#(I still need to focus on catching up with Critical Role now) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

poguesofthebau · 4 years ago

Text

paranoia

summary: meeting dylan einstein, a genius forensic scientist from indianapolis, musters up some unknown insecurities about your relationship with reid. however, morgan-- and reid, once he figures it out-- isn’t willing to let you think that way. warnings: mentions of bombings (as pertaining to the case)

word count: 3k pairing: spencer reid x female!bau!reader

a/n: set in season 10, episode 14, this one was requested by @koc-help! as per usual, it took me forever to write, so i hope you can forgive me for that and enjoy what i came up with!!

bombing cases were stressful. it always seemed harder for you; figuring out a motive, pushing down the overwhelming sympathy for the victims, convincing yourself that all of your team members were safe. because of your unshakable paranoia in the wake of those cases, you were already on edge by the time the team was boarding the jet to indianapolis. and, of course, spencer caught on to the way you were feeling almost immediately.

with the limited information the team had at that point, conversation about the case was reasonably brief. the file was reviewed and discussed, and hotch delegated a role for everyone to take when the jet landed. when the conversation came to a lull, you slid out of your seat, tossing the manilla folder onto the leather before moving to the back of the jet to make a cup of coffee. jj and derek’s voices were audible as they continued to spitball off of each other, masking the sound of spencer approaching where you stood. “hey,” he called to you as he neared. having been enveloped in the chatter your other friends were creating, you jumped at the sound of your boyfriend’s voice. when you looked up at him, his eyebrows were raised in concern at your reaction, immediately making you recoil into yourself. “you okay?”

“yeah,” you breathed, pulling the coffee pot out of its place to pour the liquid into your empty cup. “i’m fine.”

“that’s not very convincing, you know.” you turned to face him then, sighing and internally shaking the dread away. “what is it?”

“i’m not a huge fan of bombings,” you said sarcastically. spencer scoffed a laugh at that, reaching out to tuck a stray hair behind your ear as you continued with a bit more seriousness. “just a little worried. it’s nothing, spence.”

“i’m not used to seeing you worried in this way. are you sure you’re okay? i mean, do you want to talk about it?”

the soft-spoken concern in spencer’s tone along with the expression he was looking at you with warmed your heart. if there was one thing that could take your mind off of a murderous bomber, it was spencer. your eyes flickered over to the rest of the team, making sure no one was paying any attention to you and your boyfriend huddled up in the back of the jet, before you leaned up and pressed your mouth to spencer’s. the kiss was quick, but it was also just the reassurance that you both needed. “i promise, i’ll tell you if i need to talk. for now, i just want to get this son of a bitch and go back home.”

being present for the disarming of the second bomb only worsened your initial paranoia. the thought of an explosive device made you anxious enough; having to stand your ground and comfort an intended victim while a bomb was armed less than a foot from you was a whole new feeling. you trusted morgan to clip a wire without killing you, but the adrenaline in the heat of the moment was hard to shake. it had been a few hours since the scene had unfolded, but you still felt like your heart could possibly jump out of your chest at any moment the morning after the disarming. despite the underlying terror running through your veins, you were critically analyzing everything going on around you. your focus was completely dedicated to the case unfolding around you, because the sooner you cracked it, the sooner your thinly veiled fear would dissipate.

you were digging around in the bed of the pickup truck while einstein, the local forensic scientist, examined the bomb itself. out of your peripherals you saw reid and morgan approaching, but the bulk of your energy was going into analyzing the scene as best you could. your boyfriend’s eyes lingered on you for a few seconds as he neared, immediately gauging the nerves you were trying so hard to conceal. reid made a mental note to address that as soon as he could get you alone, but fought the urge to do so right then. spencer knew you well enough to know that, no matter how freaked out you currently were, your mind was concentrating on the scene before you, and anything else would simply be considered a distraction. he swallowed down the lump in his throat that formed at the thought of not being able to help you before tuning in to the comment einstein began to make. “he really went for a bigger boom this time.”

the short conversation that ensued between the two following that comment was something that shouldn’t have bothered you. you knew it meant nothing; reid wasn’t the only genius in the world who memorized excerpts from anarchy cookbooks or mathematical theories. just because some young, brilliant, beautiful girl knew the same book as spencer didn’t mean you had anything to worry about.

nonetheless, you became very worried about it.

you strolled around to the passenger side of the truck, sliding into the empty seat with a quizzical look on your face. “you know, it’s a wonder that he even realized he triggered the bomb.”

opening the driver’s side door as he spoke, reid slid into the truck next to you. “maybe he heard something when he stepped on the pedal.”

“and knew not to move? i mean, what’s this guy got, an ex-paramilitary background we don’t know about?”

the back and forth continued a few more times, and within a minute you and reid had developed the idea that allen archer, the bomb’s target, could potentially be your unsub. upon this conclusion, einstein spoke up again. “that’s what you guys do. you just talk a lot.” her voice was joking as the words left her lips, and a bright smile graced her face as she spoke. regardless of the playful tone you immediately identified, the words triggered something in you.

“well, there’s also a lot of kicking down doors involved,” morgan interjected from outside the passenger door, shaking you out of your internally-mortified state. you watched as einstein announced her departure then, mustering up a measly close-lipped smile in return to the courteous and friendly glance she offered you before leaving.

as she walked away, her words repeated in your mind. it was so simple for her to summarize; you just talk a lot. a woman so young and so intelligent had just condensed your entire career into a five-word sentence so simple that you couldn’t even disagree. was that truly all you were capable of? talking? bouncing ideas off of your coworkers’ ideas and hoping you’d end up catching the killer that way?

you spent the rest of the day arguing with yourself. in all honesty, your own inner monologue was starting to get on your nerves. despite your most sincere attempts to focus on the case in front of you, you couldn’t shake the feeling that einstein was right. and maybe she was-- maybe your job was nothing compared to hers, and maybe she was a better match for spencer than you could ever dream of being.

this new uncertainty of your career and relationship definitely didn’t help to settle your previously established fear of being blown up at any given moment.

given the circumstances, it was only a matter of time until someone on your team noticed how uneasy you were steadily growing. they knew you. you were y/n-- sometimes stubborn, oftentimes overprotective, and always capable. sure, you had off days at work, just like everyone else. you weren’t always the one to solve the case, but you were always present and attentive, engaged in the investigation with your mind and body. however, right now, your mind was in two places at once. for that reason, you weren’t surprised in the slightest when morgan approached you at the station.

as you walked toward the conference room to find hotch, you were stopped by the familiar voice calling out. “hey, hold on little lady.”

“what’s up, morgan?”

morgan shook his head at that, a knowing look crossing his features as he began to speak. “nuh-uh. what up with you, y/l/n?” you threw him a falsely quizzical look, trying (and failing) to get him off your back by playing dumb. sadly for you, morgan was too good of a profiler and friend to fall for it. “don’t play with me, girl. i know cases like this always get to you a little, but i also know how badass you are. normally you would’ve bounced back from our brush with death by now, so what’s the problem?”

you squinted at him as your face morphed into dismay. of course you couldn’t fool morgan. your mind flickered to penelope, suddenly relating to one of her more commonly made complaints: damn profilers. “my first problem is that you might know me a little too well.” derek scoffed at that, waiting for you to continue. “my second problem? well, my second problem might be that i’m not smart enough, or maybe that spencer is too good for me, or maybe that our job is too easy, or maybe--”

“woah, woah, woah. slow your roll, little missy. ‘spencer is too good for me?’ where’s that coming from?” you blinked slowly in response, not quite willing to give up any more information than you already had. “fine-- i’ll figure it out myself. let’s see: you’ve been acting weird since we got this case, but that’s not what this is about. i’ve seen you on bombing cases before, and this ain’t that. so... oh, i know. is this about a forensic scientist, maybe? maybe one who has the same name as a very smart, very famous--”

“okay, morgan. i get it. you’re a great profiler, and you know my thoughts better than i do. that doesn’t really change the way i’m feeling right now.” your tone was a little sharp, but the look in your eyes was a mixture of sadness and contempt. “and, in case you needed me to put it simply, i’m feeling like shit.”

a look of pity overtook morgan for a moment. he knew what you were going through. sure, he wasn’t dating a genius with an iq of 187, but he knew how it felt to doubt yourself, and especially how it felt to feel belittled for your work. “y/n,” he said, placing his hands on your shoulders and crouching a little to get on eye-level with you. “don’t do that to yourself, kid. don’t forget how hard what we do is, and how important it is. you save lives every day. no matter how you do it, or how much brainpower it takes, there are people all around this world who are alive because of your work. whether they admit it or not, everyone has respect for that. especially our resident pretty boy.”

“i know, morgan,” you sighed. his hands slid from your shoulders as you finally gave in, looking him straight in the eye as you spoke. “sometimes it just feels like he deserves better.”

“just because it feels that way doesn’t mean it’s true. and i can promise you, reid has never felt that way. not about you.” after giving a comforting pat on the arm to go along with his final words, morgan was walking away.

damn profilers, you thought again. why are we always right?

before you got the chance to speak with reid, the team was off again. instead of splitting up this time, you were simply spreading out; hotch and rossi were scouring the crowd of civilians and news crews at the staged ceremony for allen archer, and the rest of you were divided into two suvs with morgan and kate in one and you, jj, and spencer in the other. your talk with morgan had lifted your spirits a bit, but there was still a tightness in the air as you sat beside your seemingly clueless boyfriend.

unbeknownst to you, spencer wasn’t all that clueless. not only had he caught on to your behavior long before anyone else on the team, but he’d also spotted you and morgan’s secretive moment from across the police station. (and, yes, morgan may have whispered “check on your girl” to spencer when you weren’t paying attention. he just wanted to help.) so, while you thought he was in the dark about your current insecurities, reid was very much aware of what was going on in your head. as much as he hated it, though, he was hesitant to acknowledge it with jj in the backseat and the rest of the team on comms. so, like the considerate boyfriend he was, he waited.

it wasn’t until you got back to the police station that spencer got the chance to catch you alone. everyone else was busy preparing to leave for the jet, the bustle of having solved yet another case causing an uplifting distraction for the team. while your friends were distracted, spencer grabbed you by the hand and pulled you into a nearby empty conference room. the surprise on your face was evident when he looked at you, and he couldn’t help but smile. you laughed nervously at his expression, not completely sure what he had taken you aside for. “hi, spence. you okay?”

“i was actually going to ask you the same thing,” he admitted. “except, i already asked you that once during this case, and you weren’t very willing to share, so i was going to approach it in a more insistent way.” although you were amused by this mysterious behavior of his, you were still confused about what exactly spencer was implying that he knew. “did you really think i wouldn’t notice that you were upset?”

“no,” you said unconvincingly.

“y/n, why won’t you just talk to me?” the desperation in his voice almost shattered your heart. the whole time that you’d been in your own head, spencer had been in his. all because you were scared to talk to the one person you trusted more than anyone in the world.

“i’m sorry,” you breathed, taking a step toward him. spencer’s right hand slid around your waist once you got close enough, and your forehead dropped onto his chest as you sighed. when you looked back up to him, spencer was already anticipating eye contact. “i’m sorry i didn’t say anything. i just didn’t want to worry you, or to make you feel like you’d done anything wrong, because it’s not your fault, i just-- i don’t ever want to feel like i’m holding you back.”

“holding me back from what? you could never hold me back.”

“i could, though! you’re this amazingly brilliant genius, and there are so many people out there who are so much smarter than me, and i--”

“is that what this is about? you think you’re not smart?” you felt his hand tense from its place on your lower back, his disbelief clear in his voice.

“no, no-- i mean, i know i’m smart enough. but sometimes when we have cases like this we meet some really, really smart people, and i can’t help but wonder if you would be better off with someone on your intellectual level. someone like einstein.”

“y/n,” spencer seemed stunned at this revelation, and you realized then that morgan had been right. the idea of you not being enough had never crossed spencer’s mind. “you are the person that i’m better off with. you. i don’t-- i’ve never even thought of anyone else as a possibility since i met you. there isn’t anyone else. i mean, before i knew you, i wasn’t even sure that i believed in love at all. the only reason that i know it’s real now is because of you. i can’t think of any statistics of mathematical theories or scientific discoveries to explain or defend it, but i have always known that there isn’t anything for me aside from you. i mean that. no matter how smart anyone else is, or how cool anyone else is, or how compatible anyone else’s intellect is with mine. i love you, y/n.”

and, just like that, your fears were gone. your inner monologue went silent, and the serenity that spencer’s words brought you washed over your entire body. spencer’s arm tightened around your waist, pulling you closer into him. his free hand moved to the side of your face, brushing back your hair as he waited for you to reply. the anticipation on his face sent another rush of absolute love through you, and you quickly closed the gap between you. as your mouth met his, your hands found their way to the sides of his neck, slowly wrapping around until they were laced together behind his head. for what could’ve been an hour, you stood there, melting into spencer as his words of reassurance replaced the chants of uncertainty that had filled your head hours prior. you were forced to pull back from him eventually, but even then your hands remained around his neck and the distance between your faces was minimal as you reopened your eyes. “i love you.”

a knock on the door suddenly interrupted the moment, causing you to release each other as a third party entered the room: morgan. “hey, lovebirds,” he grinned. “nice to see that you’re back to normal. it’s time to head home.” you smiled knowingly at the man, lacing your fingers through reid’s as you followed morgan out of the room. grabbing your belongings on the way out, the three of you headed toward your designated suv, where jj was waiting patiently in the driver’s seat. “so, you finally confessed, huh?”

“of course i did,” you laughed. “no secrets in this relationship.”

“yeah, and i would’ve figured it out eventually anyway.” at spencer’s interjection, it was morgan’s turn to laugh.

“oh, yeah, 187?”

“he is a genius, you know,” you added smugly.

“well, apparently so am i, because i figured it out before he did. oh, and by the way, pretty girl, i told you.” and with that, morgan was jogging off (in a fit of giggles) to the suv, hopping in the passenger seat before you had a chance to jokingly scold him.

damn profilers.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagines #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #criminal minds #criminal minds imagines #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fic #paranoia

368 notes · View notes

hyperfixatedimagines · 3 years ago

Text

The Moon & her Star: Ch 1

Summary: Long before Zoya, another girl from the wrong side of town fell for one of Julien’s posse. Unfortunately for the girl, she had fallen for Luna La and not noble O.

A/N: This is the first chapter in a series I will be writing. Please let me know your thoughts. I’m currently accepting requests as well. Hope you enjoy.

(Y/n) was no stranger to the excess and glamour of the upper East side’s elite. Though (y/n) didn’t belong to the exclusive club she had always had the displeasure of their company. Thanks to (y/n)’s grandmother, the head maid to the oldest of old money in New York, she had secured a full scholarship to Constance.

Freshman year was rough, (y/n) wanted so desperately to fit in with the beautiful, glamorous, and rich circle of students. (Y/N) wanted nothing more than to be on Broadway. She was going to be a star, at any cost. But freshman year- she got sidetracked trying to network herself into the right circles. The head girl, Julien, got the leading role in Heathers without even auditioning. That year (y/n) learned that money always won over talent.

Sophomore year was better…. with a noteworthy exception.

Everything seemed to be going well for (y/n). She had friends, theater rejects and scholarship kids like herself but friends nonetheless. She was steadily getting better roles, from background extra to understudy. A star on the rise.

(Y/N) had even managed to secure a leading role in the spring musical, and the only thing she had to do was first help Julien prepare for her role as Juliet. Julien didn’t understand anything about Shakespeare, and promised she’d let (y/n) have the next role. Juliet was personal to Julien, but she never revealed why. (Y/N) didn’t press further, all she needed was one role. One leading role and then no one would be able to deny that she was the true star of the theater department.

Tutoring Julien was easy enough. Julien wasn’t mean like her minions, Luna and Monet. (Y/N) and Julien’s friendship, or partnership rather, was a secret matter that (y/n) didn’t care to bring to light.

Whether it was fate or bad luck, Julien’s minion Luna found out about them and read Julien the riot act for daring to converse with such a lowly individual. Julien forced Luna into being their silent accomplice. Luna agreed, apparently knowing how important the Juliet role was. However, Luna insisted she coordinate the meetups so that no one that mattered caught the two of them together.

On a few occasions, Luna even joined the two. (Y/N) hated when Luna would watch, because she never just watched. Luna didn’t ever take criticism well, even if it wasn’t directed at her. Any time (y/n) gave Julien a piece of feedback Luna would swoop in and say the exact opposite. Of course Julien would only listen to Luna’s praise, it was the easier pill to swallow.

Fearing Julien would let her go and abandon the promise made, (Y/N) confronted Luna during the next session.

Luna La was not about to let some backwater trailer trash tell her to butt out. So what began with harsh words turned to pushing and hair pulling.

And it ended with Luna on the floor, (y/n) on top of her.

With (y/n)’s face just inches from her, Luna realized just how beautiful (y/n) was. Luna stared at (y/n)’s lips, suddenly aware of just how soft they looked.

(Y/N) hadn’t planned on falling for someone in high school, especially not at Constance, and especially not for a bitchy spoiled girl like Luna La.

But it happened.

It happened in the theater building’s basement on a normal Tuesday evening.

It happened just moments after calling Luna a jealous bitch.

It happened slowly, as (y/n)’s lips met Luna’s.

The first kiss was tender, tentative…..and tragically over just seconds after it started.

The two girls heard footsteps coming down the stairs and separated so fast they had to catch their breath. Julien entered the room, only to see Luna and (Y/N) on opposite sides in complete silence.

Luna and (Y/N) we’re terrified Julien would know the sinful act that had transpired but in her blissful ignorance Julien merely thought they’d gotten into an argument.

The session went on without a hitch. Julien was surprised that Luna hadn’t given any comments regarding (Y/N)’s feedback.

It was then that (y/n) could finally bring herself to look at Luna for the first time since their kiss.

Their eyes met, both terrified of the feelings they knew were brewing inside them. Luna excused herself, and walked out without another word.

Luna stopped showing up to Julien’s tutoring sessions.

(Y/N) would turn the opposite way anytime her path crossed Luna’s.

It went on that way for weeks.

Until opening night of Romeo and Juliet.

(Y/N) had gone backstage to wish Julien luck. To her public dismay, and to her secret joy, Luna was there.

Julien exited the dressing room for a brief second, leaving the two alone for the first time since their kiss.

(Y/N) didn’t know what to do. So she did what all terrified teens in love do, she tried to run.

But Luna reached out for her hand and stopped her.

The words came out of Luna’s mouth like vomit, uncontrollable. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it.”

“Neither have I.”

The two stared into each other’s eyes, silently begging the other to be braver.

The echo of footsteps cut their moment off too soon.

Luna let go and turned to look at herself in the mirror.

The door opened and Julien walked back in with the rest of her gang of heirs.

Surprised to still see (y/n) there, Julien addressed (y/n) simply as an extra.

(Y/N) wished Julien good luck and walked out before she lost what was left of her dignity.

Winter break came and went.

The spring musical neared and the only thing (y/n) could think of was Luna La’s peach lip gloss.

Forbidden stares in class, stolen glances as they passed each other in the halls, it was torture for them both…even if they couldn’t admit it to themselves.

Julien, true to her word, opted out of the spring musical. So auditions were to start on Friday.

(Y/N) should have been over the moon, but instead she found herself wanting to be in Luna’s glow instead.

(Y/N) couldn’t focus, and she knew she’d fail the audition if she couldn’t get her act together.

So the evening before auditions (y/n) forced herself to practice in the theater building basement in a last ditch effort to pull herself together.

“I thought I might find you down here.”

What was once a voice laced with acid had become music to (y/n)’s ears.

Luna stood at the bottom of the staircase, anxiously fiddling with the hem of her shirt.

“What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know. All I know is I haven’t been the same since…..” Luna stared at (y/n), unable to name their sacrilegious act.

“Since what,” (y/n) pressed.

Luna crossed the distance between them. “Are you really going to make me say it?”

(Y/N) sighed. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you either. I can’t even focus for my audition…. I’ve been waiting so long for this moment and I’m going to screw it all up because…”

(y/n) was unsure if she could bring herself to say it, out loud.

Luna bit her lip. “Because?”

“Because I can’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to kiss you again.”

A wave of relief, and fear, washed over Luna. She wanted (y/n), and couldn’t lie to herself about it anymore…. but there was no way in hell she’d risk social suicide to date (y/n).

“We can’t.” Luna wrapped her arms around herself.

Cruel reality had finally set in for (y/n).

“Of course, I was stupid to think a coward like you would take a chance.”

Luna’s arms fell to her sides, fists balled. “I’m not a coward. I just can’t risk my future over someone like you.”

(Y/N) straightened her back, indignant. “Someone like me?”

“You know what I mean,” Luna said with a sigh.

(Y/N) stepped closer. “I don’t, so why don’t you enlighten me.”

“Fine, you’re a broke nobody from the wrong side of the cliched tracks.” Luna mirrored (y/n), stepping closer to her.

(Y/n) had stepped in Luna’s personal space, daring Luna to challenge her.

“I’m not a nobody. I’m gonna be a star one day and I won’t have time to waste on petty, airhead heiresses like you.”

Luna grabbed the collar of (y/n)’s shirt. “Who are you calling an airhead?”

The scent on peach lip gloss hit (y/n)’s nose, and it suddenly set in just how close Luna was. Her eyes darted to Luna’s lips…tantalizing and only inches away.

“What are you going to do about it?” (Y/N) dared.

Luna tightened her grasp on (y/n)’s collar and closed the gap between them. “This,” she said just before her lips crashed onto (y/n)’s.

Sophomore year was supposed to be the year everything changed for (y/n)….and with Luna La now in her orbit it certainly would be.

#luna la x reader #gossip girl imagine #luna la #luna la imagine #gossip girl #gossip girl 2021 #gossip girl reboot

81 notes · View notes

winterscaptain · 4 years ago

Text

dead man’s hand.

Aaron Hotchner x Fem!Reader

a/n: our 52 pickup ajf episode! i dunno about yall, but i was so excited to get my hands on viper in this universe. he’s ridiculous, and i think he deserves to be absolutely put to shame by aaron “BDE” hotchner.

a joyful future fic, but requires little context.

words: 5k warnings: canon-typical misogyny, language, improper comm conduct, emily prentiss: lesbian icon™

summary: your first case back to full duties after your injury at the septarian ranch just had to take you undercover, didn’t it?

masterlist | a joyful future masterlist | requests closed!

You’re happy to be back in your usual plane seat, just to the left of Aaron, with your notes in your lap. With your arm in the sling, you were relegated to the table, in Derek’s usual spot beside Rossi, to discourage you from slouching. It was Hotch who suggested it, of course, but that didn’t help your pride.

Though your sling is gone and you’re back where you belong, your shoulder still twinges a little from time to time.

As it happens, a twinge hits you right as Rossi asks, “How does our unsub go from loser of the year to Don Juan?”

While Spencer answers him, Hotch glances over at you. You wave him off. I’m fine, Hotch.

He sighs and you both tune back in to Spencer. “...Don Juan was an ironic reversal of sex roles and when -” Spencer looks at Hotch, finding something in his face that usually made you laugh, but stops Spencer in his tracks. “Th-That’s about it.”

You suppress your smile as Hotch refocuses the group. “Something must have happened between the last prostitute and Vanessa Holden, making him change his victimology.”

“Could the unsub have known Vanessa?” Jordan’s question almost surprises you. She’s still settling in, but you’re learning she doesn’t hesitate to freely share her opinion.

Hotch hesitates, as if waiting for someone else to answer. You oblige him, leaning around Dave a bit to see her better. “It’s unlikely.”

Derek picks up your thought. “Yeah, sexual sadists attack anonymously”

“They have to sever a personal connection and see their victims as objects to perpetrate this level of torture.” Spencer softens your quick rebukes with a little closed-mouth smile.

You spare a glance for Hotch and he raises his eyebrows for a split second before they drop back down. Your elbow makes contact with his arm, and you press into him for a second. Be nice.

He huffs a light breath through his nose as Prentiss and Rossi bounce off each other. I am being nice.

