ♥ Here’s part two! Hope you all like it!

Your relationship with Caliban did not remain a secret for long. Your sister was the first to know.

As you jogged over to her at the carnival the following weekend, you said, “Sister, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I know how the Plague Kings’ plan to overthrow you. They’ll be keeping an eye on you for any missteps, and once given probable cause, they will force you and Caliban to embark on a quest to retrieve the Unholy Regalia.”

She was visibly stunned, and understandably so. “That’s great! But how did you find all that out?”

“That would be the bad news.”

As if on cue, Caliban then materialized, and wrapped an arm around your waist – which was immediately noticed by Sabrina.

“What did you rope my sister into?” she snarled at Caliban, but you held up a hand to silence them both before the bickering began.

“Caliban came to me and stated that he wished to court me. I first tried to convince him to end the coup in exchange for courtship, but he explained that even if he wanted to, he is unable to stop the Kings. So, instead, the exchange became useful information for courtship.”

“Mhmm,” Sabrina mused disbelievingly, glaring at the man at your side. “And for how long does she have to date you?”

“The only requirement to fulfill our agreement is a single date, hence our presence at this mortal affair,” Caliban answered, then smiled warmly at you. “After that, the status of our courtship is up to my lady.”

“Oh. Well, that’s not so bad,” Sabrina muttered, then shrugged as she turned to you. “At least you can get this night over with and never have to see him again.”

“In all honesty… I am not entirely opposed to seeing him again,” you admitted hesitantly, and Sabrina’s jaw dropped slightly as her brows furrowed in agitation. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Sister. For Satan’s sake, have you seen him? He’s more than a little easy on the eyes.”

Caliban chuckled, both at your compliment and your sister’s obvious annoyance. “Come, little dove. Let us explore this fanciful event.”

Though the evening had been a delight, and you enjoyed your time with your date, you couldn’t help but notice that Caliban seemed slightly on edge all night. After the sun had gone down, and you’d surveyed the majority of the carnival, Caliban requested to take you to dinner in a nice restaurant. You agreed, and he thoroughly surprised you by taking you to a quiet, romantic rooftop restaurant in Italy, having remembered you stating that Italian was your favorite food. It was the following morning before you realized that he’d been sensing the impending danger of Herod’s attack. Coincidentally, he had disappeared for a short while during dinner, and although he’d claimed to have gone to the restroom, you learned from Sabrina the following morning that he’d actually returned to Greendale to collect King Herod's crown.

Naturally, the two of you had bickered about him cheating your sister the next time you were together, but his soft lips and skilled hands had done wonders to dissipate your anger. Although you refused to admit it, you were positively hooked from thereon out.

You told yourself that you continued the dates and the trysts simply because it was merely an enjoyable pastime. But in truth, it was because you were slowly falling for the prince. Knowing it was a mistake due to his allegiance to Hell, and his position as the enemy of your sister, created a forbidden nature to the romance, and it only made you crave him more.

Little did you know, Caliban felt the same for you. Your smile set his soul aflame, and your laughter made his chest tighten with affection. The sight of your hair fanned across your pillow, mouth slightly agape in pleasure, was not one he would ever grow tired of. He had fallen well and truly in love with you.

This information was kept secret from one another, because both of you were scared to admit such a thing and risk scaring the other away.

It wasn’t long after your mutual realizations that he met your aunts and Ambrose. Although they were all pleased to have met the object of your affection, and they remained civil with him, it was evident that each member of your family distrusted him, and questioned his intentions with you.

Their distrust turned out to be short-lived.

Immediately following your coven’s Hare Moon celebration, one of the Pagans had developed a very intense dislike for you. All it took was for her to sense that you were a very powerful member of your kind – that is, until your powers faded – and she, being a harpy, notorious for their insatiable hunger and lust for torture, had decided that she would feast upon your witch flesh as her next meal.

It was that evening when she appeared. You had been relaxing on the front porch of the Spellman Mortuary, and at first, you thought she was merely a mortal woman – then her wings spread out from behind her as her glamour faded, bird-like legs sprouted from her torso, and her face became hideous, decayed and rotting. You had instinctively tried to run, but it was futile. After all, harpies were originally thought to be the personification of wind, so it was unsurprising that you were in her clutches before you even made it to the door.

The harpy’s sharp talons dug into your shoulders, and you screamed for help as she launched you into the yard. You fell flat on your back, which knocked the wind out of you, and she was on you again in the blink of an eye. As you felt the most impossibly intense, agonizing pain across your abdomen, you screamed again as you glanced down and realized she had torn you open. She began feasting on your flesh and organs, blood dripping from her claws as she ravaged you.

You were vaguely aware of a horrified scream from Sabrina somewhere behind you. She had just swung open the front door of the Spellman household to see the ghastly scene before her, Aunt Zelda, Aunt Hilda, and Ambrose right behind her. With a roar of pure rage, Ambrose charged at the harpy with his blade drawn, which drew her away from you. Sabrina and Hilda then kneeled beside you, the former with tears in her eyes and a terrified look on her face as she held your hand, and the latter clearly trying to hide her panic as she unsuccessfully attempted to heal you. But your injuries were far too extensive, and your loved ones’ magick was far too weak.

The unmistakable sound of a gunshot pierced through the night air, and you weakly turned your head to see Aunt Zelda holding a shotgun, Ambrose a few feet from your attacker, and the harpy lying dead on the ground. The two then ran over to you, both dropping to their knees at your side, their faces just as solemn and fearful as Sabrina and Aunt Hilda.

It was then, looking upon the panic-stricken faces of your family, that you knew you were going to die.

Darkness began to cloud your vision, and you vaguely heard your sister sobbing, and aunts and cousin begging you to stay conscious, giving you empty promises that they would find a way to fix this, and that everything would be alright. In the midst of all their hysterics, it seemed an idea donned on Sabrina.

“Caliban!” she screamed desperately into the night, her voice breaking from the force as she put behind it.

He appeared instantly, the usual vortex of flames escorting him onto the scene. He opened his mouth, no doubt to make a smug retort to Sabrina’s unceremonious summoning, before his eyes fell on you.

“No,” Caliban whispered in disbelief, still frozen on the spot. Blood poured from your abdomen, and the sight of you torn open and half-dead filled him with a sense of gripping terror and worry he had never before experienced. He ran over to you, skidding to a stop on his knees and gently cradling your head in his hands.

“Do something!” Sabrina begged, a sob raking her body. Caliban panicked for a split second, then a solution came to him. It was a last ditch effort kind of plan, but seeing as your eyes had already drifted shut, and your body was growing colder by the second, he knew that he must do something that would absolutely ensure your survival.

“With a desperate heart and no time to waste, I call upon all three Fates!”

In a cloud of smoke, three hooded figures appeared. Each had clouded eyes, long white hair, and greenish-gray, wrinkled skin.

“Fates, I beseech you to save this woman’s life,” Caliban pleaded.

“In exchange for our aid, you must give up the fate you have been pursuing so fiercely.” The Fates spoke in unison, their voices raspy and eerie. “You must cease your pursuit of the throne of Hell, and no longer seek to make Earth the tenth circle.”

“I shall. Here and now, I end my quest to become King of Hell, and remake the Earth as the tenth circle,” Caliban vowed. The lack of hesitation and conviction in his voice astounded each of the Spellman’s, although that was but a minor thought in the back of their minds at the moment. “Just save the woman I love, please.”

The Fates disappeared without another word in another cloud of smoke, at the same moment that a ragged, desperate gasp tore from your lips. The Spellman’s and Caliban all snapped their eyes back down to you. The fatal wound had been healed, and even your clothing was fixed. You sat bolt upright, as if you’d just been necromanced back to life – and, technically, you had. As you looked around at your loved ones, the realization that you were alive and safe sunk in, and you immediately began to cry.

“I saw Dad. I saw him,” you sobbed pitifully, and your family took you into their arms. You despised how weak you sounded, but seeing your father was something you were entirely unprepared for. Caliban rubbed his palm up and down your back, not wanting to interfere with your familial embrace. Still crying into Auntie Zee’s chest, you explained, “I died. I died and Dad was there waiting for me. He hugged me and told me that he was happy to see me, but it wasn’t my time yet.”