Then, as though your silent sidebar never existed, he jumps back in. “The victimology is so different, we’ll treat them as separate unsubs and see what overlaps.” He makes assignments, finally rounding out by assigning Derek, you, Jordan, and himself to the victim’s family.

+++

Todd’s initiative continues to take you by surprise long after you land. She takes command of the situation at the precinct, and there are a couple of times where you can feel Hotch shift his weight.

He’s uncomfortable.

When Jordan leaves the room, you turn to the side and he leans in. “If you’re going to pull her, do it quietly. Something tells me she’s adverse to public criticism.”

He nods, just a little, and you return to your former posture.

The house is where things get really sticky.

“Mrs. Holden,” she says, “we can’t begin to fathom the loss you’ve suffered.”

You nudge Hotch with your shoulder (ouch) and he uncrosses his arms. Loosen up for a minute, would you?

“No, that’s right. You can’t.” Mrs. Holden’s tone is sharp, and you can’t help but feel for her - the stuff Garcia sent over was awful. A daughter, dead, and forums full of people saying you had it coming. Ugh.

“But, um…” Jordan steps up, and you narrow your eyes a little.

What is she doing?

“I lost my older sister in a car crash.” You can feel Derek’s brow furrow as he checks in with Hotch. Aaron has yet to move and, as usual, his face gives nothing away to anyone except you. Something’s wrong. “And it was really hard on our family because she was the responsible one. She was the one that my mother always counted on to watch over us.”

Your eyes flicker to Hotch’s profile, and you find his mouth a touch tighter, his eyes infinitesimally narrower.

Uh oh.

We know that look.

Again, what is she doing?

“And when she died, my mother wouldn’t let the police in. If she didn’t let them in, then my sister wasn’t really dead.” Jordan leans in closer, as if her next words are a secret. “This man is a monster,” Aaron straightens with an inhale, and you feel yourself wind tighter and tighter as he does. You have no idea what you’re upset about yet, but you’re sure it's something. “...and we can catch him, but we need your daughter’s help.”

The mother turns on Derek in an outburst of pre-emptive anger. He very kindly de-escalates the situation, ever the voice of reason and empathy. Hotch takes another breath as Mrs. Holden turns to invite you further into the house. Jordan checks in with Derek before following her, almost smug.

Aaron’s brows are drawn when you look at him again. Derek asks the question you’ve been waiting for. “Did you know that about Jordan?”

“No,” he says. “And neither did she. According to her file, she’s an only child.” Hotch walks away immediately, letting his implicit accusation hang in the air between you.

You share a look with Derek.

+++

“The information about Vanessa Holden being the responsible sister, where did you get that?”

You try to stay a little ahead of them, but Derek has no qualms about openly eavesdropping, turning over his shoulder.

Her tone is matter-of-fact. “Some of it was online, and some of it was just an educated guess based on birth order.”

Still facing forward, you squeeze your eyes shut for a moment, as if bracing yourself for impact.

“A guess.” Hotch’s question is flat and hardly a question at all. You almost cringe. Derek hops up beside you, much less interested in snooping now.

Shit. You’re in it now, kid.

‘Kid.’ Gimme a break she’s like...two years younger than you.

Yeah, but on this team, it’s dog years. The divorce alone had to be at least a decade.

“And in the process, you lied.”

There it is.

“That mother was shut down. I needed to salvage some rapport.” The note of defensiveness in Jordan’s tone pulls a sigh from you, and you can almost anticipate Hotch’s response. If pressed, you could recite it verbatim.

“I don’t know how you did things in counter-terrorism, but we don’t make it a habit to lie to get the job done.” They stop walking, but you don’t, pulling Derek by the sleeve of his Henley before he can hesitate.

“Let’s wait by the car,” you tell him. He gives you an expression that only says yikes. You reply with one of your own.

As you approach the back door, you hear, “I got you in the door, didn’t I?” from Jordan.

Oh babe. Put the shovel down. This hole you’re digging for yourself is becoming unmanageable, and we’re all going to have to deal with his grumpy ass for the rest of the afternoon if you don’t quit.

Derek leans against the door of the car, and you follow his lead, leaning against the back bumper.

“Not only do you represent the FBI, you represent this team - ”

Ah, so it's the “representing the team with integrity” speech today.

“ - to the press, the police, and to the families who are struggling with some of the hardest times of their lives. If you get caught in a lie, the trust we depend on to help solve these crimes disappears.” You inhale, sharp. It’s been a minute since you’ve heard that tone. “Do I make myself clear?”

Yikes.

Jordan, looking significantly chastised, answers, “It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t.”

Alright, that one pulls a smile from you and you do your best to bite back your laugh. Derek’s in the same boat. You both hope to recover by the time they get back to the car. A fit of giggles will do you absolutely no good at this point.

“When we get back, I want you to prepare a press release about the unsub. Do not release it.” His phone rings, and he reaches for it, adding “From now on, everything goes through me.”

He passes you without meeting your eye, talking to Rossi over the phone. Jordan approaches you, and asks, “So how bad did I just screw up?”

You take a breath before answering. “Well, Derek would tell you on a normal scale of one to ten, probably about a six.”

“I have a feeling that’s not the scale we’re using.”

You shake your head and open the door. “On Hotch’s, that was about an eleven.”

The three of you slide into the car. You take the seat behind Derek, sparing Aaron from having Jordan in his peripheral vision while he’s trying to focus on not crashing the car.

+++

“Hotch,” Emily says, getting your attention and Aaron’s. You both turn. “Of the self-described pickup artist classes in the area, there’s only one guy who encourages his students to dress like, uh..” she searches for a word for a second, “space cowboys.”

A laugh escapes you, but you recover quickly. You glance at Hotch, an apology in your eyes.

Emily’s tone matches your mirth. “Are you ready to meet Viper?”

+++

The four of you lurk at the back of the room, listening to Viper’s sermon while trying not to laugh out loud again.

“...and women, while they won’t admit it, want to be hunted. They need it.”

You look up at Hotch. You’ve got to be kidding me.

He doesn’t look at you, but the twitch of his mouth gives him away.

You turn your attention back to Viper, who’s assertions are so far gone from reality you can’t even believe people paid for this. He goes on and on about the ideal mate, what women want, etc. etc. etc.

This guy has never gotten laid in his life.

Hotch nudges you with his shoulder as if he can hear you thinking, and you drop your eyebrows, setting your mouth in a tight line that could give him a run for his money.

Emily’s losing it beside you, too. She and Derek have shared more than a few glances, and there’s no hiding the incredulous look on her face.

“If you are smarter and more interesting, you will be a better predator -”

You keep your face from screwing up in a wince, but only just. Poor choice of words, there.

“- because this is the jungle, my friends, and your prey wants to be caught.”

Derek doesn’t shift his gaze as he asks, quietly, “Would you listen to that language?”

You lean around Emily, whispering, “He’s training serial killers.”

“Great,” Emily says. “We’re dealing with a rampant narcissist and misogynist who's turned himself into a snake oil salesman.”

Yeah, that about sums it up.

You both look at Hotch, who’s still watching carefully. “Just one more thing he has in common with our unsub.”

At the end of the lecture you all stay where you are: four dark and intimidating figures irresistible to someone with an ego as big as Viper’s.

When he inevitably advances on you, Aaron introduces the team present and explains the situation in an even, measured tone. He doesn’t have to change a single thing about his presentation for the Viper to size him up and compensate accordingly. He doesn’t even acknowledge you or Emily in his futile effort to make Aaron feel small, counting on his own peacocking to do the job.

That was your first mistake.

“So you think this - what did you call him - unsub took my class?”

With one hand in his pocket and another on his belt, Aaron replies. “He copied your ‘the camera adds ten pounds’ routine verbatim.”

Viper has the audacity to look pleased. “Yeah. That’s a good gag.”

“If you could just give us your attendance lists, it might help us find him,” Emily says.

You nod. “Any information you can provide would be helpful.”

“No.”

Your eyebrows shoot to your hairline, and Emily beats you to a response, her tone appalled. “No?”

He’s decidedly smug now. You’ve never seen a face so well-suited for a punch. “My clients expect a certain amount of confidentiality. I won’t compromise that.”

“We can come back with a warrant.” Aaron’s quick, flat rebuttal almost makes you smile. Viper ignores him, shifting his slimy attention to you.

You watch Viper take you in from head to toe, resisting the urge to squirm under his gaze. With a deep breath, you straighten your shoulders and ever so slightly put more weight on your right foot, keying you in to Aaron. When Viper meets your gaze again, he looks more than a little annoyed.

“Be my guest, but keep in mind, the money I make doesn’t just pay for my fabulous lifestyle,” he turns to Emily again, “it also keeps very expensive lawyers on retainer.”

You redirect, hoping to catch him off guard. “What club did you go to last night?”

It doesn’t work. He eyes you up and down again. It’s disgusting.

“It’s a legitimate question,” Derek says. “You seem to know a lot about our investigation.”

He turns on Derek, and you settle in for the show. “Two things to learn about me. First, I outwit alpha males like you for fun and sometimes profit.” You snort, but he doesn’t spare a glance at you. “How often do you have to rely on your badge to score, baldy?”

Aaron huffs a laugh, and it’s so quiet you’re almost sure you made it up.

“Second,” he continues, turning to Emily again. “Last night, I was at Club Aqua and I have a stack of tax-deductible drink receipts to back up my story.”

She shrugs, unimpressed.

Emily Prentiss, you are my hero.

You really tune in when his gaze finds Aaron, still standing a good two or three inches taller than Viper in far more expensive shoes. “Now, you might not want to believe that my style works.” You can tell Aaron’s trying to keep from smiling, his head tilted down at a condescending angle. “And here, in this harsh light, you have the advantage.”

He has the advantage in every light.

Shut up.

It’s true, isn't it?

Viper steps up to you, uncomfortably close, and you do what you can to keep the grimace off your face. “But meet me on my turf…” He laughs a little and turns to Emily. It’s revolting. “The things I could make you do.”

The things Aaron could do on any turf, any time, any light -

Quit! Focus!

Aaron steps between you and Viper. You gladly take advantage of the distance, moving just off Aaron’s shoulder. “If you have any questions, give us a call.”

Viper’s eyes don’t move from Emily as he takes Aaron’s card. She sizes him up for a moment before turning around, still completely unimpressed.

Down the hallway, she keeps pace with Hotch. “Please tell me we’re not giving up on that guy.”

“We’re just getting started.”

You can tell he’s irritated and tense, but there’s an air of smug amusement that colors his countenance. The lawyer has tricks up his sleeve, it seems.

When you leave the building, you turn on Derek.

“What the fuck was that?”

To everyone’s surprise, Aaron, putting his sunglasses on, answers. “Compensation.”

You try not to dwell on that implication for too long, barking a laugh with Emily.

+++

“Hey, Hotch.” You turn around, exposing your half-unzipped dress and bare upper back. “Can you zip me up?” He crosses the room and zips your dress, doing his best to avoid savoring the warmth of your skin under his fingers as he links the hook-and-eye closed. “Thanks.” You turn and he’s a little closer than you expected, looking at you with a peculiar, unreadable expression in his eyes.

There’s silence for a moment and neither one of you moves. No matter how often it occurred, close proximity to Aaron always did weird things to your heart rate. You take a deep breath to steady yourself and return to the locker for a set of loud silver bracelets.

“You’d tell me if you were uncomfortable with this, right?”

You clasp two of the bracelets around your wrist and turn back toward him. A little laugh leaves you. “I’m fine, Hotch.” You wordlessly hold your last two bracelets out, unable to secure them with your non-dominant hand. With a fond sigh, he crosses over to you and takes your wrist.

“Emily told me you’d both be alright and she’s handled people like this before, but this guy…” He trails off with a bit of sigh.

“I’ve handled worse than him. Guys like Viper were a dime a dozen in college,” You shrug, watching him deftly handle the tiny clasps in his large hands. “Plus, you’ll be in my ear the whole time.” He reaches past you for your necklace and you turn around so he can put it on. He smells incredible and you can't help but close your eyes for a moment.

“I have a good feeling we’ll be able to get somewhere tonight.”

You turn around again, smiling up at him. “I agree.” Thinking for just a second, you add, “Hotch, did you consider putting Jordan on this?”

“I did,” he says, his fingers reaching for the bridge of his nose. “Emily suggested it as well. I’m just not confident in her ability to complete surveillance in such a high-risk environment.”

“Because of her mistake today?” You pass him and close the door to the room, ensuring the exclusion of prying eyes and ears.

He removes his hand from his face and looks at you, playing at exhaustion. Of course.

You let all your breath out through your nose and you carry on as if you were explaining to a child. “She can’t recover if you don’t give her an opportunity.” You lighten up, adding, “Do you remember how many times I screwed up my first couple of months?” A wry smile crosses your face.

He huffs and crosses his arms. “That’s different.”

“Why? Because I was a NAT?”

“No, you -” He takes a second to collect his thoughts, his brow furrowed. He gestures with a sharp, open hand as he speaks. “You made mistakes, but you never misrepresented yourself. I’m concerned about her conduct in the field.”

“Send her out with us tonight.” Your appeal is casual, easy. “Emily and I will keep an eye on her and make sure she keeps her nose clean.” All things considered, Jordan isn’t much of an issue. She’s just green and (you’re sure) accustomed to a decidedly less-upright unit chief.

“Are you comfortable with that?”

“Of course. Give her a chance, Hotch. We’ll be fine.”

He nods, ready to leave the room, but then looks down at your wrist with a small, almost amused, frown. “Is that…?”

“The Dead Man’s Hand? Yeah.” You turn your wrist, revealing a pair of eights and aces - both clubs and spades, with the queen of hearts between them - inlaid in the silver. “I figured it was appropriate, if not entirely tasteless.”

“Clever.”

+++

You can tell Jordan’s forgotten about the comm in her ear when she leans over and whispers, “How do you do it?”

“Do what?” You keep your eyes on the crowd, lips barely moving as you keep a demure smile on your face. A guy without a chance in hell catches your eye and you break him with just a quick softening of your eyes and a wider smile. Luckily, he’s so flustered he doesn’t think to approach you.

She takes a fake sip of her drink. “You and Hotch get along really well, and I haven’t managed to get on his good side once since I’ve been here. How do you do it?”

“I have no idea.” There’s a small crackle in your ear, and you know Aaron tuned into your private channel to hear you better and talk to you alone. For his benefit, you add, “I’m not sure he has a good side, if that helps.”

You hear a scoff and have to hide your laugh in your drink.

Jordan shakes her head. “You’re kidding, right?”

“What?”

“He definitely has a good side -”

“Thank you,” Hotch says into your ear. You cough to hide another laugh.

“- and you’re on it.”

You open your mouth to reply, but catch the eye of someone who looks unfortunately familiar. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Hotch’s chuckle in your ear warms you, and you hear a crackle as he switches back to the team channel. “20 on Viper,” he says. “Keep an eye out for our unsub.”

Emily wilts beside you, and you can’t help but laugh. You pull Jordan a little off to the side so you’re able to hear Viper, but he doesn’t feel closed in. “You always want to give guys like this an out - if they’re backed into a corner and feel trapped, they close off and get defensive.”

A crackle in your ear. “Is that so?”

Jordan nods and you can’t reply to Hotch with any degree of subtlety, so you settle for rolling your eyes.

“Well.” You hear Viper from over your shoulder. Jordan cringes, and your brow pulls in a question. “Lucky me.”

She answers, narrating through a squint. “He just put his finger in his mouth and pulled it out a little too slow.”

“Ugh.” You take a fake sip of your drink. “I hate this guy.”

“I thought you said you could handle him?” Aaron’s voice in your ear almost makes you jump, and you almost turn around to smack him before realizing he’s not even there.

Bastard.

Emily sends some sort of wisecrack flying over Viper’s head. She’s so charming, you can’t blame him for immediately falling head-over-dick for her.

“...So, affection, sex, emotional committment, it’s all just for fun?”

Against your will, your thoughts wander. You’re still listening, tuned in to his linguistic profile - the pattern, the rhetoric, the cadence, sure - but your heart pulls when you hear Emily list those three things. A sigh leaves you and of course you’re thinking of Aaron.

You’re such a child. Don’t be an idiot.

“You okay?”

Of course he’s asking.

You turn away from Jordan, looking out on the rest of the club so you can answer. “I’m fine.”

“Need a break?”

You are feeling a little boxed-in, and as long as he’s offering… “Yeah, actually. That would be great. I just need some air.” You turn back to Jordan. “I’ll be right back - stay with Emily.”

“But wait,” she says, holding your arm with gentle fingers, “we shouldn’t split up.”

“I just need a minute outside, Jordan, I’ll be alright.” You smile at her, small and warm, and escape her grasp. Slipping out one of the side doors, you prop it with a doorstop and lean against the wall. Your eyes fall closed, and you take a minute to breathe in the cold air.

You hear your name in your ear, and you yank your earwig out. It's still close enough for you to hear the team if anyone needed you, but Aaron’s voice in your ear at this very moment isn’t helping with the whole “take a minute” thing.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.”

I thought I took that damn thing out - oh.

Aaron rounds the corner and leans on the wall beside you. “You okay?”

You nod. “Fine. My shoulder’s just bugging me a little.”

“Any more lies you want to share before I call you on them?”

“No.” In fairness, your shoulder was bothering you, but it wasn’t the thing bothering you. That thing, in fact, was standing beside you with his kevlar on, waiting patiently for you to continue. “I’m just out of shape, is all.” You tilt your head a little. “And my shoulder really does hurt.”

He guides you off the wall so you’re standing in front of him, your back to him. “What have you been doing in PT?”

“Muscle work, mostly. Keeping things loose so it heals without limiting my mobility.” You roll your shoulder, ignoring the flood of pain that zings down your fingertips.

Warm hands find their way to your shoulder over the fabric of your dress. You picked something long-sleeved and high-necked, figuring the angry scarring from your still-healing gunshot wound would adversely affect your objective. You take deep breaths as he works at the muscle, releasing the little knots that built up through the day. He finds a bit of scar tissue, and a little yelp leaves you before you can stop it.

His hands soften, but don’t stop. “Hang in there. Just a little more and it’ll take some pressure off the nerve.” He trades his thumbs for the tips of his fingers, walking over the knots with a methodical practicality that pulls at your chest.

You nod, knowing he’s right. Lo and behold, a few seconds later, the knot releases, sending a flood of warmth, followed by pins and needles down your arm. You flex and contract your hand in and out of a fist a couple of times, hoping to rid yourself of the sensation.

“It’ll stop in a second.” He rubs his hands together, warming them up with the friction before passing over the back of your shoulder with a firm, steady pressure, all the way down your arm to your fingers. The heat of his hands really does help - your nerves calm almost immediately, and you can feel your pinkie for the first time in days.

A little laugh leaves you. “I dunno why I keep going to PT when you’re right here.” You turn and offer him a soft smile. “Thank you.”

“Feeling better?”

No.

“Much.”

He offers you a small smile in return. “Good.”

+++

You’re changing back into your work clothes with Emily and Jordan, pleased to find them full of laughter.

“When you asked him if he practices his routine on a sex doll, I almost lost it.” Jordan looks over her shoulder at Emily as she clips her holster back onto her belt.

“I did lose it, are you kidding?” You laugh. “I can’t believe I missed it!”

Emily shakes her head, smiling. “You know, as much as I hate what that guy stands for, I still read ‘five ways to get noticed’ in Cosmo magazine.”

“Because it makes sense.” You look at Jordan, waiting for an explanation. She redeemed herself tonight, and you’re actually looking forward to hearing what she has to say. Though she doesn’t explain what she means, she does thank you both for vouching for her.

“Absolutely.” Emily looks past Jordan, at you, and you nod in agreement.

“Of course.”

A knock sounds, and Aaron’s voice shoots around the corner. “I need you all out here, the unsub’s kidnapped another victim.”

Shit.

+++

You’re on Aaron’s six, waiting for the go. He calls the first team into position and holds up his hand. When he drops it, you fall into step, just off his right shoulder. Derek breaches first, tackling the unsub to the floor.

Aaron kicks down the front door, and you breach from the other side of the house. There’s shouting everywhere, but Aaron’s presence centers you, giving you a mission and a focus.

Keep him safe.

He releases you with a wave, and you drop down next to Spencer on the floor. You cut the tape holding Austin’s hands together. She falls into Spencer, still terrified and sobbing. He looks at you and you nod, spotting her as he helps her to her feet.

Tracking back to Aaron, you shadow Rossi as they finish clearing the rest of the house. You hover by the final door as Dave and Aaron reassure the unsub’s mother that she’ll be taken care of as they clear the room for hidden threats.

In fact, there’s nothing except a sick woman and the machine keeping her alive.

“It’s a dialysis pump...It was issued ten months ago.” Dave looks back at you, and your lips press into a thin line.

You look at Aaron. “Our secondary trigger.”

+++

Jordan climbs the stairs to Aaron’s office, and you attempt to hide your interest as she knocks on the door and steps in. Of course, you can’t hear them, but you watch him call her back after she hands in her report.

You recognize the look on his face - it's an expression you’re rewarded with when you’ve done something right. In fairness, it doesn't look much different from the one you get when you’ve done something wrong, but you’ve learned to pick up on the subtle differences.

Jordan leaves his office with a little smile. When she passes you, you offer her a, “Well done,” as you stand and climb the stairs yourself.

With a knock on Aaron’s door, he beckons you in without looking. You stand a respectable distance away from his desk, waiting for him to finish whatever he’s working on. He knows it’s you, and has no issue keeping you waiting.

The composition of his desk has changed in the months since the divorce. Haley no longer smiles at him from the frame by his pen cup. That frame sits on the low shelf by his law volumes, the white veil over Haley’s face unable to mask her joy even from across the room.

There are more pictures of Jack than before, both old and new.

Eventually, he looks up, and you hand him your report. A smile plays at your lips, and another dances around the corner of his eyes.

“That was kind of you, Hotch.”

He shrugs. “You vouched for her work.”

“Is that all it takes to win your approval, these days? My good word?” Your voice is laden with fond amusement. He rises to it, and if you didn’t know better you’d think he wasn’t smiling. When he answers, his tone is light, almost playful.

“Yes.”

+++

tagging: @arganfics @quillvine @stxrryspencer @agenthotchner @wandaswitxh @hurricanejjareau @ange-must-die @ughitsbaby @rousethemouse @criminalsmarts @shrimpyblog @genevievedarcygranger @ssaic-jareau @good-heavens-chris-evans @angelsbabey @gublergirls @writefasttalkevenfaster @venusbarnes @hotchsflower @ogmilkis @marvels-agents100 @hotchslatte @risenfox @mrs-dr-reid @captain-christopher-pike @joemazzello-imagines @pinkdiamond1016 @pan-pride-12 @hotchlinebling @lee-rin-ah @sunshine-em @word-scribbless @jdougl-love @sageellsworth05 @nohalohoseok @giveusbackourbucky @bauslut @dreila03 @forgottenword @aaronhotchnerr @ssa-morgan @hotchnersgoddess @buckybau @phoenixfyre374 @sana-li @tegggeeee @abschaffer2 @ssacandi-ass-prentiss @dontkissthewriter @ellyhotchner @a-dorky-book-keeper @lotties-journey-abroad @mrs-joel-pimentel-23-25 @laneygthememequeen @ahopelessromantic @violentvulgarvolatile @andreasworlsboring101 @mooneylupinblack @ssareidbby @violet-amxthyst @zizzlekwum @lcvischmitt @emmasjulixn @qvid-pro-qvo @mandylove1000 @simsiddy @slickdickwitchbitch @jeor @synonymforlame @roses-and-grasses @bwbatta @capricorngf @missdowntonabbey @averyhotchner @garcia-reid-lovechild @cevanswhre @colbyskoalas @joanofarkansass @infinity1321 @zizzlekwum @katiejuliana @popped-weasels @evee87 @nuvoleincielo

#aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner #hotch x reader #hotch #aaron hotchner imagine #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds #tali writes fanfiction #tali talks cm #a joyful future #a joyful future fanfic

620 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

Text

Prompt: LQR/NMJ fuck or die, whether literally or socially

Without a Path - Chapter 1 - ao3

Warnings: adult content - please mind the other tags on Ao3!

These discussion conferences were getting less tolerable by the year, Lan Qiren thought as he trudged up the steep steps that led to the little house on the top of the hill. It was only two years ago that Sect Leader Nie had died, his place among the five Great Sects taken by his eldest son, and it was as if without his steadying (if irreverent) presence the other sect leaders had completely lost all sense of restraint.

Just last year, Jin Guangshan, who had been hosting, had set some late afternoon meetings in a “wine shop” that had almost predictably turned out to be a brothel, and he’d even taken the further step of paying the ladies of the establishment in advance to accompany them for the evening. A number of the smaller sect leaders had taken him up on the offer, carousing gleefully in the main room, but in the luxuriously laid out room reserved for the Great Sects, three of the five of them had stubbornly refused to partake – Lan Qiren on account of his sect rules, Nie Mingjue on account of his mourning, and Jiang Fengmian on account of his wife.

The entire evening had been unbearably awkward as a result: the ladies continued to make advances, even after having been rejected, and Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangshan only pressured them all the harder the drunker they got, both with a girl on each leg and one rubbing their shoulders. At one point, when Nie Mingjue had gotten up to leave, utterly disgusted – Lan Qiren couldn’t blame him – Wen Ruohan had even reached out to catch him, using his superior strength to pull him off his feet and onto his couch. Nie Mingjue had recoiled as if he’d landed amidst a bed of poisonous snakes, leaping up and storming out, and Jin Guangshan had nearly burst something laughing.

And now there was this year, Wen Ruohan was hosting, and he’d decided to do some sort of fancy winter night-hunt set up, encircling an entire mountain valley in the north for their use. There were a half-dozen houses in the foothills for all the sect leaders to stay in as their disciples conducted the hunts, excluding only the leaders of the Great Set, who were invited to walk up an unnecessarily steep hill to stay in the house up there. Fancier, more prestigious, with a better view…really, Wen Ruohan probably just wanted to rub all the smaller sect’s faces in the Great Sects’ glory, by which he meant his glory, again. Lan Qiren was most definitely not impressed.

The house might be better positioned, but it was inconvenient.

It was located on vein of power that boosted cultivation considerably but made flying by sword difficult – meaning they could only walk up, not fly – and the house itself was more elegant than it was spacious, meaning that once all the servants Wen Ruohan deemed essential were included the rest of them could each bring no more than two attendants. It was distant from the other houses, including the ones where their remaining sect disciples were being housed, and that in turn meant that someone would need to make the trek in between the two on a regular basis to bring them news of their own sects’ successes or failures in the hunt.

Moreover, it had already begun to gently snow, which meant they didn’t even get the benefit of the supposed view!

No, Lan Qiren was most certainly not impressed.

He entered the house, which was at least properly warm, and nodded at Jiang Fengmian, who was sitting with Jin Guangshan and receiving a cup of tea – he looked minorly pained, but that could just be proximity to Jin Guangshan and his idea of acceptable small talk – and it wasn’t long before Nie Mingjue arrived, habitual scowl on his face as he stalked in, flanked by his own two attendants. He was probably least comfortable out of all of them, it being no secret that he believed Wen Ruohan had had something to do with the death of his father – no, that was too polite. More accurately, he believed Wen Ruohan to have murdered his father, and Wen Ruohan had only barely gone through the motions of denying it, yet there was nothing anyone could do about it without starting a war that no one was ready for.

This was the first discussion conference he had to attend as Wen Ruohan’s guest. Lan Qiren felt a stab of sympathy and nodded to him; Nie Mingjue’s scowl softened, fading slightly as he nodded back.

The two of them were more familiar than most, and not only because the Nie and the Lan were long-standing allies. Nie Mingjue himself had spent some time in Gusu at one of Lan Qiren’s early lectures, back when he was still figuring things out – he had been a good student, thoughtful and hard-working, and he had become friends with Lan Qiren’s eldest nephew. That had been a friendship Lan Qiren had sought to encourage, thinking it would be good for them when they would both be sect leaders in the future; it was only that he had not expected Nie Mingjue to become sect leader so fast, so early. It was in many ways deeply strange to think that one of his students was now his peer and equal, even though Lan Qiren acknowledged that that was simply how inheritance worked.

(He wondered a little, sometimes, at Nie Mingjue’s age – the Qinghe Nie were unusually secretive on such matters, had always been. He’d never known the boy’s age when he had been his student, only that Nie Mingjue had grown tall at an advanced clip compared to the other boys, suggesting that he was perhaps older than he appeared. The Nie sect hadn’t objected to his ascension to the role of sect leader, suggesting he must be at least close to being of age at twenty, but really there wasn’t any polite way to ask. Not that that had stopped Jin Guangshan from trying to pry, though naturally Nie Mingjue had rebuffed all such queries.)

“Wonderful view,” he remarked, seeking to ease the mood, and Nie Mingjue briefly almost smiled.

“If you like dull white,” Jin Guangshan sniffed, completely missing the implied criticism. “But then again, I suppose that is the Lan sect’s preferred taste.”

“We generally prefer clouds to snow,” Lan Qiren said, not rising to his bait. “Where is our host?”

“An excellent question. One typically expects a host to be present to greet his guests,” Nie Mingjue said in agreement, his voice low and hot with seething rage.

“He was here, but was called away unexpectedly,” Jiang Fengmian said, acting as the peacemaker as always. “I have no doubt he’ll return shortly.”

Another ke passed before Wen Ruohan strode in, his shoulders slightly damp with snow that turned into condensation from the heat of his cultivation – a waste of spiritual energy, really, but quite in character for him. It occurred briefly to Lan Qiren that for there to be sufficient snow to make such a performance meant that the gentle snow must have gotten stronger since he had entered earlier, but then Wen Ruohan was opening the meeting and he had to focus on more important things. These discussion conferences might officially be held out to be social events, a way for the cultivation world to come together to share knowledge and trade pointers, but for the sect leaders, the Great Sects most of all, it was also an opportunity to do business. Interactions between the great cultivation sects was an especially cut-throat business, each move, even those of allies, being filled with traps, and that meant Lan Qiren had to be paying full attention at all times.

Wen Ruohan seemed especially enthusiastic for business that day, the agenda for that afternoon’s meeting being more filled up than usual with contentious subjects that required significant debate. The meetings on the first day always ran long, a shichen or more, but this one ran past two and was nearing three by the time they started to near the end – they’d even worked through dinner, servants flitting into the room with trays that they placed in front of each sect leader’s seat and communal dishes carried around, a set-up that suggested that Wen Ruohan had anticipated such an over-long meeting from the start.

An attempt to finagle some benefits through driving them all into exhaustion, perhaps? He would have had the advantage of being here for several days in advance, while the rest of them had only just arrived. A cheap trick, if that’s what he was up to, and not successful; if anything, the pressure put them all on their guard.

“I think we’re just about done,” Wen Ruohan finally said, which was a relief. “It’s too late to have the entertainment I planned with our dinner, but I’ll have them bring out some wine to accompany us.”

Lan Qiren suppressed a groan.

Jiang Fengmian cleared his throat. “I had planned to go check on how my disciples were settling in,” he said apologetically, and Lan Qiren was just about to agree that that was a marvelous idea when Wen Ruohan broke the sound-suppressing arrays that had been protecting the room they were in and they abruptly heard the rattling sound of intense winds.

“A storm?” Jin Guangshan asked with a frown, and they all went out to look – it was indeed a storm, the snow from earlier having intensified into a blizzard. It was impossible to see more than a few zhang out, even with eyes sharpened through cultivation; it would be inadvisable weather to fly in even if such a thing were not already made difficult by the dense qi of the hilltop, and of course the stairs would be impossible to navigate. “Ah, well. Such things are impossible to predict.”

They weren’t, actually, Lan Qiren thought with irritation, and Wen Ruohan should have put some more effort into trying to predict it before insisting on this ridiculous winter hunt. Perhaps he’d even deliberately planned for something like this to increase the difficulty level for their disciples, who would not be expecting it – the man’s pettiness and need for victory truly knew no bounds.

“I suppose it’s time for the entertainment, then,” Wen Ruohan said with a smirk, clapping to summon in the dancers. Scantily clad ones, to Jin Guangshan’s delight and everyone else’s growing misery, and Lan Qiren couldn’t help but think grumpily that he wouldn’t have considered dancers ‘essential’ enough to take up space that could have been used by adding in additional attendants.

Luckily, a glance at the candle clock revealed that it wouldn’t be long – enough time to burn an incense stick or two, no more – before he could plausibly plead out on the basis of his sect rules regarding the right time to retire for the evening. It wasn’t an excuse that always worked, unfortunately, as the other sect leaders knew that the rules of hospitality took precedence, but in this particular instance when he tried it Nie Mingjue made some noises about wanting to take advantage of the mountain spiritual vein and winter storm to cultivate and Wen Ruohan for once acted the gracious host, allowing them to retire without raising too much of a fuss. Jiang Fengmian stayed behind to continue watching the dancers, his posture clearly appreciative and more interested than usual, but Lan Qiren had no doubt that he’d be following them soon enough; with a wife like his, he’d soon conclude that the momentary pleasure of watching the admittedly beautiful and well-trained women wasn’t worth her reaction should she hear of it.

He himself settled into his room with a sigh, dismissing his two attendants to go to their own beds. It was already hai hour, the time for sleep according to the Lan sect rules, and by all rights he ought to be fading off to sleep as well through sheer force of habit.

Unfortunately, sleep did not seem forthcoming. He felt restless and confined, hot under the collar with suppressed inactivity – still full of adrenaline from the high-pressure tension that always accompanied the business parts of the discussion conferences, the often vicious arguments that always danced on the very edge of a war he was no longer certain he could say that no one wanted, and, worse, because of the ice storm battering the windows, he could not take a walk to burn off the excess energy.

Sleep seemed far out of reach.

At least he had his duties as sect leader to keep him busy. Lan Qiren occupied himself with taking down notes regarding the results of the meeting at once, lest he forget and have his forgetfulness used against him, and with a meeting that went on so long there was a great deal to record and plenty of information he would need to obtain from his disciples once connection was reestablished in the morning.

A shichen later, he was still awake, writing out one final set of instructions, and he was just about to finally retire for the evening and try to go to sleep, however unsuccessful he expected that endeavor to be, when there was an unexpected knock on his door.

Frowning, Lan Qiren rose to his feet and went to open it.

“Sect Leader Nie,” he said, surprised. “What brings you here this late?”

“Can I come in?” Nie Mingjue asked, and Lan Qiren would have refused if he hadn’t noticed that the other man appeared unusually upset – although the room was lit only by flickering lanterns, Lan Qiren’s cultivation was high enough to make his night vision excellent, and he could see the tightness in Nie Mingjue’s eyes and the bulge of his jaw as he ground his teeth together.

“Very well,” Lan Qiren said, and stepped aside, allowing Nie Mingjue to enter. “What’s the matter?”

“Have you been feeling unusual this evening?” Nie Mingjue asked, voice abrupt. He was standing especially straight, his hands behind his back. “Uncomfortable, or – overheating?”

Lan Qiren frowned.

“I have,” he said slowly. Now that he thought about it, he could feel sweat on the back of his neck, which could not be explained merely by the braziers and conductive array keeping the room warm – not in the face of the ice storm right outside. He did not like that, nor did he like the implications of Nie Mingjue coming to him late at night with the question. “Why?”

“I found this in the kitchen,” Nie Mingjue said, and he stuck out his hand with a jar with herbs in it. “It was – I think they put it in our food.”

Lan Qiren accepted the jar and examined it, his lips twisting into a scowl of his own as he realized what it was. “A consequence of our refusal to participate in the planned entertainment last time, no doubt,” he said, his voice tight, thinking that this was truly intolerable behavior. They were sect leaders, not schoolchildren; such a prank went beyond the mere unseemly into the inappropriate.

He noticed that Nie Mingjue’s expression had only grown more anxious, however, and sought to reassure him. “It’s not poison,” he explained. “At least not in the traditional sense – the drug is a powerful yin stimulant, with amatory properties.”

An extremely powerful aphrodisiac, in other words.

“Although it has some legitimate uses, it is best known to be used in the more dubious forms of dual cultivation. The effects cannot be simply filtered out with a golden core, but are easy enough to blunt with an infusion of yang energy.”

That was, of course, the basis of the prank, stupid and infantile as it was: for a man, it was generally not difficult to infuse one’s core with yang energy. Although it would of course be easier and more beneficial to accept an offer from one of the undoubtedly specially selected female dancers to engage in dual cultivation, a man could always utilize his own hand to stimulate the appropriate effect, even if it would take longer. Wen Ruohan – and Jin Guangshan, no doubt – would undoubtedly laugh themselves sick, dallying the night away with the dancers while the rest of them were forced to abuse themselves for hours just to have some peace.

Bastards.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said vehemently, and Lan Qiren found to his surprise that his expression looked, if anything, even worse, his face having gone a ghastly shade of pale. “I can’t – do that.”

“Why not?” Lan Qiren asked, bewildered. Surely the former sect leader Nie had given his son the most basic education – Lan Qiren truly hoped he would not be called upon to explain the cultivation mechanics of masturbation, although he would grit his teeth and endure if necessary. “It may take several repetitions to flush it out entirely, but the drug itself will assist with – with the, uh, motivation – physically – for the infusion, that is –”

“You don’t understand,” Nie Mingjue said, and his face was now flushed, red at the cheeks as if he had a fever. “It’s not – I know what an infusion of yang energy is. It’s just – it’s not…”

He closed his eyes tightly. He was actually shaking, Lan Qiren noticed, his shoulders trembling – he was clearly very distressed by the whole thing.

“He knows,” he finally muttered. “He must have…there’s no other explanation. This was intentional, all of it. Wen Ruohan knows.”

Something about Nie Mingjue’s tone – almost fatalistic, defeated and resigned, as if he had lost some great battle that he had not even known he was fighting – made a hard tight ball of anxiety in Lan Qiren’s stomach.

“What does he know?” he asked cautiously.

Nie Mingjue laughed dully, a short bark of sound that was all bitterness. “That I can’t generate that type of yang energy on my own, Sect Leader Lan. That I’m misaligned.”

The implications of that hit Lan Qiren with all the impact of an avalanche.

Misaligned. It was one of those strange Qinghe Nie traditions, along with not disclosing private information such as the year of one’s birth – they believed that it was possible for the reincarnation wheel to err, for a man’s soul to be born in a woman’s body, or a woman in a man, or even in some cases a nebulous sort of existence that recognized neither. The substance of what they were wasn’t important, not really; the term was all-encompassing, meaning only that the physical body and the ephemeral souls and spirits did not match.

But for Nie Mingjue to say that he couldn’t generate an infusion of yang meant that the body he had been born with was that of a woman – yin-aligned, not yang-aligned, even though his stature and bearing suggested that his eight characters were likely to be heavily tilted towards yang, if not entirely yang. For a woman, giving in to the aphrodisiacal effects of the drug would aggravate the effects, not cure them; for a woman, ingesting such a drug in sufficiently large quantities could even be fatal, with the effects of the excess yin unbalancing her qi, causing –

Causing a qi deviation.

The former sect leader Nie had died of a qi deviation only two years ago. His father had died of the same.

Nie Mingjue, with his only heir a child under ten, could not risk one.

If they had been at home – if they’d been anywhere more civilized, Nie Mingjue could have summoned some doctor to help flush out the effects through a manual infusion of yang, using drugs, purges, the transfer of spiritual energy, that sort of thing. Without one, the only way to obtain a yang infusion of the strength necessary to keep the effects of a drug this powerful at bay would be through dual cultivation.

Through sex, specifically. Sex in which he was penetrated by a man.

And that, itself, was the problem. The Qinghe Nie recognized the misaligned, and some of the cultivation world followed their lead, but the majority did not. If it was ever publicized that Nie Mingjue had the body of a woman, and that he had, moreover, lost his chastity – it would be a crippling loss of face for the Nie sect, not unless he subsequently married the man who had dishonored him.

“Who can you ask?” Lan Qiren asked, his heart sinking. Between the ice storm that he’d thought had been an oversight on Wen Ruohan’s part, the tall hill with its barrier to flight, the restricted number of attendants they were able to bring, and the application of the drug in such quantity that it could affect a cultivator as strong as Lan Qiren so quickly…there were too many coincidences for this to be anything but what Nie Mingjue suspected it was: a trap designed to ensnare him in an impossible situation. “Perhaps…your attendants? You were allowed to bring two –”

“I wanted to bring people I could trust,” Nie Mingjue said dully. “With such a small number…”

Lan Qiren understood. Nie Mingjue was young, still new to his role as sect leader even after two years – there must be plenty of people both in and out of the Nie sect waiting anxiously to see him fail. For a situation in which he would have to be at close quarters with the other sect leaders, he would have wanted people that he believed would support him unreservedly.

He would have brought family.

“Too close?” Lan Qiren checked, and grimaced when Nie Mingjue nodded. Obviously engaging in incest would only make a bad situation worse, even if Nie Mingjue were willing to order such a thing, which he very obviously wasn’t. “In that case, there’s only…”

His voice trailed off.

“Servants,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice very tight. “Servants, or another sect leader.”

He swallowed, hard. Then, suddenly, before Lan Qiren could do or say anything more, he knelt down before Lan Qiren and pressed his forehead to the floor.

“Sect Leader Lan,” he said. “Please help me.”

Lan Qiren stared down at him in horror, quickly crouching to pull Nie Mingjue up again. “Me? You can’t be serious!”

“It has to be you,” Nie Mingjue said. “Fucking another sect’s servant while they were still in their employ would be as good as saying that my sect was only good to be servants themselves, and of the sect leaders…there’s no one else. Jiang Fengmian is married to a vicious shrew that would castrate him if he even thought about anyone else, Jin Guangshan is a notorious whoremonger known for his cruelty to his bedpartners – and Wen Ruohan…”

He looked up at Lan Qiren, tears glinting in his eyes.

“Sect Leader Lan, please,” he whispered. “Please. It can’t be Wen Ruohan. It can’t.”

Now it was Lan Qiren’s turn to swallow.

“I am faithful to my sect’s traditions,” he croaked. There was no rule against engaging in sexual relations in his sect, only against promiscuity, but among those who were the most faithful to the traditions of their founder, those like Lan Qiren who sought to model themselves on Lan An, such things were taken very seriously. This situation fell nowhere in the list of acceptable exceptions that the young used to explore their inclinations and manage the hormones of adolescence and early adulthood; for Lan Qiren, at this point in his life, he wished only to go to bed with the woman who would become his wife.

The one he would walk to on foot without a path, as Lan An had done, bringing gifts and an oath of eternal loyalty, binding their hands together with his forehead ribbon in a promise that would never be broken.

His dao companion, his one, the other half of his life.

Not this.

Not like this.

“I know,” Nie Mingjue said, and he sounded truly wretched. “I know what I’m asking of you. I know I have no reason to expect anything from you, much less something that may affect the rest of your life. But – please. I beg of you, please. I know what a drug like this can do, especially if combined with certain others, and I just know he’ll find a way to get those to me, too. He won’t let me have the chance to just wait it out and hope for the best – I’ll enter delirium and be unable to resist, and then I’ll wake up and find myself bound to marry the man who murdered my father. Teacher Lan, please!”

Lan Qiren’s shoulders shook. Nie Mingjue was a proud man, and rightfully so, powerful and righteous as he was; it was abominable that he should be begging on his knees for Lan Qiren to violate him because he feared the all-too-plausible alternative more. And at the end he had slipped up in his desperation and called Lan Qiren ‘Teacher’, as if he was still his student, not his peer, still that boy from not so long ago.

The worst of it was that he truly could not think of another option.

If he refused, and he knew he was well within his rights to refuse, Nie Mingjue would try to submit himself in desperation to someone else – Jiang Fengmian would reject him, claiming that Wen Ruohan would never do such a thing even though it was patently obvious that he would, and to submit in such a way to Jin Guangshan was very nearly as bad, given his greed and treatment of women. Faced with such a rejection, with his only other options being intolerable politically or personally or both, Nie Mingjue might try to leave this place contrary all reason, heading into the snow and ice and the steep steps that had been treacherous even without a blinding blizzard, but that might kill him.

He might prefer that it kill him.

“I will help,” he said, because the alternative was unthinkable, because Nie Mingjue had been his student and he couldn’t abandon him now. Nie Mingjue looked up at him, eyes wide as if with disbelief, so he repeated himself: “I will help you.” He hesitated, but only briefly. “Come to bed.”

Nie Mingjue rose to his feet unsteadily and followed him obediently to the bed.

(From his daydreams and the admittedly minimal exploration that he had done in his youth, Lan Qiren knew that he liked obedience in his lovers. He enjoyed pampering them, caring for them, but most of all he liked having them wholly yield to him and trust him, as Nie Mingjue was doing now. He liked it best when the submission was worthwhile, when it was someone brave and bold and smart and powerful, and in another time, another place, a person very much like Nie Mingjue would have been just what he wanted. But he was only doing him a favor – had only been sought out in desperation, not desire – he should not think of such things, nor of how beautiful Nie Mingjue was in the flickering candlelight.)

“Have you done anything before?” Lan Qiren asked, and was unsurprised when Nie Mingjue shook his head. “Anything at all?”

“With another person? No.”

Lan Qiren nodded, accepting it. “You should – probably get undressed.”

Nie Mingjue nodded. His gaze was averted, but his hands were sure and straightforward as he removed the various layers of clothing he wore, the visible markings of the sect leader of the Nie sect; underneath, he was as tall and broad as might be expected.

Lan Qiren put a hand on Nie Mingjue’s thigh. He flinched.

“You’re going to have to relax,” Lan Qiren said, trying to be kind. Nie Mingjue lay back on the bed and clearly made an effort, shoulders settling and muscles unclenching through sheer willpower. Lan Qiren would like very much to blame the fact that his cock hung heavy and hard between his thighs entirely on the drug he had consumed, but he wasn’t that ignorant of himself. “Would you like me to…?”

“Just get on with it,” Nie Mingjue snapped, and then amended to add, “If you would.”

To his shame, Lan Qiren’s cock twitched.

He ignored it and reached forward to touch Nie Mingjue’s body, which shivered invitingly under his hands: his shoulders, his hips, the hard planes of his belly and the surprising softness of his chest – Nie Mingjue flinched once again at that, and Lan Qiren moved away immediately – before dipping a hand down between his legs.

It was probably the drug that made Nie Mingjue warm and wet for him, he reminded himself, and the expression of surprise and the way his hips jerked up when fingers slid over his cunt was simply inexperience. And the way he bit his lower lip and tried to force himself to grind into Lan Qiren’s hand –

“Stop that,” Lan Qiren said, and Nie Mingjue obeyed at once, cheeks pinking with embarrassment. He sank back onto the bed when instructed and spread his legs wider, and Lan Qiren wanted to eat him out until he cried. The effect of the drug, he hoped. “Tell me what feels good to you.”

“It mostly feels strange,” Nie Mingjue confessed, even as Lan Qiren worked a finger into him. He was unsurprisingly tight as a vise, so tight that Lan Qiren was starting to have doubts that he would be able to fit himself inside – he was not small by any measure – but after a few moments either the drug or the sensations started to do its work and Nie Mingjue softened around him. “I don’t normally touch myself in there.”

“Can you show me what you normally do, then?”

“Is that really necessary?” Lan Qiren gave him a stern look. “…yes, Teacher Lan.”

Lan Qiren could have done without the self-knowledge that he liked being called teacher in bed, especially by a blushing former student – who was of an age to be his nephew’s dearest friend, no less – but he was stuck with that now.

Just like he was stuck with the knowledge of what Nie Mingjue looked like when he touched himself, of hearing the muffled grunt he gave when his fingers rubbed against his clit, how he arched his back and raised his hips as he pressed down on it. How tight and wet he was when Lan Qiren gave him another finger, how he hissed at the stretch and then furrowed his brow when Lan Qiren crooked his fingers, rubbing him from the inside. The way his thighs trembled.