It was several minutes before you were able to compose yourself, although you supposed that was somewhat to be expected for someone who had just died then came back to life. After your aunts wiped your tears, you turned around to look at Caliban.

“I know you had something to do with this. We’re all powerless right now, so that is the only explanation,” you whispered. “What did you do?”

Caliban hesitated a moment, so Ambrose answered for him.

“He called upon the Fates. They demanded that he give up the fate he has been pursuing, in order to save you. So, he vowed to give up the throne of Hell, and said it was to save the woman he loves.”

You looked slowly from Ambrose back to Caliban. He appeared slightly perturbed that Ambrose revealed what he’d said in that moment of fear-fueled vulnerability, but didn’t bother to deny it.

“Caliban… is that true?”

“As I’ve told you before: anything for you,” Caliban answered, giving you a soft smile. You threw your arms around his neck, and he immediately wrapped his around your waist.

“I love you,” you murmured, your face buried in his neck. Caliban held you tightly and pressed a kiss to your temple.

“And I love you, little dove.”

[katzkinder]

London Bridge Is Falling Down

Envy Pair version of my Counting Sheep series! Himiko is my headcanon for the name of Mikuni's mother. Since Mikuni's name contains the character for "kingdom," I thought this name belonging to an ancient queen suited his mother well.

Mikuni is annoying.

That’s something Jeje has always known, ever since Mikuni was a child, ever since the first time he saw him, bounding around his mother’s skirts and throwing himself into Lily’s arms to be held and cuddled and fawned over while Jeje had slunk back to the cellars. Himiko had been so bright, back then, the rot of Envy not yet showing in a visible way, that tiny baby that would grow into his brother’s Eve gurgling happily in her arms.

Jeje was the one who had found him. Himiko had wept when she saw him, all the anger and hate leaving her at once, vanishing as if it never existed when she laid her eyes on the fragile little bundle, swaddled in soft fabrics with little gloves on his impossibly tiny hands. She had sobbed all the harder when she took the crying child from him, her hands shaking while she cradled him close, useless apologies spilling from her pretty lips. The body of the babe’s mother had rapidly been growing cold on the carpet, and little Misono… Would remember none of it.

(Jeje remembered all of it, though. He doesn’t think a single moment will ever fade from his mind, no matter how many eons pass)

As Mikuni had grown, with Jeje watching over him as a silent, imposing, guardian angel, always behind the boy’s mother while she had read bedtime stories to him, always so aware of those bright, bright, too bright eyes, Jeje had also become aware of a number of other things, and those things remained true into adulthood. Mikuni has all of his mother’s gorgeous looks (and some from his father, but admitting as such is just asking to be choked), her stubborn brightness, her sharp tongue and wit, but more than any of that...

Mikuni is annoying.

...Because he never listens to what’s good for him. Just like his mother before him, he had taken Jeje despite his warnings, and some bitter, sick part of Jeje had wanted him to. The same part of him that had given in to Himiko herself.

But, well, he’d always known Mikuni never listened, too.

He wonders if Lily knows, though he doubts that he’s aware, of those golden afternoons when Mikuni would sneak down to his hiding place and find him lurking near the boilers, the excited, terrified whispers of Lily’s children, his human children, chasing after the young heir as he confidently hopped down, step by step, into the “monster’s” lair.

They had talked. About nothing. About everything. Well, actually, Mikuni had talked, seemingly not caring that Jeje never said much back, incredible and beautiful and… Well, there was a reason everyone called Mikuni brilliant.

Jeje knew better, though.

***

The most annoying thing about Mikuni, in his opinion, is not how loud he is. It’s not his contrariness, or his capriciousness, or his constant, gnawing curiosity causing him to make mischief.

The most annoying thing about Mikuni was how badly he wanted people to think he was naturally good at everything.

See, Mikuni was smart. Jeje would give him that. But he was also very stupid. It wasn’t as if he lacked common sense, though sometimes Jeje wondered, but it was like Mikuni wanted people to resent him.

More than anyone Jeje had ever met, his Eve was a hard worker. Someone who hated owing others a single damn thing. It was that useless pride and sense of responsibility for things that couldn’t possibly be Mikuni’s fault, things Jeje suspected, no matter how much he denied it, Mikuni had learned, had internalized, from his father and from Lily, that was why Jeje refused to call Mikuni brilliant like everyone else.

...But he did shine. Like a candle in a darkened room. Like a beacon. Warm, and inviting, someone to warm himself beside, even knowing that that flame would burn him up, just like a moth.

The question was... Who would that flame melt into nothing first?

Jeje would be damned twice over if he let it be his Eve.

Turning away from way he had been watching the other man work late hours, hunched over Nod’s ledgers and planners and Mikuni’s own personal notebooks, where his pen scratched across the surfaces of each calculating profits, expenses, bills, new products and designs and promotions and planning trips, Jeje silently makes his way to their kitchen.

Burning the midnight oil just means you won’t have any left when you truly need it.

A snort, reaching for their cabinets. Of course, that’s what Mikuni had him for.

***

He’s gotten very good at brewing tea. Jeje isn’t much of a chef at all, but living with Mikuni for so long, it was practically guaranteed he’d learn to at least make a semi-decent cup, and thank god he had. He would have truly killed Mikuni by now if he hadn’t, he swears, the man is just as persnickety about his tea as Lily is with his coffee.

...He’s also gained a new appreciation for the stuff, but maybe that comes with the territory of spending hours upon hours listening to Mikuni’s one sided argument about the best ways to drink it. It’s hard not to be impressed with all the little details that goes into brewing what’s considered a perfect cup (by Mikuni’s standards, anyway), and even harder still to not feel a fondness for something that draws such genuine passion out of his once charge, now equal.

...It’s such an odd thought. He knows what people think. That Mikuni has always had a stranglehold on him. That Mikuni has always been in charge. That Mikuni has always been someone… Grown up.

Again. Jeje knows better.

He sets the temperature on their electric kettle, one purchased on one of their many visits to the British Isles, sits at their kitchen table, and waits. Thinks.

Mikuni has been grown up for a long time now. And he will continue to grow, and people will continue to think, no matter Jeje’s efforts, that he is a no good, conniving schemer who would sacrifice them all on a wish and a prayer and something like a maybe.

And, well, perhaps they aren’t wrong. Perhaps Jeje is a fool. But if he’s a fool, he’s a court jester, and as court jester he will make absolutely certain this time that the king does not make his mistakes without someone there to make fun of him for it, even if only behind closed doors, even if only between the two of them.

To everyone else, he is a dictator’s executioner, and that’s fine with him. Everyone else doesn’t matter.

His eyes drift to Mikuni’s favorite cup, one made of glass and painted with delicate, swooping strokes of gold, with lilies and a taupe lacquer surrounding all but a window through which one could admire the lovely colors of their favored drink. He takes it into his hands, so much larger than this tiny cup, and finds himself smiling as he turns the joint birthday gift from the Lust pair over and around, admires those intricate, fancy details that speak of quality and knowing down to the letter exactly what Mikuni’s tastes are.

Well.

Almost everyone.

***

The teapot has been warmed, the kettle filled with mineral water and piping hot, and by the time Jeje finishes steeping the loose leaf tea, their little kitchen clock, kitschy and cute and shaped like a cartoon chicken hatching from an egg, reads 2:17 in the morning.

Jeje picks up the cup, the container of melatonin supplements Mikuni has taken since he was twenty at his Servamp’s behest, and carefully carries both back to where he knows the other man will still be completely absorbed in his work.

True to form, Mikuni is still at it. The predictability of his late night, sleepless habits, of his need to do something with his time, makes Jeje’s frown deepen, ever so slightly.

He wishes Mikuni would just rest. Close his eyes, not do anything, just lie there and let Jeje guard him, just be still, be quiet, like did when he was a child.

… He knows better than to think a mind as stubborn and that moves as fast as his Eve’s could ever achieve that, but he can dream. He can also just sicc the Lust pair on him.

That’ll put him to bed real fast.

“What’re you grinning about over there?”