“Are you going to fuck me at any point?” Nie Mingjue asked, a little plaintive.

“I’m not sure you’re ready,” Lan Qiren said, but he pulled open his clothing – it hadn’t occurred to him to get undressed, even if Nie Mingjue was, and the little inequality jarred his sense of righteousness even as it turned him on – and took out his cock, pressing against it Nie Mingjue’s slick cunt.

It didn’t go in.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Nie Mingjue, who had been staring at the ceiling and bracing himself, said, and pushed himself up onto his elbows, craning his neck up to look down at where they were failing to join. “Oh, well, see, that’s the problem right there. I’d assumed that I’d invited a man into my bed, not a horse.”

“My bed,” Lan Qiren reminded him, though he wasn’t quite able to keep his lips from twitching in amusement. “It might be easier if you reached completion first. It would relax you.”

“Oh, sure. No problem. Because the prospect of imminent impalement is so very sexy,” Nie Mingjue grumbled – Lan Qiren did not laugh, but it was close – and reached down, closing his eyes as he started touching himself in earnest.

Lan Qiren ground his cock into the bed as he waited, two fingers still inside and steadily stretching, his mouth dry as he listened to the slick, rhythmic sounds, as he watched Nie Mingjue’s face go steadily more slack – too slack, actually, and when Nie Mingjue opened his eyes he looked dazed. Maybe it was simply how he reacted to pleasure, or maybe it was the second drug he’d suspected that he’d been dosed with, perhaps, something to make him less vigilant.

Lan Qiren hoped it was just pleasure, but he knew that it didn’t make a difference either way to what they had to do.

Lan Qiren waited until Nie Mingjue’s hips finished shuddering – one foot twitched and nearly kicked, and he caught it with one hand and pressed it back down – before pulling out his fingers and pressing his cock up against the young man’s entrance again. It was still tight, but he was able to force it in, squeezing himself until the head had gone inside.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said. He sounded half-drunk. “That’s so weird. You’re – inside of me.”

“Not yet,” Lan Qiren said, and pressed himself forward slowly, bracing himself against the bed for leverage as he did. He managed to get about halfway in before Nie Mingjue whimpered. “Are you in pain?”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said. “More like – pressure. Heat. I don’t know. I can feel you.”

“Focus on cultivation,” Lan Qiren advised, which was very good advice except for the fact that Nie Mingjue said, “Yes, Teacher Lan,” and Lan Qiren’s hips involuntarily jerked forward, making Nie Mingjue groan and getting him almost all the way in.

He forced himself to slow down again, to stop. His arms were trembling where he was holding himself up, and it wasn’t with the strain – as if someone raised in the Lan sect, with their habit of handstands and other such exercises, would feel strain over something like this – but rather from the effort of restraint.

He was not going to grab Nie Mingjue by the hips, bend him in two, and start fucking him into the bed until he shouted for mercy, but it was – more difficult than he liked to admit to stop himself from doing just that. This was not a type of restraint that he was familiar with.

“I feel like I should be doing something with my hands,” Nie Mingjue said.

“You may touch my shoulders,” Lan Qiren said, and felt Nie Mingjue’s hands settle there a moment later, fingers gripping the cloth tightly. A moment later, he could felt the spiritual energy inside of Nie Mingjue starting to circulate, and he nodded, impressed that Nie Mingjue was able to find his focus even in such a situation. “Well done. Good boy.”

Nie Mingjue’s legs had ended up slung over Lan Qiren’s hips at some point in the process and he abruptly tightened them, before releasing the pressure just as abruptly a moment later.

“Would you prefer that I avoid saying that?” Lan Qiren asked, desperately trying to focus on starting his own cultivation instead of thinking about Nie Mingjue’s reaction.

“…no,” Nie Mingjue muttered, and turned his face to the side. He was blushing again. “It’s fine. You can – I like that.”

Lan Qiren put one hand on Nie Mingjue’s hips, and pulled himself halfway out, then thrust back inside in a sudden motion, making Nie Mingjue cry out in surprise.

“Cultivation,” he reminded him as he started moving his hips, more cruelty than anything else because he was having some considerable trouble thinking or focusing himself. “You can do it. You’re a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

“Y – yes, Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue said, his whole body shifting with the force of Lan Qiren’s thrusts. Amazingly, somehow, he really did start to cultivate, and then Lan Qiren finally got his act together and did the same, and suddenly their spiritual energy was intertwining, yin feeding into yang and yang spilling into yin, and it wasn’t long before that metaphor became a reality, Lan Qiren gripping tightly onto Nie Mingjue’s hips as he came. He reached down between them and rubbed Nie Mingjue’s clit, mimicking the actions he’d seen him take earlier – a little rough, circles a little careless – and a few moments later the dual cultivation did its work, pulling Nie Mingjue along, his hips jerking up again as he hit his peak once more, squeezing him from the inside.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said, with feeling. “Fuck.”

“A good start,” Lan Qiren said. He was still hard, even after he’d finished inside of him. That was definitely the effect of the drug. “Make sure to draw the yang energy into your dantian. Use it to cleanse your core. Would you like to try another position for the next round?”

“Huh?” Nie Mingjue asked, the daze he was in earlier having clearly deepened, so Lan Qiren pulled out of him – Nie Mingjue whined at that – and helped him turn over so that he was on his hands and knees, his hair having fallen out of some of its braids, though not all, and falling down over his shoulders and back. “Oh, I see. Is this right?”

Lan Qiren was able to push back inside much more easily, whether from the earlier stretch or the new position. “Yes, very good,” he praised, and Nie Mingjue shivered underneath him. “Spread your legs a little more – good, good. Start cultivating again. I’m going to fuck you.”

Nie Mingjue’s cunt tightened around him when he used the crude language. Anticipation, not dread, he hoped, and matched action to word.

Having gotten the edge off with the first round, the second round took longer, Nie Mingjue reduced to shuddering and gasping almost despite himself. The new position also made balancing easier, as Lan Qiren could rely on Nie Mingjue’s own body to steady them both, and that gave him freer use of his hands: he could run them up and down Nie Mingjue’s sides, could press a hand to his belly as if he were trying to feel himself there inside. Could reach up and touch that tempting softness at his chest – this time, Nie Mingjue did not resist, too lost in sensation to really notice, although Lan Qiren did not linger – could slide his fingers down so that he could finger Nie Mingjue’s clit. Could trace around the place where they were connected, the slick dripping out and smearing across Nie Mingjue’s thighs as he fucked into him with wet sounds.

The cultivation aspect was also improved: their spiritual energies recognized each other better now, and for all its faults this mountaintop house was in fact an excellent natural source of spiritual qi. Lan Qiren could feel the energy being drawn throughout his body, strengthening him much faster than meditation or playing guqin or swordsmanship usually did, the ecstasy of spiritual pleasure accompanying the physical sensations besieging him.

Nie Mingjue begged me to do this, Lan Qiren thought hazily, his balls tightening in anticipation of another orgasm. He wondered if he could get Nie Mingjue to beg him again, although maybe this time it would be for his cock or for permission to come.

He suddenly wanted to see Nie Mingjue’s face again, currently hidden in his folded arms with his ass in the air like some bitch waiting to get bred. He wanted to fuck him for a week, never resting, until he couldn’t walk any more, and then he wanted to take him home and do it all over again. He wanted to see Nie Mingjue bent over the low table he used in his study at the Cloud Recesses, hands held obediently on his wrists behind his back, calling him teacher like the good little student he’d been as he used his body to milk Lan Qiren’s cock dry.

One of those, at least, he could have.

He pulled out again, even though he was starting to get close. “Turn,” he ordered, and Nie Mingjue did. “Hold your legs open – no, use your hands. Put them under your knees.”

Nie Mingjue obeyed. He looked obscene in that posture, as Lan Qiren had expected he would: his face was red and sweat was dripping down his forehead, drool at the corners of his mouth and eyes glassy with tears that occasionally rolled down his cheek.

Lan Qiren put his cock against him, but did not go in, just rubbed up against his cunt, marveling at how slick with his juices his cock was. “Are you in pain?” he asked again, an echo of his earlier question when he’d actually meant it as a serious question rather than a tease. “You’re crying.”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said, then stuttered, “Yes. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just – a lot. Don’t stop.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you –”

“Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue whined. “Please fuck me already.”

Lan Qiren clicked his tongue. “So impatient,” he said, but he was already sinking in, their spiritual qi at once twining together again, and it wasn’t hard to reach in and tweak it, making Nie Mingjue’s hips jerk and his mouth fall open slack as he came once again. His whole body tensed, and then relaxed, and Lan Qiren used the moment to fuck him hard, hips pistoning as he thrust in and out, using his own hands to keep one of Nie Mingjue’s legs up – he’d released them when he came, hands dropping to grab at the bedding instead – and it wasn’t long before he was coming himself, buried deep inside.

Nie Mingjue was crying in earnest now, but not unhappily – tears spilling down his cheeks, but enthusiastically participating the whole while – and Lan Qiren pulled out and pressed their bodies together.

“It’s going well,” he assured him, reaching for his own cultivation to encourage his cock to recover faster. “Once or twice more. You can do it.”

Nie Mingjue nodded

“Good boy,” Lan Qiren said, enjoying the way it made Nie Mingjue both blush and pant at the same time. “Your teacher is proud of you.”

Nie Mingjue covered his face with his hands, but Lan Qiren was inside of him again by that point, and he could tell from the way Nie Mingjue bore down on him that didn’t really object to it at all.

Still, the pleasure and joy of their coupling – the physicality of sex, the way they unexpectedly suited each other in temperament and in cultivation – was tempered by the reality of their situation. After his third orgasm, or possibly fourth, Nie Mingjue started to succumb to delirium as he’d predicted at the start, and by this point there was no denying that the daze he kept slipping into was pharmacological in origin.

They had both been dosed with the aphrodisiac, that much was clear, but somehow Nie Mingjue had also received a dose of something else, something that made his eyes go increasingly vacant even as he curled his limbs around Lan Qiren, trying to increase the amount of bodily contact between them. Whatever the secondary drug was, it clearly increased his pleasure, which was good, but Lan Qiren disliked the dullness of his expression, the way that it was increasingly obvious that Nie Mingjue no longer recognized what exactly he was doing or with whom. If he’d refused to accede to Nie Mingjue’s request…

Best not to think on that, he told himself, and set himself to the task of reaching his own peak once again as quickly as possible. As much as he was repulsed by the idea of bedding a man who was clearly no longer sober, he knew that it was only through more of his yang energy that Nie Mingjue would pass through this night unscathed.

“Truly it is as they say,” a voice drawled from behind him, and Lan Qiren froze mid-thrust even as Nie Mingjue whimpered and jerked up against him. “The quick-footed ones climb up first, the early bird catches the worm – however it goes. Sect Leader Lan, I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

“Sect Leader Wen,” Lan Qiren said, voice stiff. “You are not welcome in my room.”

Wen Ruohan ignored him, walking forward until he was standing by Lan Qiren’s side, looking down at Nie Mingjue lying senseless on the pillow.

“Lovely girl,” he said idly, and reached down to tuck some of Nie Mingjue’s hair back behind his ear. “Do you know, I had no idea she was a woman until she fell into me at last year’s discussion conference? Her breasts pressed up against my arm, my knee between her legs – the Qinghe Nie really do play their cards close to their chests.”

“By the traditions of his clan, he’s a man,” Lan Qiren said icily, or as icily as he could with Nie Mingjue still squirming on his softening cock. “Wen Ruohan. Leave.”

“Have some shame, Sect Leader Lan. It’s my precious jade that you pilfered, after all,” Wen Ruohan scolded lightly. He skimmed two fingers down along Nie Mingjue’s cheek before pressing into his mouth, pushing down on his tongue before starting to move them in and out in a familiar motion – fucking his mouth with them. Nie Mingjue’s eyes were completely blank as he sucked on the fingers of the man who he believed killed his father, who only a shichen or two earlier he had begged on his knees to avoid. “And here I thought your Lan sect had a rule against illicit sex.”

“It isn’t illicit if I’m willing to marry him,” Lan Qiren said. His entire body was tense with rage: he hadn’t expected Wen Ruohan to admit that he’d been planning this at all, much less so causally, as if there was nothing anyone could do about it.

He was right, though. There wasn’t. Even if Lan Qiren could bring forward proof of this atrocity, no one would join hands with him to enforce any type of punishment other than the Nie sect, and the Nie and the Lan by themselves could not hope to shake the power of the Wen sect.

It was as pointless to try to make something over this as it had been over Lao Nie’s murder.

“Marry?” Wen Ruohan echoed, and then laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Tell me, is there any chance you’d share her?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Wen Ruohan asked, and he seemed almost genuinely curious. “Sect Leader Jin and I shared one of the dancers earlier; I assure you, it’s a very enjoyable experience, and most beneficial in increasing your strength.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed,” Lan Qiren said, his teeth grinding together painfully. “But he hates you.”

He wanted nothing more than to stand up and reach for his sword to run Wen Ruohan through for his presumption, but his cultivation, however powerful, had always been centered in music, not swordsmanship, and at any rate Wen Ruohan’s own cultivation level left his own far behind. As it was, he didn’t even dare pull out of his intimate embrace with Nie Mingjue no matter how vulnerable the position made him feel – he half suspected that if he did, Wen Ruohan would take it as an invitation to simply push him aside and replace his cock with his own.

It can’t be Wen Ruohan, Nie Mingjue had said at the start, tears in his eyes. It can’t. Please!

He stayed where he was.

“I’m not sure why you think that matters,” Wen Ruohan mused. “That bit about killing her father, hmm? Look at her, Sect Leader Lan. She wouldn’t say no even if the man fucking her was her own father.”

“Because you drugged him.”

“Because I drugged her,” Wen Ruohan agreed. “The second one was in the incense in her room, if you were curious. Why do you think I was so willing to let you two off the hook earlier? If everything had gone according to plan, she would’ve absorbed it while meditating and then succumbed to the temptation of getting herself off before retiring for the night, and after the first orgasm or two her rationality would have started slipping away. By the time I arrived, she would have been begging for me to fuck her. Me, and anyone else I chose to invite.”

Jin Guangshan, probably, Lan Qiren thought to himself, white hot fury filling his head.

“Don’t look so offended. I would’ve invited you, too.”

That was worse.

“It could have been a bonding experience,” Wen Ruohan said, then laughed. “You’re the one who’s always talking about the importance of creating ties between the Great Sects, so as to better forestall a war between us – I’m not sure what could be better than having us share our very qi with each other.”

“Sharing,” Lan Qiren said flatly. “Is that what you call gang-raping an innocent young man? Who’s probably your son’s age?”

“Younger than Wen Xu, I expect, though of course with Qinghe Nie you can never really be sure,” Wen Ruohan said, utterly indifferent. “Girls mature faster than boys, don’t they? And anyway, it’s rather hypocritical of you to raise such a protest; you’re the one balls-deep inside of her.”

Lan Qiren hadn’t thought about that, though now that he did he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had always assumed that Nie Mingjue was older than the other boys that had been his students, that the distance in ages between him and Lan Xichen was larger than might be expected, but that had been based on the fact that he was growing so fast – but Wen Ruohan was right. Because Nie Mingjue’s body was a woman’s, the growth spurt he’d had at the Cloud Recesses wouldn’t have signified that he was in the middle of his adolescent years, but at the start of them; he might have been even younger than Lan Qiren had thought, younger than his peers rather than older.

He’d already felt like an old cow eating young grass, but the feeling was abruptly magnified, and no matter that Nie Mingjue had asked him – had begged him – to do what he was doing.

“If you feel so strongly about it,” Wen Ruohan murmured, his voice too close to Lan Qiren’s ear for comfort, “I won’t even insist on having my own turn. I’d be happy with just her mouth – look at how well she’s taking my fingers.”

Lan Qiren didn’t mean to look, but he did. Wen Ruohan’s fingers were shining with spit as they dipped in and out of Nie Mingjue’s mouth, his lips swollen. Tears dripped unconsciously from his eyes.

“You could always just tell her that she needed more yang energy than you alone could provide…”

“What I do is of no concern to you,” Lan Qiren said harshly, cutting him off. “You asked if I would share; I told you that I would not. Do you intend to start something over it?”

Wen Ruohan paused.

Lan Qiren waited, his nerves strung tight. He couldn’t fight Wen Ruohan personally, one-on-one, and he had no authorization from his sect to start a war over this – nor any assurance that they would back him if he did, even though the ethics of the moment seemed clear. He was instead gambling on Wen Ruohan’s past: the other man was older than him, and remembered the wars of Lan Qiren’s grandparents’ generation. There were stories passed down about those battles, about how they had begun, how they had ended, and the role played therein by the contemporaneous members of the Lan sect. The five Great Sects had not been so at odds back then; Wen Ruohan would know the same stories.

He knew about Lan Qiren’s brother, too. He knew that the same madness of all those years ago still ran true in at least some of the current generation.

“Very well,” Wen Ruohan finally said, and withdrew his fingers entirely. “You Lan sect and your ‘one’ – tell me, was your sect founder’s wife as inappropriate a choice as you all seem to land on?”

“Lan An was a monk,” Lan Qiren said, keeping the irritation and tightness in his voice to avoid letting on his relief. “I suspect any ‘one’ would have been inappropriate. Now, as much as I enjoy discussing matters of sect history…”

“You’re somewhat otherwise occupied?” Wen Ruohan chuckled. “Yes, I suppose so. Well, let me not further encroach upon your happy time, Sect Leader Lan. I wish the two of you much joy, both now and in the future.”

From anyone else, that might have been sincere. From Wen Ruohan, it was a threat to watch themselves carefully in the future – that he hadn’t yet changed his mind about what he wanted to obtain, because he never did, not really; he only postponed the date in which it would fall into his hands. He believed all things in the world belonged to him, his acquisition of the object of his desires an inevitability, and he behaved accordingly.

Lan Qiren would have to instruct Nie Mingjue not to agree to any one-on-one meetings with Wen Ruohan in the future, however awkward conveying such a message to a peer would be. Wen Ruohan had already been daring enough to plan out the gang-rape of a fellow sect leader; he would not hesitate to try to take Nie Mingjue by force in the midst of a conference if he thought he could get away with it.

But those were concerns for the future; for the moment, he was content with Wen Ruohan leaving the room with a final chuckle and a crude suggestion about what Lan Qiren ought to do to Nie Mingjue on Wen Ruohan’s behalf – a suggestion he would not be taking.

Nie Mingjue had stopped struggling at some point in the conversation and was lying beneath him, insensate and shivering; Lan Qiren dropped his hand onto his stomach and began transferring spiritual energy directly, hoping to help counteract the effects of the drugs he’d been given.

After a while, Nie Mingjue started to stir, responding again – as much to the spiritual energy as anything else, he was obviously exhausted – and Lan Qiren was able to finally rouse himself as well. His movements this time were slow and gentle, their bodies rocking together and spiritual energy comfortably circulating between them, and when Lan Qiren finally shuddered to completion once again he could feel Nie Mingjue drawing in his energy and letting out only clean, untainted energy in return.

Lan Qiren exhaled in relief. He was more than a little exhausted himself.

“Sleep,” he instructed Nie Mingjue, who blinked at him and nodded. He grunted when Lan Qiren pulled out of him, but didn’t make a sound when he wet his sleeve and ran a few rough swipes over them both to clean them. “We’ll discuss more in the morning.”

#mdzs #lan qiren #nie mingjue #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #without a path #please read the tags on ao3 if you want to know what you're getting into #i don't use warnings on tumblr other than to direct you to ao3

84 notes · View notes

fandom-space-princess · 3 years ago

Text

The Game of Us

Rating: T (gen, no warnings)

Chapter 4: Lucifer

“You still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here? It’s over. I’d say you won, but I get the feeling we both lost, after all. Isn’t that enough? Can’t you leave me in peace?”

“Is this peace?” Michael asks quietly. “What you have here?”

Lucifer bends a leg up to curl arms around it, rests his chin on his knee. “I am very good at being alone, Michael.” Michael winces, but that curious flatness is back in Lucifer’s voice; the words, for all that they should be an accusation, hold only stale resignation. “Better than you know.”

Read below the cut, or on AO3

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

“Why are we here? Who are you, that you would ask this of us?”

The man—and he is a man, now, for all that his form remains indistinct at the edges—regards him critically. “You continue to plead ignorance on each of those points, but come now. We both know better.”

Michael says nothing, but his shoulders slump in resignation.

“I had hoped... well. It doesn’t matter.”

“Denial can protect you in some circumstances, spur you to action in others. It will do neither in this case, and you know that. Your Maker will not return for you, Mikha’el, not now and not ever. He was never the being you believed Him to be, but that is hardly your fault. Come to terms with it, and move forward. You have responsibilities to attend to.”

The man strides off, unwilling to slow his pace, and Michael plods after him. Each step is a challenge; the mass of disquiet and unease he carries feels more of a burden the farther he goes. He studies his feet as he walks. There is one thing he cannot deny now, at least: he is certain that he no longer looks like Chuck. Whatever image he does currently project, his benefactor has no commentary to make on the subject. His thoughts lie decidedly elsewhere.

“I am here to restore balance to reality,” he continues. “Nothing more, and nothing less. It is my sole and solemn role in this universe, and it is one I take quite seriously. Whatever your Father intended for His creation, your presence is required for that balance to hold—all four of you. Recent events have threatened irreversible catastrophe. I refuse to let this come to pass.”

He thinks of Raphael, immovable and still in their mourning. “All of us?”

The man waves his hand, dismissive. “Save your worrying for where it’s needful. The healer will come along in due time. We have—reached an accord.” He pauses. “Talking of needs, you still have one brother left to convince. Bit of a hard sell, I’m afraid you’ll find.”

His grace roils within him, but he feels the shape he wears begin to solidify. The space around him begins to brighten, bit by bit. “If I fail to convince him... what becomes of us? What will you do?”

The man fixes him with a stony look.

“What I always do. To wit: clean up the mess of those around me. Believe me, reinstating the four of you is by far my preferred option; a good deal more pleasant for all of us, all things considered. But if that option is unavailable to me, I will do what I must.”

The man smiles. He thinks the expression might be intended as gentleness. “I have the utmost faith in you. Appreciate what you are being given, First of Heaven. Take advantage of it to the fullest, while the opportunity is still available to you.” He shrugs, and motions for Michael to walk ahead without him.

“Not everyone is offered a second chance.”

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

The path under his feet may be constant, but around him reality ebbs and flows like the tide, hills and forest eddying away on the greater currents of night. He focuses only on the path, on keeping his feet under him; ignores the pull of psychic undertow that threatens to drag him down.

I am not like my Father, he thinks as he walks. It stings. He feels carefully around the edges of the thought, tries to grasp it again. I am not my Father’s creature. That one hurts too. I am not the son He wanted me to be.

The light surrounding Michael continues to brighten, a dim but insistent glow.

He was not the Father I thought I had .

That one hurts worst of all.

What am I, if not the son to the Father I thought I knew? What is my purpose, if I do not serve?

Without noticing, he has begun to climb. The path winds slowly up, toward the peak of a hillside overlooking the expanse of the sea. It is only when he crests the hill and comes face-to-face with a low stone wall that he realizes what this place is meant to be.

It has been millennia since he last gave thought to the Oracle of the Dead.

He runs his hands across the memory of stone, worn smooth by time in some places, pitted in others by the salt-sea air. Twenty paces along the perimeter of the wall, and a gap in the earth yawns open before him. Rough-hewn steps lead downward to a shadowed door. He thinks of the gate to the Cage, and shudders.

He has come this far. For his brothers, for himself—he can do this.

Michael descends, and the ground closes in around him.

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

Though he has never set foot in this place corporeally, knowledge is a map etched into his grace. An antechamber, high and vaulted, stands between himself and the temple’s ceremonial gates. Through these, human mourners and congregants would have passed to seek communion with their dead. A labyrinthine warren of lesser tunnels spreads out from this point as well. Passages to more intimate chambers in which those same seekers would have made preparation: catechesis from holy priests and cleansing by water and by more esoteric means. They would have walked their own paths to this destination, he thinks. They would have made sacrifices.