He startles, not having expected Mikuni to acknowledge his presence, and nearly sloshes hot chamomile with lavender onto the pretty little matching saucer that accompanied the cup. It’s a miracle it didn’t fall over completely. Jeje lets out a breath, so quiet it’s inaudible, and curses himself for forgetting that Mikuni can see him right now.

Then again, even if he was wearing his mask, Mikuni would have seen right through him.

He always does.

His Eve is watching him still, waiting for him to move, and then his eyes flick down to what Jeje has in his hands. His lips twist.

Jeje ignores it and continues to make his way over to where Mikuni had been peacefully working. They don’t speak a word to one another, and no sooner than Jeje sets his cargo down, he’s going back the way he came, knowing it’s useless to try and ply Mikuni with words or favors.

The man is annoying in his stubbornness, too.

He hears a sniff behind him, the scratch of pen on paper once more, but it isn’t long before that little noise stops again. A sigh. Jeje chances peering around the doorframe, smiling, just a tad, as a clearly frustrated Mikuni slaps his pen down onto the counter and picks up his cup, no doubt tempted by the smell of his favorite night time blend.

A swallow. Two.

Mikuni unscrews the lid on the melatonin gummies. Pops a couple into his mouth. Chews, and swallows. The tension leaves his shoulders. He allows himself to savor the warmth in his hands.

Jeje leaves him be and heads upstairs to their room, knowing Mikuni now won’t be far behind.

“Jeje,” Mikuni calls after him, voice soft in that way it sometimes, ever so rarely gets, so quiet Jeje almost misses it. “... You still really suck at this.”

Mikuni is annoying.

[cherricdwines]

         ━━━━         HEAVEN, BE MERCIFUL TO ME. i only wanted what you dangled before me, what you painted across the dark — something i could bury inside my chest, something to fill the hollow ache of longing. a quiet life, maybe, or a gentle inheritance. something i could claim as mine, something that wouldn’t slip away like all the promises and prayers before it.

lucien’s throat burned with a scream he’d never release, a raw howl clawing at his insides, falling somewhere between his chest and his mouth. it twisted there, thick and acrid, coiling against his ribs. he gazed down at his hands, at the slick blood smeared across his palms like ink. he wanted to wash them clean, to scrub until the skin was RAW, until he felt something besides the bitter weight of his father’s blood. but the blood clung to him, thick and relentless.

david greenwood lay cold, lifeless and emptied of the fierce fire that had once terrified lucien into silence. there should have been sorrow, grief wrung from the depths of him. instead, there was nothing but guilt curling around his insides like rot. an awful peace cut him, settled sharp against the softness of the love he should have felt, the love a son owed his father.

the body before him was a relic, stripped of the towering, oppressive presence that had once commanded his every waking moment. his father was gone, but lucien could not shake the sense that part of that towering shadow still loomed. there was an unfamiliar absence, a void where anger should have pulsed — where something should have cried out, demanded retribution, or even L O V E.

his vision blurred as he sank into bode’s arms, the warmth of his grip grounding him, pulling him away from where he knelt beside his father’s body. the embrace was a balm against the unyielding cold that had seeped into his bones, a reminder that he was still here. he was still breathing despite the wreckage that lay before him. he could smell wood smoke and summer dirt, a scent that filled him with a bittersweet familiarity. in the quiet steadiness of that presence, he felt the harsh edge of the moment soften, tethering him to the present, pulling him from the precipice of his own unraveling.

i need you to come with me.

the words pressed against him, filling the air between them with a quiet insistence, an unspoken promise that he would not have to bear this alone. but lucien’s mind clung to a suffocating certainty that there was no moving forward from this point. the weight of his own helplessness bore down on him.

“i don't know how to move,” the boy murmured, words breaking like glass, jagged against the silence. “i don't know how to leave him here.”

lucien’s confession hung in the air, raw and vulnerable. the blood drying on his hands and beneath his fingernails reminded him that here, he bore witness to the final remnants of a man who had shaped him in ways he could never escape.

my father — forgive me for the hollow spaces i cannot fill, for the wounds that will never heal. i am the remnant of a love that was never enough, the son who could not bear the weight of his father’s name, the son who stands here, bloodied and lost, with nothing but the ache of an empty heart to call his own.

pearl teeth;

closed starter: @cherricdwines

HEAVEN forgive me for what I stole with a greedy mouth and torn up gums. I only want what I am owed, what your angels promised me late at night, something to call my own.

As a child, Bode used to watch his mother fold herself close to the ground, loose blonde curls like a puddle on the laminate floor around her, a reverent sigh eclipsed by prayer. There had been a time in his life that he'd taken the space beside her, folded himself small to imitate her faith, her unrelenting loyalty. But time, has a way of eroding the sweetest of memories, washing and yellowing, a blurring of fiction and reality.

Something once shared, something once clean, grew pale, filthy around the edges. That gentle folding of oneself had changed from reverence to fear, to a withering of spirit so small it became unrecognizable.

Eventually his mother replaced her prayers with liquor, with strangers, with pills. Memories wilted, curling in on themselves like a photo on fire. Bode would fall asleep just outside her door and prayed, and prayed, and prayed. When he found her the next morning, laying on the floor, golden curls pooled around her, he was not surprised.

Little blue pills littered the floor like jewels, shining in the early morning sun.

She had smelled sweet the way all meat does once it's gone rancid, flesh warmed by the heat of a brutal summer sun. Nauseatingly saccharine. David Greenwood did not smell like rotted meat, he smelled of sweat, of metal. Blood pooled around him, a blackened mirror of iron and regret that grew wider by the second; an animal with a gaping mouth, swallowing up air while it's owner remained unmoving and lifeless.

Lucien sat before his father's body, head bowed and on his knees, hands coated in liquid scarlet. The room was silent except for Lucien's ragged breathing, his frantic murmurs spilling out of him under the cold moonlight. Mind unraveled.

He wanted the image before him to rewrite itself, to burn away and reveal something else in its place, something honest but less awful. He didn't care that David Greenwood was dead. He cared that Lucien Greenwood was at fault. That his fingers and clothes were covered in his father's blood, that the knife under the coffee table had his fingerprints and his sweat, that his brother and his mother will be home soon. They will be home soon.

He carefully side steps the pools of blood, careful to watch the edges of his shoes before plucking the knife from beneath the table. They can't leave it here. "Lucien, we need to go." Bode grabs an old tattered kitchen towel off of the dining room table before wrapping it around the kitchen knife. The lambs that adorned the fabric of the towel began to bleed, them too, tainted by David's blood. He shoves the covered knife into his pocket before returning to his friend, who remains unmoved. "Lucien," it comes out sounding closer to please.

Bode moves to his side before wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling the boy up onto his feet. They cling to each other now, swaying as one, Bode meets his faraway gaze. "Lu," a prayer, a plea, "I need you to come with me." They breathe as one, an organism that cannot exist without the other. "Will you come with me?"

If I decay at your feet, it's only to return myself to you.

[sly-merlin]

KILLING ME - 13 | n.y

pairing : law student!reader + yuta

genre :    angst , mafia au/ arranged marriage au.

warnings of this chapter : mentions of brutality described in previous chapter, mentions of strained breathing, curse words. For future chapters, major character death(s).

words : 4.5k

summary :

“life’s never fair y/n. realise it as soon as you can . it is the only secret for living a regretless life.”                                  

or            

 “  curiousity got the cat hitched”

K.M masterlist

K.M 12

taglist : @kpop-choco @moon-yuta @kawaiiayasan @btm-taeyong @exfolitae @lanadreamie @cheersskznct @hyuckiesgf @theworld-accordingtocasey @yiyi4657 @sorrywonwoo @sillywinnergladiator @minejungwoo @leesalts  @mal-nakamoto23 @ro2424 @itlittlefangirl @nctzens-world @bl--ankhaeji @simplybree @ncttboo @jeaneteflo @nuoyii @bralessmermaid @minhoseyeliner

In the silent room, the sound of taeil's shoes reverberated as he paced back and forth. Of the seventeen men standing in the living room, most had their heads hung low while some paid side glances to Jaehyun and ten as they fell prey to Taeil's anger.

"Last time!" Fingers pointed in the air, taeil asked in a dangerously calm voice, "don't make me repeat myself. Who left the door open?"

Messing his hair, jaehyun began,

"We didn’t know she was still there in the basement. Usually she’s out by-

“just answer me already.” Taeil shouted in exasperation.

“we don’t clearly remember. Me and ten were busy interrogating him.'' Jaehyun's voice was barely above a mumble but it still managed to reach everyone in the parameter.

Taeil turned to ten, furiously rubbing his forehead, impliedly asking for a reply but he merely shrugged in shame.

“Since when you have been butchering people with doors ajar for everyone to see?” the volume of his voice sent shivers to each and every presence in the room. Taeil never lost his calm, this was, after all, his metier. But he knew when to let go of his usual demeanor and nobody plucked up the courage to question him either.

“we didn’t do it deliberately. It was a mistake. An accident. Why are you drawing this so much.” jaehyun daren’t raise his voice above a whisper but his words were alarming enough

“You all need to recall the rules we stand by. What if jisung had gone down? Would you throw the same lame excuses even then? Won’t you be sorry if he or chenle or sungchan had seen a human being cut open like that? you and ten are both equ-

“we are ready to apologise to her okay. I’m not running from responsibility here. Nobody i-”

“Accepting a mistake is not even the bare minimum. We don't need your hollow apology if you don’t mean it. just because she’s understanding doesn’t mean the blood would leave her head. There’s a reason those rooms are forbidden for some of us here.”

Jaehyun’s unexpected raspy chuckle earned multiple gasps from the room. Taeyong was about to reach him but taeil stopped him by a show of his palm.

Jaehyun pinched his nose before barking,

“when jisung and chenle are told not to enter forbidden areas, they actually do listen but your pretty sweet y/n never does that. she’s just reaping the fruit of her own reckless behaviour again. it’s not my mistake that she’s so damn nosy all the –

“WHAT IF IT WAS NARA AND NOT Y/N JUNG JAEHYUN? WOULD YOU HAVE SPILLED SAME BULLSHIT IF IT WAS HER?

Taeil knew he shouldn’t have said that. Jaehyun’s darkened eyes calmed Taeil instantly as he realised he too had crossed a line.

as he angrily took a step forward towards taeil, jaehyun was abruptly halted by johnny and taeyong as they kept the two men apart. The reason for the argument left Jaehyun's mind, the mere mention of nara was enough to blow his fuse. He was furious yet he didn’t resist the boys and let his sharp breathing convey his message to taeil.

“Stop it you both. Go back to your rooms everyone.” Johnny announced, hands still holding Jaehyun's arm and torso, almost hugging and shielding him from taeil. “let it go jae. Just calm down. Please.”

Everyone remained glued to their feet, too afraid to make any noise. Huffing loudly, Jaehyun pushed Johnny away. Jaw clenched, chest heaving in rage, he furthered himself and instead of going for taeil’s neck as everyone has thought, his hand reached for the vase and the very next moment, the beautiful curved glass met the ground, shattering into innumerable pieces, right where taeil stood.

“JAEHYUN”

Taeyong roared watching younger and the older staring each other down.

“never compare nara to her.never!” With a perilously low voice, jaehyun glowered at taeil. “measure them up on the same scale again and you won’t be alive to regret again!”

Jaehyun stormed out upstairs. Soon after, without saying or expressing anything, taeil left too, masking his emotions just like usual times.

“when are they going to talk this out. It’s been three years already.” Johnny mumbled more to himself but everyone heard him and each and every presence in the room understood him.

Sleep despised you. Even sleeping pills had turned their back on you. Sprawled on the bed, you prayed to some magical being to descend and help you but no matter how humbly you pleaded, there was no end to your misery.

"He was a drug supplier, one of the accomplice of importing life threatening drugs in korea. He had it coming when he refused to tell us about other handlers. What you need to know is we have done a favour by taking his life."

Taeyong's words were seeded into your head. Your fear was fine, he had told you. He also said you’d forget about it in no time but he couldn’t mark when the “no time” would end. The vision of what you witnessed was quite blurry by now but the awful feeling in the pit of your stomach chose not to leave you yet. From what taeyong explained, that man was a mere pawn. A hidden syndicate was exporting deleterious drugs and they were just trying to find out the people behind it.

The only thing you had gathered was that just like every normal entity, criminals like neos weren’t fond of any sort of competition. With a pack of sleeping pills given by xiaojun, meant to help you sleep through the night, you were dropped at your house by dear Mark who kept stuttering explanations while driving. They have never killed anyone innocent, Mark said and kept it repeating in different possible ways a sentence could be transformed into.

You weren’t sure if you believed him yet. But even the mere thought of getting used to the brutality was horrendous than what you had seen once.

Two days later, at black neos. 9: 50

“when do you want us to sue them y/n?” mr. jung questioned, rotating his walking stick by the wooden head.

Sitting on the sofa, just beside him, you wondered why you were always so conscious of all the eyes directed at you. or maybe you were distracting yourself from answering the man. Among all the things, his way of showing his care was not settling in.

one amusing revelation was that Jaehyun's father, mr. jung or senior jung, as hyuck called them, was the only person with the capacity of putting a noose around all the valiant necks that were ever present in the house. The wrinkles of old age held enough authority to shut each and every young mouth, including yours even though you kept your quiet.

And he adored everyone, johnny, yuta and haechan among his favourites of course. He was also persistent and you were struggling with coming up with an answer because of this very trait. He kept asking you and your eyes remained transfixed on the papers bunched up in your hands, that were shoved into your hands upon your arrival. They opened the chapters you always had doubt about but no corroboration.

You had no home, the reason you were sent into that orphanage in the first place. The little kid that witnessed her parent’s death in front of her eyes didn’t understand why her parents took so long to wake up or why they never did when she waited for so long hiding among strangers or despite having a home, why she was sent to a place where she knew no one. There was no answer to why you never saw your uncle and aunt again and why they never came to take you back. As you grew up, you gave up on them. the car crash had crushed every relation you had with the home you once dearly loved and now you were conflicted with the new information that was thrown your way. your uncle and aunt were under illegal possession of the house that allegedly belonged to your father and after his demise, to you. but what would you gain by going back? Bricks and cement could never compensate or alleviate the pain that you had learned to live with. Even with law on your side, tormenting them would be of no benefit to you. So you said what you had decided years ago.

“I-I don’t want to sue them.” you replied meekly, eyes still fixated on the thread holding the legal papers together.

A sound of disapproval caught your ears as mr. jung spoke against your decision,

“no y/n. Those leeches abandoned you to rot in an orphanage and are living comfortably with insurances and the house that belongs to you. all that money could have been used for your future. You don’t need to be afraid of them. kun would provide you the finest lawyers and within two hearings, they would be in jail for committing fraud and trespass. And as a lawyer yourself, you should know better than to let them go off like this.”

Everybody heard but no one spoke.

“no.” you raised your head to face him and swallowed hard before continuing, “I do not want to meet them”

“don’t you want to go back there? that’s your home.” Somewhere from your left, Johnny spoke.

“never.” You refused immediately. “the people who live there were never my family. They never wanted me a part of their family. I’m clearly not their blood. The people who adopted me are not alive anymore. Those who loved me left me years ago. For a ridiculous sum of money, they didn’t even say their goodbyes to me. I was left there thinking that maybe one day someone would come. But money wins over love. It always does. And i don’t give a shit about them. I have learned to live on my own. I never needed their love. And I certainly don’t want more of their hatred.”

Inhaling sharply, you spat your speech in a single breath. Your words weren’t emotionless still you didn’t feel them like others did.

“I think we should bury this matter.” this time your voice was polite.

They nodded.

Mr. jung, however, wasn’t done.

“Okay so no one would mention this but keep these papers with you. you never know when this might come handy. After all, you are the sole owner of those properties your father left. Now you see, we grease the palms of officers so we can escape the shit we create for ourselves but people like your family are worse than the devil hi-

Multiple coughs halted his train of words. His breather was immediately fished out of his pocket and handed over to him. once he regained his senses, he begin again,

“never mind. Family must be protected y/n and those who fail to do so slaps the most precious value away from them. it’s not necessary that you should cherish something when it’s really out of your reach. at least i can die peacefully knowing that you all would settle down finally. If yuta can leave his chaser personality to find love, there’s hope for everyone here and speaking of yuta, when he’s arriving?”