His own path will have to serve as purification enough. Inhaling deeply, he passes under the first gate. As he does so, the light surrounding him brightens.

There is no denying the source of that light, now.

Beyond the first gate, the way descends again, switchback tunnels with secrets hovering just beyond his grasp around each corner. And yet, he feels as though he’s gaining ground: for every step nearer his destination, his will is becoming more focused, achieving something like surety. He can feel it in the settling of his grace, in the resolution of the image he is now all but certain he projects.

At the second gate, he hears the distant rumble of water. The way beyond is flat, and straight. Five hundred feet on, the third gate looms.

Shadows flicker around him, though the torches set into the dusty walls have long since forgotten flame.

As he draws near the final threshold, he sees them, out of the corners of his eyes. He’d had few enough occasions to manifest them during his brief time on Earth, but now he cannot seem to do anything else.

The trailing edges of his wings, pulled tight to his shoulders, brush the walls of the tunnel. They’re glowing, what of them he is able to see, casting light in this darkest of places.

The light is like...

Michael shivers.

Like the dawn.

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

The final gate opens, not onto any chamber carved by the hands of man, but a natural grotto, rock worn away over the span of centuries. The river pours through a crack in the ground far above. Its name whispers in his mind, hallowed and ancient: Acheron. It spills forty feet through open air before spending its energy in a churning subterranean pool. Light from his wings refracts through the waterfall, dancing and shimmering across the walls.

Then again... not solely from his wings.

The figure seated at the foot of the waterfall stares into it, and does not look up as he approaches.

“Why are you here?” Lucifer asks. The words come out flat, oddly empty. As though it were not truly a question he cared to hear the answer for. “What could possibly bring our Father’s favorite son to the edge of the river of woe?”

Michael walks past him, circling the edge of his field of vision. He feels the moment Lucifer turns to lay eyes on him for the first time. Senses the hard edge of immediacy his focus gains.

At least he has his attention. He sighs. For all that he knows what to do with it.

He seats himself at the edge of the pool, extending one unshod foot out to dangle over the water. Studies his reflection, looking back up at him. Everything about the face he wears is sharp: high carved cheekbones and ice-chip eyes, blond curls smooth as cut diamond. He glows brightly, now, as though he has swallowed the sun; a luminescence that overflows, spilling out across skin and wings and pulsing a song of home holy bright pure home home home.

The Lightbringer’s first form had always been radiant.

His reflection is abruptly joined by its double in the water. Lucifer settles next to him, staring openly.

“You mock me.”

Michael grimaces. “I don’t. This place... if there is any mocking to be done, I’m a far worthier target than you are.” Lucifer reaches out to him, caution and curiosity warring across his face. With the tips of his fingers at Michael’s jaw, he turns his head. Examines his duplicate with narrowed eyes. After a moment, he draws back, and his gaze returns to the waterfall.

A glint of metal catches his eye, and Michael flinches. Thick golden manacles encircle Lucifer’s wrists. He can’t believe he has failed to noticed them until now. Though his brother seems undisturbed by them, Michael knows how heavy they must be.

“Is this peace?” Michael asks quietly. “What you have here?”

For several long moments, the only sound is the crash of the water.

“I was told to come to you,” he ventures finally. Lucifer’s gaze snaps to him, and Michael fights a sudden impulse to squirm under it.

“By whom?”

Michael shakes his head sadly. “Not... not Him.”

The spark in Lucifer’s eyes fades as rapidly as it had appeared. He tilts his head and squints, as though listening to a conversation just at the edge of hearing. A blink, then he scowls. “Ah. Him, then. What does he want? I’m dead. So far as he should be concerned, his job is complete. Can’t get much deader.”

“We’ve been tasked to return to the world. Our Father no longer orders the universe. Without us, reality stands to fall to ruin. I was commanded to bring you back with me.”

Lucifer stares at him, wide-eyed and incredulous. Then he tips his head back, a bark of laughter tearing free from his throat.

“You—you honestly think I’ll come with you. Why, exactly? An overabundance of goodwill? A sense of camaraderie? Family? You took a few too many blows to the head in life, O Best-Beloved Son. What has reality been for me but pain?”

His grin is serene, beautiful, and all the more vicious for it.

”The world can burn.”

He turns away. Glides languidly to the lip of the pool, and extends an arm to let the mist from the waterfall dance across his fingers.

“I don’t think it is peace I have here.” Water runs down his hand, collects over the metal at his wrist. He watches it bead and fall, a slow and steady drip. “But at least I have certainty. You know, I never really let myself believe that it would play out like this? I should have understood you better, but I always...” He glances back at Michael, then shakes his head. “... you were always His, at the expense of everything else. Everyone else. That’s all He made you to be.”

The air between them is stretched taut, tense and fraying. Michael feels it in his bones, the ease with which he could snap it.

Instead, he stands, and paces to Lucifer’s side. Lays a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry."

Lucifer tenses under his touch.

“You aren’t,” he spits. “You’re desperate, and you’re serving a master. Just like you’ve always done.” He turns abruptly to face Michael, all cold and sudden fury, and grasps his wrist.

“I am,” Michael says. He lets the remorse resonate in his voice, and knows Lucifer hears it when he snarls in return.

“Too little, too late, Mike. All I’ve ever been is the means to someone else’s end.” He shoves Michael back a step. “The universe needs me so much? Well, good riddance to the universe. Nothing Dad made is worth saving. Nothing.”

His wrath is incandescent, a blaze of grace through the air around them. He advances on Michael; poised to do what, Michael isn’t sure. Lucifer raises a hand, as though to strike him, or push him away again? And—

Michael sinks to his knees before him, and bows his head. It startles Lucifer into stillness.

“You are.”

"What? "

“You are,” Michael repeats, barely a whisper. “Worth saving. Gabriel is, and Raphael is, and you are. And if you don’t agree...” His breath hitches, and his eyes clench shut. “Then I won’t fight you. I haven’t earned the right, and I know that. But I’m not leaving here, either. If everything ends, then it ends.” He inhales deeply. “But I won’t let you stay here and burn out of existence alone.”

In the space between heartbeats that follows, the silence is absolute. Even the sound of the water vanishes. Michael opens his eyes, and dares to peer up at Lucifer.

His face is blank with shock.

“You don’t mean that,” he grits out, but the conviction has gone out of it.

“I do.”

He drops to the ground beside Michael, head falling into his hands. Cautiously, a millimeter at a time, Michael extends a wing. Until, at last, it drapes across Lucifer’s shoulders.

“Come with me,” Michael asks. “Please. Gabriel and Raphael are already waiting. We can move forward. Become something new, something beyond Him. Together.”

From behind his hands Lucifer chokes on a laugh that transforms partway through into something more closely resembling a sob. “How?” he asks. Michael hears the rest of the thought, unspoken but weighty: how can we leave this behind? How do I move forward?

Gently, he tugs Lucifer’s hands from his face. Takes them in his own.

“Drink from the river.”

Lucifer’s gaze flashes to the waterfall, and the corner of his mouth quirks in what might be amusement, voice thick with emotion. “Cleanse myself like the humans did, huh? ‘Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.’ I have to admit it has... style.” He chuckles.

Michael smiles back at him. “Nothing about this is what I expected it to be. Least of all our benefactor’s sense of humor.”

They pull each other to their feet, and Lucifer turns to face the river.

“Better than the last time I interacted with him. Guess that’s an apology I owe. Though I suppose I’ll be seeing him soon enough.” He steps forward, then looks back at Michael. “Hey, Mike?”

“Yes?”

“Not that this isn’t a good look on you—” A broad, sweeping gesture indicates Michael’s still-radiant form, identical to his own. “But I hope you can find something that suits you better. He can’t define you any more, no more than He can define me. Even by virtue of opposition.” He extends both hands out into the waterfall, water trickling down his arms as before. This time, when it makes contact with the golden metal at his wrists, the manacles dissolve away, mist into mist.

He watches them go, an unreadable expression on his face.

“We both deserve to be more than that.”

He dips his head to his cupped hands, and drinks.

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

(Chapter notes:

- Latin from the Aeneid. “If I cannot bend the will of Heaven, I shall move Hell.” Acheronta in the case of the original quote being Virgil’s colloquialism for the underworld as a whole, in addition to the name of the river.

- The setting here is very, very loosely based on descriptions of the Nekromanteion of Acheron. The original purpose of the temple was the practice of necromancy, and to pay tribute to Hades and Persephone. People would come to the temple to cleanse themselves before seeking to speak with the dead. As a place to reinvent yourself so completely that you end up literally reincarnated, it seemed fitting :) )

#spnarchangelweek #day 3 lucifer #michael spn #gabriel spn #raphael spn #lucifer spn #my fanfic #spn #supernatural

19 notes · View notes

rhaenyratargeryn · 4 years ago

Text

A Series of Firsts, pt. I (Crow x f!guardian)

Rating: T

Summary: First confessions, first drink, first kiss. All in one.

It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment her perspective shifted. It was one thing to say, when you awake as a guardian, whomever you were in your past life is gone, and another to put it into practice.

Especially when you knew the person that guardian had been in the very recent past.

Especially when you were the reason that person had died.

Of all the things Crow had learned (mostly against his will) about who he was before he awoke to the Light, that was one thing she was glad he had not discovered.

Which was a whole other mess for her mind and her heart to work out. It was hard enough at the start seeing the face of the man who she had hunted, had chased over the stars with hatred in her heart and revenge in her hands. Hands that had fired the Ace of Spades into Uldren Sov until he breathed no more.

Uldren had been proud. Haughty. A prince in his status and his manner.

And now this man who wore his face was hissing at having scorched his fingertips on the crackling campfire after adding a log. He sheepishly blew on them as Glint shook his small chassis with a chiding air.

“I told you to use a smaller log.”

“By all means, show me how it is done, Sparky.”

Glint couldn’t scowl, but the way his edges tightened and he groaned said well enough that he hated the endearment.

“That’s what I thought.” Crow said with a grin, catching her eye as she watched him. The expression softened, his voice lowering, “How’s it coming?”

Right. She was supposed to be mixing up the stew. Pulled from her thoughts, she returned to stirring, mixing packets of dried vegetable and meat rations into the stock that was, in truth, mostly water. It was a typical meal for guardians on the ground. And… well, despite Zavala having learned of Crow’s real identity, it was too risky still to have him walking around the tower.

He’d needed to “get out and stretch his wings” as he called it, and so here she was. Camped out in the EDZ with the Lightbringer formerly known as Uldren Sov. The man she had killed. And now the man she was stupidly, and irreversibly already half in love with.

There had been moments. Lots of moments. Too many moments.

First she’d thought the affection stemmed from the fact he looked up to her. Just another new Lightbearer with an awed respect for the Young Wolf, Hero of the Red War, the “Chosen One”… it wasn’t like she had set out to be any of those things. She had just done what needed to be done. She recalled she told him that once and he had chuckled with such… fondness. His voice pitching low then as it did now or whenever they were alone.

Like their conversations were a secret. His words for her ears alone.

She set the pot over the flame on it’s hanger, noting that despite Glint’s criticisms, the flame was high enough and hot enough to use.

“You seem distracted tonight.” Crow said, letting his hood fall back. Even in the dark his eyes glowed faintly, the color of a sunrise.

She told herself the shiver that ran up and down her arms was from the chill in the air.

“I’ve never been a talker.” She said and settled back down next to him. It was near enough that one of them only had to reach out to touch the other. It would be too obvious to move now, she thought with a silent curse, frowning to herself.

“Is that so?” Crow said, his voice so earnest that for a moment she didn’t realize he was teasing her until she looked up and saw the faint smile on his lips.

Her traitorous heart skipped. Where was her Ghost? For that matter, where was Glint? They had both been here a moment ago.

“I thought… well… I thought maybe you were regretting bringing me along. I can’t say that last shot at the Fallen was my best moment.”

She had nearly forgotten. It was a small skirmish, something she could have easily taken solo. A Captain had swiped in close, nearly taking her arm off with his sword. Crow’s shot had missed, but it had forced the Captain back, giving her enough time to dispatch the Fallen herself. She had been surprised, but hadn’t given it more thought than that.

But now, in the dim light, she could see the same expression on Crow’s face he had worn when he came down from his perch and helped her bandage the shallow wound. It hadn’t been embarrassment, or even quite disappointment… but something else. Something deeper.

“It still saved me a very uncomfortable rez.” She said and the Crow just nodded, his brow pinched slightly as he cast his eyes aside. She turned, tilting her head to try to get back into his line of sight.

“Hey, I mean it. I would have regretted not bringing you along. This is so much better than being off on my own.”

Surprise flashed over his features, a deeper shade of indigo spreading across his cheeks. She suddenly found herself wishing a Taken portal would open up and swallow her whole. She turned away before he could see the same flush spread over her own face.

“… I agree.” Crow said and she risked another look over at him. He was smiling.

“One nice thing about being out of Spider’s lair— well, one of the nice things— I get to see you more often.”

She didn’t know what to say. The silence between them was only broken by the faint chirping of insects, the crackle of the fire and the faint bubbling sound of their dinner. Crow was looking at his hands, fidgeting with his gloves and picking at the fabric.

“Anyway. I appreciate that you humor a kinderguardian like me.” Crow began, his voice tinged with forced humor to hide the deprecation, “Letting me tag along—“

“I like it too.” She said, the words coming out so fast it came out more as “liketoo” than a comprehensive sentence.

The Crow had stopped fidgeting. The insects and the fire were overloading her senses again.

“… I really respect you. As a guardian, as a comrade. And… And I like to think of you as a friend.” Crow continued, “…and I like to think of you.”

He stopped.

“You like to think of me as—?” She prompted, breath held in her lungs.

He smiled, “That’s all. I like to think of you.”

Oh.

Crow’s confession had brought a permanent heat to his cheeks, his expression softening as if he were marveling that he managed to even get the words out. She was marveling them too. Or more like, feeling her thoughts collapse inward on themselves like a black hole.

“What... um. What does that mean?” She said, feeling dumb and fumbling and definitely not like someone with the title of “Godslayer”.

“I… “ he began, but whatever it was that had slipped forward was beginning to retreat once more, “…well, I… it’s… just a sentiment I suppose.”

It was now or never.

“I think about you too. Often. A lot. I think about you a lot. And… I know I’m this ‘role model’ and thought of as this untouchable big damn hero and everyone— no. Look. The point is, me too.”

To his credit, the Crow listened to her outburst with quiet attentiveness, even nodding once or twice in understanding.

“It just seems impossible.” He said at last, shrugging slightly, “I can’t imagine why someone like you—”

“Don’t look at the pedestal.” She said, her voice firm, “Just look at me. C’mon, you’ve seen how I eat. I talk in my sleep too, I know I do. I never clean my guns right and I’ve had half a dozen sparrow related rezes because I’m a shitty driver.”

That last one got a laugh.

“So let’s just focus on the win here, yeah? You like me.” She waited until the Crow picked up on the prompt and he nodded, confirming it, “And I like you. Now it’s out there.”

Crow let out a breath that turned into a nervous laugh, “It’s definitely out there.”

When it became apparent neither one of them knew how to go on, there was a soft sigh from somewhere nearby. Glint and her own Ghost glided out from the trees, coming to perch near their guardians.

“And what were you two doing?” Crow said, clearly relieved for a subject change.

“Oh, just— just patrolling.” Glint said hurriedly, earning what could be imagined was a wry look from her own Ghost. He turned that look on her then as if he were exasperated with her for something.

She had a funny feeling why the pair had left them alone.

—-

A day had become a week and then a week had easily fallen into the next. Devrim had even radioed in at one point to tell them to “leave some for the rest of us” after the fourth Fallen patrol they had decimated.

They worked well together, the awkwardness of the night before fading into routine. It surprised her how natural such a foreign concept like touch was to them. A bump on the shoulder with a closed fist, a silent congratulations for a good shot. The brush of their hands when they passed ammo or a water canteen. The touch of his arm, brushing against her own perhaps every thirteenth of a second when they walked too close together.

Even at the campfire they slowly had begun to draw nearer and nearer, their orbit closing in on the other. His, with an innocent like curiosity. Her own interest decidedly less innocent, but also still— cautious. She felt the pull of his light, new and bright. Her own had not shimmered so in a long time… he was naive, young and rash. He needed looking after, not another responsibility. The point driven even further home now by the way he teetered unsteadily even sitting.

Devrim had sent a patrol over to meet them with fresh supplies. One of them being a bottle of something he called “Gulchshine” which, judging by the smell, was maybe only one molecule away from pure ethanol. Crow hadn’t drank since he was revived. Which was the same as saying he’d never drank before at all.

“This is disgusting. I can’t stop drinking it.” Crow said, his voice not so much slurred as it was relaxed. Open and unguarded.

“What is that? Is that lemon? Or is it just my taste buds dying?”

“It… definitely seems like lemon.” She said, giving a tiny sip to the cup in her own hand. There was a citrus like bite beneath the taste of rubbing alcohol, but it was not near sweet or sour enough to mask the bitterness of the clear liquid.

“Like someone whispering the word ‘lemon’ from another room.” Crow murmured and took another sip, a shudder going over him as he swallowed. He brought the bottle to his lips again and with a chuckle, she leaned nearer and said in a soft voice,

“Lemon."

Crow nearly choked on his laugh. It was a nice sound, one she didn’t hear often enough from him.

“That exactly.” He said after he’d caught his breath, turning towards her with a grin. The smile faded at the realization of how close they were. His eyes half-closed and dreamy in their regard as he lifted a hand up to brush back a strand of hair from her face.

She could smell the alcohol on his warm breath, the moss of the greenery around them, the fresh air… could feel the warmth from the Earth beneath them and from his hand on her cheek. She reached out, holding him by the chin to keep him in place as she leaned forward and pressed a kiss, as faint as the sweet taste of citrus, on his lips.

She had not expected to do that. She equally did not expect him to curl his hand behind her head and pull her in, his mouth already open for another kiss which she happily provided. Crow groaned, an involuntary and needful sound.

Desperation. She could taste it in his kiss, in the way he tentatively returned the soft touch of her tongue, inexperienced but so eager to learn. To feel. He craved it in every gasp, every pull of his fingers through her hair. He wanted to be touched— with tenderness, with kindness. His body lit with it, his breathing fast and quick and his touch edging towards rough in its eagerness. Like he couldn’t get close enough. A wanting so strong and so foreign and yet familiar. She felt him struggle with it— with his body knowing vaguely what it wanted but his mind struggling to keep up.

So she guided him. Over and over. Kissing not just his lips but the highpoint of his cheek and the juncture where his jaw met his neck. She let her teeth rasp over his pulse, thready and rapid at his throat and relished in the way he shivered. She wasn’t sure when she had been settled into his lap, only that she enjoyed the way it made her just a fraction taller.

They were wearing too many clothes. She wanted to touch him, to run her hands over every expanse of his skin until he remembered her touch more than he remembered any bullet or beam or weapon that had ever struck him. The sudden movement of her hands to the hem of his shirt had an immediate sobering effect, his body going rigid beneath her.

“… too fast.” She said, nodding half at her self. She let her hands slide back up, resting her arms around his shoulders. Crow swallowed thickly and she repressed the urge to kiss his neck all over again.

“I’ve never— I mean, not that I remember…”

It made perfect sense. His uncertainty mixed with certainty. Moments of lucidness where he no doubt remembered past lovers, past kisses, and then for them to fade like starlight from his grasp. Despite the confession, the Crow didn’t look daunted, his hands still clutching to her waist.

“Do you want to stop?” She asked, shifting her weight back.

“I…“ Crow paused, his pupils blown wide, an eclipse on a sunset sky, “… I just want to touch you. Is… is that okay?”

“That’s okay.” She said, pressing a kiss to his jaw and relishing in the way he relaxed beneath her hands. His arms held her so tightly, their ribs pressed together hard enough for there to be a faint spark of pain. She didn’t care.

His fingers had found a spot beneath her collar, seeking out the soft skin at the nape of her neck. She turned her cheek against his, pressing and rubbing her lips against him more than actually kissing. Crow seemed dazed, a soft hum coming from his throat as she felt his eyelashes brush against her skin, his eyes closing.

“Is everyone this warm?” He asked, unthinking, “Sorry— weird question.”

“Probably has something to do with the Gulchshine.”

She pulled back, placing her hands on either side of his face and noting the warmth radiating from his skin.

“You’re flushed down your neck.” She said, observing the darker blue color that bloomed out over his skin.

“I’m not that drunk.”

She rose an eyebrow.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t drunk, just not that drunk.”

“So is this for me then?”

He didn’t answer, a sputter dying in his throat as he shook his head.

“I lied. I’m drunk.”

She laughed and kissed him again, just to be sure and he breathed into it like she was the very air he needed. An arm around her waist, his hand tangled in her hair, he followed her kiss by kiss, learning his own rhythm and occasionally trying something new. Discovering how he liked to kiss her. How he liked to be kissed back. It felt important. It felt special. These things only heightening the very intimacy of the act.

She’d never felt this way just from kissing someone before. Something she imagined they had in common.

“... if I knew it felt this good, I would have done it a long time ago.”

“You really are drunk.”

He made a questioning noise, his mouth too busy testing out the way she has kissed his neck on her own. He licked a long line up to her jaw. She had definitely not shown him that.

“People are more honest when they are drunk.” She clarified, her words veering towards breathless

“Glitch might have mentioned it.”

At the mention of the ghosts, both guardians froze, eyes drifting to where the two lights were perched, watchful but silent nearby.

They had forgotten they were there.

Oh god they had forgotten they were there.

“Don’t mind us.” Her own Ghost said, voice filled with dry amusement.

#destiny #destiny 2 #crow x guardian #crow x young wolf #the crow destiny #crow x f!guardian #fanfic #fanfiction #part two will be SPICY #hence why it will be moved to part two #so people can enjoy without spice

81 notes · View notes

poesparakeet-fics · 4 years ago

Text

Gilmore’s Glorious Giggles

Vox Machina Critical Role Tickle Fic for @wordstrings!

Vax/Gilmore AU where their relationship went further than it did, I guess? I’m a little rusty!

Warnings: Alcohol/ drug use

Words: 1563

“You’re a bad man, Sean Gilmore.”

Gilmore’s bedroom was immeasurably soft, polishing away all the rough edges and grit the world left behind. It’s why Vax had wandered away from his equally battle-worn family, through a chill night full of tension and unease, to a familiar door in a familiar bazaar.

Gilmore never threw open the door and cried out his name on these visits. The door would open, flooding the walk with warm light and perfumed air. Dark eyes would find him, a wry smile would cross his face, and he would gesture Vax inside.

That night, Vax felt sluggish. He floated for a moment in the thick air, the heat from the fire and the scent of exotic perfumes hitting him like sleeping gas. He heard Gilmore shut the door behind him, then a swift clink of a glass being filled before being pushed into his fingers. They usually drank wine together, but on nights like tonight, they would start with a shot.

He leaned back a little, humming with satisfaction when his back hit the warm, solid weight of Gilmore’s chest. A low chuckle from behind his ear. The other man’s arms wrapped around him to form a welcoming embrace before reaching up to unfasten his cloak. The garment felt like a great weight being pulled off.

Vax didn’t have a great taste for hard liquor, so he took the glass down in two long gulps, pausing in between to feel the rising burn in his chest and the soothing motion of Gilmore’s hands as the arcanist unwrapped him like a gift. Thick fingers over smooth palms found the buckles of his armor, pulling the leathers away to leave him in the linens he wore underneath.

By the time the burn from the liquor died, his armor was placed neatly to the side with his cloak, and Gilmore was stepping in front of him, arms open. Vax leaned forward to rest his head on the other man’s shoulder, letting thick arms wrap him up with his shot glass still dangling.

“Hello.” Gilmore’s voice was soft, purring.

“Hi.” Vax sighs, not yet ready to open his eyes.

“You know I’m always up for a cuddle, darling, but let’s have a seat, hm?”