“in two hours”

Your eyes widened and a hiccup escaped your throat. You voiced out a hum of surprise, gathering everyone’s attention.

“You weren’t told?”

You football sized eyeballs told mr. jung that you certainly weren’t aware.

“I guess I just spoiled a surprise then. Forgive me, I'm old and I am also hungry. Show some courtesy to your guests and feed me and y/n.”

Hyuck jabbed at him before they all got up to run for their seats in the dining room. “You are old. Why do you even need to eat anymore. Go to himalayas, eat snow and acquire some peace. That’s what old people should do!”

Everyone seemed too occupied with their bickering to pay you any mind so you dragged a reluctant taeil to his room, demanding answers for the latest drama they had launched in your name.

"I'm so sorry about that. The day after reception at the office, uncle suddenly asked about your family and that got me curious too so I ended up searching in deep and that led me to this whole discovery. I swear i never meant to breach your privacy y/n." Taeil pleaded in a low whisper as he locked the knob.

"Why would he do that though?"

"He's just too sensitive when it comes to families. He even told me to find your real parents but I got no luck there because you were adopted from an open adoption center from a different country. I found no information on them but I'm sorry about that." His ramble was again reduced to a murmur..

Playing with your fingers, you signed heavily before replying,

"Thank you for your effort but you should have asked me first.”

"Did you perhaps know anything about their schemes?"

"Right since I learnt about the adoption laws. I couldn't have been adopted without a security registered under my name. Maybe that property was the house where they are living right now"

"I'm sor-

"When were you going to tell me about that little whiny bitch? He's coming back in a few hours? I have to live with him again? " Scrunching up your nose in disgust, you bellowed.

"Yeah. He and taeyong had a long love chat yesterday. He was indeed being dramatic so i wonder what happened between them that he agreed. But he's coming back yeah. It was inevitable anyway. I don't know how you want to approach this but I'd say don't choose conflict. Eventually you have to live together so why try to break each other's necks. I've said this before and I'd say it again he-

"He's not that bad? I don't understand how easily you forget that I'm in this predicament because of that man. How can you expect me to make peace with that fucking piece of shit who had his gun pointed to my head since very first day?"

"Are we that insufferable?"

"Don't change the topic"

"I'm not changing it.You said predicament. We are also part of it right. Do you really hate us that much?"

Your eyes softened, reflecting his tone. No, they were just mildly bearable. And no, there wasn't any need to admit it either.

"Taeil, you sound like the voice of reason here. Taeyong seems fishy too but he's too unpredictable. He's like a chameleon. Others don't seem to have any power in your stupid hierarchy I've come to notice so it's you right? You are the one who told taeyong to marry me to that poopface and spare my life. It is definitely you.” staring him right in the eye, you pointed your forefinger at him.

"Please do me a favour and don’t use your brain too much y/n. I already have too much on my plate. I don’t need another one. If you don’t want our uncle to die due to a heart attack caused by your and yuta’s actions, stay shut. Now let’s eat before they gobble down everything.”

Our uncle! Yeah sure, you thought.

14:00

Standing alone in the kitchen, fidgeting with your hands, you tried your best to eavesdrop but nothing coherent met your ears. You indeed expected the army of men to have a party when their estranged soldier would arrive but the welcome outside sounded more like a hue and cry. The screaming indicated anything but happiness.

Your dilemma ended when you heard your name being called, the voice belonging to senior jung. You couldn't understand why he loved shouting when clearly his lungs couldn't take anything in higher volume.

Walking into the living room, you saw everyone seated in a very civilian manner but their conversation was difficult to hear amidst the babble.

“Come sit” Mark, who had gone to fetch yuta from the airport, spoke.

As you took the seat next to taeil, your eyes fell on the raven haired man and met his own. If his blonde hair shrieked peril, the black softened all the darkness his previous hair projected. Mayhaps, it was the black rimmed glasses he wore. You didn’t even know he had eyesight issues. He looked different.

He might have looked non-barbaric for a few seconds but his intense eye roll with the twitched lips upon meeting your eyes caused you to scowl. That’s when you noticed the elbow crutch on his left arm leaning against his outstretched leg. Nothing seemed wrong. You sized up his both legs with a crease of confusion forming on your forehead. You might have been looking too hard for your unasked doubt was answered by none other than yuta himself.

“I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.”

You scrunch your nose at the politeness that dripped from his lips, the honeyed words clearly in contrast from the uneasiness he felt while uttering them. Though the words were directed at you, he never regarded you directly and you weren’t sure how one was supposed to act in such a pretentious setting.

“No, definitely not a scratch.” Mr. Jung interrupted your internal unrest, interpreting your silence to be worry for the boy. “His left thigh is bandaged so it needs a lot of care. You might need to take some days off given how much movement hurt him. and you! I know you don’t want to worry her but lying around won’t work. she can’t tend to you unless she knows where you need care.”

He mildly instructed him as you found yourself staring at yuta’s brown cargo pants which hid whatever injury was being mentioned. The said words were dodged by your ears even before they’d have entered. The problem laid with the response that was expected of you. you couldn’t have possibly replied to him your true intentions that included ducking every wifey duties you were supposed to fulfil but like everyone else and as taeil had explained, you didn’t want the blood of an old man on your hands so you just played along.

“yes.”

That was enough for playing, you decided. Your quietness, for the first time won't be subjected to judgement as the dejection was expected.

“I think you both should go home now. I have some business to sort out here.” he got up and walked past you, not before petting your hair lovingly. He also smacked yuta on his head and mumbled something on the lines of how he should have enjoyed his last overseas trip and whatnot.

Once he, taeil and taeyong were out of sight, chatter started again. hovering over yuta, they dropped questions like he was in some interview and you remained seated, waiting for their next request they were possibly going to annoy you with.

“did you like france?”

“what the fuck! you didn’t tell me about the hair colour. Now I want to change mine too!” that was ten.

“why are you wearing pants if your thighs hurt?”

“I’m sorry for laughing at you earlier.”

Right when you thought you were specialising in drowning the sounds, Johnny's voice caused you to jerk your head towards them. Not the voice, maybe the question he asked!

“dude! Where did you exactly fall from? The room is on the ground floor and your work didn’t even require you to switch places. How can you break your leg while monitoring the local cells?”

Only two sentences were needed for the laughter to escape the confines of your stomach and the realisation that you actually thought about a bullet or a knife being the reason of the harm only elevated the amusement you felt. understandably, you became the center of their attention.

“who the fuck are you laughing at?” yuta sneered.

“you.”

The twisted bitter smirk on yuta's face told you that he still needed some good time getting used to your unfiltered tendencies but by the suppressed snickers that chenle and hyuck let out, their voices recognisable to you by now, you were sure at least a few of them were enjoying your jabs as much as you did.

"Fuck off." He finally barked, breaking the harsh eye contact.

"Happily!" You remarked, raising yourself from the cushioned seat.

"Where are you going y/n?" Intersected jungwoo.

"Home. Tell mr.jung that college called. It's Saturday so I've to visit the library anyway."

"Wait I'll drop you both."

Glaring at Johnny, you wordlessly challenged him to repeat what he said.

"Yes. You and him are not leaving alone. Uncle is still here. God forbid if he decides to stay the night, we won't have answers for him." He rather whispered to you.

"That sounds like a problem for you. My pact was over as soon as I saw that face. And I can guarantee you the feelings are more than mutual from that side too." Rolling your eyes towards yuta, you said.

"No no no! You can't do that yet!" Johnny came closer and continued his whispering, "please y/n. I promise he'd behave. Uncle did so much for you, can you help us this one last time? And yuta was returning anyway. If not today, then four days later. Please? You'd do that for me right?"

Sometime while talking, his fingers had found your hand and you weren't sure if he was aware of it or not.

But you were. And that had caused a little temperature problem in your whole body as you felt warmness enveloping your whole being.

And it seemed like your ears had stopped working too.

"Y/n! Are you hearing me?"

"Are you fine?"

His hand on your cheek broke your trance and your eyes darted away to look at his eyes, finding the same worry in them. Why was he so genuine, you thought.

"Are you sick?"

He questioned again, to which you only stuttered.

"No. I'm fine john. What were you saying though?"

"I said yuta needs to go back home. Please. He can't stay here even if we don't want him to be alone."

Somehow, you found yourself mindlessly nodding at his words. A cheeky contagious smile appeared on Johnny's lips, your own slightly curving on both sides. He backed away after caressing your face, the action more noticeable to others than he probably had intended.

"Let's get you home baby boy." Johnny snickered at yuta earning a slap from him.

"Fuck off bitch. At least feed me something before I leave. I'm hungry!" He screeched, hitting Johnny's leg with the end of his stick.

"What about the jjajangmyun you had in the car? How can you still be hungry?” Mark chirped up innocently.

"Oh come on. Don't make excuses.I'll bring some food in the evening." Johnny offered when yuta was busy giving a stink eye to mark.

"I too need some compensatory food john.”

“What the fuck do you mean compensatory? You live in that house because of me! Don’t imply yourself as the owner of that place!” you rolled your eyes for the nth time at yuta’s words, dismissing his words with the action.

“Why dont you donate your eyeballs to someone like me who can actually make better use of them. Instead of rolling them to the back all the time, I shall happily play tennis with them.”

“If my habits annoy you that much then why are you going back to breathe the same air as me. I’d be more than happy if i don't have to see your cursed face daily!”

“Stop you both.” Johnny's back shielded your view as he spoke. “He’s still here! Renjun, go and run a checkup for him and tell me how bad his leg is in actuality or is he just crying like a baby.”

In defeat, you sat down again. Fifteen minutes passed and despite being sleepy, you tried your best to listen to donghyuck’s ramble of something that jeno did the other day. All you heard was how jungwoo and jeno had a fight over piggyback rides and after that every word was transformed into a chant of word sleep as it hit your ears. Though it was early afternoon, the whole week had been nothing but tiring.

Once again your relaxation time was robbed off by none other than yuta. Maybe this was the end of your peaceful days.

Hopping off, you hurriedly whisked away before Johnny and Jungwoo could say anything to you. Two men were enough for towing the baggage.

As you stripped yourself off your jeans, an exhausted cackle left your lips when Johnny's words echoed in your head. During the car journey, he gave you some instructions in case of some emergency. That emergency being yuta! Not that you were going to put up with any of yuta’s demands, you listened to them anyway. Amusingly, yuta wasn't injured due to falling from stairs. He was getting drunk on the roof of a random building when he had launched himself into a sharp edge of a railing that gave him stitches all over his left thigh. Now he was as good as an exhausted car freshener.

As they settled him down, you didn’t bother going out even for a second. Choosing sleep over your much needed trip to the library, you tucked yourself into white sheets as the light breaths from air con lulled you to sleep.

17:00

Sitting in the library, your fountain pen ran along the plain pages like you were writing a well known story and not your thesis. The words were flowing like water and you felt no difficulty as you finished pages with the speed of light. Everything was going smoothly. You felt happy. And suddenly your hand stopped moving. It was glued to a single point, the nib leaking out on that spot. Next moment, your thoughts were muddled and a distant shuffling distracted you. The more you tried to move your wrist, the more forceful the noise became. Your breathing got heavier and your body jammed, the whole weight punching onto the weak muscles of the hand.

Your attempts never stopped but the noise did and it transformed into loud thumping coming right from your heart.

You tried to inhale but something stopped you.

Then you heard the calls of your name.

Rapid and loud.

Your body jerked forward and your breath finally returned as your eyes opened.

You had woken up from a dream. You were still in your room and the loud thumping was the loud banging on your door.

“y/n! Are you sleeping?”

Registering his words, you replied in a groggy voice.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Your phone. I left mine in the medical room. I need to call Mark right now.”

Whining loudly, you fell back on the bed. It was only due but flailing your arms and legs like a kid in a toy store, you let out a screech full of annoyance, cursing on your fate.

Were you really going to babysit him now?

****

Stay safe everyone. 2021 is just 2020 with a change of pajamas😑wear your mask and force others too🌝

[bbrandy2002]

Fool’s Rush In

Chapter 17

This is my @wackydrabbles​ post for week 87. The prompt is bolded. "No offense, but I'm not interested."

Book: TRR

Pairing: Liam x Riley

Warnings: Drake and some language.

*I was in a silly mood and this turned into a dumpster fire lol and it feels very rushed but I was trying to meet the word count. There may be a little bit of plot in this.

Word count: 1999

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

Liam sat on the floor with his back pressed against the mattress; one leg bent upright with the other extended crookedly out in front of him. Half of a bottle of Don Julio dangled loosely from a hand settled on his knee while two shiny gold rings encircled the pinky tip of his other.

In a fit of anger late last night, he searched for and consumed the first bottle of alcohol he came across in the liquor cabinet. He had no intentions of getting hammered or even a little drunk; Liam just needed something to take the edge off the hurt. Not that he for one second believed a word Riley told him before she walked out and boarded a red-eye commercial flight back to the States. 

As Liam pondered her abrupt departure in the early hours of the morning, one thing was for sure: He'd never been in love before, but what he felt for Riley was real -- and reciprocated -- that, "no," she spewed from her mouth when asked if she loved him was a lie.  

But why? That was the question he just couldn't figure out.

Having racked his brain for hours and with the sun finally coloring in the darkness of his chambers, Liam set aside his drink and lifted himself off the ground. Every thought that consumed him for the last several hours was riddled with putting the pieces together of why she actually left and why she felt she couldn't tell him the truth. Nothing made sense, yet ruminating alone in his room until he figured it out wasn't going to solve anything; the only way to get to the bottom of this was to retrace Riley's steps from the time she left the ball to when he made his way up to join her a little later. 

Stumbling to the bathroom -- mostly from exhaustion and perhaps a little drunker than he realized -- Liam stripped off the tuxedo he wore the prior evening and took a quick shower before heading down to the security office.

-----------

Riley's heavily drooping eyelids popped wide open when the plane shook from another vigorous tremor of turbulence. Gripping the armrests on both sides of her seat, she hesitated to peek out the window but was relieved when she saw the billowy waters of the Pacific had transformed into small, mosaic blocks of land covered by a shadow of the nearly setting sun. 

When the aircraft settled again, Riley reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone to check the time, grateful to be landing soon. She planned to go straight home, sink into her bed, and sleep the rest of her life away. Maybe wake up every once in a while to sob again before going back to sleep. Whatever Riley decided to do, she hated Madeleine, she hated Tyler, and she hated telling Liam she didn't love him; the more Riley thought about the stunned look on his face when she said it, the more nauseous her stomach felt.

And the nausea was getting worse.

Riley caught the eye of a nearby stewardess and waved her over; she needed ginger ale, and she needed it fast. 

"Can I help you, Miss?"

"I … I need, ginger ale, please." She asked through ragged breaths.

"Let me check and see if we have more." Riley nodded appreciatively.

"Hey. Don't I know you from somewhere?" A relatively large guy in the center seat, whose sweaty arm flab had been lodged in Riley's shoulder since takeoff, asked. Oh shit! Riley cupped a tight hand over her mouth and shook her head vigorously; the last thing she wanted was to be recognized. 

Or vomit.

While the stewardess searched the service cart for the requested drink, the gentleman's eyes enlarged. "Wait a minute. Yeah! You're that little gal who married some king, with ..." he snapped his fingers before adding in his thick Texan drawl, "the monkey and hookers and shit. Wow, my fiance wants to have a wedding just like yours." He held his hand out to her. "The names Beaver Calhoun, mayor of Slippery Nip, Texas. I guess you could say we're both royals, huh?"

Riley lowered her hand slightly; she was past the point of ginger ale helping, and this guy was blocking her way out. "Beaver, I need you to move." 

He stroked his chin in thought. "Well, I don't know, Queenie. I'm pretty content with my life there in Slippery Nip, Not really lookin' to uproot."

"No!' Riley's strained voice responded forcefully, "move out of the way--" She tried to fight it, but her head flung forward and everything came out with her last word.