He steered Vax to a plush sofa, feeling the radiating heat of the fire on his one side. The glass is taken from him, and he misses Gilmore’s warmth for a moment before the other man joins him. The glass has been refilled and set on a polished tabletop nearby.

Once the other man takes his seat, Vax buries his face in his chest with a sigh. His limbs interlock with Gilmore’s, and he just breaths.

“Oh, Gill…” he groaned. He didn’t know where to start. He didn't want to start.

“Hush,” Gilmore murmured, one large hand stroking Vax’s hair. “I guessed I might get a visit from you tonight, you know. You were all carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders when you came by the shop.”

Vax just nods.

“Poor thing. Do you want to talk about it?”

Vax shakes his head no. Hard. He could talk about it with Vox Machina. He could whisper all his worries and sins into Pike’s ear if he had to. Gilmore’s home was clean, free of all that.

Gilmore hums in acknowledgment, body twisting to reach for something on the sideboard behind him.

"Why don't you get started on this, and I can talk as long as you wish."

Vax opens his eyes, momentarily surprised that they had closed at all. Gilmore was holding out a long, thin cigarette rolled in yellow-gold paper.

Vax adjusts so he's facing upward, careful to maintain as much contact as he can with Gilmore. His hands shake when he balances the cigarette between them and Gilmore lights a match.

He'd never liked pipeweed much. But Gilmore's stash was always the very finest, and he's developed a taste for the good stuff.

Vax watched the plumes of smoke rise in front of him, set aglow by the firelight. The comforting weight of Gilmore's arms settled around him.

"So you'll recall Fain as the oldest son of Urial's brother Cardwin, and he is now in a position to enter the merchant's council, but…"

Three puffs, pass. Gilmore would only have one drag before handing it back.

"And Cordil was all ready to take the spot, but…"

Three puffs, pass. Repeat.

Vax's limbs grew heavy. As the cigarette reached its end, he remembered the liquor on the table and downed the glass in one this time.

"How are you feeling, dear boy?" Gilmore's voice broke out from the haze of idle gossip.

"Fine. Good. Good."

"Mmm. I'm so glad to hear it. How sober are you?"

Vax laughed at the question, the sound coming out a little harsh.

"Not very. A… 2. Out of 20."

"Wonderful! That's probably slowed you down enough for me to do this."

One hand safely rescued the shot glass from Vax's fingers, the other arm wrapping around his rib cage to pull him in close, his neck and ears suddenly under attack from a volley of soft lips and rough stubble.

"SEAN!" It's a shriek, he can't deny it. He wasn’t not quite laughing yet, but breathless, his face twisted into something between hysteria and a stubborn sulk.

Gilmore gets a faceful of Vax's long hair when his captive thrashes. Vax kicks his legs only to be scooped most of the way into Gilmore's lap with two thick arms wrapped around his chest, fingers worrying at his ribs. Gill finally manages to fight past Vax's hair.

"OH. NO! THE BEHEEHEEARD! THAT BEARD, YOU MONSTER! NOOoo!"

With that wail, he was laughing. He'd been ready to make Gilmore work for it this time, but the damn facial hair had broken him.

Gill just chuckles into the shell of one sensitive, pointed ear.

"Oh, I grew it just for you darling."

Bless Gilmore. Bless him for pretending not to know that Vax could easily slip his hold, even absolutely hammered. Bless him for never, ever mentioning that this happened every time, and Vax still kept coming back. Bless him for accepting whatever Vax was willing to give him and never asking for more.

Vax was starting to lose his breath, and possibly his mind. He rallied what little focus he could to try and pry Gil’s arms away from his ribcage, only to expose himself just enough for the attack to shoot upward into his armpits. He wasn’t sure if it was the surge of panic or the force from his tea-kettle squeal that propelled him to his feet, but he went with it, making to run down the length of the long sofa and escape Gil’s wicked fingers.

He barely made it a step.

“Nope,” one big hand clamped around his ankle, tripping him expertly back onto the cushion face-first while its partner wrestled with his sock, “I don’t think you’re quite done yet.”

“Nohoho!” Vax cries, kicking his feet. “Leave that! Please!”

“Oh darling, one little sock isn’t going to save you.”

Gilmore sounded relaxed and amused, as if he were pouring Vax another drink rather than wrestling him down and tickling him silly. With the sock out of the way, he started to spider manicured nails across Vax’s sole, starting at the heel and working upward at a torturous crawl. As his fingers climbed, so did the hysteria in Vax’s cackling laughter.

“No!” Vax was squealing again, and beyond caring. “Fiend! Scoundrel! No no no NO NO TOES PLEASE!”

Gilmore chuckled, about to retort when--

*Whap*

One of Vax’s feet finally jerked out of his grip and caught him in the jaw. Vax gasped as best he could, still breathless.

“Sean? I’m so sorry, are you alright?”

“I’m just fine,” the other man answered, rubbing his jaw “It’s your poor foot you should be worried about.”

Vax followed his frowning, thoughtful gaze to the appendage in question.

“What? No, my foot’s fine, I--”

He cut himself off, catching the wicked smile that was creeping across Gilmore’s expression. He had a split second to take a deep breath before it all came out of him in one shrieking fit of laughter. The smile aside, Gil provided no warning before snatching the offending foot and rubbing the underside of his chin all over Vax’s toes.

If Vax were able to form words at that point, he would have bellowed that NO he was NOT SORRY actually, because Gilmore was a fiend who deserved every kick to the face he got while that atrocious instrument of torture was attached to him.

By the time he started to lose his breath and Gilmore slowed down, though, all he could gasp was “Stop! Stop, I have to pee. Bastard.”

Gilmore released him with a grin, leaning back to recline on the couch.

“Fair enough, I did ply you with liquor. You look just about finished anyway.”

Vax took a moment to catch his breath.

“You are a bad man, Sean Gilmore.”

“Am I?” Gilmore answered with a little smile. “Get yourself to the loo before I decide you were faking it and prove you right.”

Vax moved quickly toward the head. He hadn’t been lying, the liquor was going right through him.

“Bed or bath?” Gilmore called about behind him.

“Bed, please.”

He didn’t need a bath. He felt clean.

#Tickle fic #Tickling #Critickle Role #CR #Vax'ilmore #vax'ildan #tw alcohol #tw drugs

54 notes · View notes

caffeinated-cryptid · 4 years ago

Text

you got an ego so big (it'll eat you alive).

roman-centric hurt/comfort (w/ remus, patton and virgil).

11.7k words | AO3 link | warnings: self-hatred, semi-intentional self-destruction, various injuries, arguing, remus-typical jokes and topics.

“At the best of times, Roman’s job was a tightrope act between maintaining a healthy amount of self-confidence and the ability to adapt and take criticism. Throughout his life he walks this line many times, always with the expectation that if he were to fall one way or the other, no one would be there to catch him.

But sometimes when you’re up miles high, it can become difficult to see the safety net on the ground below you.

(aka an expansion on the premise that a bruised ego causes literal injuries and the issues this could cause when you're an insecure prince with a need to please and the weight of the world on your shoulders).”

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

To be overly aware of your own self is often associated with negative traits, such as narcissism, self-consciousness or a sensitivity to mistakes. Although to some with a proclivity towards the spotlight, it can become an inadvertent consequence of over-analyzing yourself in order to achieve those flawless performances. Naturally, gaining any sort of notoriety and attempting to retain that positive image means becoming intimately aware of your faults and staying open to change, taking criticism to heart all the while keeping relatably humble. On the other hand, it may also mean letting that same criticism become your one sole focus, tearing you down instead of becoming a rung in the ladder that's supposed to take you to higher places.

Roman often found that navigating these gray areas was a momentous task. To be proud of his work, but not be too unbearably egotistical to the point that it blinded him. To accept criticism but not allow the pursuit of perfection to destroy him.

His role was truly a balance; a thin tightrope he constantly had to traverse.

And on occasion, he would end up slipping.

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

I - bonds that tie us.

Roman first learned of his job as the ego when Thomas was young. With Remus at the helm of most of the subconscious and instinctual stuff as his id, perhaps he should've assumed that he would have a similar mirrored purpose beyond simply confidence, however it hadn't ever really come into play until one afternoon when the two of them were busy playing in The Imagination.

They had just concluded a close duel against each other and were putting their weapons away (cardboard ones, since Feelings didn't want them running around with real weapons once he found out they were using them to fight, and because Fear and Lies often fretted about them doing something stupid and getting hurt). Usually neither of them held the lead for long during their matches since they were so well-matched, but today Remus had won easily, which Roman chalked up to him feeling off ("Yeah right. Don't be such a sore loser." "It's true!"). Either way, Remus would be bragging about the victory until the next time they got the opportunity to duel, and that meant he was already rubbing it in as they prepared to leave.

On their way to the exit, Remus had taken the lead at some point and was throwing out ideas about they should do later when Roman unexpectedly paused and doubled over, clutching his head. Remus didn't notice that he'd stopped until he heard a groan and turned around.

"What's wrong? Didn't hit you too hard, did I?" He asked with a grin as if he assumed that Roman was still playing- perhaps trying to make up an excuse for his terrible loss.

"I- Dunno. My head hurts…" Roman cringed, eyes screwed shut.

Remus' smile faltered when he realized it might not be a joke and he walked back, peeling Romans hands away from his forehead. Underneath was a large red patch of irritated skin which looked set to bruise. His frown deepened because he definitely didn't cause that, nor did he witness any incidents during the day which would be the cause. "How'd that happen?

"Dunno!" He repeated, eyes going blank for a moment while he caught up with what was happening outside. The two of them were usually much too distracted when they were in The Imagination to pay attention to everything that transpired in the real world, especially on weekdays like this when Thomas would be in school and Creativity wasn't exactly needed during most classes. "...Thomas was told off for slacking in front of the entire class and he got some bad grades on his report card… He's feeling embarrassed, I think.

Remus was confused by how this was relevant until he pieced together that the two events were linked to what was happening to his brother. His eyes widened in realization before they settled into determination. "Then I'll fight him until he stops feeling bad."

That startled a laugh out of Roman, until his head started pounding and he cut himself off with a grimace. "...’Can't do that."

He laughed too, in hopes that it would lift Roman's spirits again. "Can too! I'll figure it out, then he'll be too busy worrying about his broken bones to care about what some dumb teacher said. Maybe then he'll get to skip school for a while and do something funner like-"

"Remus." Roman hissed over him, overcome with a sudden dizzy spell. His hand found Remus’ shoulder for purchase, which stopped his twin in his rant.

Remus stared at him in alarm. This seemed serious, and he didn't do too well with handling serious things. "Do... Do you want me to get Feelings? Or Learning? Or Lies?"

"No. None of them. I just wanna go home." He whined, leaning more and more against Remus for support.

' Home' in their case was what they called their shared room. It was where they always returned to at the end of a long day, and no matter what had happened, they could always feel their troubles wash away as they sat in their own little world once more. Roman longed for that feeling, to escape the too-bright sun of The Imagination which now felt like it was blinding him and just lay down for a while.

Remus nodded hesitantly, the plans he had spun of pulling a prank on Fear and Lies forgotten. Normally the two Creativities preferred to find the door of The Imagination manually (they claimed it made the experience more immersive when they were out on an adventure), but instead he reached towards the exit and the world twisted around them, ejecting them out together. They came out the other side back in their room, next to their bunk bed. Instead of climbing up to his bed on the top, Roman just about threw himself onto Remus' sheets. Somehow he managed to ignore the weird smell of the fabric that he always complained about, which spoke greatly about his current well-being.

Remus hovered behind him, unsure of what to do, when Roman let out another pained noise and curled up tighter. "What now?!"

"Thomas...parents.

Since that didn't really explain anything, Remus decided to check up on what was happening outside himself. Thomas' parents had asked to see his report card and they were giving him the 'not mad but disappointed talk', while Thomas was shrunk into himself in shame. Yikes, Learning mustn't be feeling too hot about this either. But right now his focus was on his brother, who the sight of in such a sorry state filled him with rage.

"Now I want to fight them too." Remus muttered darkly. "Take the knife from the kitchen that dad uses to cut up turkeys and make them stop talking forever. Then we won't have to deal with this again and you won't-"

Oh right, Roman was still injured. Focus, Remus. Concern. Right, he was concerned for his brother, who was hurting like he had never seen, even after their fights. What could he do about this? He was always so much better at destroying things than fixing them, so having to deal with a situation like this without any sort of guidance made him nervous.

"You can't hurt them." Roman protested weakly.

"Maybe if I want to enough I could!"

Remus walked around the bunk bed and settled down on the side Roman was facing towards. From this angle he could see new bruises spattered along his brother's arms. In a grotesque way, the different shades came together like a watercolour painting. Except instead of a canvas, they were on a body- Remus shook his head. Focus! He could draw sickly yellow and purple-inspired pictures later, when Roman would be in the mood to be more good-humored about it.

"You shouldn't, then. It's bad."

"...Alright then. What should I do Ro-bro?"

Roman cracked open one eye and looked at him. "Stay? Until Thomas feels better?"

Considering he was just grounded for the weekend, Remus wasn't sure how long it would take for this hit to Thomas' self esteem to blow over, but despite knowing this he nodded anyway.

"Okay."

He laid down next to Roman, not commenting when he hid his face against the covers and started sniffling, or when he eventually fell asleep, curled against his side like how they would sleep when they were newly-split. When Learning knocked in their door to tell them that dinner was ready, he made a weak excuse that they were busy and would eat later.

Without even asking he knew Roman would want this to be kept between them, despite how the others would undoubtedly fuss and nurse him back to health. And perhaps that was the reason why. His brother always wanted to appear infallible to the others and did so replicating the heroes from the stories they read, which often meant refusing to admit when he needed help and trying to do everything himself. If you asked Remus, he was trying way too hard to be like the Creativity that came before them, which was silly because they were different now and as they were, they needed each other.

Remus closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep too. This seemed like a big deal, so Roman's pride would have to pass eventually for him to seek help. Right?

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

II - even without dying you're dead to me.

In retrospect, Remus had underestimated Roman’s ability to keep a secret (maybe because he was so quick these days to run over to Feelings, now Morality, whenever Remus did something to upset him. Tattle-tale).

Now that they were older and their roles were more defined, their once shared-room had separated into two to adjust to this change. Even though it had been long enough that he should be used to the feeling of being alone, there were still times where Remus had to try to not let it bother him when he looked up at night, expecting to see the familiar underside of a top bunk and instead only finding the ceiling he had painted an underwater-themed mural on.

On nights like this, far too sentimental to enter a peaceful rest, they would go sleep in each other's rooms, saying nothing as they tried to pretend they were as close as they once were. Remus groaned into his pillow, fighting that annoying urge to seek comfort. He was a teenager now, he didn't want to be so attached at the hip to a side who had started looking at him with disgust and fear instead of the fondness they used to share. Sometimes he couldn't help it though, clinging to the days when everything felt simple and the biggest thing they had to worry about was finding time to create the things they enjoyed. At the very least he was glad that Roman didn't mock him for his occasional bouts of uncharacteristic sentiment; that would solidify for him that there were no remnants of the relationship they once had left.

With that depressing thought, he rolled out of bed. He couldn't sleep tonight so he was going to make that Roman's problem; that always cheered him up. Perhaps if he hadn't made such a disturbed face when Remus had talked about the brazen bull he had made earlier that day, he would feel a bit more sympathy for waking his brother up in the middle of the night. Buuut he didn't and he was feeling petty, so without a second thought he sunk out and into Romans room.

"WAKEY WAKEY~!" Remus clashed two cymbals together like one of those nightmare-inducing wind-up monkeys, only to belatedly realize the bed he was facing was empty.

He blinked, both in confusion and to adjust his eyes to the unexpected light of the room. Both of them may be night owls, but Roman would usually be asleep by 2am at least, and it was way past that hour. Looking around the room, his eyes latched onto the vanity where his brother was sitting, looking incredibly startled from the deafening crash of metal against metal.

"Get out!" He yelled once his shock faded into indignation, glaring at Remus.

Remus didn’t respond, staring at the medical supplies spread across the surface. Roman was in the middle of wrapping a compression bandage around his thigh, which he abandoned as soon as Remus had entered.

"Did you get something stuck in your ear again? I'm not in the mood to deal with you tonight, Remus. Leave ."

"What happened?" He blurted out before he could even think about the question.

"Doesn't matter. In case you've forgotten, the door's right there. Feel free to use it at any point."

Instead of complying (because when had Remus ever done that for anyone? No no, it was always more exciting to do the opposite of what people ask and see what happens), he crossed the room, ignoring how Roman increasingly looked like he wanted to punch him the longer he lingered.

"Bitch, it obviously does matter, otherwise you wouldn't be looking like you got trampled by a cracked-out horse."

"Lovely imagery." Roman gritted out.

"Lovely avoidance." Remus retorted sarcastically. "Aren't you best friends with Morality and Logic now? Why aren't they here sucking your d-"

"If you don't go back to your own room I'll run you through with my sword." Roman warned with an air of finality.

Remus snorted.

It was hard to be intimidated by the same side who had once cried when he had accidentally smashed an imaginary caterpillar cocoon with his morning star. In his defense he had forgotten to make the handle weighted when he first made it, so he was still getting used to the uneven distribution of the weapon...not like that stopped Roman from getting upset with him. Supposedly he had spent the last week trying to raise butterflies and wanted to show them off to Logic after they had learned about chrysalis in class, but Remus found that somewhat laughable considering he could just create a fully-formed butterfly if he wanted to. So he did laugh, calling him dumb for getting upset over nothing, and through tears Roman pushed him to the ground and told him he hated him for the first time. (After that, he may have spent the next week killing any butterflies that crossed his path, but that was neither here nor there. The point of this tangent provided a lá Remus Sander's brain was was that Roman could be a big baby and therefore he couldn't take anything he said too seriously.)

"Sounds like a good time! Save that idea for later though, because if you don't tell me I'll summon them over here to ask them myself."

"Don't. They don't know about this, alright? For once in your life can you just let it go?"

Huh. Remus tilted his head. It had been years since they first found out about the fun little quirk Roman had, and he just...never told? He figured at the very least it would be a good way to milk even more attention from the others; something Creativity had been seeking more often after Fear turned into Anxiety during middle school and gained a much larger role in Thomas' life. "Why?"

Roman huffed in frustration. "They don't need to. I can handle it myself."

"...Wow! Careful not to summon Lies, because you're full of shit and you know it." Remus fired back. He didn't even know why he was getting so mad. Minutes ago he was cursing his brother's guts for how their relationship had soured, and now all of a sudden it was if all of that dislike had faded into the background for something else. Concern? He hadn't felt concern for anything in years. Roman always made it seem like he could take care of himself, so that's what Remus had believed at first too, though perhaps stumbling across this situation was evidence of the opposite. Reasonable self-care didn't exactly look like 'patching yourself up at 4 in the morning'. At least, that sounded like something Lies would say which probably meant it was accurate.

"Ugh- Shut up. I've been doing just fine so far, without you or them, so you can take your fake pity and shove it up your you-know-where."

Remus didn't rise to the opportunity to poke fun at that statement, his mind going blank (and what a strange and unusual feeling that was). The idea that anything could have been hidden from him seemed unthinkable given how they used to tell each other everything. He hadn't even considered that that habit had become one-sided, given how it had never stopped being true for him. "...Roman, what does that mean? Has this been happening a lot?"

"..."

"Why did you never tell me?! This isn't something you can just keep a secret! If you won't say anything I will-

Remus' mouth snapped shut as Roman ejected him from his room. He landed back on his own bed and when he scrambled onto his feet to tried to rise up again, he found that his efforts were blocked. Roman had kicked him out and locked the door behind him. He never did that, no matter how much they fought or annoyed each other. It was the one thing they did that showed they still cared.

Remus trembled with adrenaline and shock. Taking his pillow, he summoned a knife and stabbed it and stabbed it and stabbed it until all of his pent up feelings were gone and there all that was left was the fluff covering his floor.

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

III - interlude.

As it turns out, he'd never get the opportunity to tell, because shortly after that, the newly appointed 'dark sides' were pushed away into their own corner of the mindscape after an explosive argument between the sides (during which Remus tried to ignore how closely Roman stood at Morality's side, sword brandished towards him. He didn't want to think his twin had a hand in their separation, even though it made so much sense).

When he argued about going back with Lies, now Deceit after being appointed the new leader of the unwanted and unloved, he was told through clenched teeth and pained eyes that he shouldn't. Not until Thomas was ready for him. For all of them.

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

IV - to the death of me, i'm just fulfillin' my destiny.

After that, Roman adjusted, and did so alone. Teenage years came with many challenges, ones he didn’t always escape unscathed. Despite the occasional rejection here, an unfortunate setback there, he felt as if he had grown a thicker skin for the trials they faced. Into adulthood he wore his ego like a suit of armor; Thomas was outgoing and likable, so of course it became easier to brush aside random negative experiences as minor blips, things that didn’t represent their worth.

This was challenged somewhat as he began pursuing creative outlets more seriously. This meant more work for Roman in general (Woo! Suck it Logan), but it also came with more opportunities to feel ashamed of a messed-up performance, embarrassed by a note sung wrong, hurt by an ill-intentioned piece of feedback.

So he tried to compensate at times. Sue him. Between the nights he spent nursing his wounds and wondering how to do better next time, perhaps he deserved to be a little self-congratulatory about the shining achievements he won for them. There was a certain safety in placing himself up on that pedestal, so high above that it felt like nobody could ever reach him; that he was above it all. But the reality was that this pedestal, gold-plated as it may be, was founded on an interior of paper mache, one wrong move from away from collapsing and sending him tumbling back down to earth.

It was a good thing that pretending came naturally to Roman. So natural that the fear of falling sometimes didn’t register with him at all.

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

V - the calamitous corollary of being considered.

Except, it may have been too much to expect nobody to ever realize there was something up with him. The fact that the sides had to work closely together alone meant that the excuse of being busy after every troubling experience could only work for so long.

The first one to find out was Patton, because of course it was. Sometimes Roman felt as if Patton wasn’t given enough credit for his intelligence. Even though he could be a tad slow on the uptake on other things, his ability to detect the slightest change in mood and discern how people were feeling could be uncanny at times. Emotions just happened to be Patton's strong suit, and while that was very much appreciated when it came to sharing excitement or talking through a heated problem, it was not so grand when you were trying to get away with hiding something.

The first time he let something slip was a few days after Thomas had been flat-out rejected when asking someone out on a date. It wasn't that big of a blow, considering they had barely known the guy for more than a month, but Roman had been insistent that they throw caution into the wind and give it a shot, sure that he had been receiving signals that proved that this guy felt a similar interest. Turns out, he didn't, and was very-much straight. At least the rejection had been somewhat carried out gently and he didn't seem too put-off about staying friends afterwards. Nonetheless the wound was still fresh, and Thomas kept internally cringing whenever he thought about it, which didn't help matters. Whatever. Roman dealt with the bruises that arose from the incident and dabbed a little foundation on the ones he couldn't hide with clothing. They'd get over it in a matter of weeks.

It was after the awkward feelings had finally begun to settle when it happened. Roman and Patton had been in the kitchen preparing dinner when Thomas received a message on his phone, and when he went to check it, he face-planted on the couch in mortification.

'Hey man, I just remembered that my cousin is coming to town this weekend. He's gay too so I thought you two could go on a blind date if you're still looking. :) Lmk your thoughts.'

Patton frowned upon sensing the sudden wave of embarrassment, pausing to check what had happened. "Well...That's thoughtful of him!" He chuckled, tone trying and failing to be positive. Roman couldn't share the same sentiment.

"Thoughtless is more like it! He wants to set us up with the first gay person he knows? Who's not even in the city? Does he think Thomas has no standards at all?! How dare-" Roman's indignant protests cut off as he felt the skin around his collar grow tender and swell slightly. He let out a slight whimper when he pressed his fingers into the bruise to double check its location. Why now and in such a visible place?! He's going to get Thomas to drop that guy if it's the last thing he does-

"Ro! Are you okay?"