Beaver looked down at his shirt and quirked a brow. "That's gonna leave a stain."

=============

On the second floor of a run-down Motel 6, just off the beaten path in Las Vegas, Drake tossed in the last of his clothes and airline tickets in a duffle bag and zipped it. Stepping over to the window, he pulled aside the tattered curtains to check if the airport's shuttle van had arrived yet. Disappointed, he grumbled to himself, "Where the hell are you? I'm ready to get the fuck out of here." 

The past week had been intense -- well, frankly, the entire month had been nothing short of shit balls. Five weeks ago, Drake landed in Las Vegas for Liam's bachelor party and won big money at the casino, only to have it all pissed away on some old, decrepit hooker who stole his wallet, cell phone, dick health, and what little joy he had in the world. Liam left with a sexy ass wife, and all Drake got was the false claim of fathering triplets and his scowling face on the front cover of the National Enquirer with Dr. Ethan Ramsey detailing the entire sordid journey from pre-surgical rooster rot to the aftercare.

He made a quick $500 for the story, in which he badly needed the money, considering he couldn't leave Vegas until the paternity test results came back. It was enough for his lodging, a couple cans of Beenie-Weenies and a few boxes of pepperoni Hot Pockets; his stomach felt like oil sludge at this point. But as a joke, Leo had sent a box of Ding-Dongs, so it wasn't all bad.

The rotary phone in his room rang out, and he answered the call from the front desk, which let him know transportation had arrived. Drake grabbed his bag, flicked a cockroach off of it, and exited his room into the enclosed hallway.

After stepping onto the elevator and hitting the down button, another person strolled on in a black leather mini-skirt, white see-through halter top, and a pair of fishnet stockings that he'd recognize anywhere.

"You!" He growled at the chain-smoking hooker, backing her up into the corner. "Do you have any fucking idea what you did to me? And I WANT my wallet and cell phone back, now!" He hovered menacingly over the much smaller woman.

"No offense, but I'm not interested in giving them back to you," Pinquee Kittee sneered before reaching into her bra for mace and spraying him directly in the eyes. The rapid burn gave way to her next act of defense when a screaming, blinded Drake was doubled over by a swift karate kick to his newly transplanted organ. "Hiiiiyah!"

Drake cupped himself in anguish, fell to the floor, and slumped over as the elevator doors opened. Pinquee Kittee grabbed his duffle bag and peeked down the hallway to make sure no one was around before making her getaway.

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

Just outside of the palace's security office, Liam knocked on the door several times without an answer. It was rare that the King would personally pay a visit. Usually, he would call Bastien and have the head guard look into any issues. With him gone, this just felt like something Liam needed to do in person. 

After several more knocks, Liam reached for the door handle and slowly opened it to let himself inside. The lights were off, with only a few CCTV screens displaying various images of places within and surrounding the palace. Finding the light switch on the wall beside the door, Liam flipped them on, and his mouth fell agape at what he saw.

"What the hell happened in here?" He shouted as his hands shot to his hips, glaring around the room. 

On the floor was a maze of beer cans, whiskey bottles, remnants of silly string, a five-gallon bucket of butter next to a slip-n-slide, a voodoo doll with Liam's face on it, and half-a-dozen guards passed out. 

A furious Liam made his way through, kicking the feet of guardsmen as he stepped along. "Get up! All of you!"

One-by-one, they slowly roused until they realized it was the King in their presence, then they jumped to their feet at attention. 

"Would someone like to explain what the actual fuck happened in here?" Liam wasn't one to swear in front of his staff, but there was no way he could hold back after walking in on this scene. His glowering eyes shifted with expectancy from one man to the next, waiting for an answer, until someone finally called out, "We threw Rogers a going away party for his last night on the job, Your Majesty."

"And you thought having a wild party while you were ON DUTY to protect 400 members of the nobility for a major event was the time to do that?

The guard shook his head. "Not at all, Sir. I admit we weren't as attentive as we should have been last night ..." he pointed behind Liam, "but Prince Leo came by and suggested we kick it up a notch."

Liam turned around and caught Leo slithering along the edge of the wall toward the door. "Leo!"

The Prince stopped dead in his tracks, then flickered his eyes and jolted his body as if he were just waking up. Leo looked at Liam, acting surprised to see him. "Liam? Is that you? H-How did I get in here?"

Liam rolled his eyes. "Knock it off, Leo."

"What?” Leo shrugged innocently. “You know what I think happened. I must have been sleepwalking again. You know how I get when I watch The Duchess before bed." He cocked his head introspectively at his brother. “And you do look like the Duke from that movie, you handsome devil you?” He grinned impishly.

Liam stared blankly at his older brother for a few seconds, then turned around to face the others gathered around. "Who's in charge here?"

When one of the men raised a hand, the King stepped up to him and explained, "Alright, I need you to pull up security footage from last night. I want to review everything from the moment I stepped outside the ballroom to meet the Queen around 9:30, and where she went after I went back into the ballroom." 

If this were any other day, Liam would have fired every one of them on the spot and sent Leo to Antarctica, but he only had one concern: Finding out what happened to Riley.

As the guard typed in his computer to pull up footage from last night, Leo stepped up to Liam, who was hovering over the guard's shoulder with anticipation. "What's going on?"

Never taking his eyes off the screen, he responded. "Riley went back to Las Vegas last night."

"Wh-Why? What happened?"

Liam let out a breath. "That's what I'm trying to find out."

Leo remained silent before giving his little brother's shoulder a reassuring squeeze and watching with him.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary as different camera footages were switched to follow Riley walking from the main staircase, through several passages, and finally ending with the corridor outside of his quarters.

"Stop!" Liam leaned in closer as the guard paused the video; his entire body tensed up at what he saw.

"Is that ..." Leo scrunched up his face in disgust.

"Madeleine."

___________

Tags: @burnsoslow​ @dcbbw​ @ao719​  @jessiembruno​ @texaskitten30​ @janezillow​ @merridithsmiscellany-blog @mskaneko @callmeellabella @queenjilian @sirbeepsalot @drakexwillow @jovialyouthmusic​ @forthebrokenheartedthings​s @bebepac​ @kingliam2019​ @lovablegranny​ @cordoniaqueensworld​ @amandablink​ @liamxs-world​ @choiceskatie @iaminlovewithtrr​ @hopelessromanticmonie​ @charlotteg234​ @annekebbphotography​ @txemrn​ @thecordoniandiaries @alyssalauren​ @cordonianroyalty @monsoonbloom12 @mom2000aggie​ @theroyalheirshadowhunter​ @princessleac1​ @kimmiedoo5​ @graceful-leah​ @iam-the-kind-and-thoughtful​ @thegreentwin​ @gkittylove99​ @neotericthemis​ @pink-diamond13​ @walker7519 @natureblooms24 @yourmajesty09​ @gabesmommie1130​ @sweatyrysconnoisour @kat-tia801​ @debmcg1106 @lifeaskim @choicesstan650​ @emkay512​ @royalromancer​

Liam x MC: @cordonia-gothqueen​n

Anything with Drake:@tinkie1973

FRI Series Tags:   @narrytheworld​​  @queenwalton​  @cordonianprincess​        @zaffrenotes​ @zilch3​  @drrookie​ @sfb123​ @secretaryunpaid​ @masterofbluff​

[iliveiloveiwrite]

Reminiscing // Elijah Mikaelson

Summary: In a rare moment of peace, you find yourself thinking back over the centuries shared with the one you love.

A/N: I AM A FOOL FOR ELIJAH MIKAELSON. My taglist is open for The Originals - if you would like to be added, let me know!!

Warnings: fluff, history, established relationship, vampires, mentions of blood and death, mourning and grief, female pronouns, use of ‘wife’, dialogue heavy.

Word count: 1.8k

The house was quiet.

A rare occurrence in the Mikaelson household, but for first time in the months, the house was quiet. There was so furious shouting from Klaus, there was no attempts at mediation from Elijah. It was all quiet, and it was all peaceful.

When such a thing happened, it was very much the time to take hold of the rarity with both hands, gripping onto it for dear life in the hopes that the peace and quiet does not end too soon.