Right. Patton was still here. Don't panic.

"Y-yeah! I just remembered an injury I sustained earlier. But not to worry, 'tis but a flesh wound!" He joked.

"A flesh wound?!" Patton cried, reference flying over his head. "Let me see."

Gently, Patton moved his head upwards to get a better look at the bruise. It mustn't look good, because Patton, squeamish as he was, grimaced on sight.

"How on earth did that happen? I don't remember that being there just now."

"Uh." Come on Creative skills, work your magic. "A stray whomping willow in The Imagination? You know how they can be. I suppose it merely took a while to develop, bruises can be funny like that."

Luckily it seemed to work, because Patton sighed. "I thought you got rid of them all after that time one almost threw Logan into a lake. Did Remus make more?"

Heh. Good times. That was a slight lie on his behalf when he had told the others he had gotten rid of the trees; he had kept a few of them around because they were once a gift from Remus to quote 'spice up his boring forests'. Not for any sentimental reasons, of course, but because he thought it was funny and it kept him on his toes. "I guess."

Patton made a small 'tsk' noise, mouth still drawn in a frown but he didn't comment further. "Come on, I'll help you treat that. Does it hurt?"

"Of course not." He smiled. "Do you really think I could be bested by a mere tree?"

"Never! I do wish you were more careful when you go on your little adventures, though. It makes me awfully sad to think about you in 'pine'."

Roman knew it had been a flimsy excuse and even though Patton seemed to accept it, there was a hesitation in his eye which spoke of hidden disbelief. After some first aid and many more tree-related puns later, they went back to cooking, finishing up 30 minutes later. When Logan came down to dinner, immediately questioning the bandages around Roman's neck, he repeated the fake story, distracting him with a request not to go into The Imagination with the whomping willow around and packaging the thinly-veiled jab at the way Logan had once freaked out when he was swung around by the semi-sentient tree as a warning. Logan's concern quickly faded and he shot back a sharp retaliation that Roman didn't care to remember. He just laughed, feeling as light as a kite with the crisis averted.

The next time didn't go over as gracefully.

Thomas had found a different partner eventually, one that wasn't some friend's cousin. They dated for months, and just when he had been thinking about inviting his boyfriend to move in so he could be closer to his workplace, he'd been broken up with. On Valentines Day of all days. There was no better way of putting it; they had planned to go out to dinner, managing to book a table at a fairly classy restaurant, exchanged gifts, and near the end of the night his boyfriend had leaned across the table with a sad smile, thanking him for the evening before admitting he didn't see them working out anymore. He said it quietly, as to not cause a scene among the other diners, but that didn't stop Thomas from immediately bursting into tears. The scene had caused his (now ex) boyfriend to leave early after paying his half of the bill. At least the waitress had taken pity on him and brought over more complimentary bread rolls (which he took because he was not a complete fool, heartbroken as he may be), though even that didn't stop the confusion and embarrassment of it all.

As expected, the whole incident caused nothing but chaos; the right-brain sides were devastated, Anxiety was in a state of panic, and Logic had been metaphorically thrown out the window. As Thomas made his way home, they were at a complete loss for what to do. They had started the day, hoping to take a step forward in their relationship, and ended up with nothing at all. What worse is that they didn't even have a clear idea why (admittedly, that could have been due to, as mentioned before, the inconsolable crying).

It seemed like the most sensible thing to do at the moment was to throw the Valentines gifts away and gorge on the ice-cream that had been sitting in the back of the freezer for who-knows how long while watching a comfort show and trying to forget the whole evening. So that's what they did. As Logan tried to sort through what happened and rationalize what to do next, Patton wallowed in his misery as he dealt with the giant mix of feelings Thomas was going through.

After a few hours working through the brunt of it, enough to where his mind began wandering elsewhere, Patton realized with a start that he hadn't seen Roman since the start of the evening. He must have been so devastated too! Patton recalled how excited he was about the day ahead of them, how he spun fantasies of Thomas' boyfriend accepting the proposal to move in and then the future proposals that could come after that-

Patton mournfully sobbed. He needed to stop thinking about this, or else Thomas could start spiraling again. The best thing to do right now was distract himself, and to do that he should go check on Roman. Perhaps they could talk and have a mutual catharsis over the whole thing. Or better yet, he could put his energy towards someone else and he won't have to fall back into the thoughts that had been clouding his mind ever since they had left that stupid restaurant.

Splashing some water on his face to clear up some of the blotchy-ness, he left his room and crossed the hallway towards Roman's. He couldn't hear any noise coming from inside, so he tentatively knocked. "Kiddo?"

For a few moments there was silence, and Patton almost turned away, assuming that Roman might be blowing off some steam in The Imagination, until a voice cleared inside the room and answered. "Pat? What do you want?"

Patton was taken aback for a second, not expecting such a straight-forward answer. It almost sounded like Roman wasn't upset at all, but Patton sincerely doubted that to be true. His tone was almost too normal, and for anybody else he wouldn't have questioned it, but the lack of dramatics or flowery language was always a clear red flag for the Creative side. "I wanted to check on you since um- You-Know-Who took 'dine and dash' a tad too seriously." He chuckled humorlessly. "...Can I come in?"

There was some shuffling and muffled curses. "Why? I'm fine. Worry about yourself."

"'Why?'" He repeated, eyeing the door warily. "I'm concerned! I haven't seen you in hours and I- I know you must be upset about this too. Can we please talk?"

"I'm not exactly my most princely presentable self right now. Anyway, it's late. Surely this can wait until tomorrow?"

Patton looked down at himself. Instead of his usual garb, he had thrown on some more comfortable clothes hours ago, and they were currently crumpled from laying in bed, sobbing his eyes out. "I'm hardly my best-self either right now, Kiddo-" Before he could go on a spiel about how it was best to not bottle up emotions when they're fresh (and ignoring the hypocrisy of that sentiment), he heard a thump on the other side of the door followed by a quiet hiss of pain. Patton began to panic, and his hand flew to the handle. "I'm coming in!"

Before the other side could even consider protesting, Patton flung the fortunately unlocked door open and stepped into the room, gasping at the sight he was met with. Roman was on the floor, wincing as he clutched his leg. Although he was still dressed in his usual outfit, there were enough injuries on his visible skin that Patton could only wonder how far they went. He covered his mouth and stared in horror as Roman turned to look at him nervously.

"What- How did this happen?!"

Roman licked his dry lips, eyes darting away as he searched for an excuse. "I- The Imagination- This is from earlier-"

"You told me this morning you were going to spend the day helping Thomas write a love letter." Patton said, voice strained with panic and disbelief. "Tell me the truth, please."

Shoot, he had announced his plans earlier that day, hadn't he? He internally cursed his inability to keep his mouth shut, before lowering his head in defeat. "Can you keep a secret, Pat?"

Said side shifted uncomfortably, but his tone was resolute when he nodded. "If it means you'll let me help with whatever this is."

"Okay..." Roman inhaled. "Okay."

And then he explained. Or rather, gave a shortened version of the truth which was less likely to give Patton a complete heart-attack: that bruised egos were something he experienced, but it was never this bad (true) or all that common (also true), and that they weren't something to worry about because he could usually take care of them himself (technically true). By the time he had finished, Patton still looked concerned, but had become less frantic with the information.

"You'll let me help in the future if you need it, right?" He asked, so close to shedding tears that Roman had trouble keeping eye-contact without becoming choked up with guilt.

"If I need it." He agreed.

Finally, Patton smiled, and went to fetch the first-aid kit hastily. As he helped patch him up for the second time that year, the look in Patton's eyes was so pained that Roman vowed to let him see this side of him as little as possible.

For a while, he kept true to this promise to himself, and on the occasions when Patton would drop by to check if everything was alright, if Roman had encountered any bruised egos since, he relished in the relief on his face whenever he would lie and said he hadn't. Distantly he wondered sometimes if this was how heroes were supposed to feel; protecting people by letting them live in blissful ignorance and bearing the burden of the ugly truth alone.

(It was thoughts like that that kept him going.)

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

VI - high highs and low lows.

And then came the videos. Youtube had been an excellent ego-boost for Roman. Similar to how life-changing Vine was, the instant gratification of likes and feedback and people liking what they made was enough to send him over the moon, and oftentimes it was able to ward away the downsides that came with it too; the stress of staying relevant, the occasional hate comment, the portion of dislikes that didn't explain what about the video was dislike-worthy-

Overall it seemed like a great idea, especially when the sides became involved. It gave them all the chance to gain their own spotlights, which most of them appreciated. Sometimes this wasn't always so good though. With the videos came more introspection than usual, which meant deeply examining each problem to try to find some kind of moral. And right now, Roman didn't want to do any sort of thinking exercise about how badly he messed up. At this point in their career, a simple audition should have been a cake walk, instead it was an ache walk...Okay, admittedly he wasn't on his best game right now. The point was, he had potentially thrown the whole audition by forgetting something so simple as the lyrics, and now the casting director would definitely only remember Thomas by the way he froze under pressure, which wasn't exactly an appealing trait in somebody looking to go up on stage where the pressure was set to 100.

After everything was said and done, Roman had no choice but to approach Patton for help. In his current state, he was much too dizzy on his feet to even contemplate showing up and trying to play it off cool, which would've been an laughable endeavor anyhow considering how outwardly embarrassed Thomas was. Betrayal from his own-- well. It was a bit too harsh to blame his current predicament on Thomas, after all the fact of the matter was that it was Roman’s fault for not being better prepared.

Anyway, that's how he ended up in his current position, being swaddled in a too-warm bed, injuries patched up and having soup spoon-fed into his mouth. The whole thing felt...strange. Usually during times like this he would be grinning and bearing it, the inner satisfaction he got from fooling everyone with his performance pushing him through the day, but he supposed this was unavoidable. It was better that only one side had to see part of the problem rather than exposing it to everyone, and out of all of them, at least it was Patton. It still didn't sit well that his secret was now out in the open, a throwaway joke to be used before moving along, but hopefully that would play to his favor and they'd view it as his usual dramatics. Not like he preferred to be seen as too incompetent to care for himself, even if it fit with his persona. He supposed it just went without saying that princes are supposed to have someone at their every beck and call, they're supposed to be indulgent and spoiled and ridiculous. But princes were also supposed to be leaders, someone who was caring and brave and ready to face any challenge.

Roman sighed, a wave of self-loathing washing over him. He didn't feel very princely at all right now.

“Kiddo, are you doing okay? Does something hurt? Is the soup too hot?” Patton asked, eyebrows drawing together in concern. He was such an open book when it came to the other sides, which meant that Roman knew exactly when he had worried or panicked the fatherly figure. Honestly, it only made him feel worse. Being doted over seemed like a good idea until it meant being the subject of pity and other people’s hurt.

“No no, I’m fine Padre. It’s fine. I was just taking a trip into thought city for a second there.” He cracked a smile, trying to ignore how the bruise at the corner of his mouth pulled at the motion. If only he could think of a more original nickname, perhaps that would be more convincing. He was simply drawing blanks today it seemed. “What do you think the others are up to right now? I’d bet 5 bucks Logan is losing his mind having to deal with Anxiety alone.”

Patton didn’t look entirely convinced, but the sudden change of subject encouraged him to stop any further questioning.

In the end they talked until the others had finished filming. Whatever happened during the discussion must have helped Thomas grow past his feelings, because one-by-one the injuries on Roman's body grew smaller until they had faded entirely. Seeing this, Patton noticeably livened up again, and he cheerily declared that he would take the empty bowl back to the kitchen and check in with the others.

As soon as he was gone, Roman’s face dropped, tired from all the smiling he had been doing, and he slid down further into the sheets. Perhaps he should consider himself fortunate that the others had helped out, but all he could think about was how they now knew about his biggest weakness and how embarrassing that was. Logan and Anxiety were the last two sides he wanted finding out about this, if not for their often-tumultuous relationships, but because they'd never fully understand. Neither of them were as dependent on validation as much as he was. Despite what others thought about them, they would just keep on going, meanwhile Roman couldn't truly thrive without some kind of feedback; he was too shackled to expectations and the need to please for that sort of self-indulgence, it was practically written in his existence. It simply wasn't enough for him to be great, he needed to be great and be appreciated. Without that, he felt as if he would burn out, like a candle who's supply of oxygen had been cut off, leaving only smoke and the charred wick behind as a reminder of the fire that was once there. And sometimes that made him feel pathetic, that so much of his esteem depended on what people thought of him. Other times it just made him envy the others who had no one to please but Thomas himself and what he deemed important.

...He was tired, but he needed to keep going. The least he could do was keep up the image of egotism so that those horrid thoughts of being lesser weren't picked up by the others. If they started thinking of him the way he thought about himself (if they didn't already), he wouldn't know what he'd do. He wouldn't stand to be pitied or mocked or anything that validated what he already knew about himself. He just wouldn't.

Rolling out of bed, he practiced his smile in the mirror, fixed his clothes, and sunk out to make his grand appearance.

He couldn’t let this happen again at all costs.

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

VII - an agreeable sort of self-destruction.

More and more often, Roman was glad that he and Remus didn't share a room anymore. From the nights he hunched over scraps of ideas and worked without distraction until the sun was on the horizon, to the days he woke up with tears clinging to his lashes and breath coming out in labored pants, until he realizes the dream about him messing up so badly that he's split apart a second time was merely a cruel trick of his mind.

Currently, there was no greater time to be grateful for their separation than the moment he hastily returned back to safety after Remus' debut to Thomas. If only his brother could see the way he paced back and forth and tugged at his hair, he was sure his other half would merely gloat and poke away at his wounds instead of doing anything to help. Or worse, use it as ammunition in front of the other sides as some sort of proof of his imperfection.

Speaking of, the video was disastrous. He had been out-cold the entire time so he had no idea what was said and had no way of directing the conversation at all, which was possibly the most aggravating part of the whole situation. Beyond that, there was so much that Remus could have told the others without his knowledge. Once upon a time, the two of them were two peas in a pod, and that meant they knew an unnameable amount of secrets about each other. (Like how Remus always used to sleep with this crudely-knitted octopus Roman had made for him when he discovered crochet. Remus claimed to have set fire to it when they were teenagers, but Roman had seen it tucked away on a shelf the last time he had been in his room, before the Great Divide). The room swam a little when Roman thought about it too much. Perhaps he was being paranoid, but it wasn't as if he'd done much to earn Remus' loyalty. Why would he take the higher road and keep all of that to himself now, when he had the prime opportunity right in front of him to make himself seem like the better twin?

Hold on... He was thinking about this all wrong. Remus didn't care about good and bad the same way he did. Sure he was adamant that his version of being creative was more interesting, but he never tried to convince any of the other sides that he was inherently better or more worthy of attention than Roman, at least not to the same extent he did. The realization hit Roman like a train on it's way to a damsel tied to railway tracks (for lack of a less Remus-y simile): had he been wrong to push his brother away when he was just trying to help? All this time he had expected nothing but the worst from him, all because he was loud and unapologetic and had gone about his concern in a way that frightened him. Though just because Roman had been scared, surely that didn't warrant the dark sides being pushed aside in such a manner, and clearly the repression wasn't any benefit to Thomas...And was that partially his fault? He had been the one who encouraged Patton to divide the sides up. He had come up with the name for them: light and dark.

When he really thought about it, there wasn't much 'light' about him, not when he had been the source of so many problems.

Making Virgil feel unwelcome and continuing to trample on his boundaries.

His insults toward Logan and attempts to diminish his importance.

Leading Thomas and Patton astray in his pursuits for romance.

Being too quick to side with Janus when he should’ve known that the deceitful side only stood for selfishness and not the fair-played ambition Thomas valued.

And now: his treatment of Remus for most of their lives. Pushing him away, pretending he didn't exist, trying to erase their memories together.

How could he have the gall to claim that he saw Remus as an awful reflection of everything he didn’t want to be, when the whole point of looking into a mirror means facing you and you alone?

Even his metaphors were hypocritical.

It was a shock that nobody saw through that statement or called him out on how he had wronged just about everybody. How truly unfortunate it was that he had been declared the hero when he had done very little to live up to that title. Heroes weren't mean. They didn't make people feel bad about themselves for merely existing. They're supposed to defeat the bad guys, yes, but every time he had thought he was accomplishing that, it turned out that he was always off the mark. At least this time he had it right with Deceit, but still, that didn't erase the history he had with misjudging what was acceptable. He couldn't help but wonder what sort of reflection that must have on Thomas' content. If his creativity, which was supposed to be a force of pure good, had made a countless number of errors, what did that say about the things they were proud of? How many things had they put into the world that were imperfect? That had a misleading message? That was problematic and hurt people?

The realization had his throat tightening in panic. How could he ever have confidence in his work when he had such a flawed system of right and wrong? How-

...Wait.

Roman's spiraling thoughts were fortunately put on pause as he passed by his vanity, being pulled back to reality in an instant and finally noticing the splash of colours that had made themselves welcome on his skin once more. He gaped at his own reflection. It wasn’t as if he was unused to the sight per say, but he hadn’t realized anything had happened today that would affect Thomas’ ego. Remus’ appearance perhaps? He had the feeling that if there was any discussion to be had in light of that it would be on the goodness of his character, which could be a worthy-enough explanation. But if anything wouldn’t that what the large gash on the back of his head (fittingly) represented? So where had the others come from? Unless…

Was it him?

His own self-criticism had never left a dent on his pride before. Usually his injuries tended to be the result of outside sources; the kind of things that come out of nowhere and hit at you harder than you could ever expect. Did this mean that his own words were on par with Thomas’ harshest critics?

Roman shakily sat down. This... was a good thing, right? Perhaps he was finally gaining some self-awareness. He had been trying to make amends for where he had fallen short in the past, so this could be the sign he was making progress.

Yes. This was good. And if it wasn't, then perhaps this was just apart of his repentance. At this point he was sure everyone would agree.

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

VIII - the art of learning to let go.

The thing about tightropes is quite interesting. Like most other skills, it is something that needs to be honed. At first you try on a smaller scale and fall off more times you can count, but it's alright because that's why you practice in a safe environment. And then you progress to something more risky, and this time you have other tools to help keep you steady. Before you know it, you're up doing the actual thing; a rope suspended tens of feet in the air and thousands of eyes watching your every move, each one wondering if you really will make it across, or if they're about to watch a great tragedy take place before them. When you misjudge your own abilities and are thrust upon that rope when you're unprepared, however, all of the practice you gained can feel as if it has slipped away. As soon as you take your first step, the rope wobbles and you know somewhere deep down that your fall will be inevitable. But with so many expectant eyes baring into you, what else are you to do but continue forward? Continue until you're halfway across and your balance is so shaky that all you can do is watch as the rope swings backwards and forwards beneath your feet until you give up on trying to steady yourself entirely and-

Roman let go of the rope he had been clinging onto.

There was no grace in the way that he fell. It wasn't even a matter of choosing a side; ego or change. At first he fell so gradually that he didn't feel it at all, placing all of his thoughts and opinions into a neat little box and shoving them aside. Trying so hard to adapt, trying to be feel comfortable clinging to reasoning that contradicted his role, his meaning, his existence- and before he knew it, he was plummeting towards the ground because even then, that little piece of purpose he was forcing himself to mold his worth around did nothing but feed into the self-righteousness that must've always been there, hiding away under the surface.

Roman could only describe the feeling as air-sickness when he sunk out, his very being thrown into weightless uncertainty. Once he appeared back at his safe place, the place he wanted to be most, he felt his body connect with the ground once more as he collapsed onto the floor, body shaking with sobs and wounds he already knew were appearing.

He had been so stupid. Every step he took was littered with mistakes. Just when he thought he had learned, to try to be more accepting, to know when to give up, to listen to others instead of forging his own path, another thing came along and knocked him back to where he started and he was thrown back into the cycle of trying to atone for his actions. A cycle that never seemed to end.

His arm fractured and started to swell.

For once he thought he finally had it figured out. If he just followed the person who should've known what was best for Thomas, even if it meant going back on his own desires, surely then he would be on the right side for once. But all of a sudden that was wrong and now it was all his fault that so many bad outcomes had come about as a consequence of his lack of assertion. He may not have loaded the gun, but he had pulled the trigger, and that made him more culpable than anyone else.

His nose ached as if hit by an unseen force and began dripping blood.

Even his attempts at keeping his ego in check were all for nothing because the moment he felt threatened he lashed out towards Janus, the side who now all of a sudden deserved a seat at the table because he had gained Patton's favor (nevermind that he had agreed with him first. Oh no, that was just Roman being naive and easy to sway if only you stroke his ego a little. What importance could his opinions possibly have?). But that was the thing, wasn’t it? In the end he just couldn’t win, no matter what he did. When he tried to silence his voice it was too obvious and attention-seeking, and when he chose to project his thoughts it was too loud and abrasive. When he spoke out he was punching down, but when others did the same they were punching up up up. It left him wondering how much more he had to fall before it was no longer deemed okay to kick him while he was down. Was it his fault for choosing to sit atop his golden pedestal, making himself seem forever untouchable and unable to be hurt? And would things be different if he was sensitive like Patton? Complicated like Virgil? Respectable like Logan? Had he been making a mistake all along by pretending to be stronger than he was? But how was he ever supposed to let go of the walls he had built, knowing that the second they crumbled, all the things he had been trying to protect himself from would pass through and destroy everything he had worked so hard for? Maybe it was time to accept that this was all he could be; that there was no way for him to change, no way to soften his edges or stick firm to his beliefs that wouldn’t end with him in a losing position.

His ribs ached, bending unnaturally until he felt a snap in his chest.

Perhaps Janus was right by calling him evil. He had proven it time and time again that he was no good for Thomas. In fact, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that he was worse than Remus. At least he couldn't help the way he was, didn't have control over the problems he caused unlike Roman. He was supposed to be the half with all the bad parts removed. The 2.0 version, new and improved. He had no excuse for being as flawed as he was, not really. All this time spent thinking he was the good twin, and it was nothing more than an act of self-delusion. The grandeur of a side with nothing to show for it beyond his words.

His eyelid puffed up and mottled with colour.

...He was bad. Unneeded. Evil.

The capillaries across his knuckles burst and stained them a violent red.

Everything would be so much better if he just-

"Broman?" Oh shit.

Romans eyes flew open. And he realized belatedly that he wasn't looking at his floor; his floor had intricate Persian rugs and a soft fluffy carpet. This one had various stains and burns and felt scratchy against his fingers.

"What the fuck. Princey? You good?"

1) He wasn't in his room. 2) Wherever he was, Remus and Virgil were here too.

"M-my mistake! I must have accidentally sunk out to the wrong place. If you'll excuse me-" He tried, but his voice was hoarse and clearly not okay. Of all times for his acting skills to have failed him.

"Oh no you don't."

Before he could sink out through the floor, two arms latched under his armpits and hoisted him upright. He choked back a gasp at the sudden movement, senses flashing white as his injuries were jostled. He barely heard the shocked exclamation in front of him before the two voices discussed something hastily and he was deposited onto a soft surface. The ringing in his ears faded, just in time to hear Virgil speak.

"What happened? " He asked, voice layered with anxiety and sounding on the verge of a panic attack. Roman would have tried to reassure him if he didn't feel like his entire body was on fire.

"It just happens sometimes, when Thomas’ ego gets bruised." Remus answered bitterly when it became clear his brother wasn't in a position to explain. He then muttered under his breath: "Though this time is different, huh?"

"What? I thought- I didn’t know it got this bad.” Virgil whispers, horrified.

"Sorry you have to see this, Finding Emo." Roman croaked once he began slowly coming back to his senses. He would regret not being more composed later, but right now he couldn't really bring himself to care about anything. “I’ll be as good as Gucci soon.”

"No. Shut the fuck up, you don't get to say that." Remus said angrily. Why did he sound so mad? Roman tried to crack open his eyes to check, but the world was still spinning too much for him to really recognize what was he was seeing. On top of that it seemed one of his eyes was swollen shut. Joy. That'll make it more difficult to patch himself up later.

"'Told you before, I can handle myself." He finally managed.

"Yeah? Was that you 'handling yourself' when you dropped in and started bleeding all over my floor? Or when you stopped talking to me and kicked us 'dark sides' to the curb because your sense of superiority was more important? Or when you started acting like a royal prick to everyone just so they wouldn't know you spend your nights licking your wounds?"

"Stop." Roman pleaded, shamefully curling into himself as much as his body allowed in its current state. Remus paused in his tirade before continuing, more quietly.

"If you're uncomfortable just from that, you should try watching your brother slowly self-destruct for years and not being able to do anything about it. That's fucking uncomfortable." Roman heard a sniffle, and his body went cold. He hadn't heard Remus get upset since they were kids. Sometimes he forgot that there was more to his brother than his disgusting unpredictable persona, and the thought that he could've been hurting Remus all this time was something that had never even crossed his mind.

"I'm..." Sorry? Was he sorry? Apologizing was practically second nature at this point, but he couldn't even tell if the words would be genuine if he said them. Was he sorry for his actions or for hurting Remus, or was it the fact that he had been caught at all? If he had it his way, none of this would be happening, so perhaps he wasn't as apologetic as he thought. He really was the worst, wasn't he?

Remus seemed to pick up on what he was thinking about saying, because he laughed; not in his usual cartoon-ish way, but resigned and hurt. The sound pulled at Roman's heart. "Save it. Here's what's going to happen you Walmart Prince Eric knockoff. You’re going to accept our help whether you like it or not, and if you try to pull any self-sacrificing BS at any point, I’m going to eat your entire makeup collection.”

“...You wouldn’t. You don’t like the way glitter sticks to your teeth.” Roman argued weakly, just for the sake of being contrary.

“Try me.”

Roman sighed. He really didn’t doubt that Remus would be petty enough to go through with his threats, especially since he knew it how much it would bother Roman to summon a new set. In any case, he wasn’t in a position to do much of anything at the moment, and now that it was too late to pretend like this never happened, he figured he might as well roll with it. Future him could deal with the consequences later.

“Okay.” He said after a moments pause, looking to the Virgil-shaped figure, as much as the crick in his neck would allow. “...Just don’t tell Patton about this. Not yet.”

The figure shuffled, out of what was probably awkwardness after having watching the twins argue. “No worries dude. We’re not exactly on- uh. Y’know what, nevermind, I’ll just go get the medical kit.”

During the moments that Virgil had shuffled off, there was an empty silence. Roman spent it trying to blink his uninjured eye back into focus, until he was finally able to spot Remus standing across from him, an uncharacteristically glum look on his face. "You look like you're going to a funeral."

"Don't even joke about that. I don't need more thoughts about-"

"Death? I thought that was pretty par for the course."

Remus smiled wryly at him, sarcastic and mocking. "You dying, dummy. D'you think I never imagined it? Something happening and you disappearing because you never let anyone help you- and me not even knowing it happened? Finding out much too late? Being alone?"

Roman didn't know what to say to that. "Sorry." He blurted out, and this time he felt like he meant it. "If it means anything in retrospect, I wouldn't have ever let it go that far. I think."

"'You think.'" Remus repeated. "God, you need some self-care. It's a shame you and Jan-jan weren't friends before. It's supposed to be his job to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen, you know."

Roman felt himself flinch at the mention of Janus' name before he could control it. If Remus noticed, he didn't get the chance to comment on it, because at that moment Virgil came bustling back with a first aid kit.

"I didn't know what else you needed, so I got some water, balms, bandages, frozen peas, and creams. Just in case." He spoke, noticeably out of breath.

"Water?" Roman asked as a glass was held towards him. He pushed himself upright with some effort and accepted it.

"For painkillers." Virgil replied, handing him some pills once he had set the other items down. "Also your throat sounded kinda rough, and when you cry a lot you can get dehydrated, so..."

Surreptitiously, Roman wiped at his face and tried to not feel too embarrassed that the two of them had heard him wail like a toddler who'd had their favourite toy taken away. Before he knew it, he had taken the pills and downed half of the glass while the other two sides unpacked the medical supplies. Virgil really had thought of everything he might have needed.

Roman blinked as he watched them, stunned that he would go to so much effort. "This is very thoughtful of you, Medic Parade."

Virgil paused as he pieced together the nickname, and then scowled. "Mayday doesn't even sound anything like medic- and it's not. I just didn't want to- y'know- get the wrong things and make it worse."

Remus elbowed Virgil in the side, perhaps in an attempt to cheer him up. "Hey, you can't do any worse than what we did the first time Ro got a booboo."

"...And what was that?" Virgil's hesitant tone indicated he wasn't sure if he want to know.

"Nothing!" Remus grinned.

"I'm pretty sure that was just a concussion." Roman stated before Virgil got the wrong idea and thought they were totally stupid, looking upward as he tried to recall the incident Remus was talking about. It felt like forever ago now. "Not like anything could be done, to be fair."

"'Just'-" Virgil made a strange choked sound. "Is this what my life's gonna be now? Having a worry-induced heart attack every 5 minutes?"

"Welcome to the club!" Remus cheered, offering a fist bump which Virgil ignored in favour of burying his head in his hands.

"Goddammit. Alright- let's get this show on the road I guess. Roman, take your shirt off." When Remus' eyebrows started waggling, clearly about to make an inappropriate comment, Virgil waved his hands wildly to stop him. "So we can look at the damage! Shut your mouth Remus!"

"I didn't say anything." He intoned, looking overly smug before turning to Roman expectantly.

Said man frowned, placing the glass of water on the bedside table next to him. Before he made any move, he glanced at Virgil who was looking red either out of Remus-induced embarrassment or frustration. Mood. "You don't have to stick around for this part if you don't want to. It can be a bit much, so I wouldn't blame you."

"I'm not a baby, Roman." Virgil retorted, crossing his arms. "Making sure you don't die or something is way more important than my comfort. I can't promise you'll be safe from me calling you an idiot until you're better, though."

Roman looked away again. Was that condescending of him to ask? He opened his mouth to apologize, before closing it in resignation. No need to make this into an issue; he'll ask Virgil whether he felt belittled later. "...Okay. That's fair."

Instead of going through the pain of trying to remove a shirt with a possibly broken rib, he snapped and it disappeared. He heard a sharp inhale, but in response to what, he didn't know. Roman looked downwards to check. Among the remnants of previous attempts at self-healing (some messier than others), the area around his right rib was inflamed and a large portion of his stomach was splotched with purple. Noticeably, his left arm was also burning red, but luckily it seemed like the fracture there was non-displaced, which hopefully meant it would heal quicker. Other than that, there weren't any major injuries besides his black eye and bloody nose that needed attention. Could be worse, considering how god-awful he felt!

Remus whistled. "You look like someone took a dalmatian and made it the colours of the bi-flag."

"Yeah. That's- weirdly accurate." Virgil winced. "What hurts most?"

"Uh- My arm and my ribs I suppose. They're a little... on the broken side."

"That's what I thought." Virgil muttered under his breath, grabbing the items to make a split. "I'll deal with those first, Remus you help with his nose and the bruising. And if you want to make yourself useful, hold these peas to your eye, dumbass."

"Your bedside manners are impeccable." Roman said sarcastically, taking the bag of peas and exhaling as he adjusted to the cold feeling pressed against his face. "...Here I thought there would be a grace period before you started calling me names."

"Just calling it like I see it." Virgil hummed. With deft fingers, he held the splint under Roman's forearm and began winding the bandages around it. "You should probably make an actual brace later when you're up to it, but hopefully this should keep it in place and remind you to not use it for now."

"But that sides my dominant arm-" Roman whined, about to complain about how he was supposed to get work done until Remus pinched the bridge of his nose none too gently, and he yelped. "Ow! Remus."

"Think of that as payback for the last 15 years." Remus replied lightly. "Tilt your head back."

Begrudgingly, Roman complied, resting his head against the headboard. He stared at the ceiling as his brother and best friend silently worked their way around his injuries, applying topical ointment to his bruises and applying band-aids to small cuts. He didn't even realize they had finished until Remus bonked him on the head.

"All done! Shame it's not Halloween. You could go as a mummy again."

"Ha ha. What a comedian you are." Roman replied in a deadpan, but fought to keep a smile away anyway. The irony of how much he resembled that costume right now definitely wasn't lost on him.

"...I'm sorry for ruining that, by the way." Virgil spoke up suddenly from where he had been packing everything away, breaking the thoughtful silence he'd been in for the past few minutes. "Your costume during the Christmas video, I mean. And saying all of that harsh stuff to make a point."

Roman only stared, taken aback. "All of that happened half a year ago. I'm not upset about that."

"I know, I know. It's just... I've been thinking about it recently, all the times I haven't acted very...good." He bit his lip, averting his eyes. "Especially now, knowing that kind of thing literally hurts you."

"Virgil." Roman sighed softly, taking his hand. Virgil startled but didn't pull away. "You don't need to be 'good' all the time. Wasn't that the point you were trying to get across back then? All of us have made mistakes in our pasts, some more than others, but if you can forgive us for that, then you deserve the same acceptance for your less-than-stellar moments."

"Oh." He said, eyes glassy. His hand tightened around Roman's. "I'm still sorry, if I've ever made things worse for you or if I haven't been supportive enough."

"I- You have-" Roman spluttered worriedly, sitting up.

"It's alright, I already know that we kinda work against each other at times. Part of the job." Roman's mouth closed with a grimace. "Still, it's unfair on you. You shouldn't be expected to perfect, especially not with an asshole like me there to tear into your work. So just...know that it's okay to tell us when you're struggling, okay?"

"Right..." Roman bit his cheek. Virgil seemed well-meaning, but showing that sort of weakness was a concept he still found difficult to accept, even if he had given in this time and allowed himself to be completely seen. Virgil noticed his lackluster agreement and patted him with his free hand.

"Hey. In almost any case we'd embrace you."

"...No one hates you." Roman finished a beat later with a small smile. Virgil's face lit up and moved closer to his side. Upon seeing this, Remus unceremoniously squished himself between the two of them, careful not to bump against Roman too much (although Virgil definitely got the brunt of Remus crawling over him, to his dismay).

"Look at you two, my favourite dorks, bonding over feeling insecure!" He declared, throwing an arm around both of them. "Couldn't be me, but I still love you."

Roman poked Remus' side. "So that wasn't you admitting to being worried earlier?"

"Nope! New phone who dis?"

"You're insufferable." Virgil rolled his eyes fondly. "...I love you guys."

And Roman sighed contently, feeling safe and cared for. Things weren't perfect right now; he still needed time to heal and Remus and Virgil would undoubtedly want him to open up about what happened sooner or later, but for now he was was able to hear that he was loved and believe it to be true, and that was enough.

"I love you both too. Thank you."

#sanders sides #roman sanders #roman angst #creativitwins #platonic prinxiety #platonic royality #my writing #that's a tag now ig #....i've stared at this for so long idk if it's good anymore #bruised but not broken

406 notes · View notes

karlyfr13s · 3 years ago

Text

One Love, One Lifetime

A Phantom of the Opera inspired Captain Swan AU

Rated M, cover art by @hollyethecurious

Chapter Two: Think of Me

Friday dawned clear and bright, and Emma woke earlier than usual. While she was normally happy to lay in bed until mid-morning, today marked the beginning of the season and the opening gala at the opera house, and she was anxious to get limbered up and ready for tonight’s performance. The day would require all-hands on deck, and Emma loved it when the whole venue was buzzing with excited and busy cast and crew members. Today was particularly special for Emma as she was given her first starring role. Regina hadn’t shown her face since the incident earlier in the week, though several of her lackies had been spotted skulking around backstage, most likely gathering gossip for her as usual. Emma was sure the managers spent most of their waking hours attempting to call Regina back and garner her favor. Sure, she wasn’t beloved by most of the crew--who she constantly berated and treated like personal servants--and a substantial portion of the cast ran hot and cold in their feelings--probably because she criticized everyone but Sidney and herself--but... Emma lost her train of thought as she stretched with her fellow dancers. Regina was the leading lady, so surely they had no choice but to try and lure her back, right?

Emma wondered aloud to Ruby whether Booth and the others were hellbent on getting Regina back on stage because they didn’t have faith in Emma’s own abilities, guessing that her managers might already fear the worst in tonight’s opening show. Ruby dismissed the thought out of hand as any best friend would do with only hours remaining before showtime. Of course, her managers had no idea how nervous Emma was, but ever since the impromptu audition on Tuesday evening, Emma had nightly conversations with her hidden Angel. He had coached and encouraged her as she practiced, working to perfect her enunciation and ensure she hit each note of the final cadenza in the complex aria with precision and confidence. Though the Angel didn’t always speak to her, Emma never felt alone in the moments she practiced despite the rest of the large venue sitting dark and silent in the small hours of the night.

As she readied herself for costume and makeup, anxiety rushed through her, sending Emma’s pulse racing and her breathing became shallow gasps. She tried to still the fluttering in her stomach, tried to shift into the single-minded focus she usually felt as she warmed up with the rest of the chorus, but doing so alone was far more difficult. Yet as she gazed at her reflection in the floor-length mirror, Emma felt a strange and sudden quiet fall over her. She could do this--she was going to do this. Tonight. She had trained for it, had been practicing numerous complex pieces for years now, had intentionally set herself the repeated challenge of playing secret understudy to Regina. With a nod to her reflection, Emma left her room and made for the theatre and the final rehearsals for blocking.

That evening as she slipped into the sparkling white ball gown, as the costuming crew clipped glittering crystalline stars into her long golden waves, she coached herself under her breath. She said a quick word of gratitude to the spirit of her father and to the Angel whose influence brought her to this moment. As she took her place backstage, Emma straightened her shoulders and Ruby snuck in to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “They’ll never know you’re sweating a river under that thing--way too many layers for anyone to notice. Plus, they’ll be so blown away by your voice that nothing else will matter. Go get ‘em, girl!”

With that, Emma Nolan took the stage and had her first moment in the spotlight. It was an out of body experience. Surely it wasn’t little orphan Emma who commanded the entire stage? There was no way some girl from small-town Maine stood at the Paris Opera House-- at Palais Garnier --and bespelled an entire audience with the light, complicated, and wondrously beautiful “Think of Me”. Knowing the box would be vacant, Emma set her sights on box five and put her whole heart into the next four minutes. She could feel the swell of the music accompanying her, letting the warmth of the strings pull her onward, compelling the crowd with the sudden softness as she reached the third verse, and allowing herself to be taken over by the moment as the song crescendoed.

Recall those days

Look back on all those times

Think of the things we'll never do

There will never be a day

When I won't think of you

In the back of her mind, she heard a loud call, “Bravo!’” ring from the audience, and in the last verse of her solo, Emma felt as though she were flying. Her voice building higher and higher in the cadenza, each note crisp and clear as it rang across the theatre and back to her so that when the last two notes burst from her like some wild, magical thing they were half drowned out by the standing ovation that spontaneously began right in front of her.

Emma didn’t have time to remove her makeup or change before she was completely swamped by well-wishers. Cast, crew, and several attendees who’d somehow made their way to the hall that led backstage all vied for her attention. She couldn’t catch half of what they were saying, wished desperately to get out of her heavy gown, and found herself repeatedly saying ‘thank you’ more than anything else. It was entirely overwhelming. Thankfully, her managers interrupted, Jefferson swooped in and took a bouquet from her laden arms, offering her a flute of champagne instead. “Hell of a first night, Emma,” he beamed at her and they clinked glasses. “Seems Madame Lucas was right about you -- we’ve had to set half the stagehands to temporary security so we can get people out of the building instead of having them wander in search of you.”

“He’s right,” Locksley chimed in, freeing her other arm from the elaborate bouquet of stargazer lilies, which had been starting to make her nose tickle. “You’re quite the sensation, Miss Nolan!” She thanked him for the kind words and he insisted she call him Robin, introducing the dark-haired woman who’d appeared at his elbow as his wife, Marian. “With that, we must take our leave. Babysitters are ludicrously expensive in this city, and Roland should already be asleep anyway. Enjoy the moment, Miss Nolan, it certainly won’t be the last.”

Gradually, the crowd began to disperse and Emma was given a small amount of breathing room between introductions and congratulations. Her feet were aching and she was about to call it a night, when she saw a familiar face lingering in the crowd. “Graham?” She took a few steps toward the man, his light brown hair falling into his eyes as he grinned at her. She took off at a run, kicking off her heels, and he caught her in his arms. “I knew that was your voice -- I just knew it! What are you doing here? How?”

He spun her in a circle, the vast skirts of her gown swirling around them and clearing a space as several onlookers gawked at the pair. “My parents are patrons of the opera,” he explained briefly, kissing her cheek and blushing pink at the public attention. “When I heard tonight was your debut, I told them I’d represent the Humberts for the opening gala -- Emma, you were incredible out there!” The reunion was abruptly interrupted when Granny caught Emma’s eye where she lingered near the hall to her apartment. Granny gestured to her watch and Emma immediately stepped back from Graham’s embrace.

“It’s so good to see you, but...I have to go for the night, Graham, it’s late.” As she spoke, he took both her hands in his, wrapping her slender fingers in his warm grasp and insisting they go out and celebrate both her triumphant debut and their unexpected reunion. “I can’t, Graham, I’d love to -- it’s been so long since we saw each other -- but curfew is strict here, and I have to go. Goodnight.” She stepped back, gathering up her shoes as she fled the attention. The last thing she saw before making her way to her room was Graham with his brow knit in confusion. The image was quickly swept from her mind when she saw her whole apartment overflowing with bouquets and congratulatory gifts.

She turned to face Granny, her eyes wide. The old woman offered a kind smile, though she didn’t mention Graham or even ask who he was, which seemed odd. Instead, she handed Emma a single, perfect pink rose unlike any she’d seen. The stem was tied with a black satin ribbon and as she passed the delicate bloom to Emma, Granny’s only explanation was “He’s pleased with your performance, Emma. You sang like an angel tonight.” She helped Emma out of the elaborate costume, taking care to brush out her hair as she removed the numerous clips and pins. Emma hummed to herself as the two worked, Granny focusing on the items that needed to be brought back to the costuming department while Emma swiped her way through layer after layer of makeup until she was left fresh-faced and rosy-cheeked from the experience. She slipped behind the wardrobe screen after Granny left, changing into a soft floor-length robe.

Graham was here. It had been years since they last saw one another, and Emma tried to hold the vision of him now -- a man grown, complete with stubble on his cheek -- alongside the boy she’d spent so much of her childhood with. So many days had been spent at the top of her father’s loft, daydreaming and sneaking chocolates with Graham -- he was an excellent storyteller, and seemed to have a knack for knowing when her father was feeling particularly unwell. After they received the news that her father’s illness was incurable, Graham had become a daily presence in the house. He was always helping out -- fixing leaky faucets or repairing the shutters after a bad storm. As she sat and pondered her own reflection, Emma was drawn back to their freshman year of high school and to her first kiss -- their first kiss --she’d always assumed she’d end up with the boy next door.

That had changed with the revelation her father was taking her to Paris. Graham had not taken it well, and had stormed out her door for the last time two weeks before she uprooted her whole life with the move. She had needed him, had relied on him as a constant in her life, but almost immediately she saw him around town with someone else. Emma found out later it was some woman a few years older than Graham, and heard they had followed one another through Europe for a year before starting university in England. While that clearly hadn’t worked out, the old wound still stung. Undoubtedly, he had been through Paris several times, and he knew precisely where she was. So why had he never visited until now? It seemed likely she was only catching his attention now that it was her name on the marquee.

“Darling, who exactly is Graham Humbert to you?” came the voice in the darkness. Though Emma knew it could only be her Angel, she’d also never heard him like this. Usually the voice was low and encouraging, a mentor and gentle guide to her, but now...something was off. His pitch was too high, his pace too rapid and it felt angry somehow. She explained to the darkness around her that Graham was a friend, and had been for years. “Uncanny, isn’t it? He reappears suddenly just as you step into your own destiny,” the voice trailed off, his tone harsh and clipped.

“What do you mean? You don’t think...Graham wouldn’t do that! We’ve been friends since we were kids -- his family’s a patron of the arts, that’s all.” Emma felt oddly torn, needing to defend Graham’s intentions, while also feeling compelled to soothe the hurt her Angel so clearly felt right now.

“Men of low ambition seek greatness only through possessions -- through acquiring what is not theirs to have , darling.” His voice kept shifting, changing its origin as though he was everywhere and nowhere. “You are a marvel,” he crooned, voice softening to a low purr in her ear though he remained out of sight. His tone shifted abruptly, voice nearly a growl. “You were born for more than his small mind can imagine, and I will not see him bask in your glory. This triumph belongs to us -- to you and I alone.”

Emma realized then that she mattered to this unseen Angel, though for the life of her she couldn’t understand why . What’s more, he seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere -- had he been in the crowd after the curtain call? Had she seen him and simply not known? The thought seemed impossible; she’d always been sure she would know him the instant she saw him. “I know that,” she began, not knowing what he wanted from her, but wanting to try. “I never thought I could do anything like I did tonight, and without you, I know I never would have tried. Please,” she faltered then, wondering where to go from here and how best to help him understand how much she valued every lesson and moment they’d spent together. She squared her shoulders, looking at her resolute expression in the mirror. “Please, let me finally see you. Let me know who you really are -- who it is that made tonight possible.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, my dear. Go on then, if you’re sure you can handle it, keep watching your mirror, Emma.” She leaned forward, at first seeing only herself gazing back until the surface swirled with crimson smoke and from the cloud emerged two brilliant blue eyes set in an astoundingly handsome face.

“Oh,” she heard herself gasp softly and she reached toward the image as the smoke cleared. She took in the black hair that tumbled artfully into his eyes, the confident smirk that gave her a brief flash of white teeth. She reached out, startling herself when her fingers found, not the solid glass she’d expected, but the scratch of the stubble that dusted his cheek.

“Come now, darling. I know you’re more curious than that,” he hummed, waiting patiently and leaning against what now appeared as a doorway rather than her mirror. She took her time, sweeping her eyes over his strong, lean frame. He wore all black from the embroidered silk waistcoat to his full-length leather coat and Emma was sure on most men it would look outlandish, but he was definitely not most men. His wolfish grin must have erased something in her brain because she realized belatedly he had a gleaming silver hook where his left hand should be. It appeared deadly sharp, and she wondered what story had led to its existence. She knew she was staring and tried to say something, anything at all.

“How?” she eventually sputtered, not knowing how to form the question she wanted to ask. He was real, and here. The man -- the Angel? Did angels look like this? -- who had watched over her for years now. The man who taught her to take raw talent and shape it into art. He was real. She reached out, laying her hand flat against his chest, her eyes fixed on the place over his heart. Taking a steadying breath, she slowly turned her gaze up to meet his eyes. “You’re real.” She felt stupid the instant it left her mouth, though his low chuckle wasn’t unkind.

“Real indeed, darling. And to your earlier enquiry: magic.” She tittered, faking a laugh at this and thinking she may have found herself at the mercy of a lunatic. He broke out in a warm laugh at her expression. “Not many people greet me in such a way, but you are not most people are you Emma?” She briefly wondered if he read her earlier thoughts, but before she could think much more he offered his arm which she took out of pure curiosity. “Perhaps a demonstration then?” And suddenly the world was shrouded in crimson smoke.

...

Thank you @ultraluckycatnd for beta-ing this piece, and @lonelyspectator12 for being an incredible brainstorming partner.

Shout-out to @eastwesthomeisbest for your artwork--it inspires me to persevere past writer's block!

Tagging CSMM Discord and those who've asked:

@kmomof4, @teamhook, @veryverynotgood, @caught-in-the-filter, @hollyethecurious, @laschatzi, @donteattheappleshook, @lonelyspectator12, @the-darkdragonfly, @zaharadessert, @winterbaby89, @jrob64, @wefoundloveunderthelight, @ultraluckycatnd, @stahlop, @alexa-fangirl-forever, @superchocovian, @monosalvatore16, @snowbellewells, @batana54

#one love one lifetime #karly tries to write #CSMM #captain swan AU #cs ff #killian jones #emma swan #dark hook

29 notes · View notes