You sit in the library; finally put back together after one of Klaus’ anger fits. The books line the shelves in the correct order; a painstaking task you had completed after Klaus had apologised to you, knowing how much you cared for the almanacs and folios hidden away in the priceless Mikaelson collection.

The chair you had chosen to sit in was one that had come with you from the continent when the family had first settled in New Orleans. You had found it at a markets, immediately buying it and having it brought home with you that very day. Elijah had said nothing, indulging you with a roll of his eyes and a kiss to your lips. He very rarely argued with you, knowing that more often than not, you would have been right to make such a purchase.

The photo album remains open on your lap as you stare down at the images stuck to the pages. Time had aged the album; the pages becoming worn at the corners and browning further with each passing year.

This was the first album you had picked up; knowing it had the most pictures of the family in it. In particular, this album was home to perhaps your favourite photograph of yourself and Elijah. It had been taken spontaneously; unaware that a photographer even stood close by. Your bodies are angled towards each other as if each other’s true north. Elijah’s expression is soft as he glances down at you; the beginnings of a smile poking at the corners of his mouth as he readies himself to laugh at whatever you might have been saying in that moment. His hand rests delicately on your waist as your face is turned upwards; your eyes shining brightly as your hands gesture wildly, punctuating your story.

Footsteps sounding bring you out of your reminiscing. Instead, you greet the subject of the photo, smiling widely at your husband as he enters the library, adjusting the cufflinks on his tailored shirt.

“I knew I would find you here,” Elijah comments, a hand brushing over your shoulder and the back of your neck as he walks past you.

“I’m making sure Klaus doesn’t take out his anger on anymore of the family collection.”

Elijah chuckles, “I don’t think that will happen again. He’s too scared of your reaction.”

“As he should be,” You declare, puffin out your chest proudly at the fact that the hybrid would be too scared to even touch the precious books and histories housed in this very room.

“The Great War?” Elijah asks, pointing to the album in your lap, not expecting an answer. He reaches for the photo album, beginning to flick through the pages as he wanders around the room. “My dear, whatever brought this on?”

“It’s been so peaceful recently. I wanted to take a moment to remember.”

“To remember?”

“Our past, my love. We have been together for over a thousand years, married for just short of that. I wanted to remember the peace.”

Elijah doesn’t answer. He simply watches you, watches the emotions flit over your face as you communicate your feelings. The last few months haven’t been easy on anyone in the Mikaelson family; the permanent target on your backs making it hard to live everyday life. Klaus continuing to make enemies left, right and centre didn’t help the matter either.

A thousand years. A thousand years he has loved you; has never loved anyone but you. His life prior to being a vampire flashes before him; a strong man, destined for great and noble things and completely in love with you – kind and caring. The relationship happened quickly, but the both of you knew that your eternities were intertwined. The curse put on him by his mother perhaps made him more selfish of all; turning you to ensure your eternities would always remain intertwined.

“Why the Great War?” He finally asks after a moment of silence.

“It was the first time we got our hands on a camera. We had seen them before, in France, but this was the first time we had owned one.”

“Rebekah loved it. She was forever posing in some ostentatious dress.”

You chuckle, your body warming at the obvious fondness in Elijah’s voice. He would berate her fashion sense, but he would never speak ill of his beloved little sister.

“Do you remember the summer we spent in England? It had to have been 1812 or 1813?”

“And you let Rebekah promenade for the season?” You start to giggle, “She had so many suitors! I have never seen Klaus so mad!”

“It wasn’t just Niklaus,” Elijah recalls, “I had so many angry missives from mothers who wanted to marry their daughters off that season but couldn’t because of Rebekah.”

You snort, remembering the empire waists of those months spent in London. The weather had been particularly wonderful that year; the sun continuing to shine for days on end. More time had been dedicated to walks in the park than they had been to being cooped up inside. Whilst the fashion of the time could be debatable, the company of your husband was very much desired.

“You were the diamond of that season, my love,” Elijah comments, bringing you back to the present.

You roll your eyes at the love of your eternal life, “You have to say that. I’m your wife.”

“What would you have me say?” Elijah asks, eyes bright with happiness, “As I recall Lady Earnshaw was particularly handsome that year too.”

“Lady Earnshaw!” You gasp.

“She loved me,” Elijah defends, holding a hand to his chest as if wounded by your words.

“Of course she did! You flirted with her every chance you got.”

“Jealous, my love?”

“Never,” You snort, remembering the aged face of the stubborn matriarch, “Lady Earnshaw was a day over eighty if I ever remember her.”

Silence descends over the both of you; memories of a past once thought long forgotten now washing over you. There was much to think of when one has lived for over a thousand years. The first few months after your transition were blurry; the pangs of hunger making your thirst practically insatiable – unable to think of anything but feeding. Yet, as you aged and found your place in society on Elijah’s arm and in his heart, your memories become refined – punctuated with moments of joy and pangs of heartbreak.

It had not been an easy existence. Family’s often fallout and Klaus had no qualms about punishing his siblings. However, in and amongst those dreaded recollections were rare moments of peace. Moments that were sought after and savoured; relished by every member of the Mikaelson family.

“Do you remember the sixteenth century?” You ask, mind faraway in the past.

Tudor England had been where you were happiest. You loved New Orleans, adored the culture and the people that came along with it, but Tudor England had its charms as well. For the millennia that you had been walking the earth, you had always found home in Elijah, knowing that he would be with you for an eternity and more. Yet, Tudor England had a hold on you. Having to leave the court of Henry and not return until Elizabeth had been crowned; it had been the longest decade of your immortal life.

“How could I forget?” Elijah laughs, “You have our miniatures in your bedside table.”

“Nicholas Hilliard was a dear friend,” You admonish thinking of the artist with great fondness.

“Queen Elizabeth I was never my biggest fan, was she?”

“You did take her sugared violets away from her,” You remind him, a smile in your voice as you remember the anger in the monarch’s voice once she realised who had in fact stolen her precious sweets.

“Her teeth had rotted away completely!” Elijah protests, throwing his arms wide as he defends his actions from centuries ago.

“So what would more sugar do? She had already lost her teeth, love. As I recall, her breath wasn’t all too pleasant.”

Elijah grins, remembering your pinched expression every time the monarch sought your attention, “You were her favourite.”

You shrug effortlessly, lifting a single shoulder. “I can’t help that she had good taste.”

“You wound me, love,” Elijah moans, smiling widely. His playful side came out rarely, but when it did, it was a treat for those nearby.

“You also refused to call her Elizabeth,” You continue, ignoring Elijah’s noise of protest, “You would call her ‘Betty’.”

“She didn’t mind the name when I was in her father’s court. I still argue to this day that I didn’t deserve her shoe being thrown in my face when I let her nickname slip out of fondness.” Elijah argues, crossing his arms as he thinks back to the small redheaded child he had first encountered almost five hundred years ago.

“She wasn’t the Queen then, darling. She was five years old and in need of a mother.”

“You were wonderful as her closest confidant. She thought of you as her mother.” Elijah comments quietly; his mind still on the small child of five – bright red hair combined with a wide smile. Elizabeth had become attached to both you and Elijah; finding adoptive parents in both of you when you showed her the smallest of attentions. It was hard to say no to such a child.

“It broke my heart to leave her,” You reply, your non-beating heart lurching at the memory of not only the tearful teenager, beginning to question why you hadn’t aged, but also of the weary monarch. Elizabeth had been very ill at the end, and you had refused to leave her. Ignoring the wishes of your husband and your family, staying with her until the end.

“I know it did,” Elijah murmurs, his hand seeking yours as he sits down next to you. “You were solemn for months, nothing I did could bring you round.”

“I had to mourn, Elijah.”

Elijah brings your hand to his lips where he kisses the back of it before kissing your knuckles. He keeps your hand close to his mouth as he whispers, “I know.”

You sigh, “It has been a life of mourning, hasn’t it? Time passes and yet I remember every death.”

“You’re not alone, my love.”

You turn to him, a soft smile gracing your lips. “I know. I have you for it all, don’t I?”

“Always and forever,” Elijah quotes, pressing your hand to his chest, holding it above the heart that would never again beat but continues to love you just as fiercely as it had when it beat its familiar rhythm.